And the Journey Begins...

Our journey to Anna Maria Island, FL began at 8:00 pm central time, map quest said the driving time was 11 hours and 39 minutes and over 700 miles. We decided we would tank turns meaning that each of us would drive a tank of gas and then switch. Mark Anthony took the first shift and drove until 1 am EST. I took the next shift taking us all the way to Gainsville, FL where we stopped and had a very interesting encounter at a McDonalds where we picked up an early 5 am breakfast. The kids did ok, they just got frustrated because they couldn't get comfortable in their car seats, especially Emeline who is a tummy sleeper. On the third and last shift Mark Anthony brought us into Tampa where he got pulled over for going 68 in a 55 and he recieved his first ever ticket from the symphathetic cop (insert sarcastic tone here), the ticket is a wopping $191, yes you read that correctly. Our vacation had bearly begun and we were already $191 in the hole.
I couldn't resist getting the camera out and taking a picture of the cop car pulling us over.

This is the interstate sign we could see while we were pulled over.

The ticket incident woke Emeline up from her longest sleeping stent of 4 hours.

Mark Anthony pasting on a smile while waiting for the cop to write the ticket, this was before he knew how much the ticket was.

We pulled into our beach rental on Anna Maria Island about 12 hours after our journey began. We decided that in the future we will limit our travel time to 8 hours until the kids are out of carseats and boosters when they can be a little more comfortable on long car rides. We were all worn out, so we all took a nap after lunch and went to be early Sun. night. I have lots more pictures and stories to come from our beach adventure. Stay tuned....