Are We There Yet?

How many times have I driven this road to home? Too many to count, I recognize the grass growing in strangers yards. I know the smell of the ocean, and the paper mill are near. The back roads to Mom and Dad's are littered with ghost motels, and farmers stands.The moss hanging in the trees, causes me to pause, and wait for the humidity to hit me. Some people count car tags, my family counts road kill. After all we are headed to or from Jacksonville, Florida. The flat roads separate us from south Georgia, buy a hair. Cotton grows on both sides of the road, and many a time, I have pulled over with the kids to pick some. Pecan trees planted neatly in their rows, and someone surely is selling boiled peanuts around the bend. My children repeat my stories, and now drive their Miss Daisey, me, home.

They begin the trip, asking me how many times will we have to stop, to look at something?? No more do they ask, " Are we there yet?" All of them have been trained to look for the signs!!! I have my camera ready, because there will be a sight to see!! There is a screen door, that I always like to see, with a crane on it. I want one, and I need to go ask these people where they purchased it. As of yet, no one has ever let me stop. The concept of talking to strangers has missed my bunch. Often, they tell me, I will talk to anyone, dead or alive. Well....stop the car , so I can talk to this family with the cute door...yes the area is poor and could be flying a Confederate flag....and locked and loaded but.....we can forgive them for lack of evolving, the door!!!!

The empty motels, they know, must house serial killers...but they slow down long enough for a couple of photos. I stop for palmetto bushes, should be on my bumper. I crave the south, my very bones ache for it. Once I have had my fix, I'm ready to head back to Atlanta, my home of twenty years. ( I never long for Pennsylvania??where we spent twelve years, or was it thirty!!)

On our recent return home, Queen Emma was my driver, and I gave her a long heads up, about where to pull over. I had already cased the joint!!! So she did, a classic if I ever saw one. A drive through liquor store, with a church on one side ( Jesus is everywhere ) and crosses on the other side where you have to assume, were drunk drivers coming out of the booze store with a ROAD DRINK!!! You can not make this stuff up, I blame it on the heat!!
I took my pictures, and shook my head, at the irony. Glad it was out of business, and Emma got to see....well she did say, " Are you kidding me!!"

Goodbye North Florida, until next time, you crazy place that I love.