Meander's End: It's Interesting That the Name of Florida's Capital City...

...is an old Apalachee or Muskogean Indian word meaning "Old Town" or "Abandoned Town" or maybe "Old Fields"; so named because the native Americans were brutally kicked off the land by Hernando De Soto. Like so many historical places, Tallahassee became the capital of the then-territory of Florida in 1824 because it was convenient for area politicians. It was located halfway between St. Augustine and Pensacola.. In 1827 Ralph Waldo Emerson called the place "A grotesque place of land speculators and desperados." Isn't history fun?

Oh, I must tell you my theory on why the restrooms at RV parks include showers. I base this theory on personal experience with the shower in our RV, which I utilized this morning instead of visiting the one provided by the RV park. See, RVs are designed to stuff as many small versions of "real life" amenities into as small a space as possible. As a result, we have kitchen with sink, microwave, stove/oven, fridge/freezer, small sofa, dinette, bathroom, shower, and teeny bedroom, all squished into about 31 feet of space. The shower is just about big enough for a man Al's size to stand upright in. Not turn or move his arms without smacking against a wall - that would be too much to expect. Now, remembering that Al has two bad knees, we brought with us the stool he uses in the shower - and it JUST fits. I can sit on it and actually find space to put my feet on the floor but nothing extra. I have no idea how Al manages it - I think he must be double-jointed in his ankles or something... So imagine me sitting on the stool, scrunched up, trying to adjust the water temperature coming through the hand-held shower head.. AHA. Now we've come to the reason the parks offer showers. There is no way on earth the water can be adjusted to anything other than "Scald" or "Glacier". I reminded myself of this truth this morning as I attempted to wash my hair (and myself, of course) without either cooking or chipping off icicles. After several minutes of knob-twisting I settled on "Well, okay - it's not TOO cold" and got the job done. It's back to the RV Park showers for me!

Today's drive was a little over 150 miles, and somewhat boring; consisting of more long, slow hills bordered by trees with occasional breaks of marshes or planted fields, and once I caught evidence of strip-mining! It was also getting warm which made Al and me somewhat sleepy. About halfway through the trip we pulled into a rest stop for a nap, and miraculously, the birds respected this and kept quiet the entire time.

During this trek we also discovered that Polgara, our Orange Winged Amazon Parrot likes opera. We put on "Carmen" to amuse and keep us awake, and much to our surprise, Polgara kept singing along with the arias. Not so much the interludes of music, but she had an especial fondness for the baritone solo!

Anyway, the rest of our journey was uneventful. About 40 miles west of Tallahassee we crossed into the Eastern time zone and go figure - our birds KNEW when it was 5pm local time and insisted on their supper!

Here are a few photos I took along the way. We've decided not to push the final 206 miles tomorrow but to go maybe half way and finish the trip on January first. Since we'll be leaving Route 10 in favor of Route 75 going south down the center of the state, perhaps we'll find some new and interesting things to see and photograph! For now- goodnight, all!