Well, I finally made it back home from my road trip adventure. I didn’t have internet connection so I couldn’t keep and give updates of my travels. But, thankfully I had my Blackberry and that helped me to stay connected via Twitter and Facebook. So a lot of my friends were able to follow my posts on those sites. Every time I stopped somewhere I sent a tweet or updated my Facebook status.

You can read a previous post, My Road Trip to Florida, to get information on the first part of the trip.

I really had to burn rubber down the highway to get to Lehigh Acres, FL by Sunday night. The traffic was extremely heavy so I had to do over 700 miles to get there. By the time I reached my Dad’s house it was almost midnight.

I was able to visit for two days before getting back on the road and heading to Pensacola, FL to visit my Mom. That was almost 600 miles and took about 8 hours to do. Interstate highway 10 is very boring—that’s all I can say about it. I found myself stopping a lot just to stay alert. By the time I reached my Mom’s it was about 8:00 p.m. central time. I gained an hour traveling to Pensacola. It is the wildest thing to drive along the highway and come to sign that reads: Now Entering Central Time Zone—just like that, you repeat the last hour. In Florida, this happens near Tallahassee.

I got to Pensacola just in time to go to church with my Mom for the New Year’s service. During the two days I was there I visited with my 90 year old great aunt who raised me from age 2 until almost age 11. It was too cool to go to the beach and I just didn’t have the time to go around to see the “sights.”

On Saturday, Jan 3, I began my trip home. I left Pensacola and headed north HWY 29 to Alabama. Once I got on I-65 it was full speed ahead. I noticed the really dark clouds off in the distance and suddenly got the thought in my mind about a tornado. Well, thankfully nothing happened. I stopped in Selma, AL for a few hours—my hometown—and got back on the road just in time for the storm to break out. It got really dark with thunder, lightning and heavy downpours. That storm tracked all the way to I-85 and I drove as much as I could before deciding to stop for the night in Greenville, SC. It was just too foggy and creepy out and it left 720 miles to do for Sunday in order for me to get home and sleep on my own Sealy Posturepedic Plush Pillowtop.

It was rainy and cloudy the whole drive back. I had to make a lot of stops because I getting a bit tired. When I finally stopped in my driveway, it was 10:01 p.m. and I had driven 3,208.5 miles roundtrip. That was like driving cross-country (something I really want to do one day, though not alone).

I did take some photos, but I’ve been too lazy to go through them and upload to Flickr—maybe tomorrow. You will want to check my photography blog for the photos in a few days. If they aren’t there by Friday, give me a nudge.

On Saturday morning I began my road trip to Lehigh Acres, Florida to visit my Dad.  I definitely should have gotten an early morning start (4 a.m. is the ideal time). But since I was driving, I could leave whenever I got ready. That is the good thing about driving—you leave when you want, and you stop when you want.

I didn’t really get on the road until about 9:30 a.m., which turned out to be a big mistake. I have never seen so many cars on interstate before—to the point of traffic coming to a crawl. There was fog in Delaware heading into Maryland. I was expecting traffic to open up once I got past Maryland, but 84 miles from Richmond, traffic slowed to a craw. For about 2 to 3 hours we only got 40 miles. Talk about agony. Then came the rain from VA to NC.

Between NJ and VA I went through 100 songs on my iPod. I also discovered that the Verizon Wireless network is amazing. While I was driving, I called them about my Blackberry not getting web access and was on hold for about 40 minutes, moving at about 70 mph and the call didn’t get dropped. They also solved my problem but I was impressed that I didn’t lose the connection.

Because I got a late start, and had traffic slow downs, I didn’t get as far as I had hoped. I like to get half way before stopping for the night. I only got in 521 miles of the 1,261 miles to Lehigh Acres. I have a lot of ground to cover on Sunday. My overnight stop is Dunn, NC (Hampton Inn has free internet and waffles). I will get a good start in the morning.

The audiobooks I have include: A Mercy by Toni Morrison, Gotta Keep Tryin’ by Virgina DeBerry and Donna Grant, a couple of Stephanie Plum mysteries by Janet Evanovich, and a few thrillers by Tess Gerristen. That should get me there and back.