Day 7 Paradise Lost

And the seagull's name was Nelson.... We woke to the steady patter of rain on the roof so a sleep-in was called for.. While drizzling we made a trip to the local Walmart to restock our dwindling supplies before we embark on the next leg of our journey. This afternoon when the sun reappeared we decided to take our final dip in the Gulf of Mexico. Well this calm water had turned into a monster... not so pleasant. Tthat's all folks until next time, cheers.

Day 6 Another day in paradise

Morning and afternoon swims in the bay.....

Day 5 Glorious day at Topsail

Today can only be described as a glorious day.  Henry assured us that this resort was fantastic, well he wasn't wrong.  Henry, it is everything you said it would be and more.  We had our morning walk to the beach.  I didn't know beaches like this still existed, white, white sand, not crowded with people and very calm water.  We took the tram back to camp and after doing some necessary housework, we caught the tram back to the beach for an afternoon swim.  Dirk is not normally the one for swimming, but today he thoroughly enjoyed his swim, even he was surprised.

The "tram" is a trailer with seating pulled by a small truck.  It leaves on the hour, every hour from 9.00 am to 6.00 pm  this is for folks like us who do not ride bikes or are too lazy to walk.  Walking during the day is not fun with the Florida heat and humidity.  The people that come her regularly have got themselves really organised.  You will see the whole family going to the beach on bicycles, Mom, children and Dad bring up the rear, pulling a cart behind the bike with all the necessary towels, drinks etc for a morning on the beach.

The picture of the beer cans on the pavement, was apparently someone who lost his cooler box off the back of the tram.  They were all lying in the middle of the road when we got there, Dirk did his good deed for the day and moved them onto the curb.  Someone else came up from the beach and loaded them into his cool box.

Luckily we have a few more days here before moving on, so we will definitely be doing more exploring and swimming.

Day 4 Topsail Hill Preserve

I must start off by apologizing for the delay in posting Day 4's blog on Day 5. Will explain later.

As you can see by the Track log we did our longest journey of this trip so far.  We left Birmingham at 8.20am, taking the advice of Henry who has traveled this road before and arrived at Topsail Hill Reserve at about 3.00 pm, that was after making the obligatory stop at Walmart on the way.

Topsail is a Florida State park, with all the necessary requirements to make our stay comfortable.  It is a beach park, as yet we still have to get to the beach, more of that later. The thought did cross my mind that if ever we go missing on our journeys, our credit card should be checked to see which was the last Walmart we stopped at..... it seems that we have to stop at, at least one Walmart per day.

The journey was quite uneventful, except for the continuous discussion between 2 GPS' , 2 occupants and trying to remember what Henry told us during casual discussions before we left, about the best road to take.  The bridge over the waterway to get to the beach front area was quite spectacular, see the pictures.

Talking about pictures, that is the reason this blog is late.  Dirk's main lens stopped working yesterday, so after supper of 2 delicious fillets done on the fire, a couple of beers and the usual Red Wine, he decided to repair the lens(Google is your friend). Photo describes it all. There were a couple of tense hours but the end result was a successful repair, as the last pic shows. The mad scientist does it again!!!

We are in this camp until Monday morning, so we are now off to explore the beach.

Day 3 Nashville to Birmingham

Every day is getting us closer to our southern most point of our journey.  Today we once again had a leisurely drive from Nashville to Birmingham South Camp Ground, this is the camp ground that is not a KOA but was a KOA.  The building's a KOA style building, even the sign at the entrance was a KOA sign board, but now a Good Sam Club board.  It still is a lovely park, although one of the older ones.  The traffic was not as hectic as we have had, but still busy, with loads of road work, that still does not slow the trucks down.

Day 2 Leisurely To Nashville Tenessee

Not much to report on today.  We had an uneventful but pleasant journey to Nashville, Tennessee.  The only excitement, if you like that sort of thing, was blending in with the many trucks.  This country is amazing when it comes to trucking, wall to wall trucks.  So far the weather has been great, hope it continues.

You may wonder why there is no mention of our good friends Faye and Henry.  They will only be joining us later on our journey, as they had other commitments they had to attend to, so for now Dirk and I are on our own in this big country.

Day 1 Unexpected Start

Well folks, as most of you know, Dirk and I were supposed to only collect our RV today (Monday 21st) and start our travels tomorrow.  Well my dear man got the travel bug and as soon as we collected the RV he started saying maybe we should pack up and move out today....... to cut a long story short, by 3.00  we were on our way to Louisville, Kentucky, having stopped at the grocery store to buy the last of the perishables.  I have to agree that it did take a big chunk of miles out of tomorrows trip and the traffic wasn't as bad as it would have been if we left in the morning.  Never a dull moment in the Bal household, no mater where it may be.
The camp where we have stopped, reminds me of a parking lot at the local shopping centre, but it has all the necessary equipment and I am now going to lay my head down for the night.

Watch this space for the next adventure.