Florida Trip 2010: The First Dixie States

I have started to model my writing after Ernest Hemingway: I will only post on this trip if I have had enough to drink to dull my mental capacities. If I, like Hemingway, used my full capacities, I would be unreadable. Unfortunately, after drinking, I become, that is my typing becomes uncorrectable!

I am just on the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia -- probably entangled in a petticoat of some sort. I drove over seven hours today and I am feeling the effects of carlag. Unfortunately, two glasses of Shiraz with dinner and two (maybe three) glasses of Myers rum and coke are not the correct cure for this malady. I am what I am. I started this day in Chesapeake, VA at the home of my daughter. I left the house in the chaos of the family getting ready for the school day. I breakfasted in Emporia, VA just before getting onto I-95 South. I set my cruise control at 78 MPH and closed my eyes for the straight tip due south. I did make a mandatory stop at the JR super store in North Carolina. I saw at least fifty billboards urging me to stop. I bought twenty faux cigars and a pair of ten dollar Wrangler jeans (I need to retire my 38/30 jeans for the new improved 36/30 body I have sculpted.). It is amazing what cutting down to 2500 calories per day from 3500 calories will do!

This afternoon after arriving at my motel in the southern edge of Savannah, GA, I took a short trip to the site of the old Savannah-Ogeechee Canal. I was the only guest at this major tourist attraction at 1700 hours today. I lit a cigar and walked the canal for two locks (and no bagels). It was rather spooky, since I was the only one on the property during my one hour visit. The walk goes from the highway to the Ogeechee River through a swamp. (Excuse me. I need another rum and coke.) Ahh, that is better.

Here are some of today's photos:

This photograph above is the essence of North Carolina as experienced on the drive on I-95.

There is nothing in the world that comes cloose to matching Southern hospitality!

Then again, as i entered the canal propety, I did get this additional image of that Southern hospitality!



What in the world was this doing out in the middle of the swamp?


For those very select few that take me seriously, this is a picture of one of the locks on the Savannah-Ogechee Canal.


Many of my "loyal" readers think I make things up. Here is proof of my actual visit!

This is ice on the canal at five o'clock in the afternoon. I am suppose to be down south avoiding the wrath of the northern winter!

Here is where the canal meets the Ogeechee River.

This is why Neil Young wrote:

Southern man better keep your head

Don't forget what your good book said

Southern man change gonna come at last

Now your crosses

are burning fast

Southern man

Never let anyone take a photo at arms length of themselves!