6/21/02 - 8/30/02 Trip

6/21/02 - 8/30/02 Trip

Fri 6/21 - Sun 6/23; Orlando, FL to Sea Island, GA; 209mi 03:23 GoTo

Sun 6/23 - Mon 6/24; Sea Island, GA to Wedowee, AL; 413mi 06:42 GoTo

Mon 6/24 - Fri 6/28; Wedowee, AL to Sandestin, FL; 297mi 05:51 GoTo

Fri 6/28 - Sat 6/29; Sandestin, FL to Cave City, KY; 553mi 09:36 GoTo

Sat 6/29 - Sun 6/30; Cave City, KY to Lexington, KY; 122mi 02:05 GoTo

Sun 6/30 - Wed 7/3; Lexington, KY to Pomeroy, OH; 186mi 03:17 GoTo

Wed 7/3 - Fri 7/5; Pomeroy, OH to Pittsburgh, PA; 199mi 03:26 GoTo

Fri 7/5 - Sat 7/6; Pittsburgh, PA to Cincinnati, OH; 288mi 04:43 GoTo

Sat 7/6 - Wed 7/10; Cincinnati, OH to Union City, TN; 357mi 05:57 GoTo

Wed 7/10 - Thur 7/11; Union City, TN to Mobile, AL; 442mi 08:50 GoTo

Thurs 7/11 - Sat 7/13; Mobile, AL to Sandestin, FL; 128mi 03:13 GoTo

Sat 7/13 - Wed 7/17; Sandestin, FL to Myrtle Beach, SC; 686mi 11:16 GoTo

Wed 7/17 - Fri 7/19; Myrtle Beach, SC to Union City, TN; 796mi 12:46 GoTo

Fri 7/19 - Sat 7/20; Union City, TN to Terre Haute, IN; 285mi 04:41 GoTo

Sat 7/20 - Wed 7/30; Terre Haute, IN to Ft. Wayne, IN; 198mi 03:15 GoTo

Wed 7/30 - Fri 8/2; Ft. Wayne, IN to Peoria, IL; 342mi 05:35 GoTo

Fri 8/2 - Sat 8/3; Peoria, IL to Bowling Green, KY; 397mi 06:43 GoTo

Sat 8/3 - ??; Bowling Green, KY to Wedowee, AL; 333mi 05:39 GoTo


Sea Island, Georgia

We left Orlando sometime after lunch on our way to Sea Island, GA. This trip came up at the last minute, as we weren't actually supposed to leave until Sunday. But we crashed into the GILA (Georgia Industrial Loan Association) Convention. It was held at
The Cloister. Talk about swanky. You just wouldn't even believe it. A basic hotel room with two double beds starts at $506 a night. We had a vendor friend who runs the covention circuit with us and his reservation got messed up. When he complained to the front desk about it, they told him the hotel was full so they would have to put him in the lodge for the night. He was astonished to walk in and be appointed his own butler! The butler ironed all of his clothes for him, drew his girlfriend a rose-petal bath, and did whatever buttling was to be done. When he was checking out, he asked the butler how much that room usually was -- $1500 a night!
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Wedowee, Alabama

It's been a while since we've gotten to see Randal's family so we went a little out of our way to try to spend a little bit of time with them. Everyone is doing well. Anna Grace spent the night with us and was quite the cutie. Grandma Moore and Grandma Holloway were both doing well.

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Sandestin, Florida

Actually, we stayed the first night in Pensacola, but who's counting? Anyway, We got up Monday and went on over to Sandestin because Randal was going to try to meet with some people to play golf before the MCFA (Mississippi Consumer Finance Association) Convention. It was our first time with this group and they were a little tough to get in with. We did have a gym though at our hotel so that was nice.

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Cave City, Kentucky

Finally some fun! We got up early and went caving. Not having a lot of time, we decided to take the historic tour at
Mammoth Cave, which is the largest natural cave system known in the world. They have mapped over 300 miles of cave here. It doesn't have near as many formations (stalagmites, stalagtites, flow stone, columns, cave bacon, etc) as some of the other caves we have been to, but the sheer magnitude of this cave was incredible and well worth seeing. Sometime when we have more time and better shoes, I would like to take some of the longer and more involved tours.
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Lexington, Kentucky

Not being in a huge rush to get to Gallipolis, OH (because there's just sooo much to do there) and pretty tired anyhow, we went ahead and stopped in Lexington, KY for the night. Made for a nice short (relatively) drive. And then we went to a club and relaxed for a bit. Good night all around.

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Pomeroy, Ohio

Actually we stayed at our good old Super 8 in Gallipolis, since there just isn't much to Pomeroy. But Pomeroy does have it's own unique factoids. For instance, it is the only town in the country that you can stand at one town limit sign and see the other (no, I know what you're thinking, but you can't really do that in Wedowee). It's also the only town with a three story courthouse where all three floors can be entered at ground level.

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Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Randal decided to stay in Pittsburgh instead of Butler where we would be meeting on Friday because he figured we could get some good fireworks for the Fourth of July. There's a park in Pittsburgh called The Point where the three rivers come together. They had one of the biggest fireworks displays I've seen. And I think we were closer to it than any other. We were actually covered with ashes by the end of the twenty minute show. It was nice. The fireworks were set off from three barges in the middle of the rivers. The rivers were also packed with boats anchored all around loaded with people having fun with their music playing and and jumping out and swimming some. The coast guard blocked them from getting near the barges. We had a spot of ground right next to the military settup where they had cannons they were shooting into the water. There was a radio station blaring all of the new strongly-patriotic-post-9/11 songs and the fireworks included lots of red, white, and blue displays with star shaped fireworks. I thought that was pretty neat. It was a good time.

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Cincinnati, Ohio

It was more like Cincinnati, Kentucky I think but that doesn't matter. We pretty much just stopped to sleep.

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Union City, Tennessee

We finally made it to Union City after a long two day drive. We got there early enough to have Sunday free to do all of our laundry. Fun times there. And there was a nice empty field out back that Randal was able to fly his kite in.

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Mobile, Alabama

This was almost the first time I ever drove more in a day than Randal. If there had been a stupid hotel somewhere in Meridian, MS we would have stopped and I would have had three hours to his 45 minutes. But there was no place to stay and as soon as he took over the driving we lost our four lane to a very slow two lane so it took forever to get to Mobile. I will say that this was the scariest driving I've done. We went through a horrible storm, more like a monsoon, and Randal usually does rain driving but he was sound asleep so there's me going 70 through a monsoon when I couldn't hardly see the road. I figured Randal was sleeping so well that if we died, he would have never known what hit him. We made it though around two in the morning. We considered trying to get up early to go out to Dauphin Island to explore Fort Morgan and possibly see some dolphins. Instead we slept as long as we could before packing up to make it to Sandestin on time.

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Sandestin, FL

So here we are back in Sandestin for the third time this year. This time it was the ACFA (Alabama Consumer Finance Association) Convention. This is a nice small comfortable group. We did get up early (6 comes in morning hours too???) Saturday morning and went kayaking around the bay. That was nice. We got a two seater, sit-on-top kayak and spent about an hour rowing around through some little secluded waterways (saltflats?). There was also a talking parrot at the marina who said hello to me as he tried several times to reach out for me to take him. I told Randal that he wasn't happy there and wanted to go home with me but Randal wouldn't hear it. :`-( So Sad. I tried to get the parrot to quack but he just got confused and reached out to me some more.

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Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

After getting up at 0600 to go kayaking, sitting in morning meetings, checking out of the hotel, going to see a movie, and wasting the rest of the afternoon driving around waiting for the dinner reception to start, we finally left Sandestin around quarter of eleven Saturday night. We had to be in Myrtle Beach by 1600 Sunday so we had to drive through the night. We've done that before, but not after such a long, tiring day. It was pitiful. We pretty much drove in hour shifts (he drove an hour or so while I slept and vice-versa) until about 0500 when we were both just too tired to drive any more. We pulled into a well-lit gas station and pulled a blanket over us to tent out the light and both slept in the back seat until it was just too hot. We ended up reaching the
Kingston Plantation, where the RLNC (Residential Lenders of North Carolina) Convention was being held at about 1530. It was a long, long, long day. And we were on again...
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Union City, Tennessee

Here we are again. And another 13 hour drive. Turns out Tennessee is a long state to drive across.

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Terre Haute, Indiana

When we left Union City on Friday, we intended to go all the way to Fort Wayne, but by the time we got to Terre Haute, we were exhausted so we found a room and got some rest.

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Fort Wayne, Indiana

We spent about two hours trying to find a room to stay in for two weeks. Nobody bothered to tell us that there was some big eight day basketball tournament going on in town and that all the hotels were booked up. We finally found a decent room with a microwave and refridgerator. Which is good because we were able to go to Walmart and stock up on fruit and yogurt and cereal for dinners every night. I just wish there had been a gym at the hotel since I am badly in need of getting back into a solid exercise routine. Although the first week, while I was working from the hotel room, I did work out the best I could in the room everyday. Our customers here are really great. I started going into the office Friday and all the second week and they took us to a new and interesting place to eat lunch every day and they also drove us around Ft. Wayne's neighborhoods telling us the history of the town. It was so nice and hospitable. Over the weekend, we were told that we needed to visit the
Embassy Theatre. Wow! I must say that I was rather impressed by this place. The movie was interesting. Northern Redneck flick, Red Greens Duct Tape Forever. (Well technically, it's a Canadian thing, so it's probably southern for Canada). It was... interesting... we went to see the theatre. We also went to one of the nice parks for a picnic, kite-flying, and bunny-watching. I must say, Ft. Wayne is a very nice town.
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Peoria, Illinois

We had a very big sales meeting on Friday in Peoria, so we got there wednesday night in order to have time to rest and prepare on Thursday.

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Bowling Green, Kentucky

What a fiasco. We thought that we were going to make Friday's drive nice and short. Just stop in Indianapolis, where it would be early enough to get some work done, and finish it out over the next couple of days. Well we were sure wrong. We stopped at a few hotels in Indianapolis, but they were all booked up because of the
Brickyard 400. So Indianapolis was out. We continued driving south and figured that we would stop in Louisville. Perhaps it would still be early enough to get some work done. When we got to Louisville at 2230, we saw that the hotel parking lots were filled with some beautiful old cars. Turns out there were over 12,000 people in town for a big antique car show. Everything was sold out all the way down to Cave City, they told us. Which is really a shame because if we could've found a room anywhere, we would have very much enjoyed seeing the car show. So it goes. So after midnight we finally found a bed in Bowling Green, KY. Almost to Tennessee. So much for a short drive.
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Wedowee, Alabama

After getting so far Friday night, it was decided that we should just go ahead and get to Wedowee. On the way, we stopped at an RV sales lot to look around at some RVs. Dream about how much easier all this travel would be on us if we just lived in one of those. (Although I had never considered how small that would get to live in and how large it would be to drive). We also stopped in Moody, AL to have lunch at Milo's. According to Randal, a
Milo's hamburger is a big part of the Alabama experience (apparently, it is unheard of to eat there and not drink the tea). Turns out Saturday was to be my day to have some experiences. We stopped at Walmart in Anniston to get some groceries to bring with us. Randal's mom and dad weren't expecting us until Sunday evening so we figured if we were already going to be surprising them, we should at least have our own food with us. On the way home, we discovered that there were going to be some races at Hollis Crossroads and some fellows from church were going to be racing. Randal's dad's birthday was this past week and we figured it would he would enjoy going to the races. I had the pleasure of experiencing the "redneck 500" firsthand. And a demolition derby as an added bonus. It was a... um... unique... experience. Randal was happy though because he got to sit with his dad some and that meant a lot to both of them i'm sure.
08/10/02 11:51 - well it was a looooonnnnngggg week. traveled back and forth to anniston all week from wedowee. waking up at six every morning and getting home at nine every night. training was just exhaustive. i feel bad for randal because i know it's got to be ten times more tiring for him. we also had the added pleasure of having to go to heflin, jacksonville, and talladega to set up equipment and software in the afternoons. but today is a relax day. got to sleep in (seven instead of six) and randal has spent the morning doing stuff with his dad. first they got up on the roof to take down the antenna and add another one. then they started washing cars. randal's dad has gotten a little pressure washer thing that you can hook a big jug of car wash or wax onto and so they've been out playing with that. i love that they are finally getting to spend some good time together. they don't really talk or anything. but just standing together washing the car is so much. made me smile. kinda like before grandpa moore died. we didn't go over there to talk to him. we sat with him and watched old westerns and he was so happy to have us there. or playing dominoes with grandma moore. funny how quality bonding is different for everyone. now we are getting ready to head back to anniston (i think we get to ride this time instead of driving ourselves) to meet up with shane and teresa for junior's belated birthday lunch (dinner). chinese two days in a row. speaking of which, jenny should be getting on a plane about now. i wish i could see her.
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