Last night we kept the A/C running, pulled all the heavy blankets and my sleeping bag off the bed, and put a fan in the room. We did all that and it was still uncomfortably warm in the RV, until about 3 am, then it was comfy. We were both a little restless for the beginning part of the night, so we were glad we had a short day planned for today.
I worry about what we are going to do when it gets hotter. 😳🔥🔥Savannah, GA to Jacksonville, FL is only 104 miles and Google said it would take about an hour and a half. For every hour that Google estimates, we add about another 15 minutes to that. So after that restless night, we took our time this morning eating breakfast and packing up camp.
I was eager to leave this creepy camp. Besides the heat, I didn’t feel super comfortable here with their hovering staff members. It’s not very fun to feel like you’re being watched all the time.
Lately, Fred has been waking up earlier than me. (Not to watch me, hahaha) I think he enjoys a few hours of morning solitude these days. He sneaks up to the front of the RV and closes the dividing door between us so I can sleep in. I call this maneuver, “Parakeeting me.” It’s like when the owner of a bird throws a blanket over its cage to trick the bird into thinking it’s night time and forces it to sleep. Fred does this to me all the time, except instead of throwing a blanket over my head, he uses blackout curtains and a closed-door to simulate the nighttime. It works well on me! So we’ll, that if we have somewhere important to be, he will bring me a hot cup of coffee in bed to bring me out if my deep slumber.
I sometimes get angry when he parakeets me because I will sleep for hours if left undisturbed in this setting. For some reason the hours between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. are my coma hours. I will sleep so deeply during this time you can have a conversation with me, and I will answer you, but never remember we talked.
But nowadays, I feel like I’ve wasted the morning if I sleep that late. Every waking moment is important to share with Fred so I want to wake up early everyday.
Today Fred Parakeeted me and I slept until 830 a.m. It’s funny that I consider 830 a.m. late now! But it kind of is when you have to be out of most parks by 11 a.m. There’s a lot to pack into two and a half hours.
Plus, it was already like 75 degrees by 8:30 a.m. Adjusting to the hot, humid weather is going to be tough. We went from cold and rainy to smothering hot, with no time to adjust. We have found out that we don’t even have enough summer clothes with us and we’ll need to go shopping at some point to get some. We hit the road around 11am. We may have been a little late getting out of the camp, so I hope that KOA doesn’t try and charge our credit card for the extra time. (Because I know they saw us.)
I spent the morning drive retyping the blog that somehow disappeared on me last night. I was just wrapping it up when we stopped at the Florida Welcome Center for lunch around 12:30pm. We had some quick leftovers in the RV and then walked up to the main building. We were still eating a few chocolate chip cookies as we walked in. (We do know how to travel in luxury 😁)
The Welcome Center along the I-95 is quite nice. They have lots of interesting statues, like this colorful dolphin and a life-size spaceman.
Fred was excited that they were giving away free, fresh squeezed orange juice.
We browsed through all their brochures and city guides and we’re excited to see all the exciting possibilities for fun that Florida holds. I left there with handfuls of brochures and magazines! I have an entire cabinet full of these from all the states we’ve been to. 😋 Some of them I have never even read, but I always feel compelled to take them. I guess I get caught up in the potential for adventure.
We pulled into our RV Park about 1 p.m.
The first thing I noticed was there are not a lot of shade trees, so it will probably be very hot here. They advertise the park as a resort, but it kind of looks like a big RV parking lot. It was not at all what I was expecting it to be. Also, it’s very close to the airport so you can hear the planes taking off. And it’s right next door to a giant swap meet facility that is open every weekend with live music.
Management makes no apologies for the noise, but instead offers free ear plugs. None of this is on their website.
It was already 90° when we got here so we hunkered down in the RV and tried to cool it down by putting reflective window shades up and running the AC. Fred tested the AC coldness with our meat thermometer. We learned that the air coming out of the vent is 57 degrees. The RV is just so big it takes a long time to cool down.
Fred took a little afternoon siesta and I did a little yoga. Then we Googled clothing stores around us to see about buying some light weight summer clothes. We were excited to learn there was a Duluth Trading Co just 2 miles away. We drove over and did a little shopping.
Our main goal was to buy some Duluth Trading Co underwear because their underwear commercials are so epic. But when we got back to the RV later, I discovered my new undies had not made it into the shopping bag. 😭
I didn’t notice until about 9 p.m. So we’ll have to go back sometime tomorrow to find my undies. Fred won’t mind revisiting the old CJ-5 Jeep they have inside the Duluth. It even had a matching trailer. Fred had the opportunity to buy a trailer like that once, years ago, at a garage sale but didn’t do it and he’s always regretted it.
After Duluth, we hit the nearby Walmart for a some produce. We also bought a little accordion style ramp for our black water dump hose. We have found out at some of our less level RV parks that poop doesn’t really flow uphill, so these little poop-chute ramps come in very handy.
We were getting hungry so we were excited to head back to the RV to make Tacos. The weather had cooled off a little bit but it was still too hot to cook inside. We keep a little single burner Coleman stove just for that reason. We bought that little stove for our Yellowstone Adventure in the teardrop trailer we towed a few years back. We love that little stove.
Fred cooked up the ground beef and then wiped out the pan and cooked the tortillas.
I chopped up all the other ingredients inside.
By the time we were done preparing the tacos, it was quite pleasant outside. So we decided to have a little picnic outdoors. The sun was setting behind the RV so we were in the shade and it was quite lovely. The live band playing at the swap meet was actually pretty good. They played some Bachman-Turner Overdrive tunes that Fred really loved. We had some awesome conversation about life and living it to the fullest, and our happiness with taking the opportunity to take this trip. One of Fred’s goals after he retired was to take a long cross-country adventure. So he feels like he has definitely achieved that goal.
After dinner, Fred chatted with his mom on the phone for a bit. And then we walked around and explored the park and all its amenities. It has a really nice set of bathrooms, and horseshoe pits, and a calming little lake were you can sit in rocking chairs and watch the sunset.
We sat in the rocking chairs and watched the sunset and talked about how cool it would be to see an alligator swim by. And then we played a game of horseshoes until it was too dark to see the posts. Fred reminisced about his dad’s unique way of throwing the horseshoe by one tip instead of by the middle. We both tried it that way but it’s very hard to control.
We headed back to the RV settling for the night. There was a beautiful full moon tonight that rose directly over the motorhome and the Jeep. It was a perfect ending to an awesome day and a beautiful evening!
We are so lucky to have had this day together.
Fred and Trina's Honeymoon 
Story Telling – Not sure poop-shoot transitions smoothly into tacos. Now, tacos to poop-shoot, that’s how you tell a story.
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