Day 15: Naples to Monticello, FL: 402.7 miles; 5:55

We started out at 8:15 after three days in Naples visiting Uncle K.  It was a very enjoyable visit.  We walked everyday and I swam everyday in Uncle K's pool -- he joined me, but couldn't get Jim into the pool, or into shorts.  But he did complain about the humidity.  Uncle K's arthritis is worse with air conditioning, so he doesn't use it.  We used the fans a lot.  Uncle K fed us well at a different restaurant every night and then treated us to his own key lime pie each evening.

We had a good visit sprinkled with real estate excitement.  Uncle K is in the process of selling his building in California and it is not going smoothly. And our daughter is in process of buying her first house which kept us busy phone calls and MLS lookups.

Believe it or not, Naples has a Goodwill.  I was excited given that Naples is a very "high-end" area and was expecting something like the Goodwill Boutique in Portland.  It was a disappointment.  No designer clothes, nothing special, very little selection; and although clothing was sorted by color, it was not sorted by size.  I'm beginning to believe our daughter Heidi who proclaims that Portland the best Goodwill shopping in the country.

Naples is a beautiful city.   Downtown is filled with high-end shops, designer stores and sidewalk cafes. Many colorful buildings line the waterfront which is very picturesque. The residential areas are like parks or expensive resorts. Palm trees and tropical landscaping with screened-in pools and a multitude of small waterways and canals winding through.  And then there is the beach.

I concluded that palm trees fall into the "tall" tree category -- but the beaches here are "short."  The Pacific Northwest beaches are very "wide;" that is, the difference between low and high tide is at least 100-200 feet.  Not so here.  The beach itself was only about about 30 feet wide.  But unlike the gray beaches in PN, the sand here was very fine (it squeaks when you walk) and there are lots of small shells along the beach.

It feels good to be heading north (instead of south) and west (instead of east).  We are on our way back home now.  We retraced our route to Naples and got on I-75 north, then connected to I-10 east at Lake City.  South Florida is very congested.  Lots of cars and people and most of the snowbirds are not even here yet!

Heading north, we went past Ft. Myers, Sarasota, St. Petersburg and Tampa.   Then the landscape started to change.  The grass in Naples was not what we have at home.  It was very thick and hard to walk on.  Once we got to central Florida,  we saw familiar grass, but lost most of the palm trees.   We stopped at another "secure" rest stop and then continued on past Ocala and Gainesville (home of the University of Florida Gators) and into the Florida Panhandle.

We stopped at a small town called Monticello (pop. 2,506).  We are about 25 miles out of Tallahassee just off the highway exit.  When we were checking in, an older man came in and put three plastic bags of round fruit onto the counter.  He asked me if I'd ever seen a "Japanese persimmon" and showed me the fruit.  The clerk said that he and his family were vegetarians and ate fruit three times a day.  He said that the persimmons would be $1 each in the supermarket, but he could get 3 bags for $20 from the local farmer.  He gave us two to try and told us to let them ripen for a few days.  Looking forward to trying them.

Jim asked if there was a Walmart in the area.  The clerk said no, but there was one at exit 196 in Tallahassee.  Jim said, "No way am I getting off in Tallahassee."  The clerk laughed and said that most folks that stayed here had the same attitude.  They wanted to stay away from the big cities.  We knew we were in the right place.

After we checked in, Jim  discovered that the Seahawks game is on.  We reheated our take-out boxes from last night's dinner and have settled in.

Seahawks game is over.  They pulled it out!  We went out for a walk which was short because we are on a 4-lane road.  There are two gas stations and a McDonald's on this side, and we noticed a booth across the highway that advertised "Fresh Pecans."  We decided to investigate and made our way carefully across the highway.  He had a variety of local food products so we bought some boiled, green, peanuts (I like them--but Jim, not so much) and some Tupelo honey (in honor of our Tupelo experience.)

The we went into Monticello.  The 4-lane road into town is called the Alabama-Florida Highway (Alabama is only about 10 miles from here.)  When we got into town the 4-lane turned to 2-lane and then quickly into a traffic circle around an old picturesque courthouse.  We stopped and walked around he courthouse (no park or town square, just a sidewalk)  The entrance was locked, but a sign informed us of the security machines we would have to go through to enter.  We aren't in Iowa anymore...

We drove around the town and saw some beautiful old houses and a wonderful old church with floor to ceiling stained glass.  Then we went down a side street admiring the old houses.  The street was lined with Cypress trees giving it a rather Halloween-like feeling.  This is a very nice old southern town.

Back at the motel, I called ahead and made reservations for tomorrow at a hotel on Pensacola Beach.  We plan to get there early and enjoy the beach if the weather cooperates.