En Route

We left home on Friday evening and traveled as far as Charleston, West Virginia. The weather was warmer, but only so slightly! We left greater Cleveland in single digit temperatures, and when we woke up in Charleston, we enjoyed all five degrees of their climate that morning. The worry began to creep into my mind -- Did I pack enough cold weather clothes?

In the clear crisp morning the mountains were pretty. The roads were dry so we were off to the races. How quickly could we get to St. Augustine, FL?

Not quickly enough. When we took our drive to California in 2005 I was able to judge how long we would be on the road each day with Mapquest's estimates. This time the estimates disappointed us every single day. This made for some very long days, even with 70 mph speed limits. So we now have a new rule of thumb, add 25% to Mapquest's estimates.

Long after dark we arrived at our hotel. Another surprise, the cold weather followed us. We had planned to spend the next morning on the beach with the kids. With a 45ºF forecast for the next day, we went to the beach in jeans, jackets and tennis shoes. The kids did get to see the Atlantic for the first time. We did not wade into it at all. We did walk the beach a while, carefully sidestepping all the jellyfish that had washed up with the tide and picking up shells. We forgot the camera in the car, and so these photos show the shells already washed and ready to admire. (There is still sand from the beach in my car! I don't want to take the vacuum outside until it is dry out there.) The Artist wants to make a necklace with her shells (bottom photo). I don't know what I'll do with most of them yet, but the oyster shells will go in my basket of shells for school.




With a growing uneasiness about Mapquest's time estimates and cold wind making the beach not too comfortable, we packed into the van and headed for Ft. Lauderdale. We saw enough of St. Augustine to know we would not mind going back again some time. Castillo de San Marcos would have been great to see, but we were not willing to spend the time to see a reenactment at this point. But it looked like a lot of fun!





Heading south again, each time we stopped we noticed warmer temperatures. We were able to shed the jackets, and by the time we were at our Ft. Lauderdale hotel we had put short sleeved shirts on.