Hello Florida

Sorry for taking longer to get back to posting about the trip and the first days living aboard.  I'm working on multiple posts now, but wanted to start with some pictures and notes on the trip from Denver to Palm Coast, Florida.

Since I had pretty mixed feelings about leaving, I didn't end up getting away from Denver until after 11am.  As previously mentioned I drove to Boonville, Missouri where I spent the first night.  According to Google maps, that is 709 miles.

Watching the mountains I've lived near my entire life disappear in the rear view mirror.

Crossing the Colorado border.  I think they planted those pine trees there just so people don't get too discouraged about the lack of color leaving Colorful Colorado.

By the time the sun set, the landscape in Kansas hadn't changed any.  The only entertainment on the drive were the interesting roadside signs.  Seems there were a lot of religious folks and a lot of "gentlemen's clubs" in the bible belt...at least according to the signs along the highways.

It was well past dark by the time Kansas turned into Missouri under the wheels of my trusty Toyota.  My wife, playing trip support from back home, had me booked into a hotel once I determined where I was going to stop for the night.  I rolled into the parking lot of the hotel around 10:30pm

The next leg on the second day, from Boonville Missouri toMcDonough Georgia, was 730 miles.  I got an earlier start, leaving the hotel around 8am. It took a lot longer the second day to travel that extra 21 miles as I again arrived at the hotel pretty late, after 9pm.  I think the reason is that it appears that the residents of Tennessee are big demolition derby fans and apparently like to reenact them on the highways on Sunday.  I was in five different traffic jams in that state (the only state where I was in traffic going under 10 mph the entire trip) and all of them were due to multi-car accidents.

Look, someone added trees and shrubs to the landscape in the dark last night.  With the overcast and the leaf-less trees, it felt a bit like I was driving into some sort of cheezy horror story...it was a dark and stormy night...or at least a gloomy morning...

Of course, not having to squint into the sun was a good thing.  After turning south later in the day the gloominess gave way to a little more greenery.

The goal was to make it past Atlanta so I wouldn't have to deal with rush hour traffic since day three would be a Monday.  Thanks to my wife we located me a hotel just on the outskirts of the Atlanta area.

This final leg from Georgia to where the boat is located in Palm Coast Florida was 383 miles.

I had, maybe foolishly, hoped that I could do the drive in two days, but getting a late start and all the traffic issues the day prior ended that hope early.  So, I needed to get an early start so I could complete the trip.  The sunrise was very pretty...but it is very hard to take a low light picture while driving a car using a cell phone.

Welcome to Florida.

And one last picture taken in north-central Florida about an hour and a half from my final destination.  It is interesting to see how much the landscape has changed from one end of this trip to the other.

It was an interesting, and very exhausting, trip.  Hopefully next time I make this trip I will have more time to explore the areas I passed through.  You don't get much of an idea of an area while zipping across it at interstate highway speeds.