10/10/2014

We drove from Panama City to Ellaville, FL where the Suwannee River State Park is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suwannee_River_State_Park.  This is where the river made famous by Stephen Foster meets the northern Withlachooche River http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withlacoochee_River_(Suwannee_River) and they flow together to the Gulf of Mexico,  It is a beautiful spot and reflects what Florida looks like in the wild...before Disney messed up that beauty.  It is worth the visit.  We spent one night there and decided to head home a day early.  After a drive & a walk through the park, we headed south.

The drive home was filled with reminiscing about our amazing summer, and what an amazing time it has been!!  The total mileage was 14,057 with the motor home and an additional 13,712 miles with our little car.  That is 27,729 miles total...the planet earth is only 24,901 miles in circumference, so you get the idea...around the world + in 189 days. We took over 15,000 pictures, and about 10% of those have already been deleted for various reasons. But we still have a lot of sorting & deleting to do before we save all of it for posterity.  It is for reason of comparing, going to be something that will be very hard, if not impossible, to top...but it won't be for a lack of trying.  Barb wants me to print this blog for a book we can use for remembering the trip.  And there will be more memories.

But we made it home, cleaned out the motor home and put it away for the time being.  We then went to our daughter Lisa's house to surprise her for her birthday.  They seemed genuinely glad to see us :).

We are taking it slow today, and the pile of mail seems pretty small, good thing.  Lisa did a great job keeping us informed of anything important and not bothering us with the crap...good job, baby.  And our house was amazingly clean and the grass & driveway looked like we had never left...nice to have family like that nearby.  The whole gang pitched in and made our homecoming a real delight, thanks!

I will post anything exciting that happens here, so check in periodically.  And thanks for tagging along on our amazing time.  I have enjoyed keeping everyone up to speed as well as making a great manuscript for us to remember this summer by.  And thanks to all for making our trip so great.

Steve & Barb Larson

Suwannee River flowing through the State Park

Withlachoochee River flowing into the Suwannee

CSX Railroad crossing the Suwannee

I-295 crossing the St John's River in Jacksonville

Our little Post Office

One of our pet Gopher Turtles

Our house looks just like we left it