Back Home in Palm Harbor

We sure enjoyed our visit with Marcia's Brother Dean and Carol.  We had dinner with them again our last night there and met their son Jamie who had just flown in, along with his daughters who I had met the night before.   (I can't believe does these Redneck Shows because he is far from being a Redneck himself.)  Orlando is not far from where we live, and I hope we can make it over there a few times before we take off again, and perhaps Dean and Carol can come over and visit too...with or without the younger generation. 

Our drive to Palm Harbor went well.  We headed west to I-75, then down to highway 52 where we fueled up, and then made our way over to highway 54, over to the famed highway "19" (when snowbirds are around, highway 19 can be very hellish), and then home.

Now the trip is over....the memories are there...lots of them.  The blog provides lasting images and a written account, and it has given us a way to share our travels with our family, friends, and with lots of others who have stumbled upon it.  Sometime soon, after everything can be digested, I will do a "best of" blog or two.....like "Bubba and Skruffy's best memories", our top sites, our top RV places, perhaps a little about the cost of doing what we did, if I ever get around to sifting through all the receipts (good luck on that one...)

Since I left Pine Bluff on March 31st, we have driven the motor home for 11,400 miles through 23 states, over 9,600 miles with Marcia and Bubba since Skruffy and I started the trip from Arkansas to Florida to pick them up due to her hip replacement.  We (Marcia, myself and my parents) also visited the state of Nevada, which we did not put on our "visited list" only because that list is for where our American Eagle has flown through.  We had a wish list of Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Lassen, Crater Lake, Glacier, Yellowstone, and Mt. Rushmore....and we scratched each one off our list.  We also saw places like the Big Trees in Calaveras, Avenue of Giants, and Redwood National Park.  We visited Mount St. Helens, and the huge devastation which took place 32 years earlier.  While in Yellowstone, we visited the Tetons, and only wished that the smoke from the fires in Oregon and Idaho had not hidden these majestic mountains like they did.  Most of all, we were able to visit with various family members on both of sides....and we loved the time we spent with each and everyone of them.  We also enjoyed the opportunity to visit the many Calvary Chapel related churches, and enjoyed worshiping with those who were there there...and we are very appreciative of the opportunity to keep up, for the most part, with the Calvary Chapel Church in Palm Harbor that we call our "Home Church"....thanks to the Internet and the streaming sermons by Pastor Brett.  We look forward to worshiping there on Sunday.

It took us four hours of being home before we visited our favorite restaurant, Marathon, which has a wonderful new menu....wonderful because the Chicken Feta Burger is now available every day!  It took us another 15 hours before we visited our favorite breakfast restaurant, Nana's....where we both filled our longing for their San Juan Bowl.  And most of all, it was nice to be back home with John and Terra, and we look forward to seeing Marcia's brothers and their families who live nearby.

While in Florida we do plan on a few trips...with one special trip planned to the Keys.  But for now there will be a lot of work getting the motor home ready for next year.....oil change, filters changed, a good bath, wax and re-caulking, shampooing the carpet, cleaning windows and, of course, fixing the broken lift which I broke a few weeks ago in Arkansas.  Of course, we will need to get rid of items that we did not need to take, and bring a few, very few, items we wished we would have had.

So the blog will continue from time to time....but not as much as the 127 blogs over the last 190 days.  Check back, or better yet, sign up for the email notification which you can find near the bottom between the pictures of Bald Eagles with the American Flags.  And we hope to hit the road again next year sometime in March....we have not put together our wish list yet, and we are going to get  U.S. Passport Cards just in case we want to enter Canada.  

For now...I think some of us need to recover from all that traveling.....I sure know two who are happy to be home...and happy to recover the best way they know how.

 

Orlando Area - Visiting with more family

So we got out of Pine Bluff on Sunday after all.  On our way out of Arkansas, I just couldn't help but take a picture of the cotton which was ready to be picked.

I also took a picture of these water features along the way out of Arkansas, and just into Louisiana.  An "Ox Bow Lake" is a U-shaped body of water formed when a wide meander from the main stem of a river is cut off to create a lake.  There are many of them along the Arkansas River, and the RV Park I stayed at in Pine Bluff was along a Ox Bow Lake.  The largest Ox Bow Lake is Lake Chicot, in Lake Village, shown below.

In Louisiana there is the town of Lake Providence, which is also a Ox Bow Lake, but from the highway what you see is the Mississippi River, shown below.

Finally, there is a little town which I have driven through many times along Highway 65 in Louisiana which I just have to mention.  The first time I drove through this town my Children's Librarian, Miss Ann, was with me on our way to New Orleans for an American Library Association Conference in 1993.  She said, "Dave, we just have to stop at this little gas station up ahead...."  Thinking that she needed to use the facilities, I said, "Ok".  But as I got closer.....well, look at this picture below...

Yes, there is a Transylvania Louisiana...and yes, that is a "BAT" up on the water tower.  It is an unincorporated community, and there was a gas station in operation there back in 1993....not sure it is open any more.  But that is the type of humor Miss Ann had...she loved to surprise you....to do the unexpected.  I sure do miss her....

We stayed at the Mississippi Visitor's Center parking lot Sunday night, and then drove to just past Tallahassee Florida Monday, where we stayed at a Rest Area.  The Mississippi Visitor's Center was much quieter, although there were trains that passed nearby now and then, but no trucks....until the dumpster was emptied at 5:00 am.  When we were leaving Monday morning, I saw the sign that said, "No overnight camping...."  Opps! No harm, no ticket, and we were not the only motor home there all night, and they do have a night guard. The Florida Rest Area was ok, a few trucks but they did not run their engines for the most part.  The only problem with the Rest Area was that the lot was too small for the number of trucks and RV parking spaces....many trucks stuck out the end and over the front, making it hard for others to pass by.  Our RV just fit into our slot, right on the line both front and back.  I think this helped keep it quiet through the night in that experienced truck drivers knew not to pull into this particular rest area for a quick facilities stop, as we commonly found at other rest areas.

Tuesday we arrived at the Wakiva Falls KOA just north of Orlando.  Marcia's brother Dean and his wife Carol, along with two granddaughters of theirs, Brantley and Mason, met us for dinner in nearby Sanford where we ate at Hollerbach's Willow Tree Cafe, a good German Restaurant in downtown Sanford.  After a nearly 3 hour visit, we headed back to the KOA.  We hope to have a late dinner Wednesday night with them and the girl's father, Jamie Iracleanos, who has been involved as a producer of the "My Big Redneck ..." TV shows.  Just click this Google Link if you want to see what I am talking about...  Anyway, he flies in around 7 pm, so it all depends upon how the flight goes.

This KOA is new to the KOA family, but it is an older RV park.  The sites are grass....here in rainy Florida, having a grass RV park would seem to be a challenge...but I have seen many of them here in Florida.  It is a HUGE park, the guy who checked me in said it was one of the largest KOA's with over 800 sites.  Below you can see a Google Satellite image of the park.

The good thing is that this is just at the start of the "Snow Birds" descent on Florida.  Snow Birds are people from the cold north who come to Florida (or Texas, or Southern California, etc.) in the Winter months to get away from the snow and cold of places like Chicago, Ontario and other places in Canada, New York, etc.  So the park is very empty, giving those who are here a lot of room.  Below is the sites right in front of us.

 Above is front left, and below is front right.

 Above is to our right, and below is to our left and behind us.

Below is our spot.  I guess the good news is that the Dogs cannot complain about not having grass!  

We leave this park on Thursday.  Still undecided if we head right to Palm Harbor, or spend one more night somewhere and pull into Palm Harbor Friday morning.  It is hard to believe that our first 6 months of travel are nearly done....but there is much of Florida to explore this winter!