Weeks 16-19: We Made it to 2025!

December 9

Day 101:

Work day. Just hung around the rig. But because we are so close to the beach, we have been going to the waters edge every day. 

December 10

Day 102:

Work Day

December 11

Day 103:

Another work day. But today was interesting. A big storm was reported for today. So we had to deal with high winds and rain. The winds got up to 35 mph sustained with gusts of 50 mph. And being out on the Outer Banks there isn’t any area for protection. We got through it as the rig rocked and shaked. 

December 12

Day 104:

Today I worked a little bit in the morning and took the afternoon off.  We decided to go visit Roanoke Island where the Lost Village of Roanoke is.  There is a National Historic Site there for us to visit. It was a colony that was established in 1585. That is more than 20 years before the settlement in Jamestown (1607).  

All the people from England that settled in Roanoke had established a colony and one day, one of the original people, John White, went back to England to get some more people to come over and help with the settlement.  It took him 3 years to get back, but when he finally got back, All of the people at the colony had disappeared.  All the buildings had been destroyed and there were no bodies. The only clue was CROATOAN carved into a tree, which was the name of a people but also the name of a nearby island.  But John white never when to the island to check.  The people of the Roanoke colony had disappeared and nobody ever found them.

December 13

Day 105:

Moving day.  We have a long way to go to get to Charleston, so we are headed for a harvest host in Jacksonville, North Carolina.  It was almost a four hour drive.  Nobody was there, but Jen texted them and let them know we were there.  We never did see them.  Some of the stories online said that their 9 year old daughter came out to greet them.  Unfortunately we told the girls that and after we got there, they sat out at a picnic table and waited for them…sadly they never came.  They were going to sell sea shells in there “Free-Shell Shop”. It was pretty cute, but also sad at the same time.

December 14

Day 106:

Our next spot in Charleston was another four-hour drive.  Our stay is in a KOA.  This is our first KOA stay since we started our trip. As we were coming into town on Hwy 17, we noticed these little stands built along the highway.  After a little research, we found that they are stands for the local Gullah people.

This style of basket was originally made to winnow rice on local plantations. Today, sweetgrass baskets are works of art and highly sought after souvenirs.

The stands are diminishing because of the development along Hwy 17 and the widening of the road from a two-lane highway to three lanes in each direction.

December 15

Day 107:

Today was an adventure day. So, we went to downtown Charleston.  We went to look at the old, original part of town.

I will say that this day was very stressful for us.  We have a very big truck with a Crew Cab and an extended bed.  Our truck is over 22 feet in length and to put it in perspective, most parking stalls are 19 or 20 feet which makes it difficult to find parking places for it.  Gene really when we go to a store with a big lot, we part in the back so we don’t feel bad about taking up 2 spaces.  But in Charleston all the parking stalls are smaller than that because of the old part of town everything is smaller. So, we spent an hour trying to find a spot.  That was not fun.  

Our first spot to hit was the Visitors Center where we learned that they have a free bus that can take us around the area we wanted to see. So, I guess that was a good thing.  We got a late start to the day.  After we got parked, went to the Visitors Center for a while, caught the but and got down to the MArket area, we were hungry.  So, we ate.  After we ate it was 3:45.  Well, with the sun setting at around 5:00 that did not give us much time to walk around.  But I think that was good for the girls.  They were bored of walking around the city after about an hour.  We went to the park by the water and wandered down to Rainbow Row where the houses are painted every color of the rainbow.  

December 16

Day 108:

Work Day.  I have a project that is going to be issued on Wednesday, so I am working a lot this week to get it out the door.  But, when it’s done, I can relax and enjoy the holidays.

Today I took Aela shopping to get presents for Mommy and Eva.  Tomorrow I am taking Eva shopping.  Aela was in her element.  She really loves shopping.  She was so happy the entire time we were out.

December 17

Day 109:

Work Day

December 18

Day 110:

Work Day.  Also, Jen took the girls shopping today to get my Christmas present.

December 19

Day 111:

Today we went to Fort Moultrie.  It is the mainland fort across from Fort Sumpter.  The two forts flanked the access waters into Charleston.  The girls were supposed to have a meeting with their class when we got there, but their class never showed up to the call.  The fort was a representation of its evolution through time.  It was a functioning fort for more than 200 years.

December 20

Day 112:

Moving day.  We are going to Savannah.  Luckily, our drive is only 2 hours today.  Pretty easy.  The weird thing was the road going there was filled with stoplights the entire time.  Just as we got up to speed, there was another red stoplight.  It was pretty frustrating.

December 21

Day 113:

This was a pretty low-key day.  Jen had a hair appointment that took 4 hours and then she ran around to get stuff for the holiday.  I played with the girls all day.  We explored the park and went to the playground.

December 22

Day 114:

Today we decided to explore Tybee Island. It took us about 35 minutes to get there from our RV park.  We stopped at the area by the Tybee Island Light House to get something to eat at the North Beach Bar and Grill.  It was a fun and festive place that had lots of Christmas trees and we could vote on them for the best one.  

After we ate, we walked over to look at the lighthouse.  Seeing that it was $20 to get in and knowing that the girls wont want to go to the top of the lighthouse anyway, we decided to drive over to the Fort Pulaski National Monument where we could tour the fort for free.  It was a lovely day.

December 23

Day 115:

Today we went into downtown Savannah.  We bought the trolley tours where we can hop on and hop off all day long. The nice thing about our tours was that they came to our RV park to get us and bring us back at the end of the day.  The sad thing was that we sat out there waiting for them on the coldest day of the year and they didn’t show.  We had to go into the front office of the RV park and let them know.  They called the tour company and someone forgot to schedule our pickup.  So, we lost about an hour of time jacking around with that.  But overall, that wasn’t bad.  We first did the entire tour around Savannah on the bus and then we hopped off and walked around for a bit. 

We walked down to the City Market and had lunch at an Irish Pub where they left the doors open and it was really cold in there.  Everyone had their jackets on.  Then we went to the candy shop where we got gifts for people.  After that, we went down to the riverwalk where we walked along the river down to the Marriott hotel where they had some festive holiday displays and Geodes and dinosaurs in the lobby.  

We finally walked down to where they shot the scenes for Forest Gump.  We saw Cherokee Park and the setting for the intro to the movie. After that, we had to catch the next trolley to get back to the main station for our ride back to the RV Park.

December 24

Day 116:

Christmas Eve.  We spent the day as a family.  I took the girls over to the park to play for a while and on the way, the girls showed me where they fed the goats.  We got food and fed the goats and the miniature horse.  

One of the events they had at the RV park was a cookie and hot chocolate social with a Santa.  We went to the event, but didn’t stay long because it involved some kind of church event.

December 25

Day 117:

Christmas Day!  1:10 am while we were sleeping we hears this huge BANG, BANG, BANG repeatedly over and over.  The last series of bangs ended with something that sounded like an acorn dropping on our roof.  That was strange considering that we were not under any trees.  A few minutes later the road next to our park was covered in emergency vehicles and police.  Not knowing what was gong on, we had to go back to bed.  

The girls were exhausted with anticipation for Christmas, so they surprisingly didn’t get up until 8:30.  That’s ok.  We were bracing ourselves for a 6:30 am start.  They loved all of their presents.  The one thing they wanted to do was practice skating on their new roller skates.  Unfortunately, our RV park doesn’t have any smooth, hard areas to skate on.  So, we had to get in the truck and go to a local church parking lot where the girls had a chance to try out their skates.

The girls had made a list of all the things they wanted to do on Christmas and I think we got through most of them.

December 26

Day 118:

There are good days and there are bad days. This day was on the bad side. Not horrible, but unpleasant things were happening to us all day long. Moving day. We got up and got everything packed for our move. As I was getting ready to back the truck up to the rig to hook it up, I looked at the front tire on the drivers side. I had heard a clicking noise coming from the tire a few days before. It sounded like a rock stuck between the treads. When I looked, I saw what seemed to be the head of a carriage bolt embedded in the tire. I thought about trying to take it out, but what if it was something big. I wouldn’t want to lose all the air in our tire. So, we decided to take the car to a tire shop before pulling it out. 

That sucks. We were ready to go and now we are in the shop. Fortunately, they got it fixed in about an hour and they said they pulled a bolt out of the tire. But this set us back. Instead of leaving around 11:00 am this morning, we didn’t get out of there until about 12:30.  That meant that with a 4.5 hour, we would be getting there around 5pm without stops and with a long drive we definitely need the stop. 

So, we get to the harvest host around 6 and we have to pull into our site in the dark.  This is something I haven’t had to do since we started this trip.  We have been really good about getting to where we need to during the day.  But not this day.  I will say that this was a very difficult thing to do and there was a lot of frustration.  But, we went low and we eventually got it into place.  When we opened up our rig, we noticed that the refrigerator had opened during our trip and all the contents were on the floor.  Then, Jen tried to open one of the slides and some of our books had flown out of the cupboard they were stored in and got jammed behind the slide.  All of this while we are trying to help Chris find her way, with an Uber, to our rig.  

But the site we were staying in was beautiful and nothing was damaged during this day.  Although we did find out that the reason our fridge opened up was because the retaining strap had come loose from the fridge, but that was remedied with some super glue.  On the up side, this harvest host did have electric and water hookups, so, that was nice.

December 27

Day 119:

Moving day.  Today we are driving to the Everglades.  It’s a long day of travel.  Over 5 hours of driving.  We got off to a good start by getting on the road by 10:00am.  We usually are on the road by 11:00.  We arrived around 5:00.  The road into the park from Homestead was about 35 miles down to our campgrounds.  

We were surprised at how nice the park was.  Lots of room to maneuver and easy pull-through sites.  There is only electric here, so we had to fill up our tanks and we will need to dump sometime during the week with our honey wagon.

Wow, the climate really changed.  We noticed how it got really humid and hot.  Which is a big change from what we have been living in.  Time to turn the air conditioning on.  

One thing we noticed while driving the turnpike from Orlando to Homestead was the many dumps strewn along the highway.  They seemed to be about every ten miles.  They were pretty noticeable because Florida is really flat and then these trash heaps mound up out of nowhere.  

December 28

Day 120:

Today was our first day in the Everglades and so with a slow start, we decided to have lunch in a local restaurant and then go to the visitor’s center.  We finally saw the vests that we wanted to get the girls for their junior rangers badges.  Unfortunately, they only had one XL size, so we got one of them and we will get the other one at the other visitor’s center when we go into Homestead one of these days.

We got the girls’ junior ranger packets and stamped their passport books.  Afterwards, we walked over to the marina to inquire about the boat tours and on the way we saw manatees in the harbor.  The girls got to get close to them as they came up for air right by the docks.  

After that, we walked to the marina and someone informed us that there was a large crocodile on the banks of the water.  

December 29

Day 121:

It rained today, do we did nothing. Had a beautiful sunset. 

December 30

Day 122:

We biked up to the marina and walked around. Today we saw the big crocodile in the marina. 

December 31

Day 123:

We went to the Ernest Coe Visitors Center and then the Keys. We ate at Lorelei Restaurant and stopped at the History of Diving Museum. 

January 1

Day 124:

We went on the back country boat ride in the Everglades Park. 

January 2

Day 125:

Working Day. I had to work today. But have another week off after that. 

January 3

Day 126:

Today we went to Biscayne National Park. We had to get up early because our boat ride started at 9:30 and we had an hour and a half drive to get there. So, we got up at 6:30 for this days adventure. 

We did the boat ride and that was great.  We drove around to a bunch of islands and we stopped at Boca Chita Lighthouse for an hour. 

After we got back to the visitors center we got the girls junior ranger badges. They talked to the ranger at the desk about all the artifacts on display. They could have talked to him for hours. On our way out the door, we ran into another ranger giving a walk and talk. So we decided to do it. She took us all the way out to the point. 

January 4

Day 127:

Today was a moving day. We went from the Everglades to Orlando where we are staying in Disney World in Fort Wilderness. It was a long drive, another 5 hours. So, we got out of the Everglades before 10:00 and by the time we got to our site and got set up, it was dark. 

Most of the sites here in Fort Wilderness are nice back-in sites. But ours was a tight 90 degree site. Eventually we got it in. Probably the toughest site we have had to get into on the entire trip. Still, the girls are excited we are here in Disney World.