Florida and Georgia

Notes about Florida: Up the eastern coast, there is one city after another - no countryside at all.The telephone poles are all concrete for the hurricanes. If you are in the keys, they have a pattern for evacuation in case of a storm. Where it will hit the most evacuates first, then the next northern region, and so on so there is no huge traffic jam...how they monitor this, I don't know.There is listed an evacuation radio station like 91.3 which gives the latest traffic info. Billboards on the eastern highway 95 tell the wait times for hospital emergency rooms in the area.Gated homes and communities are everywhere and very FEW places for tourists to see the ocean, unlike Oregon! Heading up the coast, mailboxes are set inside concrete manatees, flamingos, dolphins and large concrete conch shells. We saw the Domino sugarcane, the S and H beans and lots of strawberries. The highest point in Florida is 345 ft. in elevation.

In Florida and Georgia, the schools are magnificent-all brick and very large.The churches are simply beautiful as well. We are now in Skidaway Island camping and there are so many cypress trees with what I believe is Spanish moss hanging down-beautiful also! As you head north, you see more brick homes that look like the eastern style of two story house. I still love being called "ma'am."

Today we saw, maybe because it is the end of March, MANY cars from Mass., New York, PA, etc. traveling north to go home. Must have condos in Florida and now the great exodus begins as the heat, humidity and bugs come out!

I love the softness of the south...hardwoods, combined with palms and cypress and magnolia trees.

More photos later of the Florida keys (islands).