St Patty’s Day came and went. Happy Birthday Dad and Patti Miller!! I was suppose to do this yesterday, but I was lazy.

Heading to Florida with a nice stop in Daphne, Alabama. Louisiana isn’t too bad, but there is some iffiness there. I stopped at a gas station in Slidell; two older men approached me asking for technical help with their cell phones. I was a little wary, but fixed their issue and sent them on their way – my daughter would be so proud to know that some people think I’m tech savvy (she knows better :-). This was all fine until Cliff decided to take me down a dark, scary road with crap (excuse me, I mean people’s worn out stuff) all over the place and dilapidated homes in the swamplands. It took me a 10-point turn to get out of there, all the while waiting for a shotgun to show up in my face. Yikes!

I obviously survived and made it to Alabama. I kind of like it in Daphne. It’s very green and only about an hour from beautiful white sands beaches. Plenty of beach volleyball and the weather seems perfect! Oh, and Jim feeds me almost too well while I’m there.

I am now back to Florida, and so far, they have the best rest areas. The first one offered me free orange or grapefruit juice and the second one had a “Stretch Your Legs” trail. So smart.

After an hour long traffic delay, I decided to do something new along the way and made a random stop at Falling Waters State Park to see Florida’s tallest waterfall!!! Those of us from California (or if you live near Niagara), please don’t laugh ………

I asked you not to laugh – this is pretty flat country, so a little water falling from 73 feet is impressive! The even cooler part was this

the waterfall fell into the mouth of a 100′ cylindrical sink hole (yes, I got that statement from the brochure) with other sink holes all over

The most exciting part

No. I didn’t see any, but I hoped to. You see these signs all over this bayou type area, but the buggers are in hiding.

This didn’t stop me either. I just climbed over because I just had to see what there was to see! It was a small area to explore, but worth the $4 it cost for me to spend an hour there. I need to do more of this spontaneous stuff.

After unloading in Florida and doing a little spring cleaniong

I had to go visit my favorite little town nearby, Dunedin. Have you ever felt out of place wearing red, white and blue? I stumbled across a St Patrick’s Day festival and there was green everywhere!!! I got some funny looks wearing a USA flag shirt. I didn’t even think about it. I actually had that same shirt on for a day and a half! Don’t think I’m gross – I was driving and sleeping most of that time and hadn’t made it to the shower yet!

I’ll be hanging out here working for a while, so I won’t have much to report. I have some bouncing around to do in this area (with a cool side trip coming up next week), and it will be time to start heading north in a month or so. On to new territory! I can’t wait to have more interesting stuff to share with you.

Tip of the day: Put a wooden spoon across a boiling pot of water to keep it from boiling over. I saw this, tried it, and it seemed to work! Then again, maybe I just had my water at the right temperature. Hmmm