Florida Adventure: Leg 4 - GA to FL

Jan 9, 2009

Ah, sunny Florida at last. And it was a sunny day too. We are finally out of the bad weather of the North and into the sunny South. We did get to tour Savannah a bit and walked around the harbor front area for a half hour. It was very nice. We have to get the pictures off the camera.

We also had our first breakfast out at a great restaurant in the downtown area. We had some trouble finding it but I asked a couple gentlemen at an outdoor area and they were able to direct us.

We stopped at the welcome center just inside Florida and ate lunch at a picnic table. Then we went inside for some free orange juice before getting on the road again. We pulled into the Steven Foster State Park campround just before the 5:00 pm closing time and got into our camping spot before dark. Oops. backed the RV again an overhanging tree limb and put a little dent in a portion of the roof. We got to take a short walk before bedtime under a brilliant full moon. Without the moon, we would have had a great view of the stars, as this is away from most urban areas of Florida. We will be here for 3 days so this is our first relaxing time of the trip so far.

Florida Adventure: Leg 3 - NC to GA

Jan 8, 2009

This was our first day with (mostly) no rain. It was warmer too, so we were able to forgo the winter coats when we stopped places. We blew through the rest of North Carolina and South Carolina and into Georgia, headed for Savannah. This is one of the places Ellyn really wanted to see but, sadly, due to our reduced schedule, we are unable to stop places for long. But since the next leg is shorter, maybe we can take a ride into the city before having to hit the road again.

We had an incident with the "toad" (our CR-V) when we stopped for gas and to run the engine (needs to be done every 8 hours while towing). The battery had gone dead and it would not shift into park or start. It looks like towing for three days and not running the engine more than a few minutes a day, lets the Brake Buddy drain the battery. We had to disconnect, turn the RV around, jump start the car, and then rehook the tow, after letting the car run a while to recharge.

We got to the RV park late and had some trouble getting someone to let us in because we had little or no cell coverage.

Florida Adventure: Leg 2 - NJ to NC

Jan 7, 2009

It started at 4:30 am. I awoke to drumming rainfall on the roof of the RV but then also heard a trickle of water inside. I got up to see what it was and quickly found that the toilet was overflowing...again. S*&T! This happened one other time and it was due to a sticking valve in the toilet. The water trickled in until the black water tank was full and then ran out onto the floor.

This time was worse because the sewer line was not hooked up. I had to run out in the rain and hook up the sewer line, and the dump point was far from the coach but I just reached it, and then dump the tank. Then I came back in and cleaned up all the water. Good thing we had lots of extra towels. We also had not used the toilet much and so there was no bad smell.

We got out of the RV park at about 10:00, stopped at 2:00 for lunch at Dixie Bones, stopped for gas south of Richmond and arrived at the RV Resort at Carolina Crossroads.

After the gas stop, there was a thunderstorm and there were some pretty strong winds buffeting the RV around pretty badly. A couple of times I had to wrestle it back into my lane, fortunately not when there was another vehicle there. When we got to the RV park, Ellyn put on the weather on TV and found that there had been some winds up to 70 mph in the area. We had some more winds until about 9:30 and then they died down.

Florida Adventure: Leg 1 - Danbury to NJ

Jan 6, 2009

Ugh. Today was a tough one. We pretty much procrastinated yesterday on getting the RV loaded up so this morning we got up at 7:00 planning to leave at 10:00 and finally got out at 11:40. We stopped around 1:00 on the Garden State for lunch and a rest break and then continued to the NJ Turnpike. We pulled into the Timberlane Campground around 4:00 pm and got an overnight camping spot.

We saw mostly rain on the way, although it did seem to have some sleet in it at the beginning. We could see it swirling across the roadway in front of us. We also saw highway trucks loaded up with sand and lined up waiting to go out where 684 meets 287 in White Plains.

Now we are hunkered down waiting for the weather to pass over tonight. Hopefully, it will only be rain tomorrow. We plan on driving into North Carolina and stopping at a campground south of Rocky Mount.