The long drive to Florida

Mindy and Ligeia rented a U-Haul and tow dolly to drive their belongings down to Dunedin, Florida where an apartment they had chosen only a couple weeks before, was waiting for them.


Driving the U-Haul towing our car behind took some getting used to. There were some stressful moments like going over a high narrow bridge from Canada to the States and finding that there was construction on the bridge so we suddenly had to shift to the other side in a very narrow throughway and negotiating our large vehicle on and off a ferry between New York state and Vermont. If you look closely you can see how excited Mindy was when she discovered that our GPS showed a little boat as we crossed the water.

It was only 12 minutes but it was a very nice break in the trip:

Driving through northern Vermont, we saw that many exits had been closed due to flooding and many bridges were washed out. Pictures like this were all too common:

Our first stop was at Ligeia’s parents house in Vermont but when driving there we discovered there were little orange cones across the way indicating that the road was closed. Not knowing just how bad the road damage might be and having no way of contacting Ligeia’s Mom and Dad and certainly not knowing how to get there without going on the road, we decided to go around the cones and take our chances on the road. This was a huge risk given that we couldn’t turn around in this huge thing and were advised at the rental place not to back up.
We came across to Vermonters who insisted that the road was completely washed out up a little ways. When we told them where we needed to go, one of the men asked Ligeia (who was driving at the time) if she was a good driver. This got us a bit nervous wondering just what the plan was. The other man was kind enough to lead us through a serious of back private roads that were muddy, slippery and partly washed out in sections. We were white-knuckled the whole way. At one point a car was coming the other way! To this day, we are still amazed that we got through that and made it to my parents house, which was a very nice visit.
Doesn’t this picture just say “retirement”?:

They have a really nice property filled with gardens and apple trees.

Ligeia’s Mom wasted no time in getting the garden going. Here she showing off her wares (and sporting the farming hat we brought back for her from China):

The camera got packed up for the rest of our trip so unfortunately that’s the end of the pics. However, our next stop took us to Hartford, CT to visit Ligeia’s Aunt Dorothy and her friend Beth. A major section of I91 was shut down and all vehicles had to exit and take a detour through small roads to get back on. We were nervous about some of those turns but we saw the big trucks doing it so we knew we could do it too.

After an overnight in Connecticut, we drove to Baltimore where we stayed at our friend Wendys and had dinner with Chris at the Helmand, one of Ligeia’s favorite restaurants in the world. It’s Afghan food and it’s absolutely delicious!

Then came our loooooong travel day from Baltimore to Dunedin, Florida. Took us just under 17 hrs. Thanks to Wendy who generously loaded us up with food for the entire day, we never had to stop except to fill up on gas.

We arrived at our new apartment on Friday at 7pm and unpacked the truck. We were all too happy to turn that U-Haul truck back in and drive around again in our little Tercel.

We’re getting settled in and learning our way around. We’ll have pics of the apartment soon.

Lots of love to everyone,
Ligeia and Mindy :):)