Johns Trippin'

We went to the State Park on a Sunday. After popping into the Visitor Center for a few minutes, we hit the trail to the gorge. In case anyone who is reading this is unfamiliar with the concept of a gorge, here you go: Gorges are deep. In order to get down into one, you typically need to go down. There are a few (non lethal) ways to do that. One way is stairs, lots and lots of stairs. Three hundred and ten to be exact. Stairs More stairs What do you know? Stairs! Stairs coming down as seen from the opposite side of the gorge At the bottom of those 310 stairs, there is a suspension bridge crossing the gorge, eighty feet above the river.  The bridge even swayed when you walked on it! From there you have the option of continuing down two hundred and twenty one more steps to an overlook of Hurricane Falls. And, unless you have a permit and are planning to go downriver, that means you have two hundred and twenty one stairs back up. Hurricane Falls Bottom of gorge Now that you're back to ...

We didn't know what we were doing when we started. That's not entirely unique in this lifestyle, but most people spend some time planning things and learning about RVs. We didn't have that luxury due to the compressed timeframe when our house sold. That said, would we do anything differently if we could do it again? Yeah, we would. Would I term those "regrets?" Nah, not really. That implies that I'm dwelling on these things, and I'm not. So while we don't regret the decisions we made, here are a few things we'd do differently if we could start over: We would have gotten a Costco credit card a lot earlier than we did, which was more than halfway through our trip. We bought a lot of gas, so we might as well have been getting rewarded for it. We would have signed up for Thousand Trails. We heard all kinds of mixed reviews on the program, but we're confident we could have saved money on campgrounds had we signed up early on. Julie would have put th...

We are now settled in at a campground in North Georgia for the next 3 months. The plan is to use this as our home base while we search for a permanent place to live. Whether that will be a plot of land upon which we build or an already built house, we don't know yet. Before this trip started, I was pretty confident we were going to build when we were done, but I've had a lot of time over the last 22 months to think about it, and now I'm less certain. Regardless of whether we build or buy, our first job is to narrow in on a location. We know we want to be near family, many of whom are in north Atlanta, but we also know that we don't want to live too close to the city. That likely puts us between Gainesville and the South Carolina line. We want to start by finding a good church. Our kids are either at or approaching youth group age, and youth group was such an important part of Julie's and my childhood that we want our kids to have the same opportunities we did. It...

We moved our stuff from Sophia's house to Nana & Gramps's house. Aunt Alaina, uncle Marc, Sophia, and Nathan Lay came over. And uncle Steve & aunt Hannah came over. We all had a great big brunch with all 13 of us! Then we went into the family room and I read the Christmas story! Then we opened presents!!! I got a bunny brush, slingshot, books from the series Kings and Sorcerers, a beautiful quilt that Nana made, and lots of Velcro that I use a lot for crafts. Asher got a robot and some Wings of Fire books. Caleb got a mini drone, Gravitrax expansion pack, and Nintendo Switch controller holders. Then we played with the kids next door, Andrew and Ava. I played a lot with Sophia that afternoon. Then the Lay family left. The next day, Monday, We did school at Nana and Gramps's house which I did not understand, to me this was supposed to be a vacation!!! We did grammar with Nana it was great! We went to see aunt Hannah and uncle Steve's new house! It was really nice....

First we went to my aunt Tynessa's house and we parked the RV there. Then we brought the bunnies, bags, and clothes to granny's house. Then Granny got Fresh Air BBQ for dinner and also a free giant cake because Granny and Granddaddy go there so often. Dinner was delicious. For dessert we had part of the cake. Then we got ready for bed. Asher slept in the bottom bunk and I slept in the top bunk of the bunk bed. Caleb slept in a pullout couch. All the beds were in the same room. In the morning I had a biscuit for breakfast and Caleb and Asher had cereal. Because it was a week day we did school. That night we watched the movie Heaven is for Real, a true story of a little boy's trip to heaven and back. For dessert that night we had vanilla cake. The next day mom's brother Jason came over and we played a game called party quirks . He gave Caleb, Asher, and I $50 for Christmas. He also took Asher, Caleb, Granny, and I out to a Mexican restaurant for lunch. He left before dinn...

As we traveled the country, we tried to experience local culture. We didn't have much time in each location, so we thought that one of the best ways to do this quickly was to partake of local foods. Therefore, in addition to our National Park theme , we also had a "local food" theme. As we hit each state, we ate a food famous in that state. Just an example; we didn't go off of this map We quickly came to realize that this is a very subjective endeavor. Before we started, I ignorantly assumed that each state would have one or two "famous" foods, making the selection process easy. Not true. First of all, most of what shows up on lists of foods by state is hardly "famous." It's more like "foods you will definitely find in this state and may or may not find elsewhere." Some states have a dozen such foods or more. Many states have the same "famous" foods (there is a lot of crossover with fruit and beef). Second, much of this food...

First we were going to a campground with a hot tub (that was the whole point) but then we heard that the hot tub at that campground was broken. So we went to Reed Bingham State Park because that was the campground we might have gone to if they were not full. We wanted to go with the Lay family in April so we wanted to check it out. When we got there it was raining so we agreed to check the campground out in the morning. In the morning the campground was not that much of a pretty sight. It had just rained and everything was kind of soggy. Also is was kind of still sprinkling. We went around the campground on our scooters and saw that there was a nice dam, playground, miniature golf course, and campground store/office. After that we mostly had a dreary day of school and went to bed. The next day we did school, school, and guess what: more school! We slept a restful night and left in the morning

On the way to Ocala Sun RV Resort, we stopped at a gas station and bought a big bag of Florida grapefruit and a bag of Florida red naval oranges. They were delicious! We arrived at night, which usually causes a lot more stress when parking, but we had a pull-thru site! The man that came and helped us to our site told us that the hot tub was broken. I only picked this RV site because of the hot tub. I know how much Michael likes them and I wanted him to enjoy one and relax. With a broken hot tub there was no reason to stay. After dinner, we worked on blogs and played party quirks, a fun improv game. In the morning, the boys enjoyed playing on their scooters. I joined them and coasted all the way down to the end of the campground. Asher and I scootered to the office when it opened and I was able to cancel our next two days for free. This is great, since I had already booked the next two nights at Reed Bingham State Park near Valdosta, GA. 

Candace and my mom are friends and Candace asked her to be a bride's maid. As we were driving into the parking lot of the church where Candace and Steven were getting wed I realized that we were trying to go through a gate. There were some cons about this idea but I realized I could only think about 1 pro. So I'm basically saying, I don't like this idea. There were low hanging branches, the gate looked way too tight, and there was basically mud on the ground! Well it turns out we could not fit through, so we started backing up. So, back to the mud. Two sentences ago we talked about the mud, well here it comes in! We unhooked the Jeep. And we started backing up and our wheels got stuck! And to think going through the gate was supposed to be faster. It turns out that the pastor of the church had just bought a winch and had not used it so he thought he'd give it a try. He hooked it onto our RV and out we came! Yay! Then we drove around back the slower way to the RV...

I am going to talk about the campground a little bit but compared to manatees, that campground was Boring! It had a playground, a pool, and nice asphalt to ride scooters around on.  The pool was not that warm but it was warm enough to lure me in. I swam in it one morning with Caleb. One night while mom was making a shrimp boil we swam again! Get ready to learn about one of the most amazing, cute, and funniest animals in Florida. If you have ever swam with manatees in the summer in Kings Bay you know that your chances to see a manatee is not as good as it is in winter. In summer all of the manatees would be in the Gulf of Mexico where the water would be warmer. So we went to swim with manatees in the winter. In Kings Bay, a bunch of manatees would be swimming there because the water would be warmer. We saw and swam with three manatees. But the downside was that the water was cold! Okay the water wasn't that cold but, it was cold enough to make me uncomfortable. Oh yeah, for gear we...