Road Trip!

We left Dothan at about 6:30 this morning and drove to Ft. Walton Beach for a short visit with Ryan, Ale and Micah.  The traffic at that hour was light, it wasn't too hot, and we made pretty good time--it is just about a two-hour drive.  Our visit was fun, even though Micah didn't recognize us and was very shy.  We chatted about all sorts of things until 11:30, then we trotted out the gate into what surely could only be termed as Mayhem.

Everybody, plus his uncle and dog, was driving through town--all the way to San Destin which was about 25 miles.  After we turned onto 331, the traffic thinned out a little bit going north toward I-10, but headed the other direction, it was slow moving, bumper to bumper all the way to I-10.  The beaches were crowded, the malls were crowded, the streets were crowded, even the water was crowded!  There is a sand bar just west of Destin and there must have been 200 boats out there partying the day away.  There was an inflatable water slide and all sorts of other paraphernalia in the water.  Crazy!

We would have come back to Dothan via the same route we took to get there, but we wanted to make a short stop at the outlet mall in San Destin first. It was short, alright! Too many people! We snagged a Whataburger for lunch and hot-footed it out of town as fast as we could go while driving on two lane roads behind drivers who eschewed cruise control and preferred talking on their cell phones.

Once we got back to Dothan, we stopped by the visitor center for Ornery to get a couple of post cards for his collection (from each site he works at), then back to the hotel where we discovered our key cards had been deactivated since our original reservation was to end today. Easily remedied, and happy to be back where it was cool again.  It is 102 degrees outside.

Since the simulator techs only work until 6:00 on Saturdays, Ornery decided to work from the room this evening. It will be nice to have him handy. :)  I am pretty tired, so I don't think I will tackle the book project this evening, but I am going to be devoted entirely to the project for the next two days, as I have a LOT of work to do once we get home.  When I finished yesterday I was on page 86 or something near that, and slogging through at a snail's pace. I sure would like to have that book finished by Tuesday when we leave here!