Just got back from our trip from Navarre, FL (east of Pensacola). It took about 12 hours to get there and 11.5 to get back, probably because traffic was a bit lighter.

We had a nice Thanksgiving and it was nice to finally meet Evelyn’s friends in Florida (these are the people that Evelyn visited with during 9/11). I’m glad we were able to make the trip, and glad that we made the trip safely. For now, I’m pretty tired, so will write later.

One other thing: Mike made a comment that we were following the reverse Katrina route, and that’s true. We didn’t dip down into New Orleans (we skirted north, along I-12), there were signs of high winds (Evelyn noted a lot of stripped trees). Regardless, when we got to the panhandle region, we saw a lot of what Ivan did to the area–and that was two years ago! They are still rebuilding the area–completely rebuilding the I-10 bridge. When we took that route there we were crossing the bay on steel grates sitting on barges. An interstate sitting on barges is quite a scary thing, let me tell you. Too bad it was dark and we couldn’t take pics.

One other cool part was in LA. There is a 19 mile stretch of bridge running through the swamps. It’s really amazing to see such a huge length of road held up with concrete piers sunk in the swamp. Quite an engineering feat. We got some pics of that and will post them soon.