My oldest child, Satanspawn, made a decision to move to Fort Lauderdale. She was finally going to have a new life and she had been in Florida for the first time this past February. A short time after that she had re-connected to her first love, Frog-boy.(try class reunion on the web.) Want to guess where he lives? Uh-huh.

We have a sort of home base in Clearwater Beach with Auntie Hester and Uncle Tom (no cabin). These are the kind of people who could go on "Survivor" and build a three bedroom colonial with tennis court and inground pool, using clam shells and palm fronds.

The game plan was to head south, get on I-95 and drive until too dark to see. We would layover one night and on the road again to Clearwater Beach. Then she would cross the state to get to Fort Lauderdale , driving on a road quaintly called "Alligator Alley" (Think of other quaintly named places,,,"Death Valley", "Dead man's curve", etc, give Frog-boy a kiss to keep him from turning into a prince and happily ever after, and so on.

On the way down, (south of Delaware, which doesn't really count 'cause we were only in it for about 2 miles) I noticed the flora and fauna. The flora was trees and the fauna was...T..I..R..E..S..! Expressed as road kill. Laying in the highway.

Remember when Goodyear had a bad year? Every one whose tires were still intact ran to the nearest dealer to get a different brand. If they had been driving down I-95 they would have stopped, put a 'FOR SALE' sign on the window and taken the train. The only living,(or formerly living) thing we saw as roadkill were a small deer and what was either a possum, raccoon or a space alien. The trip was 1300 miles and we saw about 20 times that many treads. I bet the moonshiners moved out of the woods and the tireshiners moved in.

We got to Florence, (either N.Carolina or S.Carolina) just as it got dark. We needed something to eat and a place to lay our muddled heads. The food was pretty good and the waitress smelled spectacular! Everytime she went past the table Satanspawn and I perked up and started sniffing the air. We asked what perfume she had on because we were enthralled by the scent. Turns out it was hand lotion! We had raved about it so much, that Tammy gave us the bottle. We took turns snorting it like vultures at a wildebeast corpse. We read the bottle label to see what exotic, mysterious place it was from. Tahiti? Madagascar? Paris? no. no. no. It was from Exotic, Mysterious NEWARK,NEW JERSEY! Obviously it was for export only.

We thought it was a good time for the layover and there were several motels right there. I , wobbly-legged, staggered into the closest one. I was informed that there were no rooms available anywhere in the area as there were a bunch of mountain bikers in town for the next two days. Talk about good planning! Those bozos probably knew we were going to get to Florence, N.C. or S.C.,,whatever, at that exact moment in time and booked every bed available. I wish them road rash from the tire treads they'd be running over.

By now Satanspawn is wriggling in her seat to find a space her butt hasn't been in before. I am in no way going to offer to drive. I don't like driving in the dark even when I KNOW where I am! It is starting to remind me of a Stephen King novel, "The Attack of the Midnight Tire Treads". and then we found Sumter, S.C. , (I'm pretty sure)

Never asked "How much?" just said " A double, quickly please while I can still move."

Alrighty then, We hit the beds with a mighty thump. Of course we had to put on the T.V. for the weather channel. There was this storm named Lily ripping Cuba to shreds and we wanted to know where it was aiming.

As I watched through One slitted eye, The Mother of All Cockroaches strolled across the wall opposite my bed. I sat up and pointed to it trying not to scream. I asked Satanspawn if she had a saddle for it. She nonchalantly replies, "Oh mom, cool your jets. It's only a Palmetto bug." Palmetto bug my ass! This is a California King-Sized Cockroach! I carefully slid out of bed, never taking my eyes,(wide-open now.) off it.

I trip on my sneakers. AHA! A weapon! I pick up both my butt and a sneaker and head quietly towards the intruder. I'm concerned if the motel finds out about it I will be charged for an extra guest. I slither around the end of my bed, it slithers around the corner of the wall. There is an Ironing board hanging on the wall around the corner and Mr. Bug-Roach is nowhere to be seen. He must be hiding under the ironing board. I smack my sneaker against it..."CCCRRAAASSSHHHH!!! THUD!

I carefully lift the board,,, hmm? No Bug-Roach present. I checked every square inch of that room, many times. He had disappeared. I climbed on my bed after pulling up the bedspread to deny easy access to the Bug-Roach. Did I sleep well? NOPE. Woke up every 15 minutes with my trusty sneaker in hand ready to go mano a mano with Mr. Bug-Roach. He never showed up.

We had breakfast at a place called "The Cracker Barrel". It was the supreme breakfast. I had eggs with everything. And I had GRITS!

Do we get different grits up north? They sure don't taste like southern grits. Is it the Yankee water? Do they import second class grits north of the Mason-Dixon line? With our bellies full of grits and everything else, we headed back to I-95, land of dead treads.

If the great taste of the grits didn't tip me off to the fact that we were in the South, the moss hanging off the trees did. The first time I saw it it looked like tarnished tinsel. Once I realized it was Spanish Moss and we were in Georgia, I felt that we had really accomplished something! All this way and our treads were still intact. (Of course they were N.J. treads so they hung on like Tony Soprano on a garbage truck.

We made it to Clearwater Beach. I would like to be buried there but I don't want to wait until I am dead. Satanspawn got through the Everglades with out being eaten by an alligator. She lays a liplock on her Frogboy quite frequently. He has not turned into a prince yet. I hope he doesn't. How could we fit him into this family?

Anyway, 3 weeks in Florida have turned me into a warm-blooded creature. I am now back in the frozen north where I can complain about the really important things; Cold, Snow, heating bills and where can I get some REAL,SOUTHERN GRITS to go with my turkey? HAPPY THANKSGIVING, YAWL!