WEDNESDAY July 28th

We are settled in our nice air conditioned room for the evening, actually for most of the afternoon. We were up early and on the road by 6:15 this morning. We are finding this is a great time to be on the road. Traffic is light and the temperatures are tolerable, even comfortable early on. It didn’t start to get over 80 degrees today until around 9:30 and by then we had close to 200 miles already behind us. We stopped for the day at 2:15 but forgot about the time change so it was actually 1:15 PM. We got in 380 miles today. We are now about 70 miles ahead of schedule. We figure we can gain a full day if we do the same thing we are doing every day. We want an extra day for when we get to Bryce Canyon and Mesa Verde National Parks.

We added a few letters to our list of cities and states for the ABC’s. I think we are down to needing 6 cities (J O Q U Y Z – I am sure we will get these on the way home but if not, we can always go visit, Zillah and Yakima, WA and Umatilla, OR) and 8 counties (A D I Q T X Y Z – some of those I don’t know, X and Z?). We have 17 states, 4 provinces, 3 National parks (we can have 5 and should be able to get those easily). So far we have amassed 65 points and I believe we should be able to get 20 more. Typically, in the past, I have rarely been able to get much more than 45 so this is a good year for us.

The last Sunday we were at church, Miss Linda told us we had to try bowld (boiled) peanuts. These are raw peanuts, in the shell, that are boiled for about 10 to 12 hours, and then seasoned if desired. You can’t do this with the peanuts you buy in the stores at home because they have been roasted. We had stopped to get a photo in front of a post office in Wilmur, AL (wanted to be sure we got the point for being in Alabama) and Mike mentioned we still haven’t had boiled peanuts. We pulled out of the post office and just a few hundred yards down the road was a big sign BOILED PEANUTS, so we stopped. The lady had unseasoned and Cajun, we sampled one of each and decided for the Cajun ones and got half a pound of them. Now, one thing you should know is that peanuts are not really nuts. They are part of the legume family and are also known as goober peas. This is important to know because it explains the flavor of boiled peanuts. They taste a lot like a cooked bean, really pretty tasty, even if it is rather messy to eat them. So, Miss Linda, we had bowld peanuts and we liked them.

So, today we finally left Florida, where we spent the last 5 nights. Florida is a big state in two directions, north to south and east to west. We briefly passed through Alabama, maybe an hour or so and into Mississippi (my Dad taught me to spell Mississippi by teaching me “M i crocked letter crocked letter i crocked letter crocked letter i humpback humpback i) where there was a noticeable, and much appreciated, change in road surface. I have to say, we didn’t care for the roads in Alabama, just saying.

We passed through Pensacola today and stopped at a rest stop with a Blue Angel plane mounted on a large pole. Pensacola is the home base of the Navy’s (GO NAVY!) Blue Angels. We also passed through Mobile which has a large Navy presence as well.

So, here we are in Collins, MS enjoying the cool and contemplating dinner. You all have a good evening, sleep well and God bless.