Alabama to Florida

September 19

This morning I awoke when there was enough light to declare night over and a new day begun. The occasional flash of headlights randomly pointed our way during the night had me looking forward to their no longer being needed by their drivers. I walked into the Walmart for the usual purpose this morning and saw a stand of pink lemonade in small bottles on sale for a very low price. I bought four bottles. As we drank the first ones to start our day, Razelle and I discovered that the quality of the product was as low as the price.

We drove to Birmingham, AL and hit morning rush-hour traffic that crawled – when it moved at all. We left the highway and headed for the nearest IHOP, guided by my trusty GPS, to make better use of our time. While we ate (I ordered grits, as usual) I was able to surf the web using IHOP's free Wi-Fi service. A lot of important communication with others throughout this trip has been through chatting on Facebook, if and when I see my "friends" there. This morning we were able to chat with an important friend in Beersheva. Razelle and she had things to discuss, so with Razelle dictating and me typing, these two had a productive meeting while we dined.

I looked around the IHOP we were sitting in here in Birmingham and marveled at the mix of races eating and working around us, all comfortable and natural-like. From the sight of it, you'd hardly know that this wasn't always so in Alabama. I also marveled at the Southern-drawled turns of phrase we heard as they spoke to each other ("I do believe" etc.), which made this Alabama scene all the more authentic. Razelle and I had to pinch ourselves to realize that we were in this scene, too; we had come this far in our world travels. These people weren't actors in a Tennessee Williams play; they were themselves and we are interacting with them.

We returned to the highway after breakfast and traffic through Birmingham was flowing much better now. We drove to an exit south of Clanton, AL, where I stopped to top up the gas tank. A highway sign here pointed to the Confederate Memorial Park and Museum, at Marbury, AL. It was a spontaneous impulse on my part to see what this was about. Our itinerary had no attractions planned for our passage through Alabama, so this looked like something appropriate to where we were. The museum is dedicated to the memories of the sons of Alabama who defended their state and way of life during the War Between the States. It had been the Old Soldiers Home for Confederate Veterans until the last of these died decades ago. The park contains the graves of many of these old soldiers. Razelle was not happy that we'd stopped here. I was fascinated by the sensitive way this museum explained the Confederate point of view without glossing over the facts. It explained the mindset of the soldiers who took up arms for a cause that still has proponents to this day. (That's the part that Razelle was upset about.) I came away from this museum with a better understanding of the rift that almost sundered the Union, and why the Confederate States saw this as a justifiable enough cause to die (and kill) defending.

At Montgomery, AL we took US-231 to Dothan AL and drove on into Florida, our 27th state. Crossing the state line into Florida was another significant moment for me on this journey. I'd lived in Florida as a youngster and during geography classes in Orlando I had learned (and still retained) a great deal of information about this state's features. I may never have been to the Panhandle of Florida as a child, but I knew the names of its counties and rivers. It pleased me to explain all these features to Razelle. We stopped at the first rest area we came to on I-10. It was very warm and humid here and swarms of mated pairs of insects (called love bugs, I later learned) were all over the lawns and parking area. They seemed to be attracted to the open doors and windows of the van. I had to keep these closed. We found receptacles at this rest area to leave our recyclables. We had saved all our bottles and cans as we traveled and had a sizable collection by now. It was good to be rid of them. I shooed away the swarming "two-headed" insects as I stood at the receptacle sorting the bottles from the cans before dumping them.

Continuing east on I-10, we started seeing Spanish moss hanging from the trees for the first time. An occasional sprinkle of light rain helped rinse the barrage of bugs from our windshield. We crossed the Apalachicola River and a sign told us we were back in the Eastern Time Zone. This is the last time we will cross a time zone in this country. We are once again an hour closer to closing the circle of our round-the-world trip, this time for keeps. Further along, we crossed the Suwannee River. Yes, that famous "far, far away" river flows through Florida.

I tried to buy gas with my credit card at a gas station. The pump asked me to enter my zip code. That again? We haven't needed to do this since we were out on the West Coast of the US. I typed in my Israeli postal code (it's an Israel-issued credit card) but because this is the same as a zip code in Utah, the pump didn't consider it valid. It told me to see the clerk. Ordinarily, the clerk validates the card, but I drove off without bothering to see the clerk and without buying gas this time. I had enough to get to Gainesville and I didn't want to wait to be processed here.

We turned south on I-75 toward Gainesville. This is the same interstate highway that we had driven south on from Toledo to Dayton before our "detour" to Missouri. (It was worth it!) Now we were back on the original track. The closer we got to Orlando the stronger my awareness of the geography grew. Familiar place names stirred up such nostalgia in me. It rained again before we reached Gainesville; we arrived there well after dark. I called Joshua as we got closer to Gainsville and he explained how to find his house, but my GPS was so fool-proof I didn't think I'd need any instructions. This time I did. We could not find Joshua's place in the dark. I called and he directed us to his door, eventually standing outside and waving us in. His place is set back behind other homes and no one ever finds it using a GPS.

The night was sultry (this is our favorite line from the movie, "Throw Mamma From the Train"). The foliage was sopping wet. A vast puddle remained in the street from the cloudburst they'd experienced earlier before we had arrived. We went in with Joshua and got to know each other. I haven't visited with Joshua since he became an adult. Razelle last saw him when he was 2 years old. We spent the evening engrossed in wonderful intellectual conversations with Josh over a pizza we ordered by phone (he ordered it – our treat). Joshua screened a film for us called "This is Nowhere." It is a documentary filmed in 2002 about the Walmart RV culture. It was fascinating. We expected it to be all about the kind of traveling we have done on this road trip so far with our van. We could identify with many of the things we saw in the film. We had experienced Walmart in the same way. However, times have changed and, although we did see large luxury RVs at Walmart when we camped out there, we also saw vehicles at the other end of the spectrum. There were vans like ours, station wagons and even small cars that had over-nighters in them who perhaps couldn't afford to sleep anywhere else. Our experience nearly a decade later was not like the one portrayed in the film. They should film an updated version by now; times have changed. We could help write it for them.

We enjoyed Josh's company and stayed up until 1:00 AM visiting. But we all had to get to sleep, eventually. Josh offered to have us sleep on his futons, but Razelle has difficulty getting up off the floor once she's down there so we declined the offer. Razelle and I went out to the van to sleep. We did our best to get comfortable in the van. We slept fitfully in the still air and stifling humidity. I prayed for a breeze, but none came.