Our Travel Blog

Another beautiful morning, but MUCH cooler at 6°C. We stayed at an EconoLodge last night, certainly not up there with last years 5* hotel in Korea, but for the price and a 1 night stay it was very good.

After breakfast we hit the road for a short 425 mile drive. We got slowed up a couple of times by roadworks, or speed limits through city areas, but all in all we made good time.

As we went north the temperature dropped a couple of degrees, and snow amount increased.

We began to get a little concerned as we got closer to the boarder as the majority of the cars on the road had Ontario or Quebec plates; this did not bode well for the line up at the boarder crossing.

As it turned out all lanes were open at the crossing, and as luck would have it I was cut off by a Quebec motor home jostling for position and got forced into a lane that I didn’t think existed. In fact this lane led to 3 more lanes with hardly any traffic in them and we were through in under 5 minutes!

We got home by 4PM and set about the task of unpacking. It was odd to be back in the house, we had grown accustomed to the reduced space in the trailer, and now had an extra 1200 sq feet to play with.

Well that’s it for this trip, we enjoyed ourselves, as usual and will be heading back in October. We’re off to the UK in four weeks, and there may be a blog from there.

As usual comments are welcome so that I can see who has been reading, and whether it’s worth continuing.

Woke up to a clear sunny morning! Not too much to do, Lyn cleaned out the inside of the trailer while I cleared up the hydro and water connections outside. Next the satellite dish was disassembled and finally the stabiliser jacks raised. We packed the truck last night with the exception of two large plastic totes which have to go in the truck bed. Once they were in position we were ready to go.

We had 501 miles to our first night stop Lenoir City, Tennessee. The first 25 miles were on town like roads with traffic lights designed to catch you regardless of what speed you travel at. The next 25 miles were 4 lane highway and the rest Interstate. We made good time and arrived 8 hrs 20 minutes later (including a lunch stop). Average speed was 65 mph at 19.8mpg! Not too bad considering we were doing 70mph for parts of the trip. In October when we come back down, hopefully fuel costs will be less than half of what they are now as we will be leaving the truck at home and bringing the car down.

The weather was great (because we are leaving), reaching 29°C in Tennessee. Driving through the rolling hills of central Alabama was very picturesque with green grass and plenty of white, pink and purple blossom on the bushes.

After a nice dinner of ribs, it is now time to hit the sack and do the same thing again tomorrow.

You can tell it is time to leave, the weathers getting consistently better. A little cool overnight but clear and warm during the day.

We started cleaning, clearing and packing after breakfast. It started off with “where did all this stuff come from”, followed by “where is all this stuff going to go”, followed by “that all went into a few bags and a couple of totes”, followed by “that wasn’t too bad was it”?

Lyn as usual managed to get stuff packed into about half the space it would have taken me.

We even had time for a walk later in the afternoon.

This evening we went out to the Shrimp Basket for a nice meal of, what else, Shrimp. The meal was good, and hopefully not too many calories. On the way back we fueled up, so all that is left to do in the morning is breakfast, disconnect the water and hydro and head out.

We get to leave the trailer where it is and someone will tow it off to the storage area and re-position it when we come down in October.

Depending on the state of the internet and my state of mind there may or may not be any blogs on the way home. I will put a quick blog on after we have arrived back home.

Seems it cooled down a bit last night as we awoke to the sound of the furnace. It was a clear day, and the temperature climbed up close to 70. After breakfast I set about sorting out the mass of stuff I have accumulated since we’ve been here; the plan is to catalogue  all the stuff I have here so I can track what is at home and what is at the trailer, that way (in theory) I will know what to bring down without doubling, or trebling, up on stuff already here.

It was also time to plan the trip home and book the hotels. The trip is just about 1600 miles, so we will stop twice, once in Tennessee and once in Pennsylvania. At least without the trailer behind us we can go a little faster.

After lunch we noticed a mobile home coming in with a large trailer behind it, on the trailer was as car AND a boat. The photo isn’t too clear, but I think you can see the trailer.

Below is a picture of our trailer on its site.

Later in the afternoon we took our daily walk around the resort. It is now beginning to empty out. Last week was spring break, so there were a lot of school kids around, this week they have gone and so have a lot of the snowbirds.

More rain and thunderstorms overnight, but it stayed warm. As the day wore on, the clouds cleared and the standing water started to disappear.

Lyn heaved a huge sigh of relief later on in the morning when her missing parcels finally arrived. I too was relieved as it was me that told Lyn to go ahead and buy the stuff as there was plenty of time for it to be delivered!

After lunch we headed off down to the State park to get in some exercise and a final geocaching session. Unfortunately due to the amount of rain we’ve had recently we weren’t able to reach a couple of the caches, but we still managed 4 new ones. We also got in another couple of miles walking, which helps make up for none yesterday.

A record for a 1 day rainfall was set yesterday with over 4″ falling, the old record was 2.75″ back in 1886.

It’s now time to try and work out what stuff needs to stay in the trailer, and what needs to go home.

Woke up and had to double check the time. Yup it was wake up time alright, but it was still dark. It was also wet, very wet with thunder rumbling over head. We had to keep the lights on in the trailer well into the morning before the sky lightened up.

After breakfast we decided that staying in may be a good plan, as it was pretty flooded outside. We had over 3½” of rain in just over 1½ hours. For those up north this equates to over 80cms of snow in 90 minutes! So far today we have had over 4″ of rain (1 metre of snow equivalent) and it is still raining!

Just before lunch we decided to brave the weather and jumped into the truck to drive around and see what conditions were like. The far end of the resort was totally submerged as the fishing pond had overflowed, in most places the grass was  flooded as well. Outside the resort the roads were pretty good; they are obviously used to these downpours, and although the storm drains were very full, the roads were not flooded. Needless to say we won’t be walking (or paddling) today. The forecast is for more rain and thunder tonight and then warm and dry until we leave.

A warm sunny start to the day, around 20°C, which stayed pretty constant through out the day, although the clouds moved in during the morning.

After breakfast we spent some time to track down a parcel that should have arrived for Lyn. It was mailed from Washington State on the 18th and should have arrived yesterday. We managed to get the tracking number for the parcel, which shows it is still at the accepting post office; however the sender checked with the post office and it is no longer there. The conclusion is that the tracking label came off, but hopefully the address label is till on, so there is still some hope.

Yesterday, one of the strong wind gusts broke the latching mechanism that holds the main door open. The mechanism is plastic, like many things on the outside of the trailer, and has been weakened by exposure to the sun. After lunch I headed down to the local parts store and picked a replacement part. Eight screws later and a little caulking and the job was done.

Later in the afternoon we headed off around the resort for our daily walk. We actually managed 4 times around (see yesterdays comment!!) for a total of 2¼ miles. These daily walks are going to be tough to maintain when we first get back home unless there is a very quick thaw.

Time to batten down the hatches now as we have 2 days of rain and thunderstorms heading our way.

Noticeably cooler last night, dropped down to 2.8°C. The day was overcast and cool but at least it was dry.

It seems our bathroom scales are suffering from over use, they now seem incapable of giving consistent readings. Time for new ones, only problem is that they are likely to give a different reading from the old ones, and you can guarantee they will read higher.

This morning we headed out for our last weekly shopping down here, and in the process bought the new scales. When we got back I tried out the new scales, and as feared they showed 2.2lbs more than the old ones. Good news is that the amount of weight lost is still the same, just a bit further to go to reach the goal. Given we don’t actually have a goal, this is not a big issue!

After lunch we headed out for some geocaching and got 8 out of 10. Lyn managed to get her 100th find, which was perfect timing as I had bought her a geocaching medal to mark the event and it arrived in the mail this morning.

We discovered a small US Navy airfield tucked away in the back of beyond. There is a major US Navy training field in Pensacola, but there are too many training flights for one airport, so the Navy have a series of small outfields which are old WW2 training fields spread around the area. We even managed to catch 3 aircraft in the circuit.