Florida!

It was overwhelming. Almost everyone's first memory who commented last week was either a traumatic experience or a baby or pet coming home. Pretty interesting. The other interesting thing that I discovered was that I am not alone in my lack of memories. Many of us are afflicted. 

The other thing I realized is that they are in there. Bouncing around that empty space that I call my brain. I said I had no memories of Jr. High. Then all of a sudden, brief glimpses started to appear. No specifics, just walking through the halls. But it is a memory!

We left Jessica's early Monday morning on the 27th just after the kids got on the bus. By the end of the day, we were in our 4th state of the day having left Pennsylvania, traveling south on I81 through Maryland and West Virginia before landing for the night in Arrington, Virginia. 

We had several adventures  throughout the day. Our first was driving Skyline Trail through the Shenandoah National Park. If our count is correct, this is the17th National Park we have visited. The first 31 miles of the trail was closed due to ice so we jumped on at the Thornton Gap entrance and headed south from there. 

The roads were mostly clear, and we practically had the place to ourselves. We saw deer, owls, one lone bobcat that crossed the road in front of us and lots of beautiful scenery.

Exiting the trail at Waynesboro, we stopped at Silverback Distillery outside of Waynesboro. This has been on our list for a while. An all women run distillery; they have won many awards. We chatted with the server for about an hour and tasted several of their offerings before moving on.

Preparing a Smoked Old Fashion 

Our Harvest Host for the evening was Blue Mountain Barrel House where Barb got a flight and we each got a burger before calling it a night. 

As we continued south we had  to stop at The Blind Pelican in Holly Springs, NC. If you recall from last year, this is where Barb got the Bloody Mary of all Bloody Mary's. This year, we just opted for food. Delicious!

We also stopped at an RV dealer to look at a new pickup truck camper. Barb has it in her head that she wants something newer and has been looking at Host campers on line. In the past 18 months we have not been near a dealer that has one, but now we were and we stopped and looked at it. The good news is that we got in and out of there without a salesperson seeing us. The bad news is that this layout will not work with us and the dogs. We need something you can access without having to open any slides. Plus, this one was on sale for..... wait for it. $93,000! For a pickup camper! Nope, we are continuing to look. It was pretty though.

Our Harvest Host for that night was Dirt Bag Ale House, a veteran owned brewery in Hope Mills, NC. If you are ever traveling through this area, they have some very good beers, a great atmosphere and nice accommodations for overnighters. 

It feels really good to be back on the road. We continued south with the promise of warmer weather. Our camper was still winterized, meaning no running water for us, but it looks like we will not be seeing any more freezing temperatures. We just need to find a fresh water source to fill our tanks and flush the antifreeze. 

Our next overnight was supposed to be Congaree National Park in Georgia. Another first for us. But when we got there, we discovered that we you can only tent camp there. So instead, we walked the boardwalk and carried on. 

Instead we landed in Orangeburg at a Cracker Barrel. A decision that almost ruined our entire trip. Whenever we stay in a parking lot at night, we try to situate ourselves near the edge where we are protected from others driving in the lot. And we did at Cracker Barrel as well, we had a fence on one side and the an open space on the other. Other rigs were pulling in for the night and setting up around us when this truck and a travel trailer pulls in. We watched him out the back window as he tried to pull into the spot next to us. It was obvious when he turned to pull in next to us that he did not take it nearly wide enough and that his trailer would not clear our rig. We watched in horror as he continued to go forward and there was nothing we could do about it. He was pulling in on the side that our door was on and he was so close, we could not open our door. He finally stopped and I hear him yell, "Holy Shit!". He was literally within an inch of hitting us. Then he started to back up. But now he had the back of his truck pointed at our camper as he backed up! He finally reached the point where our door was between his truck and his camper giving me enough room to open the door and jump out, luckily he saw me otherwise he would have run me over. It was obvious he had not idea what to do so I said, "I'll just move my truck". He insisted that he "Had it", but I insisted in moving our truck getting totally out of his way. He finally got parked and I slide back into our spot. Whew!

You know what he did then? He pulls out a yellow generator (yes, the dreaded loud yellow one), hooks it up and turns it on. Right there in the Cracker Barrel parking lot! After a restless night, we got up and got out of there before he moved his rig. 

That was the extent of our excitement on our travels south. We landed at the Quail Roost RV Park in Crystal River on February 1st and are all set up here for a month.