Our Car Trip To Florida

As many of you know, we left last Wednesday from Philadelphia area to take our 20 hour car trip to South Florida for the winter. Here is how it went!

In previous years, we used to stop and stay in Savannah, Georgia or Charlestown, South Carolina for a few days along the way to enjoy the sights and restaurants. 

However, now that this is our 11th year making the trip, we are anxious to reach our destination and we simply stay in a hotel on the highway that we reach around 7 PM in the Savannah area, but get right back on the road by 8:00 AM to complete our 6 and half hours  of additional driving. 

Savannah is famous for its trees covered in Spanish Moss. If you would like to know more about the history of Spanish Moss I've included this link that I found on Google: History of Spanish Moss in Georgia. The moss does not feed off the beautiful grand oak trees, so it does not kill the trees. They are certainly lovely. 

We are always in awe of this beautiful bridge that leads us in to Savannah, Georgia. My husband is a retired engineer whose career was spent designing and inspecting bridges. So, we take particular interest in all the bridges that we see. 

Thankfully our trip was uneventful and smooth. The weather was warm and sunny, the traffic was flowing,  and we were happy listening and singing to oldies music and talking until- we reached an hour and half away from destination. 

As we approached South Florida, we headed into a deluge of a rainstorm that lasted until we got to Miami. It doubled our final traveling time and made it difficult to drive. The rain eventually lightened up, but lasted most of the evening while we unpacked the car and brought everything up to our condo. 

YIKES!! 

Usually, we find the condo in move-in condition, but this time we were greeted by a surprise. There was white dust all over our floors, tables, etc. We actually made footprints when we walked across the floor. 

We were totally baffled as to WHY? Where did it come from? - until we later found out that one of our neighbors had a total condo renovation during the 5 months we were away and their construction dust was everywhere including inside our condo. 

Before we could settle in, we had a major clean up job to attend to. Ok maybe not major, but it took us about 2 hours- and it was unexpected. Thankfully I had covered the chairs. 

Now let's talk food!

I brought some easy to travel groceries with me the I had leftover in the house: bananas, oranges, apples, limes, avocado, cherry tomatoes, and potatoes. In addition, I had left canned beans, tomato sauce, grains, etc.in my condo pantry before we left last summer. 

What have we been eating before doing my major shopping? 

I steamed the bag of  potatoes that I brought with me in my Instant Pot. Yes, I have an Instant Pot in my Florida kitchen too!  

One day for lunch,  I took a two steamed potatoes and added mashed avocado and a few cherry tomatoes. It was a quick and filling lunch. 

Another day, (forgot to get a photo), I did a similar lunch with black beans and salsa from my pantry. 

I'm thinking about what I can make this week: 

In the past I've made roasted vegetables  ( link to recipe ) which is always something we love to eat.

I'll probably make and post a new soup recipe (even-though it's 85 and humid here-that's the beauty of the Instant Pot- it doesn't heat up my kitchen or the house), but I might also make a light carrot soup recipe (link to recipe) that I've shared before. 

We have gotten together with friends and eaten out the past 3 nights for dinner. But today, I will do need to do a real grocery shopping.  I should be back on schedule with my regular blog posts soon. 

PS: Thankfully South Florida did not suffer from the recent hurricane.

Please follow me on Instagram- I'm new on that social media site and need to build followers- much appreciated.