Florida Road Trip 2018

We left our friends' home in Atlanta and drove southwest to Warm Springs, GA. This is the home of President FDR's Little White House, his retreat from Washington. As you may know FDR had polio and had paralysis below his waist. The warm waters of the springs here helped ease some of his discomfort. He visited many times during his presidency. Then we drove to Plains, Ga. This, of course, is where President Carter grew up on his parents' peanut farm. After serving as a submarine commander, he came back to Plains, eventually became governor of Georgia, and then launched his presidential campaign in Plains. He and Rosalyn still live here in the house they built in 1961. We had lunch at the only cafe in town. We continued south and are now in Gainesville, FL.

Yesterday we drove from Nashville to Atlanta. We're staying with our friends Bruce and Linda just north of the city. We met them last year on our trip to Costa Rica and became good friends. Linda made a wonderful dinner for us last night and we had a great time catching up. Today we went to visit both the Carter Center/Museum and the MLK Historic Site in Atlanta. Both were very worthwhile stops for our trip.

This morning we went to Andrew Jackson's home, The Hermitage, just outside Nashville. Old Hickory, our seventh president, lived there most of his life. He started with a small cabin and eventually had a grand mansion. Later, we went to Rippy's, a honky tonk on Broadway, for a late lunch and music. Afterwards, we toured Nashville on the Old Town Trolley.

Today was mainly a driving day, six hours from Springfield, IL, to Nashville. Cloudy at first, then rain for the last half of the drive. Will take it easy tonight and explore tomorrow.

We had a busy day exploring Springfield, IL. First was several hours at the Lincoln Museum. What an interesting person and a great presentation. We also toured the house he lived in before becoming president, the old capitol building, and his tomb on the north edge of town. For something different we toured the Dana-Thomas home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It is a beautiful 12,500 sq. ft. home in the prairie style with lots of unique design features.

Today we went to West Branch, IA, to visit the Hoover Historic Site and Museum. There's a lot we didn't know about him: early on he was a very successful mining engineer and became quite wealthy; he was a great humanitarian during and after both world wars; he warned about stock market problems before the big crash, yet was blamed for it as president.

Southern Minnesota had up to 17 inches of snow Monday, so we decided to wait until Wednesday to leave on our trip. Good idea as the freeway was still snow packed in places. Things improved once we got into Iowa. After stopping in Waterloo to see Lou's brother and his wife, we continued on to Coralville, IA.