After Baseball Season one fall,  Don, Ann, and Todd and his wife jumped in a van,  and Steve and his wife Deb, packed their little car,  and off they went to drive Todd from AK back to Bible College in Indianapolis.    Steve and his dad had a running joke about gas usage, AS IF the van would be as easy on gas as Steve's little car.    But, Don had two gas tanks,  so in the mornings when everyone would go fill up, Don would fill whichever tank needed the least gas.    Steve, not to be beaten, started getting up at 2 in the morning and sneaking to the gas station and filling his car half full....   at fill-up he needed very little gas.  Don figured out he was doing something extraordinary, so Don started getting up an hour earlier in the morning and filling the van mostly full.    This worked fine until one morning Steve overslept and they met each other at the gas station!  Always a competition!   

They drove from Fairbanks to Indianapolis, deposited Todd and his wife at Bible College,  then decided to swing through the southern states since that was one area not well traveled.  Ann had been to Miami, as she sold real estate  foreclosures for a bank there,  but had never been to the Florida Panhandle.  Unfortunately they passed through during the night.   She has a video  "My Trip to Florida"... showing nothing but black and an occasional oncoming car light.   

Speaking of competitive.....

Everything is a competition.   They go into an antique store and everyone rushes to be the first to find a piece of good pottery.   The boys and Don driving in two cars, always have to be "first guy"  to get there and will go to amazing lengths to beat the other person.   Now the grandkids are in on it.  Don and young Grandson have a huge competition to see who can memorize the most Snapple Factoids, out of the lids of Snapple Drink bottles.  They test each other in great competitions.

THE SNAPPLE DOWN

From the beginning, "who is the fastest typist" was a big competition, both type over 100 wpm.  Ann preferred an electric typewriter and Don preferred his old Underwood.  It was a draw as to who was fastest, but Don played dirty.   If he knew he was losing he would type like crazy and then throw that loud carriage return often, as though he was way ahead, and it always completely destroyed the other typist!   The competition usually ended in more laughter (and a few paper wads thrown across the room)  than typing.