Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4
Day 1
I woke up at 4:30 A.M. ready to get to Florida. I was dying to dive in something other than a pool. At about 5:30, I left the house for the dive shop. When I got there, three or four of the eight that were going were already at the dive shop. We stood and waited in the barely freezing air for Jim and the rest of the group to arrive. I was getting psyched. When Jim arrived, we went in and rummaged through the shop while he was looking for the maps. We then loaded up and left. We headed down SR 59 to I-70. We headed east on I-70 towards Indianapolis. The occupants of the back-seat, Matt, John, and David, were asleep.
We reached Indy at around seven-fifteen and began our trek south on I-65. Shortly after, I fell asleep. It was the gas/snack stop in Madison, Indiana that woke me the first time. We went in and loaded up. I got a fruit drink, corn chips, and Randy, Tim, and I chipped in for a bag of beef jerky. We loaded up and headed out. We reached Louisville and continued on into Kentucky. About halfway through the blue grass state we stopped for gas, again. Probably ten minutes later, I fell asleep again.
We were in Nashville, Tennessee when I peeked out, from my back-seat position, into the world again. More than half of us were asleep. Randy was sawing logs in the cleared out luggage compartment. I dozed back off again and finally woke up for good in the middle of nowhere on I-24. It was about 11:35. All that I knew was that there were mountains in the distance. And yet, they were about an hour away. We reached Chatanooga at two-ish and pulled off into a gas station for directions, being nearly hit by a Ford Bronco. That scared the crap out of all of us, especially Tim, who wasn't used to Jim's driving. The guy at the station told Jim that the majority of the restaurants were on the other side of the mountain.
We drove up what was probably a main street to a tunnel. I've never seen Jim get so thrilled over something. We searched on the other side for a good fifteen minutes looking for somewhere to eat. Jim pointed out a Ryan's Steakhouse. We pulled in and stepped out into warm air. When we went in, it wasn't that busy and we all ordered the buffet.
On my second trip back, I carried a piece of boneless chicken on my plate. One of the others asked me what it was. I said it was boneless chicken and it all went downhill from there. At first it wasn't bad, but just as I was chewing a piece, Jim mentioned a slug with feathers and I broke out half laughing, half choking. It must have been a hilarious sight to see me choke on a piece of boneless chicken.
After that showing, we loaded up again and continued on our 16 hour journey. There wasn't much to se in Georgia. The traffic jam in Atlanta didn't help the cause much. We crossed into Florida at about 10:00 P.M. or so. We were all starting to get tired. We searched the High Springs area for a hotel for what seemed like hours but was only one. We located a Super 8 at about quater after eleven.
We checked in and then Jim, David, John, and I went to our rooms while the others went to the house of spirits. It was about midnight when I fell asleep.
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