First Stop - Florida's High Point "Britton Hill"

It was 3pm on Friday 17th 2006, and the beginning of our first real road trip and the true beginning of our high point adventures. We started in New Jersey...heading down Interstate highway 95, which is the main highway which stretches from Maine at the very northernest point all the way down to the south tip of Florida. From Jersey, we drove through Delaware which is the smallest state in the US. Then onto Maryland, passing the NSA (National Security Agency) compound, other government agencies and various Army barracks. Then though Washington DC, seeing the lighted up Capital Hill building and Washington monument on the way. It was 8pm.

Not long after, we were already in the state of Virginia, passing the reknown Quantico compound which is the FBI headquarters and training centre. It was interesting to see all the signs, many stating "employees only" in case tourists decided to take a turn and check it out. Then it was down into North Carolina, which was a particuarly long stretch. Around 1.30am, we rolled up into the reknown "South of the Border" rest stop, which is a cheesy small town in the middle of nowhere with a Mexican theme with lots of neon signs, giant hot dogs statues and large sambreo hat signs. A little further into town, you see a few packed night clubs (where the people come from to pack those places I am not sure!) and strip clubs. All very interesting given it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. There were too many lights and no appropriate place to stop so we rolled on. Into South Carolina we drove, and around 2am we pulled up at another rest stop and parked alongside more than a dozen other cars resting for the night. In the back of the car, we put down all the seats and rolled out our thick sleeping mats and sleeping bags. It was actually a very good sleep considering!


It wasn't until 8am before we left the next morning, driving down the highway into Georgia, stopping at a Walmart store off the highway to stock up on some food and a dvd bag (the day before the roadtrip, I had purchased a small portable dvd player to keep me entertained for the long trip). The weather was a beautiful sunny 28 degrees centigrade (which was amazing given up in New York there were having an arctic blast with negative temperatures!). I swapped my woolly boots for flip flops and basked in the sun. I didn't want to leave, but we rolled on to sunny Florida where we stopped at a rest top and watched family loads of people get out of cars and vans, wearing shorts and printed shirts. Many were from Ontario, Canada. Given the warm weather, I can understand why they had driven all the way from so far up North!


We made a sharp turn off Interstate 95 at Jacksonville, Florida (the location of last years' superbowl) onto Interstate 10. Interstate 10 is the main highway from Florida in the East to Los Angeles in the West. It was already 3pm on the Saturday and we were still many hours away from our first destination - the highest point in Florida. After hours in Interstate 10, we turned off and headed North forward the State line with Alabama. The high point of Florida is Britton Hill at 345 feet at the place called Lakewood Park, just before the border with Alabama. It was 7pm before we rolled up to the little park on the side of the road. It was dark outside with only the light of the toilet block not far away showing us the way. We walked up to the stone monument which stated that it was was the highest point. Florida is a very flat state with not many hills, but this was ridiculous. Surely this can't be the highest point. We weren't even walking uphill! It was a little creepy to be at this little part on the deserted side of the road in what felt like the middle of nowhere. A few photos and we were on our way again.