sufficient

Finishing up

The next morning we again rode our bikes to the beach where we lay in the sun for 2 hours and read.

From there, we headed to Tallahassee, home of my alma mater, where I had not been in four years. En route, we stopped at the Leon Sinks Geological Area. The wet sinks kind of reminded me of the hot springs at Yellowstone, except that they are formed totally differently. We also stopped at Wakulla Springs State Park where they filmed some episodes of Flipper, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and at least one Tarzan movie. It was uneventful except for the black snake whose path we crossed on our brief hike. It made me scream and reminded me of summer camp when Jack Page would routinely pick up blacks snakes that would subsequently bite him.

We drove into Tallahassee from the southside of town and I was immediately disoriented. All of the road names were familiar; I knew I had traversed them many atime, but I could not for the life of me remember how they intersected or how to get where I wanted to be. Maybe that was a hint that I should return to FSU more frequently than every four years.

Our first stop was Ryan and Katie's house, my dear friends from summer camp whom I had not seen for 3 years when they lived in Chicago. Though my time with them was brief, it was so good to see them, meet their two boys, and catch up a bit on each others' lives. They are the kind of wonderful friends you can drop in on with 30 minutes notice, even when you haven't seen each other in three years. Visiting with them added to my determination to return to Tallahassee more frequently.

Then we headed to dinner with some of my friends from FSU at Gordo's. Gordo's was the place I had been craving for the 4 years since I had last been in Tallahassee- the last time I was in town, I drove straight there to meet Eva for dinner. It was a delightful time of catching up with them, meeting Karen and Dave's 2 daughters, and eating yummy food.

Eva then gave us some semblance of a campus tour, focusing on the statue and stained glass windows of Bobby Bowden which now adorn Doak Campbell Stadium. The statue I can understand, but a stained glass window? Please.

The next morning, after spending the night with Eva, we headed back north to Georgia. This time, we stopped at FDR state park, near FDR's Little White House, in Pine Mountain. It was a cloudy, foggy, cool day and we realized we were only an hour from home, we decided to return to Atlanta that day. We did stop to hike a loop around Dowdell's Knob, FDR's favorite picnic spot. The weather was too foggy to make the views what they had been touted. After the hike, we headed to the Little White House, arriving at 4:30. Signs indicated that the last ticket was sold at 4:45 and the site closed at 5. However, the employee expressed her hope that we could come back at 9am to visit and informed us that they closed in ten minutes. Deciding not to argue, we drove into Warm Springs where we had some tasty ice cream, sat in rockers on the sidewalk watching cars go by, and pondered life in a small town.

Labels: travel

posted by CP @ 9:51 AM 2 thoughts