Home James!

Kissimmee FL to  Summerville SC 400 miles

Day 54


Beautiful weather and an easy ride, a great end to this trip. 

We waited until after Orlando's rush hour to leave the Tropical PalmsRV park.  It's on the far side of Orlando, which means traveling right through the city.  The ride through was not bad at all. 

Walking Brandy before leaving the Tropical Palms RV Resort

Great place and close to Disney...our third time here.

Someone dressed the cypress knees as bride and groom at the park

We took I4 to I95, then drove to Daytona Beach to pick A1A, the scenic ocean route that travels up Florida's east coast along the barrier islands...for the most part.  It's a gorgeous drive, and we like to ride along at least part of it whenever time allows.

 Today we stopped at Ormond Beach along the way at one of the many beach accesses.  We turned the generator on for the A/C for the dogs, grabbed our beach stuff and went down the stairs to the beach.  The beach, which stretches for miles, was ours for as far as we could see, except for one lone fisherman.  We were amused by watching a crab venture out of his hole in the sand, and then run back into it whenever he detected any motion nearby.  We walked a little, noting how immaculate this beach was...no broken glass, no cigarette butts, no plastic washed up.  Apparently, the current does not wash junk up on this stretch of beach like some others we've visited.  Couldn't stay longer than an hour, still had a long ride, over four hours ahead.  Climbed in the RV, realized that the beach is nice, but air conditioning is even nicer, made lunch, and ate looking out over the Atlantic Ocean.  Ah...

We could even keep an eye on the RV

Beach all to ourselves, nice!

Determined to get sand between our toes one more time

Didn't know he took this one of me digging to find that crab in the hole

Back to the Interstate and Florida and Georgia's beautiful roads.  Their I95 is so much nicer than South Carolina's section.  We always have mixed feelings crossing into our home state, we're glad to be nearing home, but embarrassed by the terrible condition of our most important interstate.  It narrows to two lanes each direction and is in desperate need of resurfacing.  Well...at least it keeps people from falling asleep, with all the bumping around.  We've been watching Georgia's remaking of their stretch since before we moved to Georgia for a two year stretch in 1991.  It is almost compete now.  They have the foresight to allow for extra lanes and extra wide bridges to accept more lanes in the future.  South Carolina could learn a great deal from Georgia and Florida.  Many  of our cities are still separated by TWO lane roads (like back in the 50's) with the exception of  Charleston to Myrtle Beach on US17. 

Gigantic tires just barely cleared the overpasses north of Jacksonville

We arrived home a little after six this evening.  The house and yard looked better than they ever have.  Darn...looked so good we feel bad about selling it!    We called the kids and we all went out for Italian...ended up with pizza because while we were gone, the place decided to only serve pasta dishes on the weekends and pizza and calzones/Stromboli the rest of the time.  What's up with that?  Bad move...and what's cheaper and less labor intensive than pasta?  Whatever, it was very good.  Coming to the end of our calorie blowout...

Our for pizza with daughter, daughter in law and granddaughter...sure missed them

Tomorrow we meet with the realtor to sign papers on the house....I don't think the buyer had a long list of things they want us to do, if he does that will be a problem...and we'll stay here.  Gosh, we got it the way we wanted it, well, the kitchen is still small...

This was a great trip in spite of the crazy weather situation.  We experienced many new places, and that's getting harder to do every trip.  There were no breakdowns, no major problems with where we stayed, we didn't witness any horrific accidents and except for early on we didn't have many moments when we wanted to rip each other's heads off!

I'd like to thank everyone who traveled along with us again our latest journey.  There were nights that I didn't feel like writing, but knowing others were following, I didn't want to disappoint anyone.  I'd always be glad the next day that I did write, because memories fade quickly, especially traveling.  Jim has only read it once or twice, he keeps saying that he can't wait to read it to 'see where he's been'! 

We've been a all round this great country of ours, but you know what?

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

Until next year...IF we go 'On the Road Again' ....thank you and goodbye for now.

Every Person Comes Out Tired

Happy Birthday to our son, Jonathan!

Kissimmee Florida

Day 53

You will know exactly what the title refers to if you have ever been to EPCOT in Disney World.   

Before we entered the park we ate breakfast at a restaurant, our first of the entire trip.  If we ate like this every day we'd be much fatter...and probably in line for heart bypass surgery!

Check out the cloud with the hole in the middle over my head

So many topiaries, this one all made of bromeliads in the China section

The crowds were light at EPCOT when we entered about 10:30.  This time of year that is to be expected, it's nice.  It was the warmest weather that we've felt this year, and we were wishing for a few more clouds overhead.  It's been so long since we've been in EPCOT that we'd forgotten what most of the rides were all about.  I kept asking Jim if we'd ever been on this one or that one, or if it was a new ride.  I thought every ride in EPCOT was pretty tame, I was wrong.

Never in my life have I ever experienced any type of motion sickness, or been queasy on any amusement park ride...never.  Until today.  In all fairness, we were warned, over and over and over before boarding this ride.  But you know how these places are, they tend to over-do the warnings, so we really don't pay much attention.

 We should have known better when we stepped up to the ride and were asked, "Spinning or no spinning?"  Hah, I've been on plenty of spinning rides, no problem.  We should have know better when we were handed an orange pass to board that had *Warning* printed in huge letters on it.  We should have known better... between the two of us we have all the physical limitations printed on the card, heart, blood pressure, back problems.  We should have know better when at every stage of pre-boarding we were offered the option to leave the line.  We should have know better when the location of the 'barf bags' on the control panel in front of us was pointed out.  We SHOULD have know better.

I kept asking Jim if this ride was real or virtual, he thought it was virtual.  Actually, it was both.  And I think that was  the problem, the brain can't quite adjust.  Thankfully, each person has a little 'job' to do and buttons to push and I think that keeps people focused, which is a good thing.  I knew within seconds of 'blast-off' that I shouldn't have gotten on this one, and certainly shouldn't have eaten two fried eggs, bacon and buttered toast!  Almost immediately I felt queasy, which to me, is so unusual.  When you blast off, you feel the G-forces on your body.  I was too busy taking deep breaths to think how this was possible...especially since we were obviously still very much on earth and not soaring over Cape Canaveral.

Thankfully the ride did not last too long.  As soon as we exited  and I caught a glimpse of the mechanism I brilliantly figured how the 'ride' worked and why I felt nauseous - centrifugal force!  Basically we were in a centrifuge.  By the way, 'centrifugal' is indeed the proper word, there is no such thing as 'centrifical' force...the things you learn on Wikipedia!  Oooooh, better stop talking about this, I'm feeling queasy just re-living it.  When we got off, I turned around and took a picture of the ride.  Jim asked why and I told him so I would remember which one it was and NEVER go on it again!

Be afraid, be very afraid...

It took me another hour to settle my stomach .  We stayed a the park until late afternoon.  I was beat.  Between the heat (over 90degrees today) and the walking, walking, walking, I needed to get back to to the RV and put my feet up for a while, my knee was starting to hurt too. Guess I'm not as young as I used to be...no wait, I felt just as bad after a day in any of the parks when I was YOUNG too!

Oh, so much nicer  in the evening

After we recharged our  batteries, we returned to the park in the evening, when it was much more comfortable temperature wise to see the fireworks and light show.  Good show...It's been a long time since we've been to a fireworks display. 

My kids won't believe this but...Your father missed AMERICAN IDOL tonight! 

Tomorrow,  we leave for home.  We are so ready.

A Road Less Traveled

Navarre FL  to  Kissimmee  FL  470 miles

Day 52

Of course, there wasn't a cloud in the sky looking across the sound to Santa Rose Island this morning.  I only got a few minutes to enjoy it and then it was in the RV and hitting the road.  We stayed on I10 until a little beyond Tallahassee where we picked up the Apalachee Pkwy, toward Perry.  Love this highway, US27/98/19 and a few other routes all run together down around the big bend area and the upper west coast of the state.  Very little traffic, very little anything, but oh so green.  We love the huge oak trees draped in moss, the small farms, tiny towns and even the 'old Florida' shacks along the way. 

Later we joined I75 for a few miles and finally the Florida Tpk down to Kissimmee.  Gets expensive with all these axles, but the reduced traffic is worth it.  Somehow the black clouds draped over the area was moving AHEAD of us and shortly after we arrived the sun was out and all was right with the world.

We are staying at the Tropical Palms RV Resort near Celebration and the Parks.  We've been here a couple of times before, latest in January of this year.  Not many tourists this time of year, and the snowbirds have all migrated north for the summer.   It's a good place, near everything, reasonable...WIFI and cable.

Oh, and get this...    We put the house on the market when we left.  They have shown it about 30 times.  Last week we decided that we didn't want to keep it listed and thought we'd just try to expand the kitchen and live there forever.  It's a good house, only 3 yrs old, just a slightly further out than we liked and the kitchen was a little small for me.  So this morning Jim called the agent and told her to take it off the listings and we would be home Wednesday.  She returned his call this evening...we had a buyer.  Doesn't it figure?  Now we are trying to decide if we did the right thing....    Gotta be out in a couple of weeks, YIKES!

Tomorrow we will visit Disney, most probably Epcot.  It's been a long time since we've been to that one.

Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head

Navarre Florida

Day 51

Well, today was about as lousy as it can get. 

Woke up to grey skies...that was the BEST the weather had to offer.  Soon it began to storm, serious rain.  The nasty stuff was slightly to the west of us, in areas we drove on the beach and a little north of there where we had lunch.  Ferocious lightning, and six inches of rain there, we had little lightning but at least two inches of rain...it rained hard ALL day long.

Why do dogs think shoes make great pillows?

Nothing is worse than being at the beach and watching it pour.  Stayed holed up in the RV all day. We got a little 'cabin feverish', thankfully this place has good cable  It's also a good thing that we have TWO TV's in the RV...could have gotten ugly if not.  I watched a couple of hours of  'Hoarders' and Jim had his NASCAR.   It was raining so hard that we didn't even want to venture out to a mall or movie theater, which are all over 15 miles away.  So the laundry  got done, a dog got a bath and the RV got a good cleaning.  Not every day is a holiday.

Just before sunset the rain stopped, but still heavy clouds

Our timing certainly has been off on this trip.  Apparently, the weather had been quite nice here...until we showed up.  We were hoping for at least ONE good beach day before we go home, it was not to be. Tomorrow may be showery too.  We are heading east, hoping to make the Orlando area, but I just looked at a forecast and the local weather map had Florida covered in raindrops.  Why am I NOT surprised?

Ya know....we might be home sooner than we thought.

What a Slap in the Face

Biloxi Ms  to  Navarre Fl   180 miles (via US98/US90 and I10)

Day 50

Warm and muggy this morning, while we walked.  About a half mile from the RV on a wooded road, the biting horseflies found us.  We did an about face, but every so often we seemed to gather a dozen or so around us.  One bit my neck and a few minutes later I saw one on Jim's cheek.  I reacted immediately with a SLAP!  It was a knee- jerk reaction, I didn't have time to gauge how hard I was swinging at his face.  As soon as my hand landed I knew it had put way more force into it than I needed to kill a little horsefly.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!  It made him bite his tongue....you should have seen the LOOK I got!  I wonder if it was some sort of sub-conscious thing?  Hmmmmm....we may never know.  Been a looooong trip.

Soon thereafter we left Parker's Landing RV Park, got on a detour road....in the bowels of D'Iberville, encountered construction with perhaps the world's dumbest flagman...I mean, how HARD is it to turn the little sign from slow to stop?  He had two cars facing each other on the ONE lane road.   But eventually we found I10 and headed toward Mobile. 

On the eastern shore of Mobile Bay is the longest causeway...well, the Key West one is longer, but this one ranks up there.  We turned off of I10 to US98, a scenic road that we've taken many times.  A little bit of everything on it, farms, small towns, pecan groves...until we picked up US59 through Foley Alabama.  Love this town, if we didn't have all the family back in Charleston, this would be high on our list of 'nice places to retire'.  We drove down to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, discovering that today was their big music festival.  The beach road was shut down in town, but we managed to get around it and back on the beach road heading to Perdido and Pensacola.  Stayed on US90 from Pensacola to Navarre where we are for the next two nights. 

Almost invisible here, an orange oil containment boom, the first we've seen...in Pensacola harbor

No matter how we tried to pronounce this guy's name....it came out sounding dirty!

Ah....finally, the white sand beaches of the Florida panhandle...and warm weather!  Today was a beautiful day, but we spent it traveling.  We were eager to see the local forecast as soon as the cable was hooked up.  Well, it's not what we'd hoped for.  They said rain and thundershowers 'until after Monday, when it clears out of here'.  Guess who else will be clearing out of here on Monday?  We can't seem to win.  I need an emoticon of the little guy slamming his head against the wall here...

Oh...there go the big guns.  We are near Elgin AFB and they shoot some REALLY BIG GUNS off every night.  At least we know what they are. 

The Big Guns didn't bother Brandy!

We are planning to go to Orlando Tuesday.  Tell everyone you know there that bad weather is about to move in!

On The Bayou

Clinton Ms  to  Biloxi Ms  170 miles

Day 49

The power finally came on around midnight last night.  I'd gone to bed and was almost asleep when it kicked back on, good thing, because the electric company trucks are loud and it was getting too warm in here. 

Now that it's almost time for this trip to end, the weather is the nicest that we've had.  We walked for a bit, probably a little less than two miles this morning.  Really need those longer walks...I'm feeling all the extra calories!  Buttoned everything up and left the Springridge RV Park after 10:00 am.  this place is okay for overnight.  It's a paved park with a many permanent residents.  But there's not much else around...we picked it because it had cable and WIFI and with the power failure couldn't use either. 

Leaving Springridge Park, Clinton Ms.

Highway 49 is the shortest route to the gulf and we gladly took it, we've had enough interstate traveling for now.  We were going through a small town about a half hour later when Jim pointed out an old Bronco on a trailer.  We talked about how must restoration it was going to take, and how a nicely restored one could bring quite a sum of money.  Suddenly, a few seconds after he passed us, we heard a loud noise and saw a shower of sparks.  The man's trailer hitch had let go and somehow he brought it under control before the trailer flipped the his pick up truck.  Jim has always been fussy about any kind of hitch, always getting the safest one possible...now I see why. 

A few hours we were in Biloxi at a different place, no trains!   We are on the Tchoutacabouffa River...say THAT five times fast.  Heck, just say it, I can't!  Jim wanted a late lunch, so we went back to the 'Drive ins, Diners and Dives' place, The Shed in Ocean Springs for beef brisket.    No dinner tonight, this stuff sits for hours. 

Tonight we drove down to the Beau Rivage casino and threw money away even faster than Las Vegas...at least I got to play for a little while in Vegas, this one gives nothing back.   Nice hotel...no Vegas though.  On our way out we saw an ice cream shop.  As we walked closer we noticed that it was GELATO.  But not prices at $17/ cup like Caesars.  More like $3.99...so Jim finally got his gelato. 

Domo Arigato 'Mr. Gelato'

By the way, there is NO oil on the beaches here, they are still pristine...but for how long?

This day went way, way better than yesterday.

Tomorrow:  East.  That much I know.  Jim says 'he'll let me know' when he decides.  Heck, I'm just along for the ride.

Well, it WAS the13th

Little Rock Arkansas to Clinton Mississippi 355 miles


Day  whatever.....uh, 48?


The day started off badly, I suggested that we stay put, pull the covers over our heads and wait until tomorrow and start the day again.

Jim was upset that the KOA put us in a pull-through site (meaning that you can make the swing without having to back up to get out) that wouldn't allow us to actually pull through...even with the Jeep unhooked. We intentionaly didn't unhook the Jeep last night to make leaving one step easier this morning. So he unhooked the Jeep, which would have to be re-hooked a few minutes later when we pulled out.


It was already warm and muggy so the extra work wasn't putting him in a good mood (psst - that 'good' mood never showed up at all today) then he came in and kicked the dogs water bowl over. A few minutes later he asked me to hit the button to pull the living room slider and too late we realized that one of the kitchen drawers wasn't closed completely and it crushed the moulding on the slider. A minute later I kicked the dogs dry food all over the place. We almost forgot to put the TV antenna down (the cable didn't work worth a darn at this place) and finally, even with the Jeep unhooked he still couldn't make the swing out of the 'pull through'. And it wasn't even 9:00 yet!

Ouchie

Thankfully, the actual traveling went well today. It's hot and muggy, but that's okay, we like it better than cold. We made it on to I40 east and stayed on it until I55 near Memphis. Coming from Arkansas, there seems to be NO good way over the Mississippi

River. I cringe at the thought of the I40 bridge through Memphis, its old and so congested. Today was even worse on I55, and old metal bridge and twists, turns and narrow bumpy lanes. Not a pleasant few miles.

Back over the big, big river

Finally, the traffic thinned out a little past Elvis Presley Blvd and we started thinking about lunch. So tired of sandwiches, so we pulled into a plaza and had a Back Yard Burger. I think they had to go out to kill the cow...we were the only ones at the counter, slow.

Then back out to I55 south. This may just be the most boring stretch of north/south interstate east of the Mississippi. It's green though, so very green this time of year. One problem with that is that much of the green is KUDZU! Good grief, it's so bad in parts of this state. In the distance it resembles a giant green blanket covering everything. Did you know that years ago Burpee sold it in their catalogs as a 'erosion control plant'? I must admit it does stop erosion, at the same time killing everything it covers!



There are extremely few RV places in this part of central Mississippi. We realized that from last year when we tried to stay around Jackson. I called ahead and booked at the best place I could find, which takes us about 10 miles out of our way, and later realized that it was the place we ended up at last year. It's not bad, tight spaces on asphalt, but a nice place with great WIFI and cable. Many permanent residents, but quiet, feels safe and convenient to everything.

We ate mustgos (leftovers) and took a half hour ride up to Yazoo City. This is the town that the horrific tornado touched down in on April 24, this year. Earlier on I55 we drove past where the same tornado had crossed the interstate and were astonished at the width of the swathe it cut through a dense forest. Seeing Yazoo City was jaw dropping. This tornado was such an annomily for this part of the country. It was a mile and a half wide and traveled for 80 miles! The path we saw seemed to travel down a country road and took down just about every tree, huge oaks twisted and splintered, some uprooted like they were just pulled out of the ground as easily as a weed plucked out of a garden. I know

how loud a single large limb is when it snaps, but can't begin to imagine what the sound of hundreds of enormous, old growth trees would be like being splintered!

One of many destroyed homes in Yazoo City

It was just starting to get dark by the time we returned to our RV park. Jim started to watch Dances With Wolves and I had just gotten on line with the laptop to read a little and start the blog post, when....poof, the RV park had a power failure. That was an hour ago, and I am watching my battery drain.


And, unbelievably, a minute ago I thought I smelled 'something'. The dogs have NOT had one, even ONE little 'accident' this whole time on the trip. I started looking around, Molly was fast asleep, Brandy was under the table looking up at me and Rookie, was under the table and would NOT look at me. Can you guess who was guilty? But where WAS 'it'? Let's face it, this is a 30 foot box and the door to the bedroom was closed...I screamed when I found 'it'...THE STUPID DOG SHIT ON THE COUCH!The good news is that 'it was firm'.


Well, I guess it was fitting....the day started out kind of shitty and ended up really shitty!

Power still out... no A/C, no fans...

Tomorrow: South, and a better day!