I drove 2 1/2 hours further south to Lake Mary, Florida. After lunch at our Marriott with five business associates, I walked across the parking lot for a sneak peek at our new Residence Inn that is scheduled to open on August 4.

With 119 rooms the building is much taller than most Residence Inns.

Once we get it finished, the lobby is going to be beautiful. The lobby boasts two waterfalls, which will border a large plasma television.

In this photograph, Diane, our director of group sales, is standing in front of the future site of that television.

Next I drove over to Winter Park, where I met with one of the vice presidents of Rollins College. I am glad I had time to visit the alumni house, where Amanda and Sara were gracious hostesses.

Next I paid quick visits to our three hotels over by the University of Central Florida campus. To those of you at the Courtyard by Marriott, thanks for the chocolate chip cookie.

Back into the Mustang for my final drive.

That night I slept in my own bed for the first time in a month. So ended the Great Adventure.

I am going to visit a friend who was in Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity with me at Rollins College. Like me, he grew up living in suburbs. Unlike me, he now lives in the country. Fortunately, he gave me good directions to his house. It’s not exactly a place one tends to locate by using the street address.

This is the road on which he lives.

Although it’s too small to detect in this photograph, on the right edge of the road a turkey buzzard in pecking at the remains of a dead armadillo. Despite the opportunity to become a wildlife photographer, I drove on.

This is the driveway to his house, which sits on five acres.

Here is his house, where he lives with his wife and two dogs, one of which appears at his side in the below photograph.

Their view of their backyard.

They also have five or six chickens. I don’t know whether they consider them to be pets or produce. I think he said they are Rhode Island reds, which sounds to me like the name of a minor league baseball team.

Here we are, relaxing before piling into the truck to drive into town for dinner. We’re the two in the back row.

We discovered that there are few places to dine in Alachua on Sunday night. As a result, I got to visit High Springs, which has an estimated population of 4,000. We enjoyed a fine meal at the Great Outdoors Restaurant.

After returning home we had enjoyable telephone conversations with Al and Beth, who have been our friends since college. They live in St. Louis and returned today from a vacation in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Lenox Square was one of the first malls in the United States when it opened as an open-air mall way back in 1959. Over the years it has become an Atlanta institution and now is recognized as an upscale super-regional shopping mall. It is owned by Simon Property Group.

There are no signs of an economic recession at Lenox Square. Here I did not see the vacant storefronts that I have seen in South Florida and Central Florida.

There were plenty of shoppers on this Friday and they were buying. Even I bought a few gift items at Urban Outfitters.

The woman in the video is our mother, and the reason for my stop in Atlanta.

The twin goals of the day are to rest and to eat.

The eating starts with a trip to IHOP for pancakes. No further explanation necessary.

Next, a visit to a new branch of the DeKalb County Public Library. I read part of Porter Bibb’s biography of Ted Turner, titled It Ain’t As Easy As It Looks. He reportedly told his second wife, “Business comes first. My boat comes second. You come third.” That marriage lasted 24 years.

Next, a trip to Great Harvest Bread Company to purchase two loaves of bread. Great Harvest is the breadquarters for my visit. This bread will be served for the next three days.

For dinner we tried a local restaurant named Eduardo’s Mexican Grill for the first time. It was fabulous. I ordered the enchilada dinner with four different varieties of enchiladas – beef, chicken, cheese and bean. I loved them. The portions were large and the prices were small.

The next state was Indiana. I now can confirm that it takes a good deal longer to travel the length of this state on I-65 than it does to travel its width. With the exception of passing through Indianapolis, all I saw was farmland. It was flat and green.

Then I crossed the Ohio River into Kentucky. Until today, I did not realize that Louisville is such a crossroads. It is the intersection of I-65, I-64 and I-71 and has the traffic to prove it. Kentucky is much more scenic than Indiana. When I reached Bowling Green I discovered it is home to the National Corvette Museum.

Soon after Bowling Green I was into Tennessee. These sections of Kentucky and Tennessee are very pretty, with nice hills and curving roads. It is a fun place to drive a car.

It is less fun if you are driving an eighteen-wheeler truck and trying to control your speed as you head down a steep grade.

Twelve hours after leaving Evanston, I arrive in the Atlanta area. As I step out of the Mustang it is 11 o’clock at night in the Eastern time zone. The temperature is 80 degrees. Yes, I am back in the South.

This would be a different type of trip than my one to Wisconsin. For that one I had two cities I wanted to visit and some specific things I wanted to do.

I believe the best Michigan places to visit are in the northern section of the state. That is too far from Chicago for a day trip. I am willing to settle for a short trip across the border.

If I could find any public beach or park with a view of Lake Michigan from the other side, I would drive home happy. Actually, I probably would be satisfied with even a small lake.

I found exactly what I was looking for when I arrived in New Buffalo. That community in the southwestern tip of the state has a large beach with a lighthouse . . .

sand . . .

cold water . . .

a marina, complete with boats . . .

if fact, more than one marina.

This was almost like being back in Florida. I was even in the Eastern time zone.

After returning to Evanston, I had a surprise visit from two Florida friends.

It was a great last day in the Midwest.

I just had to get accustomed to sleeping a few inches above the floor. Now I understand what people mean when they talk about rolling out of bed in the morning.

When told that I would be sleeping on an air mattress, I had envisioned something like this.

The air mattress was borrowed and I knew that sooner or later it would be reclaimed by its rightful owner, who is a member of the swim team. That time came today. She is going on a trip and needs to get it back.

Although we conversed on the telephone, I never did meet the owner. She sent another member of the swim team to do the repo work.

Having virtually no prior experience with an air mattress, I began an examination of the object in question. Looking underneath it, I discovered it had a cord and plug.

I plugged it into an electrical outlet. Then I found two buttons with labels that said inflate and deflate. Using my command of English language prefixes, I pushed the deflate button.

A sound akin to that of a jet engine erupted. A short time later I turned off the deflater. The air mattress still appeared to be full of air. Upon further review, I determined that is its natural state. It does not go flat.

I rolled it up and took it outside to surrender possession.

I told the repo swimmer that Adam had left his beer pong table for the swim team. We agreed that I would put it on our back patio and he and some others would return to get it on another day.

Tonight I am sleeping on the regular mattress that Hayley left behind when she moved to Washington. I don’t want to know why.

I decided to go with the place that had a recommendation from people I know. That place is known as Mustard’s Last Stand. It is located adjacent to Ryan Field, home of the Northwestern University Wildcats football team and site of the annual commencement ceremony.