On to the Sunshine State

December 28, 2009
Port Charlotte, FL

We left Albertville on schedule Sunday morning and had a reasonably comfortable trip south to Florida. We followed US-431 south to Anniston, then I-20 east toward Atlanta. Taking the I-285 bypass to I-75, we started running into traffic. It was pretty heavy and construction areas were slow, but nothing terrible. We were in the midst of two "migrations": snowbirds from the Midwest making the post-Christmas trek toward warmer weather, plus Florida cars making a mad dash back after a holiday visit.

We made a couple of rest stops along the way, and found working dump stations in most Rest Areas. We'd planned to drive to the Georgia-Florida line, but decided to pull up just under 50 miles early since we were running behind due to the traffic. We had a pre-made dinner of pasta and sauce (is it "leftovers" if you planned and packaged it for easy reheating?) and a good night's sleep.

Monday dawned clear and cold, with a heavy frost. We hit the road early, found that traffic, particularly the folks from Florida, had subsided quite a bit. We made good time to the Flying J near the state line and took our time, having breakfast and picking up a couple of things (a replacement CB antenna, plus cheap replacement hubcaps for the steer axle on the coach - one had fallen off somewhere in Texas) in addition to fueling up.

We took our time driving in the Florida sunshine and arrived in Port Charlotte late in the afternoon. We got the OK for overnight parking (in spite of the signs) and settled in for the night.