I have written several times of being surprised to learn that my great-grandparents drove a Model T Ford to Florida and back in 1920. That surprise came many years ago and since then I have twice retraced their trip and wrote a book about the retracing. Letters my great-grandmother sent her daughter allowed me to follow their general path. A cousin and I dug into those letters as I prepared for the second retracing and were again surprised when we realized there were letters from a second Florida trip mixed in with them. There was great joy in that surprise along with a little disappointment. Unlike the 1920 letters, those from the second trip in 1923 did not document the entire adventure but trailed off mid-sentence shortly after the travelers reached the vicinity of Sebring, FL.

Of course, half a trip is better than no trip, and I’ve used those letters from 1923 to produce the route I’m now following. Granddad and Granny started their journey on October 29, 1923, and my original plan was to start my retrace exactly one hundred years later. But time constraints on the tail end of the outing have prompted me to set out just a few days early in hopes of making things a little more relaxed. At some point, I will be exactly where they were a century ago. There is no guarantee I’ll be able to sort out just where and when that is, though, but I do intend to try.

This entry lets blog-only subscribers know about the trip and provides a place for comments. The journal is here.