Wednesday Night Riders: TO FLORIDA

We arrived in Port Canaveral, Florida, today and board our cruise ship tomorrow morning. Here's the lowdown on how we arrived here.
We left Waukon about 7 AM on Wednesday morning. The roads were OK until just outside of Oelwein where we ended up on some glare ice. Why the DOT hadn't been there yet is anybody's guess. We did make it OK, just really slow until we were out of Oelwein. The rest of the way was fine. We spent our first night in Jackson, TN (home of Casey Jones), about 650 miles from Waukon.
We left Jackson on Thursday morning headed for Altoona, AL, in pouring rain. Near Altoona is KD Cycle, the largest Gold Wing trike builder in the US, but you'll need a gps to find him. They had a trike there that I saw on their website that seemed to be just what I might be interested in trading for. As it ended up Kevin (the owner) shot me a price that Julie just couldn't refuse, so we are now the proud owners of a 2013 GW Roadsmith conversion trike with only 12,000 miles on it. This one has the independent suspension, the red color, heated grips and seat, navigation and weather, and a music system that lets me play all my downloaded music.
After loading up the "new" trike we headed out for Phenix City, AL (yes, I spelled it correctly) for the night. Since we had a spare day, we decided to do a little tourism in the area on Friday.
Phenix City is actually right across the river from Columbus, GA. When we were in Columbus on a previous trip we visited the Infantry Museum located at Fort Benning. This time we decided to visit the Nation Civil War NAVAL Museum also located in Columbus. We made a great choice! We, probably like most people, had no idea how big a role the Union and Confederate navies played in the Civil War. This museum was well done, so if you are ever near Columbus, GA, I highly recommend both the Infantry and the Civil War Naval Museums.
After leaving Columbus on Friday afternoon, we paid a visit to Andersonville, GA, where there is a historical site depicting the Confederate POW prison located near there. We were able to tour the cemetery where many Union soldiers who died while imprisoned at Andersonville are buried. We wondered why the graves were so close together. After visiting the museum located there, we found out that so many soldiers died at once, that they had to be buried in trenches. The museum there also pays tribute to POW's from all the wars. We were then able to drive around the prison grounds and saw the markings for the stockade that was designed to hold about 3,000 union POW's, but ended up with over 30,000 before the Civil War was over. I have been to several Civil War sites now, but a visit to Andersonville was probably the most humbling of the experiences. Again, the Nation Park Service has done an excellent job with preserving the grounds and telling the story that goes with the prison. If you ever have a chance, you need to visit here!
We left Andersonville and passed through Americus, GA, the hometown of Jimmy Carter. We didn't see him, but we sure saw a lot of peanut fields! We spent Friday night Lake Park, GA, and rolled into Cocoa Beach (Port Canaveral) today (Saturday).

Here' some photos of our journey so far. I will try to do more posting after the cruise.