Feb 26, 2010 - FL to NC

I don’t think it got nearly as cold last night as they were predicting, when we pulled out at 8:00 AM the thermometer in the truck said it was 34 degrees outside. But it’s supposed to be a beautiful sunny day today.

Just south of Jacksonville we exited to have some breakfast at the Cracker Barrel restaurant. The sign at the city limits read: Jacksonville – Logistics Center of America. Now there’s a snappy sloga … ssnnnxxxxzz! Oops, sorry, dozed off there for a second!

Big mistake trying to exit here. The roads all around the expressway twisted and turned and split and merged at weird angles like I’ve never seen before. I have a theory as to how this happened. Before construction, at the road engineer’s planning dinner, one of them knocked his plate of spaghetti on the floor. The rest of them, in an alcohol haze after their third Bloody Mary, looked down at the spaghetti piled there and said, "Hmmm. We may be onto something here …" Anyway, we could not find the restaurant. We could see the sign peek out from behind a post or a building or another sign once in a while, so we knew which direction to head, but we just could not get there. There were no signs anywhere along the way directing you to the restaurant. Whenever we thought we were fairly close, the road twisted and took us farther away. We doubled back, and when we drew close again, the road forked and away we went farther away from breakfast. Finally we gave up and got back on the expressway, figuring there had to be another Cracker Barrel coming along soon. Once we got back on I-95 and looked down, it was pretty obvious which way we had to go, but once you get off the expressway you’re like a rat in a maze. Just north of Jacksonville another C.B. came along, so we started moving over to leave the expressway at exit 86A. However, almost as soon as we got in the right lane, the overhead sign read "Exit 86B only" so back over to the left one lane we went. After exit 86B went by, it was immediately followed, without further notice, by exit 86A, and right on by it we went, still hungry.

Note to Jacksonville city fathers: you need to worry less about logistics, and more about signage.

Not too much later, in Kingsland, GA, we came across yet another Cracker Barrel, and were able to get there without any trouble. Shortly after we received our order, another couple came in and sat at the table next to ours: a very large gentleman and his female companion. This guy was gigantic: each of his legs looked like a Sequoia tree, and his hands were the size of dinner plates. His companion was at the opposite end of the spectrum. She was a petite little stick of a thing, like Popeye’s girlfriend Olive Oyl. They were studying our plates pretty carefully, and after a second or two the man leaned over to speak.

Now, I would have expected a booming voice that blew the loose napkins off the table, but he spoke in the most pleasantly soft, perfectly modulated voice, "Excuse me, ma’am. Are those blueberry pancakes?" After Beth answered his questions, he said, "Oooh … I LIKE blueberries. That’s what I’m getting." Then his lady friend asked me what I was having, then asked a few follow up questions. All the while, she looked at me with her eyes wide open and a slightly surprised look on her face, as if her inner thoughts were mirroring my inner thoughts, which were: "Holy smoke, look at the size of that guy!"

After a few more pleasantries were exchanged, conversation came to an end, and they placed and then received their breakfast orders. Shortly thereafter, we stood up to leave, and the gentleman said to us in his beautiful Georgia accent, "Y’all be blessed, now." "Thank you, sir," I said, "and you as well." Just gotta love that southern courtesy. Makes me want to move to Georgia.

We continued up I-95 to the NE, then curved around and headed NW, then NE, then NW, tacking back and forth. Once a sailor, always a sailor, I guess.

Spending the night just south of Charlotte NC. Tomorrow we’ll be passing close by Mt. Airy, NC. So what, you say? Mt. Airy is the boyhood home of Andy Griffith, and the model for his fictional town of Mayberry. We’ll swing through there unless the weather is really bad.

No new photos today.