Saturday, October 18, 2008

CO KS MO TN GA FL

It's just a bit of a blur, but I'll see if I can recap a bit.

Wednesday (10/15) we woke up bright and early and decided we would try to recapture the original schedule, only a day late now. It meant a rather long pull, about 80 miles longer than we'd planned, but we could make it to our next planned stop and get the leg-lengths back on track. The first few miles were pensive as we wondered if the problem would recur but Fodzilla rocked right along all day.
Now, pulling the fifth-wheel at 65 mph through Kansas is one thing, but getting through a couple of major metro areas is a bit more challenging so setting a long (480 mile) day involving two big cities (St. Louis and Nashville) was ambitious. Traffic was fairly good, but there were still sop-and-go periods in both cities and we saw more construction that slowed us down as well. At the end of the day we stopped at a KOA about 25 miles short of our original plan and spent the night in Manchester, TN. It was pretty dark when we got in, and the folks at the campground led us around in a golf cart and made sure we were on place. We set up and decided we'd run off to dinner and found a wonderful local spot called O'Charley's for a great dinner. Not a bad day.

Thursday (10/16) Up and at 'em again and on the road by 9:30 (grin). This is getting to be a routine and Robin and I are starting to gel as a team to get us rolling again.
We found our way through Chattanooga and into Georgia. Rolling hills and lots of greenery set the traveling stage and Robin remarked that it looks similar to the hills around her native upstate New York.
Typically, we have been lucky to see wildlife along our trips. Pretty much wherever we travel we've seen different animals and Robin is especially keen at spotting big birds (hawks and eagles and recently a tree full of Cormorants in Colorado) but these last few days have been pretty sparse. A few road kills and some crows have been the lot of it ... until, that is, the camel...
OK, so we saw a camel alongside the road in Geogia. I suppose that's good enough for this leg :)
We pulled into a very nice park near Valdosta, GA and spent a peaceful night. Next stop? Florida!

Friday (10/17) ... Guess what time we pulled out? Right to the minute almost :) (9:30). We crossed into Florida and turned east on I-10 still undecided on exactly where we were heading. We had several options and we were pretty excited to be in our destination state so after a little discussion we settled on St. Augustine as a destination for the day. It ended up being 2 days, and we got parked and set up, and hiked out to the beach right away. It is, after all, why we are moving to Florida to begin with. It was breezy and cool and even rained on us a little, but we got out and about and did some foot-touring of old-town St. Augustine and had a great lunch at the Conch House overlooking the marina.
We also learned that the rough road caused a bit of damage inside the coach. The clothes rod in the forward (main) closet broke under the load of all my heavy winter clothes (not) so we had to make a side trip to Home Depot and find a replacement. We'll rebuild it .. better .. faster .. stronger.

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