The Drive Down

So we left for Florida at 5 pm Friday night promptly after work. The car was packed in the morning and we were actually headed out at the perfect time since a pretty large rain storm had blown thru the day before.  I (Terese) drove the first leg of the trip, an 8 hour stint, while Travis navigated me thru the busy states of CT, NY, and NJ, we only hit a small amount of traffic luckily enough as we were about to get onto the George Washington Bridge. After that it was busy but essentially smooth sailing.

Travis and I switched spots at about 1:30 after he had a little rest, he was fighting a cold so I thought it would be best to let him sleep it off as much as he could. At this point I needed some rest myself so I took about a couple hour snooze while Travis motored on thru Maryland and Virginia. I didn’t see much of these states so I cant really comment on them to much. I woke up around 5:30 to North Carolina which was perfect timing since the sun was just coming up. We continued on our journey with Travis driving and me snapping pictures were I could.

Its pretty amazing making the drive down south at spring time. As we got further into North Carolina the trees really started to change, First we saw beautiful colored buds on oaks and some maples as well as this beautiful vine which I hadn’t seen before called Carolina Jessamine. This Carolina Jessamine was really similar to the Forsythia we have at home so of course I had to google this beautiful plant I was seeing everywhere and figure out the name.  We stopped at a diner, Shonneys, that had this must see breakfast buffet Travis remembered from when he was a kid and on we went.  We switched spots at the diner and I continued on while Travis napped again. As we hit South Carolina spring was really in bloom!! Onto Georgia and even more so with the spring, at this point I caught my first glimpse at some of the most beautiful Wisteria Vines I have ever seen in my life, they were just draping along the highways with huge clumps of beautiful purple flowers, what a sight!!!  Travis and I split the driving almost right down the middle, I had an 8 and 4 hour stint and he did 6 and 6. We pulled into our hotel the Central Motel almost 24 hours to the minute from when we left work on Friday. 1,275 Miles with only two hours worth of stops, now that’s some motoring!!

We met up with some friends as soon as we showered and headed over to The Cove for some dinner, this place had some interesting wall art, we are headed back there again tonight so I will try and get some other photos.