Made it back to Florida.

I just sent my brother off on the Amtrak for DC. That'll be a long 13 hours. But we had a great trip down here. We left Lansing on Thursday (12/29) morning. Our first stop was the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, OH. It was cool but being located about 50 yards from the expressway, it didn't have the same feeling as Cooperstown. We made sure to see what kind of bio they had on the Juice. Nothing about his last two moves (I won't say it.). We finished the first long day of driving in Charleston, WV. We stayed at a nice Holiday Inn Express in downtown that we picked up for $35 on Priceline that morning. Friday was by far the most scenic of the trip. We drove a lot of two lane roads between Charleston and Petersberg, VA. Our first stop was the New River Gorge Bridge. It was awesome. Over 800 feet high over the gorge. It was like a mini-Grand Canyon. Next was the Lost World Caverns somewhere in very rural WV. Pretty cool but I wouldn't go out of my way for it. Then off to Appomattox. Unfortunately we were a half hour too late because it had closed at 5, but we were able to see the courthouse and other buildings (as well as a few deer) before it got completely dark. That night we stayed at a ghetto Quality Inn in Petersberg, VA for $50 that we got on Hotwire. I guess you win some and lose some in the online hotel bidding game. We ate at a very nice little English Pub in what's left of the Petersberg downtown. Saturday we spent the whole morning at the Petersberg Civil War battle fields where we saw the "Crater" which remains from when the Union troops tunneled (?) under the Rebel line and blew it up with gun powder and proceded to run into the Crater and get slaughtered from above (see the first 5 minutes of Cold Mountain). Next stop was Wilmington, NC where we toured the WWII battleship USS North Carolina. It was huge. We had to run the last 15 minutes in the boat to make it out before they threw us in the brig at closing time. Unable to successfully procure a hotel room online for New Year's Eve we headed for Charleston, SC. Driving through Las Vegas of the Southeast (Myrtle Beach) we stopped for dinner at about 9 pm and decided to keep driving the remaining 80 miles through fog to Charleston. We ended up in a nice Comfort Suites. Sunday was spent in Charleston viewing various Revolutionary and Civil War forts as well as historic downtown. The city is outstanding and I would highly recommend spending a couple days there sometime. Our final stop was Brunswick, GA to have dinner with Lee and we finally arrived in Jacksonville on Sunday night at about 9 pm after more than 1500 miles on the rode. It wasn't as grand as the big baseball road trip we took a few years back but still quite the adventure. We went to the Gator Bowl yesterday and then he volunteered with me today. The whole week and a half break was a great time.

Next post will be this year's list of 10 New Year's Goals, which replaced the New Year's resolution last year thanks to my favorite friend from DC. Until then, take care.