Chapter Eighteen May 17, 2001 Thursday Pensacola, Florida to HOME! What a dreadful day! We started in Pensacola and simply drove the eight hours to get home. We made a couple of simple stops, driving once around Pensacola, stopping briefly in Tallahassee, and also near Lake City to make arrangements for a future week-end trip. We arrived home late and tired and with much stress when Hertz was disagreeable about our returning the car two days late. What a dreadful day! After bagels and coffee, we headed over the intercoastal bridge and along the beautiful Gulf coastline. We first drove out to the beautiful Pensacola Beach area. We stopped for a half hour and let our toes wriggle in the sands of Santa Rosa island. The white sand and turquoise and emerald water are simply the most beautiful we have ever seen. We stopped here in 1995 when first arriving in Florida. Now it was time to head back to the car and to drive home.       After an hour of ensuring everybody was wet, salty and sandy, it was time to get in the car and head for home. It was a long day, and a total repetition of the last day of our trip from 1995, but we made it home just before midnight. After twenty one days of driving, we were tired and cranky but (thanks to Dave's frequent flyer points) for once not broke. We developed the twenty five rolls of films and started posting these pages. It may not have been as exciting and educational as Paris and Amsterdam, but we still learned plenty, had a lot of fun, and enjoyed our time together as a family. We hope you enjoyed our story. If you'd like more information about the places we visited, drop us an e-mail with your questions or to send your comments or suggestions. Please visit the other travel pages on our site. Original Web Upload May 2001 Last Update: September 30, 2001