hard sell however and as soon as she realized our intention was still to move
on she lost interest and our 'chat' was over. We had a long journey ahead so
were glad she did not insist on a gruelling discussion.
Our next day’s drive took us into Florida and all the way across the top of it to
the east coast – over 400 miles. From our guidebook we knew there was little
to see, the main settlement on the route being Tallahassee. Despite being the
state capital, Tallahassee is described as offering ‘little of real interest to
visitors’ and also ‘not worth a special trip’ (Lonely Planet, p.653). So we
planned as few stops as possible. For companionship we had a book on tape,
Thomas Harris reading The Silence of the Lambs. As this was an
abridgement it only lasted about a third of our journey and it was only '20
questions' and other games that kept us from going too crazy.
Other than Tallahassee, Pensacola was the only town on this route that
I had heard of, and although we stopped near both of them it was not to do
the tourist thing. We did not even properly leave the I10.
We took the Tallahassee exit to fuel the van and feed ourselves. This
exposed us to our first human contact since the campsite - except ourselves
of course. Our Waffle House waitress was weird and a little creepy - telling me
how after having two kids she had had her tubes cut.... She also cooked our
food, badly, as the chef had 'popped out' and loudly commented 'last night
was bad for tips'. We swiftly moved on, suitably reminded why we had
decided to give Tallahassee itself a miss.
By the time we reached St Augustine on the east coast the campsite we had