This picture is from my 2020 Tracing a T to Tampa Again trip. The picture is of a cemetery in Fredericksburg, VA, that my great-grandparents visited in 1920. The T being traced was the one my great-grandparents drove on a trip that included both Tampa and Fredericksburg, and the reason “again” is in the title is because I’d retraced that trip once before in 2001. Even as late as November, 2020 was certainly not the ideal time to be taking a road trip, but I really wanted to launch my drive on the 100th anniversary of the start of the original. I told myself that, once that had been accomplished, I might postpone the rest of the trip if travel became too awkward. Fortunately, it didn’t, but it was rather weird. Motels were nearly empty, and restaurants were either closed or operating under unusual rules. I ate more carryout on this trip than on any other. The trip was just shy of four weeks long and included many highlights and visits with friends and relatives. Several of those highlights were places, like the pictured cemetery, that I could connect directly to Granny’s 1920 letters.

This is one of the trips that resulted in a book: Tracing a T to Tampa

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full-sized photo and the associated trip journal.