After nearly 20 hours in the car, Chicky and I are home.
Her team lost its first game and won its second.
The drive home seemed so much longer than the one going up. But, once again it was a lovely day.
We started early…8am at the fields…
The temperature was much more pleasant than the day before, when we had sweat rolling down our chests under our shirts. Yuck!
After the game, we hightailed it out of there, carefully making our way across four state lines. Of course, we encountered road construction in several areas…
I was mindful of the speed limits. Although embarrassed to be going so slow, I set the cruise control and was rewarded when I didn’t have to hit the brakes when I spotted a police car lying in wait beside the road.
I didn’t let the construction dampen my mood. Although the drive was sooooo long, and I was soooooo ready to be out of the car after the first hour, I found myself thinking back to my youth as I traveled through each state…
South Carolina
Georgia - Hotlanta
Alabama
I have more pictures from Alabama than the other states. You see, I’m a little partial to this state…especially the part we drove through, having grown up in this neck of the woods…
Lake Eufaula
Eufaula is a pretty town…the kind you picture when you think of the South. It has a number of historic homes that grace a beautiful tree-lined road…
Driving under these branches reminds me of my childhood, when my sister and I rode in the back of the pickup truck as my mom and step-dad drove along back roads to get to this or that store.
The next picture is the very famous Shorter Mansion. It is very similar in style to the house I grew up in…
Shorter Mansion - Eufaula, Alabama
The next picture is a stretch of road that runs between Eufaula and Dothan. The green fields induce such a sense of peace within my soul.
Growing up in the country could be frustrating…especially when I wanted to go shopping and had to drive an hour or more for a decent store…but the open spaces gave me a sense of freedom.
I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s almost like you can really breathe when you’re out in the open. Maybe it’s just being so close to nature…the landscape unmarred by the presence of massive amounts of buildings or subdivisions. When you drive this stretch of road, you can actually see cows grazing in the fields. These are scenes that I never tire of…
As I drove this stretch of road, I listened to “soft rock” and remembered the life of a classmate, who I just learned died unexpectedly from a heart attack…at the age of 39.
I remembered how he and one of my best friends (his girlfriend) walked around school with their arms around each other…ALL THE TIME. Such innocence. They dated for a long time but must have broken up some time after I graduated (they were a year behind me).
Such a sad story…that one…
Sigh…
Finally, I crossed the border into Florida…
Florida
We still had a ways to go, but I knew that we were done state-hopping. For this weekend anyway.
We’ll be repeating this trip in a few short weeks. It will be interesting to see how the colors change.
Filed under: soccer | Tagged: alabama, eufaula, florida, georgia, lake eufaula, shorter mansion, soccer, south carolina, travel | Leave a comment »
AuburnChick's Adventures 