Day Thirteen: Sight Regained

Eating some Cheerios after a good night's sleep in the Florida outdoors

We tucked the girls into their tent beds after some hot dogs and hamburgers. Maddie wasn’t a huge s’mores fan but she ate up some graham crackers right quick. Nathaniel and I stayed up late, in front of the fire, in our camping chairs—watching “Six Feet Under” on the laptop. While we were enjoying the wilderness, we heard someone come into our dark campsite. They walked up right behind us so we turned the flashlight on and no one was there! But there was a scuttling and crashing in the bushes next to us so I jumped on the picnic table in case it was an alligator. Nathaniel couldn’t see without his glasses but I was able to pick out a little grey body under the leaves—an armadillo! It was so cute and armor plated! I saw another one on the way to the bathroom and boy, they are not subtle when they are snorting in the dirt and moving through the woods. I bet alligators can hear them a mile away.

So we all slept well—it’s perfect camping weather, no bugs, cool but not cold, and not crowded. Sonja woke up at 7:10, right on schedule and said, “Ummmm” and looked over at Nathaniel and gave him a big smile. She is just a little angel. You’d have to go a country mile to find another baby as sweet. My dad said that you can tell she’s going to have a really warm personality. I think that’s totally true. Maddie has shown herself to be super warm and friendly this trip, too. She says “Thank you” to all the cashiers and servers and tour guides who’ve helped us. Two different strangers have expressed to us their concern with how friendly she is. Is it such a dangerous thing to be? Stupid dangerous world. Most people like how friendly she is. Especially since we’ve been teaching her how to say “sir” and “ma’am” while we’re down South.

My sweet Sonja, sitting up all by herself and hanging out in the tent while we break camp

My friendly little camper playing on the slide

We GPS’d our way to two phony Waffle Houses (one closed, the other non-existant) before finding one in Jacksonville. Sonja actually fell out of her car seat in the restaurant while it was sitting on the floor and she ended up under the table on her back. But we didn’t even know about it because she’s so chill that we only noticed when Nathaniel happened to see her on the floor, smiling up at us. From the brown-tiled floor of the Waffle House. Parenting award, here we come.

One of the actual locations where Mrs. GPS told us there would be a Waffle House

We headed up to Savannah, calling our insurance company and various eyeglass places on the way. We went to a Sears but there was a super cheap Eyeglass World across the street so Nathaniel went there and for $70 left with a pair of contacts. They charged extra to show you how to put them in, so I helped him in the parking lot and we had some laughs.

We drove until 8:00, our first night driving of the trip! Nathaniel started to get a little silly towards the end and I got pretty excited by all the South of the Border signs we started seeing. We barely got a room in Florence, SC and then had an okay dinner at the Olive Garden. Everyone admired our sweet Sonja, just hanging out in her seat, watching everyone go by. Of course, they all thought she was a boy because she wasn’t in pink. I don’t mind, I think she’s beautiful in blue.

She slept well in the Quality Inn and so did Maddie, except for one horrible coughing jag in the middle of the night. It was a fun road trippy day!

Goodbye Florida!