Day Forty-four
Punta Gorda, FL to Alligator Point, FL
July 20th, 2000


High Point of the Day....
Low Point of the Day......
Brian and Theresa- The cooler temperatures and rain! 
The hundreds of miles of strip malls....
Miles Traveled Today
Total Miles Traveled
Miles Theresa Drove
Weather
 360
10934
197
(2373 total)
HOT AND HUMID!
In the upper 90's
Interspersed with beautiful rain
Price of Gas 
(average per gallon)
Wildlife
Night's Lodging
Where this Page was Uploaded
 $1.77
(all supreme, all day)
 none
Alligator Point Campground
Alligator Point, FL
New Orleans East KOA
Slidell, LA

Daily Narrative    The day began around 10:00, but we refused to leave our kabin until noon.  Fortunately, noonish is when a good sized thunder storm began which effectively eliminated the insane humidity for a while.  We have become huge fans of rain recently.  We began the drive north by crossing the Punta Gorda (a place name Brian is very fond of repeating) Bridge into Charlotte and from that point for at least the next hundred miles we were in the most amazing stretch of strip malls we have ever witnessed.  Town blended into town, all connected by a steady stream of businesses and car dealerships, only occasionally broken up by a bridge or small downtown area.  We pushed on through this for hour after hour and stoplight after stoplight, until finally breaking free about halfway between Tampa and Perry.  The road remained a divided four lane most of the way to Perry, but businesses thankfully only popped up in communities.  From Perry, the road West was a pleasant back country two lane, but it had become dark and a little spooky and we picked the suitably comforting Alligator Point Campground for the night's lodging.  Being in some very good fishing habitat right on the Gulf of Mexico, this was a spendy spot and the Kamping Kabin we are becoming accustomed to was a little rich for our blood, so we reconciled to roughing it in the bus for the evening.  Sweating like we were doing something, we called it a day.


Daily Pictures

Morning on the steamy exterior of our air conditioned Kozy Kamping Kabin
Beginning in Charlotte, across the bridge from Punta Gorda, the strip malls, billboards and car dealerships began
They went on...
...and on
Broken up briefly by the very long and large St. Petersburg bridge
Which can accommodate some very large traffic underneath it
And then many, many more miles of strip malls
"PoFolks", we thought this was an odd demographic to reach for
Finally, on the heals of a very pretty Bug, we broke out of the urban blight around Crystal River 
One of the few high points of the day was crossing the historical Suwanee River...



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