just got back from 11 days in the south
mission , take the wife to the beach , get some fishing in , eat all the local seafood I could

mission accomplished , soft shell crab , blue crab , alligator , grouper , catfish , red drum , oysters , clams , shrimp and some really good fried chicken.

drove 2765 miles

I think I can clearly define my favorite restaurants as anything that should be on DDD Diners Drive ins and Dives the only chains we hit were last night a Cracker Barrel in Lexington it was easter Sunday so options were limited and after 10 hours of driving it was across the street from the hotel and Hardees today at lunch. it was the only thing we had seen other than McDonalds in 5 exits in central ILL and I was starving and still had hours to drive it was as good a choice as I saw in the next hour of driving as well.


8 states some a couple times.
IL
KY
TN
AL
GA
SC
NC
IN


I think my favorite place to eat seafood is Flowers Sea food Edisto Island SC , it is a little concrete block building in the middle of the Island where they sell fresh seafood all week with a 5th wheel trailer like you might see at the county fair as a cook shack behind it. Thursday , Fri , Sat they make and serve you can take it to go or eat under a metal carport type structure in the back on picnic tables.

was hopping every day at lunch.

would make a Great episode of DDD

also all you northern guys who won't see a strawberry till June maybe even July , they are picking some really nice strawberries in coastal SC already ate strawberries every day.

20 when we left , high 60s , 70s and low 80s with lots of sun this last week, some windy days but all good
we returned home to 47 and blowing hard

the other observation was , the south is full of rust free cars , but good lord the number of blow outs on the side of the road , if you look around a parking lot you see 2/3 of people are riding on very worn tires
where if you look around the grocery store parking lot back here in rust land , most cars over 10 years old have a little rust and many older ones have LOTS of rust , but the tires are in much better shape. because it could still snow here any day and bad tires and snow is a no go.

a beater with a heater and 4 good tires is a real thing here in WI.

lots fewer cars with a shredded tire on the side of the road.

Sounds like a great trip GCP!

Never thought about the fact tires wouldnt be such a big deal without snow.

sounds like a good trip, pic.??

Sounds like a great trip, glad everything worked out for you.

I noticed the same thing about tires in the South when I started to travel there for work.

Good post and it brought back memories of my beaters that I drove for a number of years out of being poor. Didn't have money for good tires back then and changed my share of flats.
I love the South ...wife's family were from Kentucky moved to S.Indiana then to Florida. Great food, great people, loved the early Springs but do not like the tornadoes/hurricanes.
Trying to figure out where to move to so I can relive my high tax burden and can't figure out which state has fewer bad storms/weather issues.

Thats a lot of driving
Glad You enjoyed

Nothing like a southern car....away from the coast.

They definitely live a lot longah down there

Ten dollar recaps got me down the road back in the day.

a few pictures , if it was taken driving , she took it I was driving
almost to South Pittsburgh TN

yes we stopped at the Lodge store , yes I went in thinking I don't need much , just a lid for these 2 that I brought with , yes I got lids and more cause seconds

if you happened to see this car crossing the south east in the last week , it certainly got lots of attention , apparently not many people strap a canoe to the mini-van and drive cross country
all 2765 miles it road very well and got lots of comments from people some asking how I put it up there, down to the details of what mounting kit I used it had just clicked for them how they might get out fishing better or just came over from another gas pump to tell us how cool it was.


this is the chemo bus I hit a deer with my 04 gmc 1500 2/1/2025 just a couple weeks after my wife started chemo so 2 days later I bought the chemo bus Baahhh "like a sheep"
wasn't sure what it would be called other than chemo wagon but when it got assigned BAA for the licenses plate so if talking about the van in conversation and you hear Baahhh , yup it is like it's own comedy routine.
the wife's 00 expedition got rear ended 11/2/2024 and we didn't know if insurance was going to actually fix it till 3/3/2025 and we didn't get it back till 3/20
my 98 Chevy 1500 is a standard cab so no reclining seat not so comfortable to rest in back and forth to chemo 102 mile round trip

a few of the WI t-man family know she has cancer so this was a go see stuff while she can still get around and enjoy it. so now the rest of you know.

her taste buds started coming back Fri the 11th the day we left , it takes about 8 days after a chemo treatment to start to get tastes back and some tastes take longer. by about 10 days she could taste almost everything again so it was a great time to try and eat our way across the south east coast.

BAA made the trip did very well and yes it is riding on 4 new tires , it came with what might be a decent southern tire but not a good northern tire even though it still drove ok in a inch or two of snow till you hit a hill.

I took a charter Tuesday , she was supposed to go with but it was windy very windy and her stomach turns on a dime with the cancer, that was one of the days , she was better by afternoon but chose to sit and knit on the screen porch and rest and let her stomach settle.




this is one of the two Reds I landed , had another on but shook the hook near the boat.

this is the 27" , there is also a 21" that I was able to keep slot is 15-23" total length. I also caught a flounder.



Did some cooking as well the place we rented had a kitchen the day I caught the red fish we stopped and got red and green tomatoes so I made fried green tomatoes , Redfish and slaw.

also did shrimp a few times