Long Drive Home...

Good Evening Floridians, Good Evening rest of this wonderful world!

Well, it's been another of those rainy days.

The bad thing is that we got deceived by the nice puffy clouds and sunshine we had when we left the hotel this morning in Mobile, AL.

This is a a view of downtown Mobile from I-10, I was positively surprised by this city, I didn't even imagined it has a skyline up until last night,

The brewery we visited had excellent beers and nice comfort food. Being it a Saturday night, they even had a live band playing, the whole experience was very enjoyable.

Left Mobile, AL, our first stop of the day has been Orange Beach, on the Alabama Gulf Coast where today they had several Speed Boat races.

As you probably noticed, I like to take pictures of "good looking" buildings, and this one on the shore at Orange Beach was particularly interesting:

From the coastal road in Orange Beach, AL, visitors can easily reach the westernmost point of Florida, Perdido Key, where Condo buildings close to the white sandy beaches of Alabama leave space to Condo buildings close to the white sandy beaches of Florida.

Did you really expect anything else?!?! LOL

The first significant city on our route has been Pensacola Beach, which was supposed to be the start of our Scenic Drive through the coast, up to Panama City Beach some 90 minutes East of where we were.

I started feeling like home when I recognized some of the gracious vehicles circulating on our public road system.

The owner of this pick-up truck ultimately decided to abandon his vehicle on the side of the road, after losing his hopes on gas going down at the pump.

Coincidentally, the truck was parked right across the street from the Visitor Center, maybe he was hoping some generous tourists will take it away as a sign of good will! LOL

Did I mention "Visitor Center"? Yes I did!

I'm sorry to say that since we haven't crossed the border on a major interstate, we haven't got the pleasure of snapping the last picture of a State Border road sign. That was a real bummer, soon forgot after we got close enough to the Florida State Park system in Pensacola to take some pictures of the sand and the water.

After all, who cares about the Florida sign?!?! LOL

Here's what you can find in the armpit of Florida, ehm, I'm sorry, in the Florida Panhandle!

And here are some lucky tourists doing what I'll be doing starting from next week when we get back home in Fort Lauderdale:

Our plan was to keep driving East till Panama City Beach, which is certainly a very long drive, but nonetheless, really worth the 30 mph speed limit.

After about one mile after I took the last picture up above, we ran across a road sign telling us the road was closed up ahead!

Closed?!?!? How could that be? My GPS tells me there's a bridge going to Navarre and Fort Walton! Well, guess what happened? Yes, you're right, I had to make a U-Turn, and drive back another 10 miles (yes, with a 30 mph speed limit!) back to Pensacola and I-10.

At that point we decided to change our plans, as we decided to change our final destination from Panama City Beach, FL to Tallahassee, FL, the State Capital!

The drive on I-10 is not as exciting as the drive out on the coast, but still, it has some advantages, like for instance, being able to travel at a steady 70 mph.

One of the things that amaze the most about the United States are its bridges.

I've been here for a little less than three years now (I start counting from my first trip to the East Coast in 2005), and still, I remain in disbelief at the length of some of the American Bridges.

This is one of those bridges, probably not the longest I've been on today once we crossed from Alabama to Florida, but maybe, because of the slight curve to the left (going East), the prettiest.

Here it is in all its glory:

Funny enough, in 15,500 miles we've spent on the road so far, I've only seen three VW Beetle Convertible, identical to the one I have; one in Los Angeles, one last night parked at the same hotel where we were staying (No I didn't get the chance to park beside it! LOL), and one this afternoon on I-10 E.

Here's the picture I took:

I-10 as I said was probably not as exciting as the coastal highway, but once in a while, you get to wake up, laughing at some of the signs, be it a billboard, bumper stickers, or in this case, a road sign indicating the exit for Bagdad, FL, not to be confused with the other "Baghdad".

Tallahassee is roughly another three hours away by car, four on your watch, if you want to consider that you have to set the time one hour forward once you cross the time line between Central and Eastern standard time.

So, here we are, back to the Eastern time zone, and back in Florida.

Tomorrow we're going to spend some time visiting Tallahassee, the State Capitol (old and new), and some other weird things we had planned in the past just in case.

We're also changing our plans of being in Tampa tomorrow night, as we don't know where Tropical Storm / Hurricane Fay is going to be, nor what kind of damage it will leave after it will be through.

We will spend the evening and the night in Gainesville, FL instead, where we hope to do some sightseeing the day after, and then if it's safe, drive down to Tampa and all of the other destinations on the West Coast.

Good night hurricane hunters!

Nico