Sunday, June 12, 2005
Marianna to Quincy to Tallahassee!
On Wednesday, June 8th, Eric left the Hinson House B&B bright and early at 7 a.m. as usual and I got up and started getting our things together before heading down to the B&B’s breakfast at 8:30. I needed to leave by 9:00. So I collected our things, carried them down to the car, and then it was time to join the other B&Bers at the breakfast table (after I talked for a minute with the proprietor, who was so nice).
Seems that lots of evangelical Christians stay at B&Bs. I am not sure if I mentioned it in an earlier entry here, but my first B&B breakfast, at the Mariposa Ranch near Gay Hill, TX, was shared with a couple of Christians (don’t get me wrong here, I am just pointing out that their faith was Christianity and that they made it known). That couple was from Marietta, GA, and they were on a weekend trip together, without their three kids. The husband in that family was leaving his corporate job to start a ministry for men in the workplace. He felt that God would provide for them and that it was something he needed to do and he felt fervently that men needed strong support of faith and to be nurtured in Christ while they worked. He said he had had a lot of corporate interest so far in his project. Anyway, back to the Hinson House. Once I met in the dining room with the other couple, we sat down at the table, and the proprietor said to the man who was staying at the B&B with his wife (who had just come to the table), “Would you like to say grace?” I was pretty happy that they didn’t ask me because I would’ve had to make something up on the fly. Anyway, so grace was said, the Lord was thanked, and we dined on biscuits, eggs with cheese, fruit with yogurt, and coffee. I was interested in my breakfast-mates more than I was in my breakfast though. They had at least three children, all of whom were married I think. I couldn’t gather what they were doing in Marianna. They lived in Milton though, which is right outside of Pensacola. I think they were in Marianna for something to do with their church and they had been there before for the same reason. The proprietor, the husband who did the cooking, came up to table to chat with us and explained what my “husband” and I were doing with the cycling trip, and wow, did that precipitate conversation. “How far are you going? What roads? Do you have kids?” I didn’t let the cat out of the bag that Eric and I are not, in fact, married, but I thoroughly explained our trip and where we’d been and where we are going. At that point, I had to dash out the door and hit the highway to meet Eric in Quincy for lunch.
Quincy –- another cute town. All of these little towns have a court house with a clock tower. I found Eric easily and we ate on the lawn of the courthouse. I made him a peanut butter, banana, strawberry jelly, and honey sandwich. It was very messy, but by all accounts (his), good. I am getting so proficient at driving a standard transmission, and I am already a good parallel parker, that when I pulled up in front of the large park in front of the courthouse and saw one spot open parallel to the park, I took it. I squeezed into that thing like the parallel-parking pro that I am.
Eric and I in front of the Quincy, Florida, courthouse
After lunch, I scooted on down highway 90 until it ran into I-10 and I headed to Tallahassee, in which we would spend two nights and one full day off. I arrived at the Comfort Suites in Tallahssee with no trouble and that was a sign of good things to come and felt like a triumph over the problems I had the previous time I was in a Florida city of over 100,000 people (that would’ve been Pensacola, and you can refer back to that entry if your memory needs jogging). I checked in and chatted with the desk clerk for a few minutes and he was very nice and told me about some restaurants nearby and he said, I guess based on what I was dong on the road with a cross-country-riding cyclist, that there were a few salad and health food restaurant-type places directly across the street. That was, indeed, music to my ears.
Eric arrived, I went down to the treadmill, and then we went over to the strip-mall across the street. Now, don’t fault me for not searching farther a-field and for falling prey to the whiles of the strip-mall, but as Eric said, if we don’t move to Lafayette we might very well just move right into that strip-mall in Tallahassee. We loved Lafayette so much and have been talking pretty regularly about how it suited us and how taken we were with it -- but hello, this strip-mall! In it, there was a salad and soup establishment (where we ate the first night, and later regretted that we didn’t look further into what was there before we decided. It was fine, but not excellent), an organic grocery store, a Walgreens, a Ross, an Indian and British grocery, a nail salon, a hair salon, a AAA, a thrift store, and an Indian restaurant! We sampled them all, except for the salons.
So on our first night in Tallahassee, we ate at the above-mentioned salad establishment and then we went into the organic grocer and bought some fruit and dried cherries and yummmmmmm –- Haagen Dazs dulce de leche frozen yogurt and strawberries and a bottle of Australian shiraz and then we went back to the Comfort Suites and sat by the standard-issue hotel pool and ate and drank happily in the early evening.
Seems that lots of evangelical Christians stay at B&Bs. I am not sure if I mentioned it in an earlier entry here, but my first B&B breakfast, at the Mariposa Ranch near Gay Hill, TX, was shared with a couple of Christians (don’t get me wrong here, I am just pointing out that their faith was Christianity and that they made it known). That couple was from Marietta, GA, and they were on a weekend trip together, without their three kids. The husband in that family was leaving his corporate job to start a ministry for men in the workplace. He felt that God would provide for them and that it was something he needed to do and he felt fervently that men needed strong support of faith and to be nurtured in Christ while they worked. He said he had had a lot of corporate interest so far in his project. Anyway, back to the Hinson House. Once I met in the dining room with the other couple, we sat down at the table, and the proprietor said to the man who was staying at the B&B with his wife (who had just come to the table), “Would you like to say grace?” I was pretty happy that they didn’t ask me because I would’ve had to make something up on the fly. Anyway, so grace was said, the Lord was thanked, and we dined on biscuits, eggs with cheese, fruit with yogurt, and coffee. I was interested in my breakfast-mates more than I was in my breakfast though. They had at least three children, all of whom were married I think. I couldn’t gather what they were doing in Marianna. They lived in Milton though, which is right outside of Pensacola. I think they were in Marianna for something to do with their church and they had been there before for the same reason. The proprietor, the husband who did the cooking, came up to table to chat with us and explained what my “husband” and I were doing with the cycling trip, and wow, did that precipitate conversation. “How far are you going? What roads? Do you have kids?” I didn’t let the cat out of the bag that Eric and I are not, in fact, married, but I thoroughly explained our trip and where we’d been and where we are going. At that point, I had to dash out the door and hit the highway to meet Eric in Quincy for lunch.
Quincy –- another cute town. All of these little towns have a court house with a clock tower. I found Eric easily and we ate on the lawn of the courthouse. I made him a peanut butter, banana, strawberry jelly, and honey sandwich. It was very messy, but by all accounts (his), good. I am getting so proficient at driving a standard transmission, and I am already a good parallel parker, that when I pulled up in front of the large park in front of the courthouse and saw one spot open parallel to the park, I took it. I squeezed into that thing like the parallel-parking pro that I am.
Eric and I in front of the Quincy, Florida, courthouse
After lunch, I scooted on down highway 90 until it ran into I-10 and I headed to Tallahassee, in which we would spend two nights and one full day off. I arrived at the Comfort Suites in Tallahssee with no trouble and that was a sign of good things to come and felt like a triumph over the problems I had the previous time I was in a Florida city of over 100,000 people (that would’ve been Pensacola, and you can refer back to that entry if your memory needs jogging). I checked in and chatted with the desk clerk for a few minutes and he was very nice and told me about some restaurants nearby and he said, I guess based on what I was dong on the road with a cross-country-riding cyclist, that there were a few salad and health food restaurant-type places directly across the street. That was, indeed, music to my ears.
Eric arrived, I went down to the treadmill, and then we went over to the strip-mall across the street. Now, don’t fault me for not searching farther a-field and for falling prey to the whiles of the strip-mall, but as Eric said, if we don’t move to Lafayette we might very well just move right into that strip-mall in Tallahassee. We loved Lafayette so much and have been talking pretty regularly about how it suited us and how taken we were with it -- but hello, this strip-mall! In it, there was a salad and soup establishment (where we ate the first night, and later regretted that we didn’t look further into what was there before we decided. It was fine, but not excellent), an organic grocery store, a Walgreens, a Ross, an Indian and British grocery, a nail salon, a hair salon, a AAA, a thrift store, and an Indian restaurant! We sampled them all, except for the salons.
So on our first night in Tallahassee, we ate at the above-mentioned salad establishment and then we went into the organic grocer and bought some fruit and dried cherries and yummmmmmm –- Haagen Dazs dulce de leche frozen yogurt and strawberries and a bottle of Australian shiraz and then we went back to the Comfort Suites and sat by the standard-issue hotel pool and ate and drank happily in the early evening.
# posted by jnewwave @ 12:21 PM 
