Our Road Trips

8/30/2015

8/28-30/2015

Barb got up earlier than normal and went along to watch the sunrise. Today, too many clouds for a decent look, probably visible for less than 5 minutes. We went back to the camper and got caught up on this blog and waited out the weather. Tropical Storm Erika is getting close enough for them to start predicting paths...some are up the east side of Florida. With our next stop being St Augustine, that is a concern. I looked at our current location and our site is available for the next 2 days, so we are now reserved through Wednesday to stay put. That can all change if the track of Erika shifts west. We rode back to the lighthouse to use the internet and discovered & corrected an issue with Directv...what did we ever do before the internet came along? Oh, I know, wait weeks for the USPS. While we were there, we took in the tour of the museum for the Cape George Light, which is now in its 3rd location after locals re-erected it after it collapsed during the storms associated with Hurricanes Issac & Wilma. I love touring those places, lots to learn in our world, lots of great folks have been among us over the years. We spent a couple hours reading the history of the light, first erected in 1833. Here is the history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_St._George_Light. We went back to the camper and I took a nap. We then went to visit some of the local establishments. At The Blue Parrot, the sun set and the clouds made it look pretty amazing...took a bunch of cool pictures. Then we went a few blocks for some dinner and listen to a band play at Harry A's...fun night.

By morning, the track of Erika had shifted west, some had it coming up the center of the peninsula, some had it coming up the west coast and right at us in East Point. I made a decision at that point to leave this morning and make a beeline home. I would rather ride this out with our motor home in the garage and us in our home, than at a camp ground within 1000 yards from the Gulf of Mexico. So I got on the internet and started cancelling reservations and making plans to head home. I went back to the camper and started packing up between raindrops which had no relevance to Erika, just rain. We are on the road about 915 am, and it being a Saturday, we expect a lot of traffic. But our route takes along US 98 east along the Gulf Coast, then south on US 19 down through those places you have to try to go through, Perry, Cross City, Chiefland and as we go across Florida from Chiefland to Ocala, we pass through horse country with miles of wooden fences, beautiful pastures with horses galore and the little town of Williston, that is 1000 times prettier than the Williston, ND we drove through last summer. The traffic starts on I-75 at Ocala to the Turnpike and south to Orlando. It is good to see familiar surroundings, but we have had a great summer...4355 miles with the motor home and an additional 3260 miles with our trusty little car...7615 miles of beautiful countryside, a lot of it for the first time. As we pull onto Brown Rd, it starts to rain again, do tell. We are glad we are home. Oh, and they are reporting that Erica has broken apart and is no longer a threat, so cutting the last 4 days off our trip was, in the end, for naught. But the summer isn't over yet though, we will be back on the road in about 3 weeks. Stay tuned. We will help Tyler celebrate tuning 18 and be at it again.

Steve & Barb Larson