A Visit to the State Capitol

Leavin’ Conecuh Natl’ Forest we headed west to Dothan , AL for a Flying J stop. It wasn’t out of our way cause we were headin’ to Valdosta, GA to see friends. After fuelin’ up I called our friends business and discovered they were in Vero Beach, FL tending to a condo they own. Well that visit will have to wait for another day. The diesel was $2.08 in Dothan, so it was worth the stop anyway cause when we crossed into FL it jumped to $2.59, sheesh’ tell me again why I live here where the fuel prices have gotten to be some of the highest in the country. Even California’s fuel is much cheaper than us, what gives with that?

Headin' east through the Florida panhandle we decide to stop and see our State Capitol. We've visited others state capitols this trip so we figgerd’ we should really take the time to see ours. After following all the signs directin' us toward the Capitol we drove by it three times. seems it sits back off the road a little and with all the traffic buzzin' around downtown Tallahassee we just missed it. When Florida was in it's infancy there were two capitols, one in Pensacola and one in St. Augustine, both important port cities of the era. It was decided that one capitol was needed and Tallahassee was chosen as the mid point between the two existing capitols. It's funny but across from the capitol building was a dirt road leading to mainland Florida, back in the day, today it's US HWY 27. The original building still stands today and was renovated to return it to it's original configuration after nearly falling under the wreckin’ ball when the new capitol building was built. A concerted effort by the public saved it from the dust pile, after all it has history. Did you know ‘Andy Jackson’ was ‘Governor here before he became President?

The ‘Old’ Capitol building

The ‘New’ Capitol building

The "’New’ Capitol building has a beautiful fountain out front

Oh by the way we stopped in at Falling Waters State Park on our way to Tallahassee, intendin’ to lite fer’ the night but the campground was small, the lady at the gate seemed rude and the site she assigned us was so downhill we never could have gotten level. We got a refund and decided to write that park off our list. We have stayed in lots of state parks here and across this great USA but sometimes you run into people at park that, be they employees or volunteers that act like, you are interrupting their day or, they are doing you are big favor by renting you an overpriced spot to park your rig. Not to often but occasionally it does happen. We opted for a ‘Wally World’ stop instead.

Well after our visit in Tallahassee we started down the west coast o’ the ‘Sunshine State’, you wouldn’t know it by the temps here, still close to freezin’ each night. By now were pretty used to not hookin’ up the water hose overnight. I can just see me tryin’ to roll up a hose that’s frozen stiff, I been havin’ enough trouble rollin’ up that 30 Amp cord in these temperatures. We kept rollin’ down the road till we hit Old Town, Florida. We stopped at Old Town Campground N’ Retreat, nice small Passport America park, $10 a night. This is the first park we have encountered that was all but full, we had to take a spot with just W&E, which was fine with us, we’d just dump on the way out tomorrow.

Well that's all fer this day. Until the writin’ gets goin’ again.

Hope to see ya down the road, as were

Dancin’ on the Wind.