We returned from our trip to FL and are getting our house in order and paying bills. We had a good time in Florida, though the weather did not cooperate much in the last 3 weeks. We had only one partially sunny day and lots of gray skies and drizzle. Despite that we had fun visiting, eating and drinking, eating and drinking, eating and drinking.....
In the panhandle we visited Cedar Key, a small coastal village that's quaint and well off the beaten path.We liked the ambiance of this place and the food was good.....but we worried each time a wave hit....
We had a blast there.
From there we went to the Pensacola Naval Air Museum…an amazing place with 150+ full size planes in two GIANT hangers. We spent hours there and it was fantastic
We liked the area and saw no evidence of oil spill damage, but were taken aback by how many drilling rigs we could see from the beach and how close they were. Sometimes you could even hear them working. Every vista showed another rig. Though the beaches were pretty, the drilling rigs detracted from the views significantly
While there, we visited a neat old pre-civil war fort. Ft. Gaines. It was walking distance from our campground.
In the panhandle we visited Cedar Key, a small coastal village that's quaint and well off the beaten path.We liked the ambiance of this place and the food was good.....but we worried each time a wave hit....
From there we went to another little town called Carrabelle and stayed at a place called “Ho-Hum campground”….great site and also well off the beaten path. From there we explored the quaint town of Apalachicola, an old and still working fishing village. We didn’t see any evidence of the BP oil spill anywhere on the Gulf Coast, but we did still see some remnants of hurricane damage.
Apalachicola
We then moved on to Navarre and to another excellent campground Emerald Coast RV. It was about 20 minutes from Destin and 20 minutes from Pensacola. Destin was a bit too crowded for us and we didn’t spend any time there. We liked Pensacola and visited a great Irish bar called McGuire’s Irish Pub. Cool place with excellent microbrew beer and friendly people.
We had a blast there.
From there we went to the Pensacola Naval Air Museum…an amazing place with 150+ full size planes in two GIANT hangers. We spent hours there and it was fantastic
Bear in mind these are full size planes….everywhere you looked there were planes…on the floor, midway hanging, and hanging up high.
Naval museum
From there we moved into Alabama to a great campground with the friendliest people we’ve met just about anywhere. They welcomed us into their group of “regulars” who have been coming there for nearly 20 years. We had a very nice time. It was called Dauphin Island Campground.
We liked the area and saw no evidence of oil spill damage, but were taken aback by how many drilling rigs we could see from the beach and how close they were. Sometimes you could even hear them working. Every vista showed another rig. Though the beaches were pretty, the drilling rigs detracted from the views significantly
Drilling rigs close to shore
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| Local residents |
Ft Gaines
On a day trip we went to Pascagoula Mississippi. We have never seen so many boat building yards and it seemed like all of them were busy.We saw one of the new class of warship under construction. The picture does not adequately show the size and the "strangeness" of the construction. Angles everywhere and odd shapes, which we understand is to make it more "stealthy"
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| Pascagoula, MS |
We left Dauphin Island Alabama and drove to Auburn, AL It was a great college town and we had a fantastic dinner at a small restaurant. Great way to finish our trip.
We drove all the way home the next day to sunny weather in South Carolina...
It was a good trip even though the weather didn't cooperate much. It would have been a great trip if we had a few sunny days.
Now off to planning our trip to the Masters (we're excited) and then New England in the summer, then getting an early jump on 2013 travel to FL.
Florida 2012
Hello All,
We're on our first real "Journey" since our "adventures in health, chapter 1, Getting Old".
We're on a one month trip to Florida, focusing on the Panhandle.We started our trip with a wonderful visit to the Sherwoods, where we had a great trip to the wildlife preserve on Cumberland Island. What a great time...wild horses, beautiful beaches and a perfect day
.
We then moved on to Bradenton, FL and visited lots of friends and family...Eight days of visiting, eating, visiting, drinking, visiting, drinking, eating...well you get the picture. We saw about a dozen people and enjoyed every minute.
We're on our first real "Journey" since our "adventures in health, chapter 1, Getting Old".
We're on a one month trip to Florida, focusing on the Panhandle.We started our trip with a wonderful visit to the Sherwoods, where we had a great trip to the wildlife preserve on Cumberland Island. What a great time...wild horses, beautiful beaches and a perfect day
.
We then moved on to Bradenton, FL and visited lots of friends and family...Eight days of visiting, eating, visiting, drinking, visiting, drinking, eating...well you get the picture. We saw about a dozen people and enjoyed every minute.
Location:Carrabelle,United States
FW: 19 pictures for you
Dale to Waynesville, NC. We had a great time and saw two beautiful
waterfalls.
Ending our New England Trip
We’re ending our journey with a visit to our daughter and son-in-law in the Chapel Hill area.
We are keeping our rig at a great campground, Spring Hill RV, in Chapel Hill.
Our daughter has been dealing with our bills and mail and has done a great job making sure that we aren’t evicted, have water and electric etc, when we get home (they get funny when you don’t pay the bills)
8/31/2010
We’re now back home and our trip has lasted nearly 80 days.
One of our followers asked us to “post the stats” of our trip…some of you may find this of interest
Trip Stats
We stayed in 11 states
We drove through 13 states
We put 3193 miles on the coach
And 2848 miles on the “toad”
For a total of 6041 miles
We stayed in 18 campgrounds
We took 8544 pictures (yes we were snap happy..aren’t you glad we didn’t post them all)
The Trip
During the trip we were fortunate enough to have visited many friends and family and had a wonderful time.
We visited many places and have been asked what was our favorite….
We have not been able to come up with a single city or place…but here are some of our favorites:
Ride in a glider/sailplane…was the first time and a superb experience.
Ride in an open cockpit Bi-Plane; always wanted to do it, and finally had a chance
The “basin” a natural series of pools in crystal clear waters of Mt. Washington, NH
Luray Caverns; as beautiful as we remembered them from 40 years ago
Bar Harbor, Acadia “loop road”; every turn in the road produced a great vista
Blue Ridge Parkway;without question on of the most beautiful roads we’ve driven on….just spectacular.
Mt. Battie, near Camden, ME; a 360 degree view of the beautiful Maine coast
Delaware Valley Gap; Surprisingly beautiful area near some major urban areas in NY and NJ
Kennebunkport, the Porpoise Point, Ramp Bar; an unexpected stop at a bar and restaurant with a great view, great food and we met a fantastic couple
Ft. Ticonderoga, NY; a great fort, made even better by a surprise, hundreds of people reenactment
But most of all we enjoyed the people we met and the family and friends we got to spend time with .
Who would have believed that this couple from 1969 would be semi-responsible citizens, driving around in a bus….wait a minute in 1969 everyone wanted to be driving a VW bus painted with Psychedelic colors…we just have a bigger bus and more subdued colors.
Thanks to all of you who have followed our trip and for the kind comments you have made.
Next trip….out West……
Paul and Maryellen
New York and PA
We visited Mohonk house in upstate NY…what an amazing place that looks just like it must have looked at the turn of the century. The estate is massive and from the gate to the hotel is more than a mile.
We didn’t get a chance to hike, but we understand the hiking there is great.
We then went to Bucks County, PA to visit our friends Randy and Debbie. We parked the “beast” in their driveway and stayed in their newly remodeled guest room that was like a 5 star hotel….they are lucky that we didn’t stay longer.
They are terrific hosts and took us to a bar and restaurant that they knew we would love…and they were right. Next day they took us on a tour of the area which is rural and beautiful. We saw 7 covered bridges, lots of farm animals and pretty countryside. We also saw the amazing Mercer Museum and Moravian Tile works. This building is made up entirely of cement!
A great trip!
(More pix in the latest pictures area)
We're in Fancy Gap VA, on the Blue Ridge Parkway...but the weather is not cooperating...rain and fog. So we're heading to Chapel Hill, NC tomorrow to visit our daughter and son-in-law and then head home next week.
We've been gone approaching 3 months and Maryellen says she's out of underwear so we have to go home.
Paul and Maryellen
We didn’t get a chance to hike, but we understand the hiking there is great.
They are terrific hosts and took us to a bar and restaurant that they knew we would love…and they were right. Next day they took us on a tour of the area which is rural and beautiful. We saw 7 covered bridges, lots of farm animals and pretty countryside. We also saw the amazing Mercer Museum and Moravian Tile works. This building is made up entirely of cement!
A great trip!
(More pix in the latest pictures area)
We're in Fancy Gap VA, on the Blue Ridge Parkway...but the weather is not cooperating...rain and fog. So we're heading to Chapel Hill, NC tomorrow to visit our daughter and son-in-law and then head home next week.
We've been gone approaching 3 months and Maryellen says she's out of underwear so we have to go home.
Paul and Maryellen
Taking the sloooow Trek back home
We've not posted in a while as we've been spending time with friends and family in the town where we grew up in Massachusetts.
It was great catching up and spending time with everyone.
We've started going south, and will stop along the way in PA to visit some friends, then a few more stops along the way, to the Raleigh area, then on home in a couple of weeks.
We have a new camera to replace the pocket sized one we had that was ruined when someone went swimming with it in his swimsuit pocket. The new camera has built in GPS, which captures where we are and links to Google earth. It also has a panorama feature that we are going to try out soon.
The first pictures I took were from a plane at 35000 feet flying over the West (I had a short trip to LA last week) The pictures are good, considering the distance and atmospheric distortion, but not fantastic. However, if you click on them, it will bring you to another page which shows a Google map of where it was taken....cool stuff.
More postings to follow...
Best
Paul and Maryellen
It was great catching up and spending time with everyone.
We've started going south, and will stop along the way in PA to visit some friends, then a few more stops along the way, to the Raleigh area, then on home in a couple of weeks.
We have a new camera to replace the pocket sized one we had that was ruined when someone went swimming with it in his swimsuit pocket. The new camera has built in GPS, which captures where we are and links to Google earth. It also has a panorama feature that we are going to try out soon.
More postings to follow...
Best
Paul and Maryellen
Ending our Maine Trip
We’ve been a little slack in our posting as we’ve had marginal internet and we’ve been busy sightseeing and going around from early to late.
In Camden we went to the top of Mount Battie, which has a 360 degree view of Camden, Camden Harbor and views all the way to Cadillac mountain in Bar Harbor, which is many miles away
On Sunday we found this neat little restaurant, right on the water with excellent food. We sat outside in some Adirondack chairs, right on the dock, and met a nice couple from Ipswich Mass. Spent the afternoon in the sun, sipping some adult beverages and then having seafood for dinner.
Today we spent time in Ogunquit walking along the "Marginal Way"....it's a 1.5 walk right along the water with cliffs and crashing waves.
We posted some additional pictures in the “Latest Pictures” album.
We're heading out tomorrow morning after a great trip to quite a few places in Maine. We have spent the last 4 days in the Kennebunkport/Ogunquit area and we had nearly perfect weather and saw even more beautiful Maine scenery. It is such a beautiful state.
In Camden we went to the top of Mount Battie, which has a 360 degree view of Camden, Camden Harbor and views all the way to Cadillac mountain in Bar Harbor, which is many miles away
On Sunday we found this neat little restaurant, right on the water with excellent food. We sat outside in some Adirondack chairs, right on the dock, and met a nice couple from Ipswich Mass. Spent the afternoon in the sun, sipping some adult beverages and then having seafood for dinner.
Today we spent time in Ogunquit walking along the "Marginal Way"....it's a 1.5 walk right along the water with cliffs and crashing waves.
We posted some additional pictures in the “Latest Pictures” album.
We're heading out tomorrow morning after a great trip to quite a few places in Maine. We have spent the last 4 days in the Kennebunkport/Ogunquit area and we had nearly perfect weather and saw even more beautiful Maine scenery. It is such a beautiful state.
We're heading to Massachusetts to visit family and friends and then resuming our trip south sometime toward the latter part of August
Leaving Bar Harbor
The last couple of days we roamed around Acadia on the “loop road” and the scenery was amazing on nearly the entire route. It reminds us of the Blue Ridge Parkway in some ways as it winds its way through small mountains…but with the addition of ocean vistas, with rocky beaches and cliffs.
We have arrived at another nice area, Searsport Maine, and we’re very happy with the campsite we have, very near to the water with bay views.
This might surprise you....we have been seeing so many things, we've taken more than 2500 pictures....we need a bigger disk.
Paul and Maryellen
Bar Harbor Fun
We've been really enjoying ourselves in Bar Harbor. It is truly a beautiful place with lots to do.
Our RV site is right on the water and we have a great view of a bay, other islands and lots of wildlife.
Maryellen's brother Kevin, visited us for a day and overnight, and we had a fun time going to Bar Harbor and all of the small towns the area. Kevin worked in Bar Harbor for 7 years so he was a great tour guide.We went to the top of Cadillac Mountain, which is beautiful.
While riding around, we saw two beaver building a dam...they let us get very close and seemed not to be bothered by us being there.
Maryellen's brother Kevin, visited us for a day and overnight, and we had a fun time going to Bar Harbor and all of the small towns the area. Kevin worked in Bar Harbor for 7 years so he was a great tour guide.We went to the top of Cadillac Mountain, which is beautiful.
While riding around, we saw two beaver building a dam...they let us get very close and seemed not to be bothered by us being there.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) there is a brewery about a mile away from where we're staying and we had to sample what they had. We also brought some back with us to sample further, but for some reason there are none left. We had fun.
Yesterday, we decided to go for a scenic plane ride around Bar Harbor and ended up going up in a glider and soaring around BH!
It was unbelievably cool! We were towed up one mile and then the tethering rope was disengaged and we were off gliding like a bird.
It was a clear day and we could see 100’s of islands. We enjoyed it so much that 3 hours later we went up in a biplane! The biplane was great but the glider was awesome!
This is the towplane just getting ready to release us....
The Bi-plane..we sat in the front...open cockpit.
View from the Bi-plane
Lastly, I made some changes to the blog and have a new section called "Latest Pictures" so you don't have to scroll through too many to see the newest additions.
We're here in Bar Harbor until Tuesday, but we're not sure where we're going next...yet.
Best,
Paul and Maryellen
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