Life Is A Highway.

Recently, Carol and myself were traveling south along the Gulf of Mexico Highway. It was this past December and we were just tooling around checking out cities around Florida. We're travelers. Or I should say, Carol is the traveler and I am her go-to man, the person she goes to to ease her path while she works as a traveling occupational therapy assistant. I'm also her husband.

I used to drive a tractor-trailer long haul and I did it for 12 years. I've been in all the states in the contiguous United States, but I've spent most of my time on interstates or, sometimes, U.S. highways. The back-country roads or scenic highways I, like most truck drivers, stay off of them. So now I was getting a chance to see some of the more quaint bucolic areas that I missed while driving. "Life is a highway/I want to drive it all night long. . . " kept rattling around in my mind as we drove through Anna Maria Island, Holmes Beach, Bradenton Beach, Longboat Key and into Sarasota.

As we came into Sarasota, the song switched to, "Money, is divine. . ." by Pink Floyd. The mansions and varying architectural styles, the millions of dollars in cost and the beauty of the landscape was boggling. Now don't get me wrong. Not only have I been in 48 of the US states, I have been in 7 countries in Europe and Asia, and of course, Canada. I even lived for over a year in Germany. So I'm not some country bumpkin. But I sure felt like one.

We came to Florida because we wanted at least one winter where the weather was mostly warm and sunny and we could wear shorts and sandals. And for the most part, we got it. We drove through the trendy shops of St. Armands Circle and continued on our scenic route. The air was warm, the sky a baby blue, and we felt like we were on vacation.

Nearing the marina, we rounded a curve and there, in a park-like strip of lawn, standing at least 5 stories high, was a statue of the sailor kissing the nurse that immortalized magazine covers and denoted the joy people felt when World War II had ended. Right about that time the tune in my head switched to Glenn Miller's "In the mood, " because the atmosphere suddenly had a 1940s feel.

We parked and explored a little and then went back to St. Armands Circle. It was decorated nicely for Christmas. We enjoyed ourselves, walking through the shops, eating pizza at a sidewalk table and generally feeling like we were on vacation. That's the one aspect of being traveling health care workers that we wanted to feel - like we were on vacation.

Everything was fine until we, or I should say, Carol, took that one step - and then things went downhill after that. It was a $3000 misstep that I will tell you about next entry. I will also give some tips to travelers to help make their traveling easier. No need to reinvent the wheel if somebody has already made one.