Sept. 3 – Jacksonville, FL

Lamb’s Yacht Center

“Goin' places that I've never been.

Seein' things that I may never see again

And I can't wait to get on the road again” - Willie Nelson

Ok, so all those lyrics may not be true...yet, but at least we are on the road again. Heading back to the boat in Jacksonville after a great summer with our family. We definitely aren't goin' places we've never been before, at least not right now. This is our 18th trip on I10 in the last three years. It's a long (862 miles), straight, pretty boring shot from Houston to where I10 ends in Jacksonville. We've memorized every bump, turn and detail of the road...from the best places to stop for gas to which exists have the best places to eat and we have definitely learned what time of day to avoid driving through Houston and Baton Rouge.

We live two hours south of Houston which means we have to leave Port Lavaca around 4-4:30 in the morning if we want to miss the morning rush hour and still make it to Jacksonville at a decent hour, that's pretty early…very early. But it's what we've done in the past. This time we decided we'd leave after dinner and drive through the night, so we could get back to the boat earlier in the day. Neither of us like coming aboard in the dark. There are too many things that have to be done before we could go to bed and if there are any unexpected issues it can be a pain to deal with late in the day. So we packed the car, took care of last minute things at home, visited with our parents, took showers, had one last good Mexican dinner at a local café and left for Florida at 6:15PM. Driving at night seems to make the trip go by faster and there is definitely a lot less traffic to deal with. We arrived at the marina by 9:45AM...14 1/2 hours and we had the whole day to get things organized on the boat and get it cooled off before collapsing into bed early.

We really don’t know what tomorrow will bring…no set plans at the moment, but it does feel nice to be aboard. We miss our little grandwonders, but the walls are covered with their pictures and we visit with everyone by phone almost daily and exchange lots of pictures and videos.