Our Travel Blog

Better late than never.

We made it back home in about 33 hours. We got up at 7:30 and had the trailer squared away and parked in the storage site by 10:00. Next stop was the “cheap” gas station a couple of exits up the I-95 and we were on our way. The weather was cool but dry, and we headed north until 2:00 when we stopped for lunch. The rattle we had suffered from on previous trips was finally cured when I put the foam strip down the edge of the windshield. Now I have to find the cause of the wind noise!

We continued north, now on the I81 until 8:45, by which time we were in Virginia having gone through Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina for about 600 miles. Time to stop for the night. It was -6C outside!

Next morning we were on the road again by 8:15 and after going through Virginia,  West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York States we reached the Canadian border. We breezed through customs (big sigh of relief!) and got home about 7:00 after a total of 1206 miles. We only hit snow once and that was in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and even then it didn’t stick to the road.

Back home we have had temperatures above zero and most of the snow has melted, there was a good 36″ of snow in the front garden when we first arrived. We have settled back into the home routine easier this year than last, and we spent Easter with friends up at their cottage.

That’s all for this year. We start again around January 27th next year with trips back to Georgia and Alabama and then hopefully the Alaska cruise in the summer.

Yet another warm wake up, but overcast skies today. Good news is that the temperatures are going to drop down to the 30’s tonight with highs for the next few days only going to to the mid 50’s. Makes us feel a bit better about leaving, Although the Ottawa weather doesn’t look to welcoming!

Today was cleanup and packing day, I spent some time flushing out all the tanks and taking down the array of antennas that have grown up around the rig as well as removing our new supporting tripod and attaching the ladder to the outside of the trailer.

Next job was to work out how (if) everything was going to fit in the truck. Remember when we, and I do mean WE bought all this stuff we fully intended to take the trailer back with us. Luckily the boxes that my mill and lathe came in fit nicely behind the truck seats. The boxes had a fair amount of empty space in them so a lot of fabric finished up in them as well. The motors for the lathe and mill fitted between the boxes on the floor, and a couple of smaller boxes sat on top of them. All this made for a nice flat platform to put the two suitcases on. This in turn made a nice flat platform to put Lyn’s rather large roll (54″ long by 24″ across) of quilt batting on. Winter coats and boots are stuffed into reachable places jut in case we need them quickly. All that needs to go in the cab are the two computer bags,munchies and Lyn’s knitting for the trip back.

We also have two large totes about 20″ x 20″ x 24″ that will go in the bed of the truck, and we (hopefully) can put them into the cab when we stop overnight.

Probably one more entry to come

Yet another wonderful morning, clear blue skies and warm. Last night was a little different though, very heavy rain, hail and thunder. We got up to the mid 70’s again today, obviously the weather gods know we are about to leave.

The day started off with a bit of a shock, TD Visa phoned me with a couple of questions about transaction on my credit card. Turns out some low life had topped up his/her Starbucks card to the tune of $200, bought a new Fido cell phone for $578 and stayed at a hotel! Luckily the Credit Card company system caught the transactions and somehow determined they were all fraudulent and stopped them; it won’t cost me a thing. The credit card is now in many pieces and a new one is on it’s way.

Once that was sorted we headed out to a road we had seen on our travels called East Fancy Bluffs Road thinking it would lead to some bluffs. It didn’t. We did find many bushes in blossom though.

Once back at the trailer we decided to sort out next years camping. As we are still planning the Alaska trip we were originally planning on only six weeks down south in the winter. That has now increased to 8 weeks! We found out that we can book into our original site in Foley for the month of March, that was the good news, the bad news is that Lyn has to spend January at home. We have booked in here for February and then move across to Foley Alabama. We can then store the trailer there and hopefully get booked in the following year on the start of a trip to the west coast.

After lunch Lyn headed off to the craft group and I finished off cleaning out the barbecue. Next up was wax and polish the rest of the truck; it looks pretty good when all the chrome shines!

Finally, I started sorting out all of my stuff that has to go back with us, we may need buy a bigger truck!

Tomorrow will be clean and pack day so that we can get going early on Thursday. There may or may not be a blog tomorrow, but I will do one more to finish the trip in the next few days.

Yet another warm day in the sunny south, up to the mid 70’s. We are expecting some storms tonight, which appear to be at the tail end of the winter storm up north. Enjoy!

I didn’t get around to writing a proper entry last Monday due to the dreaded cough / cold, so here it is now.

We headed south to the town of Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island in Florida. As it turned out we spent most of the day driving in contravention of  Florida State law, as we were not in possession of an International Driving Licence. Evidently Florida recently introduced the law to ensure that all driving documents would be available in English so the cops could read them. The law has since been put in abeyance as i) nobody knew about it and ii) it is in apparent breach of the Geneva Convention regarding free traffic movement!

Fernandina Beach is an oldy worldy town, and reminded me of many towns in New Zealand. The downtown core was alive with individual stores with no sign of the big conglomerates.

Fenandina Beach Main Street

Fenandina Beach Post Office

We wandered around the town, and along to the water front where we saw some pelicans waiting to catch lunch

Pelicans On Dock

Pelican On Dock

It was now our turn to have lunch, so being near the shore it was time to find a seafood restaurant. Yet another great lunch of shrimp for me and this time lobster for Lyn. The weather was nice enough that we could sit outside, which was a bonus.

After lunch it was off to find the beach to walk off the recently added calories. Again the beach was miles of fine white sand, and almost deserted.

Fenandina Beach umm Beach

Another clear bright sunny day. Again in the upper 70’s by afternoon.

After breakfast it was time to tackle one final part of the trailer cleanup. I looked up at the trailer the other day and one part was still dirty, this was an area above one of the slide-outs that I could not reach to wax and polish, so this morning we put the slide-out in so that I could complete the job.

The truck also got a washing to day, it may even get some waxing before we leave; maybe the extra shine will improve the fuel economy on the way home.

After lunch we headed over to St Simon’s Island to spend some time on the beach. While we were there Lyn wanted to find out where a particular restaurant was as we want to go there for a meal before we leave. Well, we didn’t find the restaurant  but we did happen across a larger outdoor arts and crafts fair, coincidence … I think not. On leaving the fair we did actually find the restaurant, so we’ll try that tomorrow night.

The temperature dropped about 6 degrees going from the camp site to the beach.

We finally made it to the beach, which was crowded compared to our other visits. In particular there was plenty of Frisbee activity going on among students. One game looked suspiciously like ultimate Frisbee with a twist. A plastic cup of beer was carried by all players, not only was possession of the Frisbee to be kept, beer was not to be spilled in the process.

Feeling a lot better today, and the weather continues to improve…. a sure sign we will be leaving soon.

Wake up temperature was around 62°F, climbing to 81°F after lunch.

Lyn spent some of the day working on her last sewing project for the season while I had the less pleasant job of cleaning out the septic system. I was going to do it yesterday, but really wasn’t feeling up to it, but it really had to be done today before the system had an “accident”.

The rest of the morning I spent outside fixing a noisy trim on the front windshield of the truck. Hopefully we can now travel home in peace.

After lunch we headed out for a walk, the last couple of days have been very short walks of a couple of hundred metres or so, but today I was back up for around 1/2 a mile.

We’re up to around 7 Ontario rigs here now, in fact we have 3 in a row where we are located.

Today was the first time we had managed an evening meal outside on the picnic bench this trip… things are definitely improving.

Another great day; warm, clear blue skies and temperatures into the mid 70’s. The good weather may have finally come to stay.

The cough and cold have pretty well gone, but the energy has not yet fully returned.

After lunch we headed out to Wal-Mart in Brunswick to get some stuff we needed to close the trailer down. We also needed to get a couple of large totes to carry stuff back as we are now leaving the trailer down here.

Back at the trailer we sat outside for while enjoying the heat and calm of the day.

It’s getting colder again, down to the low 30’s overnight but at least we still have clear blue skies and sunshine.

I felt a lot better this morning and after breakfast we headed out for our Thursday morning shopping, which this week was a lot less than usual as we are heading out next Thursday.

The good feeling rapidly disappeared after we finished shopping, all the energy I had earlier had disappeared. Back at the trailer it was time to collapse again.

We had a couple of clowns staying next door….. literally. It was a husband / wifeteam who fully dressed the part, and had a car to match!

Clown Car

Also the obligatory shot of our trailer on site

Site 708

A little cooler last night with the furnace coming on just before we got up. It was a nice sunny day with temperatures up in the mid 60’s.

The cough / cold has just about run its course. I have known worse, but being a male of the species I don’t do illness well, just ask Lyn. Actually she probably enjoys the way I deal with it, I just stay in bed and she gets to have a nice peaceful day.

Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll be back to my normal annoying self!