Driving to the Island Princess, first day

Our original plan was to drive to Jacksonville and then see a little of St. Augustine and the northeast Florida coast. Then we would head south to spend the second night in Vero Beach completing the drive (about three hours) to Port Everglades on Monday morining.

However, just before we left Pensacola we decided to cut a few miles and see St. Augustine some other time. So we headed south to Ocala and spent Saturday night there.

The mileage was 383 (616 km.) including a few extra miles to take the cats to the cat hotel our vet runs.

At 10:15 AM we set out on Interstate 10. We tried to have lunch at Gary's in Chipley. Not only are they closed the day after Thanksgiving (we learned that last year) they were closed this time for carpet cleaning. So we went on again to Marianna and ate at PoFolks Restaurant. Excellent fried chicken. And sweet potato casserole.

After several breaks for me to walk around we got to the hotel in Ocala at 6:00 PM. We had dinner in our room: deli sandwiches from the nearby Publix Supermarket.