As always, heading home in an RV, from a long distance away, is a mixed bag of excitement and dread. Long days of driving, mixed with a lack of upcoming adventures. Teeth-shattering bad roads (don’t get me started on I-20 through Louisiana) mixed with coma-inducing flat/straight/boring highways through West Texas. Surprisingly nice campgrounds like this one...
Destination: charming Jekyll Island, Georgia! With wide open spaces, nature galore, safe biking to literally the entire island, historic mansions that harken back to an altogether different time, independently owned shops and restaurants, beautiful golf courses, and endless dog-friendly beaches, RUN – don’t walk – but RUN like the wind — to...
There’s old, and then there’s really old, and I’m not referring to Tony Bennett. Nope, it’s this place, the nation’s oldest continuously occupied city, starting way back in 1565! With colonial history galore, beautiful Spanish-style architecture, shopping-shopping-shopping, and lots more, St. Augustine is a jewel of a destination...
Sarasota, Florida is the poster child for Florida retirement. Every frustrated worker in every sitcom ever: “Someday I’m gonna get outta this rat race and buy a condo in Sarasota!” And it’s not hard to see why! But before there were hundreds of thousands of retirees here sporting high-waisted pants, swinging golf clubs and grabbing those...
HOLY (SEA) COW! A visit to Crystal Springs and Homosassa, Florida, is not complete without a wild manatee encounter. And we had a few of them — some planned, some unplanned! Behold one of the world’s gentlest giants … ain’t he the CUTEST? Manatees come to this area for the same reason you go to a luxury spa … warm water, and quality food...
This place: Cedar Key. What a place! It’s like Key West, if it were 50 years ago, if there were no Ernest Hemingway and his six-toed cats, no drunken posses of bro’s traipsing in and out of Sloppy Joe’s bar, no tourists paying double or triple for a fried grouper sandwich. Downtown Cedar Key – built on a pier You might think “Cedar...
We’ve been gone from Arizona for three weeks … 1/3 of this total trip. We left the Emerald Coast and traveled to the “Forgotten Coast,” so-called because it’s the “place that development forgot.” Yep — it’s undeveloped, all right! Gone But Not Forgotten: Civilization. Here on St. George Island, a 10-mile long...
The purpose of this 9-week journey was to earn a small, tacky piece of paper … a sticker for the travel map on the side of our RV. Florida became the 42nd state we’ve visited in the RV, and we were thrilled to add that “thumb” to our U.S. outline. Our first of seven stops in the Sunshine State was along the “Emerald Coast,” so...
You know how every state has that special place that people go when they want to kick back and have fun in the sun? In Alabama, that place is Gulf Shores, on the Gulf of Mexico, smack-dab in the middle of what they call the Redneck Riviera. Gulf Shores and the related town of Orange Beach are known for their pristine, white sugar-sand beaches on the Gulf of Mexico...
We’re always wanted to experience a traditional Mardi Gras, but not THAT Mardi Gras … you know … the one with too much everything, in New Orleans. Too many boobs, too much booze, too many tourists, just plain TOO much! Instead, we found the second largest Mardi Gras in the state, in Lake Charles, LA. Let the good times roll, or as they say in these...