10° to 70°, 1503 miles

I’m here.

At the end of the second day, the cats settled into the sparse and lifelessly decorated room at Microtel, a hotel voted best economy hotel for the past five years. Why? I can not tell you. Everyone on the TV was some shade of purple, the towels were as thin a sliced bologna in a Russian soup kitchen and as rough as a farmer’s hand, and the door had a gap near the floor big enough to intrigue Phoenix in to figuring out how to escape the room when she wasn’t sitting behind the drapes staring out the window at the tractor-trailer idling its engine all night long in the parking lot. But I slept well, exhausted after two ten hour days of driving and worrying about the cats. They did not drink, eat or use the litter box the whole time they were in the Jeep.

I set out early on the third day aiming to reach Tarpon Springs before dark and to escape the bad weather sweeping out of Birmingham. Middle and South Georgia were due for strong winds, thunderstorms and possibly hail. That morning a tornado hit New Orleans and the same system was due across north Florida. It looked like I was headed right into it, but as I got further south blue skies stretched out before me. The rains past before I got to the Billboard Alley promoting every tourist attraction from “See Disney Free” to “Free Girls” at the next exit. All that free stuff and gas has gone up about ten cents a gallon in the ten days since I was here last.

So begins the next year.

It is not about an RV trip.
It is not about a book tour.
It is not about sailing across the ocean.
It is not about living in Hawaii.
It is not about drowning.

It is about removing the anchor and writing.

So what will you find in the coming months on this blog? Hell if I know.