I haven’t had the time or motivation to keep this up to date on our trip. This is a just a rough draft of the trip report. Hopefully I will make the time to rewrite it better later. We’ve covered 1200 miles in three days on the bikes. We’ve seen much devastation along the Gulf Coast and now we are in the great retirement village of Florida. The weather has been good and the trip has been great.

Day 1 – Monday
We hit the road at about 8:30am. 1050 miles, three stops, and 16 hours later we rolled into Dothan, Al. We had Aaron’s and my bike in the back of an F-350, Dad’s bike in the back of Aaron’s truck, and Aaron’s bike on a trailer. Everything rode well. At the end of the trip Aaron will load his bike in his truck and head for NC.

Day 2 – Tuesday
The goal for today: Get the bikes unloaded, look at some trucks at the dealership in Dothan, and head for the Gulf Coast. The bikes unloaded without incident. The work stuff was taken care of and by 10:30 we were heading for the gulf via rural roads in southern Alabama. It was nice running but took a while so we hit I-10 for a while of slabbing it.
We visited Bayou La Batre, Pascagoula, and Biloxi. I’m not sure what to write about those cities. They are pretty bad. Some parts appear back together but other parts are an absolute mess. We didn’t spend much time in any of the cities or talk to many people so it was just a “fly by.” I did stop to see Helen in Pascagoula. She is organizing the groups working with the Baptist’s Association in Pascagoula and we worked with her on the CU trip. I feel a bit guilty being on a pleasure trip while I could be working…
We spent the night in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Driving through the dark sections of town with no traffic lights was wierd. The French Quarter was undamaged by Katrina and the flooding but was without power for a month. There weren’t many people there but most of the places were open.

Day 3 – Wednesday
We explored New Orleans and drove to Tallahassee, Fl. I will write more later (maybe) about New Orleans. It is a mess, but there are sections which appear mostly better. It is a big city and parts of it appear to be back to normal. There are many signs talking about hope.
On the way to Tallahassee we drove through parts on Hancock County. When I thought I had seen all the destruction there was to see I saw yet more.

Day 4 – Thursday
We hit the road hard and made it to Bradenton and a visiting with Grandma and Grandpa.