Slow way home

Weather Very Cool for spring, nights high 30's/low 40's

Time to get out the electric blanket again. 

Day by day we move to the next state.  Wednesday we stopped in Chattanooga Tennessee at Holiday Travel Park.

Trees were flowering and by night the place was full of Ontario, Ohio and Michigan plates.  Everyone is headed north..... Slowly.   Thursday we stopped in Georgetown, Kentucky at Whispering Hills campground.  This place is reminiscent to us.  This is the first place we stayed 3 years ago our first day out.  Wow !!! 3 years.  And we still pinch ourselves thinking we are so lucky to be doing this.
Friday we moved along to Wapakoneta KOA.   There were many Ontario plates again this night.   With only a few hundred miles to home, I guess we are all just slowly going back to the cold country.   So Saturday will be our crossover day, it only took 6 days to get from Florida to Ontario!  

Whoa hold up!

April 15/14 weather taking a severe cold turn!!! Frost warning down to Atlanta!! Snow hit the Great lakes overnight.

We jumped thru Atlanta this morning with no problems however the wind was blustery and made driving miserable.  We stopped for fuel and found that we should keep it a very short day.  We will drive an hour north of Atlanta and call it a day.  Stopped at Cartersville KOA.  Gusts of wind were pushing 39 mph!!!

Scary emails came in from all our northern based friends.  Pictures worth a thousand words!!!  4 inches of snow at home and a record low of. 20 f predicted.   Think we will wait another day.  Lol.   Not sure we want to push snow with our RV!

Georgia has burst into blossoms; the Dogwoods are beautiful.

Sad time ... Time to head north

April 14/14 weather - rain storm coming but warm and humid, followed by a cold front with winds

Trying to decide which route to take to Ontario will be solely based on the weather forecast. Looks like I75 has a better travel forecast right now.   We have 7 days left before our extended health care runs out so we must venture slowly north.  It appears that another extreme cold front is making its way to the Great Lakes so we need to be careful on not getting too far north and hitting frost zones during the night.  An hour is tolerable but we want to avoid 4 to 5 hours of freezing temperatures in a row.   So we will move from St. Augustine, Florida to just south of Atlanta, Georgia the first day.  This sets us up for a good time the following day to take the 285 west bypass about 10ish in the morning. 

Staying at KOA Forsyth, Georgia.  We like the KOA's when we are in transit.  They always have big pull thrus with easy ins and outs.  Bonus: after check in  brought us complementary warm baked chocolate chip cookies!!!

Family Time in St. Augustine

April 7- 14/14 weather very warm beautiful week

Venturing up the Atlantic coast we are camped on Anastasia Island at the St. Augustine Beach KOA. It's not the nicest park but it has a great location for us to see our family. Calea, Kevin and Iyla rented a house for the week with Bruce and Verconica coming in from Scotland.  

On April 13 Calea and Kevin are participating in the IronMan 70.3 in Haines City.  Phew; we get enough exercise just trying to imagine it!

Time flys by when you are visiting everyday and playing tourist too!!!

Stray hound !!!

Every so often you see things that make you laugh... Rvers have a sense of humour with their campers.  

We were having coffee outside this morning as we watched this big old bus leave.  Check out the sign above the windshield!!!

Kennedy Space Center, NASA, Atlantis Space Shuttle, Apollo/Saturn V

Weather  this weekend April 4, 5, 6 - hot hot hot! 

Apollo 13 Space Capsule

Finally the snowbirds in Florida are heading north, and there are some campsites opening up.   We rode the other day with some new bike friends and she said due to the average age of the feathered flyers the nickname should be snowbuzzards not snowbirds.   Ha Ha.   Thought that was kind of funny.  So we found a site for the weekend in Mims at Seasons in the Sun RV Resort which is about a half hour away from the Visitors Complex for Kennedy Space Center.

Rocket Garden

Do you have any interest in space flights to the Moon?  Remember Lost in Space on TV when we were kids? Space Station? Space Shuttle? Hubble Telescope?  Space Capsules?  You can see it all at KSC in Titusville, Florida.

Atlantis Space Shuttle with the Canada Arm

Then this is a day for you.   We came early in the morning and spent all day, walking out at 5:30 and still not able to see it all.   Well worth the time and money if you get a chance. 

Tip:   take the extra tour bus to an up close look at the entire NASA grounds which include the Vehicle Assembly Building, the Vehicle Movers, the Launch Pads, and Headquarters.

Lunar rover

The United States has spent Billions of $'s in exploring Outer Space and they continue to as well.  

Apollo/Saturn V

Seeing the Apollo/Saturn V display and Atlantis Space Shuttle and the enormity of the complex it starts to sink in.   The first launches to the moon in 1969 and all through the 1970's  ....... Those astronauts were a "brave beyond belief" when you stand beside the rockets and space capsules.  They look so archaic.   Then came flying to the moon and returning in the same space ship!!!!  However; even the Space Shuttles have had 2 disasters, the Challenger in 1986 during launch and Discover in 2003 during reentry of earths atmosphere.  So the bravery continues.  Remember when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon?   We were glued to the TV, amazed.  Now it seems that these enormous space ships launch and astronauts stay up in the space station and we kind of pass it by and don't even stop and think about how incredible it is?????    AMAZING

shuttle rockets + fuel tank to send it to space

Triple Crown at Grand Oaks

Weather - gorgeous clear sunny day about mid 70's

March 30/2014  - Triple Crown at Grand Oaks RV & Carriage Museum Resort
Every Sunday there is a brunch buffet, a carriage ride and museum visit special at Grand Oaks.   We have been at this RV park on an off through the winter months.  We stayed 3 days, then went on our way, then came back for 3 weeks, then went on our way and then came back for 1 month.   In all that time we kept saying we must do the Horse Carriage Ride and a visit to the Florida Carriage Museum.   Everyone coming and going told us how excellent it was.   I guess we take Retirement very seriously, we don't move to fast and always think we can get to that tomorrow.   Time does move on!!!    So with only a few days to go before we move on finally we took the Triple Crown.   And yes everyone was so right, it is a wonderful day.   The carriage ride is on a large carriage pulled by the two Clydesdale's - Bud and Weiser.   Beautiful.   

The museum goes on and on.  There is a European section, an American section it is the world’s largest private collections of carriages and equine artifacts.  Every carriage is restored to perfection.  There are many life size horses drawing the carriages.  It will give you that dreamy past feeling.   Easy to imagine now those 1800's times in London, England that you read in A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.  There are several carriages from the era that bring those stories to life.   As well as the pioneers crossing the USA in their wagon trains.  There is a stage coach, a chuck wagon, a pioneer wagon - preserved impeccably.   Such an enjoyable day.

Air Boat Ride

March 30/2014  Weather ~ Beautiful clear day after the storm, 75.

We are boating people but have never taken an Air Boat ride in Florida.  Many rides are in the Everglades which we hear are quite good.  It's a bit too far to get there so we found a one hour trip in Central Florida's Green Swamp down the Withlacoochee River (Crooked River)  near Inverness on Wild Bills Airboat Rides.  The boat held 21 people it was much larger than we thought it would be, but it was fast and the seating was tiered so everyone had a great view.  Oh yes and loud.  You get ear muff noise protectors which you want to wear.  Our captain was born and raised on the banks of the river, he was proud to tell us he was a Cracker.   (just to understand the slang, a Cracker is a descendant from families who have lived in the state for many generations. It is considered a source of pride to be descended from "frontier people who did not just live but flourished in a time before air conditioning, mosquito repellent, and screens")

The ride is excellent.   Scenery is eerie and since it is spring the colors are so intensely green.  Yes we saw a bit of wildlife; an Osprey in her nest, a gator laying in the banks of the river, a rattlesnake slithering across the top of the river and yet another snake called a water bandit also making its way across the water.   Highly recommend you put this exhilarating ride on your bucket list.

Internation Harvester Museum - Stew Paquette's

March 29/14  Weather Hot 83 with Severe Storm warnings all day.   3 inches of rain and blustering wind.

My brother and girlfriend are visiting for the weekend and it happened that today is a nasty day.  However that does not stop us from keeping busy.   We started with lunch, then shopped at the cowboy store Boot Barn, then loaded up at the Russell Stove Candy Factory, while passing by a sign for a IH Farmall Tractor Museum ,,,,,we thought why not?  It is one of those Roadside America Offbeat Tourist Attractions.

Since my brother and I grew up on our family farm we remembered some of the tractors our Dad had.  As well my brother worked a few years at the International Harvester plant in Chatham.    So we went exploring and were impressed with the amount of fully restored red Farmall tractors in the collection and International Harvester trucks and farm equipment.   Who would have thought we would have been doing this on an afternoon in Florida!!!!