Our Road Trip South

Sorry for the lack of blogging. We kept getting into our hotels late at night, but now we are on the ship so I have a chance to update everyone. Here are some pictures from Champaign-Urbana:

 Artwork on campus

 Math Building

 Carillon  (not as pretty as ours)

 Episcopal Church

Atrium of their workout facility

Sunday we drove to the Johnny Cash Museum and had lattes in the cafe again, and they are still the best ones I have ever tasted. We even bought some of their coffee, which they roast there themselves: A Brew Named Sue (medium roast) and Folsom Prison Brew (dark roast). This first photo is artwork made from metal from the World Trade Center:

As we drove along, we came across a sign for the James K. Polk House. Now who ever thinks about our 11th President? This appealed to my random side, but it was actually a very interesting tour with lots of political talk. Travalon and I both loved it. This first photo is a cool tower right across the street from the house.

Here is a photo of the James K. Polk House.

This table came from the White House when Polk was president. It is made from marble from ancient Carthage. I didn't know that when I took the picture; I just thought it was beautiful.

This is the courthouse in Columbia, Tennessee, where the Polk House is located:

When we first crossed the border into Tennessee, we listened to "Tennessee" by Arrested Development, and I cried. Once we were in Alabama, we encountered things like the Chevron gas station where the purse hooks were on the outside of the bathroom stall doors. How does that make sense? We stopped at the Ave Maria Grotto just after it had closed, so we just took a walk along their Stations of the Cross path, and another walk around the pond at the St. Bernard Academy across the street. When we went into the chapel there, the monks were chanting the psalms. Here is a photo of the columbarium at the Ave Maria Grotto:

I thought about making a video of the monks chanting, but that seemed disrespectful.

We got to Montgomery after dark, and we walked along the outside of the Capitol building. Some flower in one of the gardens around it smelled amazing. I wish I could have put the scent on the blog! Here is the Capitol:

This wasn't in the same area of the garden that smelled so heavenly, but I wondered why this one azalea bush bloomed mostly purple but in the lower section you can see it is white.

We stopped at another Chevron station that didn't have an issue with the purse hooks, but outside of it we encountered this...

... dying luna moth on the sidewalk. I tried to move her to the sidewalk since she could no longer fly, but she was amazingly strong and feisty. Finally Travalon had to move her, since I couldn't do it. I thought about bringing her with us, but why?

Travalon brought his usual companions along, some stuffed red pandas and the honey badger Kizi. I brought a tiny dragon and a triceratops that I got for 69 cents at Goodwill, but then at a rest stop we found a larger dragon to go with the little one. Meet Zephyr, Tonica (named after a town we passed in Illinois), and Indigo:

I also ended up getting a couple of narwhals, Bjorn and Erik, but I didn't take a picture of them yet so that is something to look forward to.

Yesterday we spent most of the day driving. We did stop at a shrine to Our Lady of La Leche, but some women were praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet in there, so I didn't take a picture of it. Our big adventure was going to Silver Springs, Florida and riding the cute glass-bottomed boats that look like green trolleys:

Here is a sample picture of what we saw through the bottom of the boat: lots of bluegills, some gar and shad, and a few turtles.

We also saw a couple of alligators, including this one swimming alongside our boat:

No manatees, unfortunately. Then we took a walk on the island in the park, which looks like a jungle.

Then we took the Florida Turnpike south, since it is very direct and not nearly as packed as the other highways, being a tollway. We stayed at a hotel in the Design District of Miami, and this morning we explored the historic Art Deco district in South Beach. Check out this sign!

Here I am having an iced latte at one of the Art Deco hotels.

I took many photos of the Art Deco architecture, and Travalon took way more, which I will post at some point.

Here is a picture of a sailboat coming into South Beach:

This is a shot of Miami from our balcony on the cruise ship:

And finally, my first tropical sunset this year!

Famous Hat