Family business took us to the Florida Suncoast. We had planned to spend two days on the beach before returning to Tennessee: One day driving south, two days relaxing, one day un-relaxing on the return trip. Four days seems to be our limit for travel these days. Obligations, real and imagined, are the excuse, but frankly, we get antsy after a few days. Projects at home beckon.  

Florida’s “red tide” outbreak led us to cancel our beachside reservation shortly before departure, so we headed south with no more plan than to make it up as we went along. 

Day 1—Long and tiring, but mission accomplished. If not for the red tide, we’d have spent the rest of the trip at familiar places, restaurants, and activities. Instead, we had a three-day meander back home, filled with the unfamiliar. New routes, hotels, restaurants, and sights. And not a single mile on Interstate highways.

Day 2—From Tampa into Central Florida for our first-ever visit to Bok Tower Gardens.  Edward Bok was a Dutch immigrant. In 1889, at the age of twenty-six, he became editor of Ladies Home Journal, a post he held for thirty years and from which he changed American taste in household architecture and interior design. For instance, he published inexpensive house plans, to the dismay of architects. He converted the over-furnished and underutilized “parlor” into the “living room” as the nation was recovering from the influenza pandemic during which the all-too-often use of that room had been for laying out deceased family members. His autobiography won a Pulitzer.

As an encore, he acquired the top of a nearly barren Florida sand hill (the highest on the peninsula) and commissioned Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. (yes, there was a Junior who followed in his father’s footsteps) to create a tropical paradise. The resulting “contemplative garden” is a haven for birds and butterflies and endangered plants (and people), with a gorgeous carillon tower and scores of nooks from which to enjoy the beauty in semi-privacy. Probably the most pleasant three hours I have ever spent at a tourist destination. 

The day was still young, so we scurried back to the Gulf coast (safely north of the red tide) for sunset at Crystal River. Nancy finished off the day with a 50-Cedar-Key-clams-for-ten-dollars special, while I had Thai curry at an adjacent restaurant. The combination of sunset and seafood satisfied Nancy’s two criteria for a satisfactory trip; all else was gravy.

Days 3 and 4—Homeward bound via US19 along Florida’s gulf coast, US 27 through western Georgia, and TN58 from Chattanooga. Nothing on our familiar I-75 route remotely approaches the scenery we enjoyed almost constantly on that two-day, 650-mile drive. 

Georgia has 159 counties. They are, on average, about half the size of those in neighboring South Carolina. An advantage, I suppose, of small counties is that more towns get to be county seats. I don’t think we drove through a single town big enough to have a MacDonalds that did not also have a court house. At least one had a courthouse and no MacDonalds.

We stopped at Providence Canyon State Outdoor Recreation Area in southern Georgia. Providence Canyon is a monument to environmental naivety: poor farming practices greatly accelerated erosion of the very vulnerable soils, creating massive gullies up to 150 feet deep. The nearly vertical canyon walls display a range of colors that rivals in beauty if not scale the spectacular canyons of the American Southwest. 

That was our second trip in as many months. A local friend wanted to buy some timpani. Nancy’s cousin in Chicago had two for sale. Take a break from the home projects and visit Chicago? Yes! We’ll do the transporting! We stayed in a boutique hotel right on the Chicago River and spent Friday evening and Saturday morning on foot, ogling the city’s architecture. By sheer good fortune, the weekend we chose for the trip coincided with an international dance festival in Millennium Park, just blocks from our hotel, and the samba band in which Nancy’s cousin plays was one of the featured acts. We joined the impromptu parade as the drummers and their troupe of dancers, clad in lots of feathers and not so much fabric, wound their way through the park and onto the main stage.

Sunday we meandered our way toward the northwestern suburbs to spend time with Nancy’s cousin and his family and her aunt and uncle, with a brief stop at the Baha’i Temple. An off-Interstate jog through the Kentucky bluegrass broke the tedium of the long return drive. Four days. Just right.

I’d be remiss in any narration of travel not to mention the food gems found along the way. When we’re traveling and stopped for a few days or just overnight, a good meal seems … well … expected and, thus, unexceptional. But when we’re driving and find a special alternative to the fast food chains … those memories linger. I’m thinking fondly now of the Kind Roots Cafe (Lexington, VA), and Bone Fire Smokehouse at the Hardware (Abingdon, VA), discovered on our trips to visit grandkids. And Chapati (Pakistani, Indianapolis, IN) and Masala (Indian buffet, Richmond, KY) from our Chicago trip. The latest of these treasures is Jerusalem Grill in Rome, Georgia. The staff is most helpful and their shawarma is not to be missed!

“Not all those who wander are lost” wrote Tolkien.