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.