Last week, week took a road trip down to the Gulf Island National Seashore near Gulf Breeze, Florida. You can read about that trip in last month's blog. This post is about Cynthia's disdain for driving through tunnels. Back in 2008 when we rode 50cc scooters to all 67 counties in Alabama, we rode through the Mobile area. We have to stay off interstates and major highways because our top speed was only 35 MPH, so we always took the smaller roads when we could. In Mobile, we had to cross the bay so we took the only road that was not Interstate 10, and it had a tunnel! Cynthia hated having to ride the scooter through it. She griped and complained over the 2 way radios we had in our helmets the whole way through the tunnel and for the rest of the day. I said all that just to let you know how much she hates tunnels. She says, "They creep me out".

So this past week, we are on I-10 heading into Mobile from the East and we come to the tunnel. She grabs the camera and starts grumbling about having to drive through it. It took about a minute to drive through it but she was quite vocal about it. "There's water above us, what if this thing started leaking?" she said. I told her we would drown. That didn't comfort her any. Oh well, we made it safely out the other side, she snapped a few pictures and we are on with our daily lives. Hopefully, we won't have to drive through any more tunnels any time soon. [89]

It is nice to have a big van. It is also not nice to have a big van. The good part is that you can stand up in it, camp in it, take road trips in it, and really enjoy using it. The bad part is it takes an hour to wash the dang thing! It is too big to fit into any of the automatic car washes, and those car washes where you use a high pressure hose to wash it yourself, well they don't do a good job for what you spend. I reckon if you stayed there and kept feeding it quarters, it would be great... but I'd rather do it at home for free. Plus I can be leisurely about it at home and not feel rushed because the hose it beeping at me wanting more quarters!

We have a long handle brush so we can reach all the way up to the top, and a ladder for when we want to wash the roof. We don't wash the roof but about once or twice a year as it is a chore. You have to balance on the ladder while scrubbing the roof while keeping the hose from falling to the ground.

We washed the van today (not the roof, though) and it is all nice and shiny again. We noticed we have a bunch of tiny chips in the paint on the front from stuff hitting the van while driving. Nothing you can really do about that unless you put a bra on there. Oh well, you take the good with bad and focus on the good and you'll have a much happier life. [90]

Yesterday we took a short ride to West Blocton, AL to take a look at the Cahaba Lillies. These lillies are found only in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and parts of North Carolina. Here in Alabama we call them Cahaba Lillies, the other states refer to them as Shoal Lillies. These lillies bloom from early May to late June and each flower blossom opens overnight and lasts for one day, so if you want to see them, you better get a move on. These plants are on the endangered species list so be sure not to fiddle with them, else you get fined or sent off to a federal prison somewhere. Below are some of the pictures we took of them so if you aren't able to go see them in person, you can at least see them here. [91]