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1 to 15 November 2015 16 to 30 November 2015

Sunday November 1, 2015

It was time change last night. We move our clock back one hour.
This is good for us as the sunrise is one hour earlier.
The weather is not the greatest for traveling today. We have winds in the 35 km/h range with gusts up to 75 km/h.

Here, we are on the road heading south!
Coming out of the RV Park.

Hum!
Our timing is not the best to cross the border! It is shift change!
We are left standing there for about 15 minutes waiting for and a custom officer to show up!
We cannot say anything, they have the big end of the stick!

As usual, we cross the border without any problems.
Shoot! We did not take any photo of the Welcome to New York!
We got the next one, Pennsylvania.

I had filled up the MH fuel tank with only $100 when we arrived at Sherkston Shores. Now we need fuel!
$2.199 per gallons US! Even with the rate of exchange for our Canadian dollar, the cost per litters is only $0.76 Canadian. Cheap, cheap gas!

The next State is Ohio.

We are spending our first night at the Walmart in Marietta, Ohio.
This is our first night at a Walmart with our new MH.
We are curious to see how the batteries will last powering the house fridge we have.

Sometimes we cannot stop for the night at some Walmart because some RVers abuse the kindness of Walmart.
They do this by putting out the slides, putting the legs down, damaging the pavement!
However, to his credit, he has a good idea by parking his car in front of the MH. This way he cannot be boxed in by customers.

I just find it cool to see the nitrogen reacting with the warm air.

This was a good day driving. We covered 575 km today.

Monday November 2, 2015

We wake up to a foggy day. We decide to hold up and leave later when the fog has lifted.
This is one reason we love our lifestyle. We do not have to travel if we do not like the weather conditions.

The fog is starting to lift, so we hit the road. Less than 10 minutes later, we cross into West Virginia.

There is still some fog here and there.

In less than 20 minutes, we have a blue sky.

We noticed gasoline is very cheap in West Virginia.
Why not fill up? Even with the exchange rate, we only pay $0.578 per litters. WOW!

We drive by Charleston. The State Capitol.

We leave the Interstate behind us and take some back-roads.

The team.

It is a nice road.

The scenery is very nice.

Oupppss! The road becomes very twisty and steep.

Here is a video of part of the road.

Click here to view the video.
Be patient, it is a large file...

At the top, we stop and give a chance for the engine to cool down.

We are now in Virginia.

We are spending the night at another Walmart. This one is in Bluefield, VA.
Diner is from Taco Bell.

Walking back to the MH with our meal.

Our meals...
Michele with her nachos and I with my Mexican Pizza.

We traveled 358 km today!

Tuesday November 3, 2015

It was a quiet night at Walmart.
We are on our way to Knoxville, Tennessee.

Look at this fog on the mountains. It looks scary!

We are on the state road #19.

Once back on the Interstate 81 we go to the next State.

We are at staying at the South Lake RV Park near Knoxville.
When we were installed, we went to the city.

One of the many murals in the city of Knoxville.
This one is on the information center.

With all the information we got, we are back home and checking out what is to see and do in Knoxville?
We even have a patio on our site.

A nice site.

A 333 km drive for today.
With the exchange rate for the Canadian dollar, this campground turns out to be expensive.
For $80 US for two nights, it turns out to cost $105 Canadian.
But, it is +25°C so, we do not complain.

Wednesday November 4, 2015

I am taking a walk with a nice coffee this morning, taking some photos, our site.

Shortly before lunch, we head to Knoxville.
We park close to the World Fair of 1982 and the Sunsphere.

We cannot get to the top of the sunsphere, we will later.
The concert place.

I cannot understand how a city can offer 3 trolleys circuit for free???
They even have free museum!!!
And free parking!!!
How do they do it?

Here we are in the Trolley.

After a trolley tour of the city. We walk the Gay Street.
The Mast store has been in operation since the end of the 1800s.

Even the foot rest is rocking!

We could not resist and looked for some caches.

We have lunch at the Market Square.

Gay Street.

Why not another cache?

The rower!

One of the parks is next to an art museum. The park has art too.

Every weekdays during lunchtime, they have shows at the information center.
Again, it is free!

We walked around the downtown area for a few hours.
Next stop is the Sunsphere.
At the top, we can see 360°.

Some of the view we have.

Knoxville is a pretty little town.

On our way back we stopped for some groceries.
Hamburger meat was on special, we bought a lot and I am cooking it all. We will freeze it later.

The view from our patio.

We are very happy.

I am working on the latest blog up-date.

Tomorrow we will be back on the road.
After checking the weather, we decided not to stop in Chattanooga, but continue toward the panhandle of Florida.

Thursday November 5, 2015

We are not leaving very early, we are retired after all!

Back on the Interstate.

One more fill up and at $0.70 CDN per litres, we love it.

Driving to Chattanooga.

The I-75 goes into Georgia for a short while.

Sweet Home Alabama.

We stopped for a short time at the Alabama information center.

Trenton???
Are we going in circle?

At times, we are almost alone on the Interstate!

The Interstate are very boring roads, but in the comfort of the MH, it is not so bad.

One more night at Walmart. This time we are in Prattville, Alabama.
No photo of the Walmart because our camera did not work !

Friday November 6, 2015

What a night!
When we arrived, the temperature was +30°C.
The generator ran from 4 o'clock until 10 o'clock and both A/C were working hard.
We shut down the generator when we went to sleep.
It stayed at +23 °C with 90% humidity.
It was not a restful night.
We are back on the road under a very light rain.

It did not take long and the sun was back.
What a nice road.

We leave the Interstate behind us and continue on State roads.
Ah! Florida!

Our first palm tree! Can you see it?

The first cotton field and cotton ball.

In Milton, we had to wait a long time for a long train to go by.

We are at our new home for the next month. We are at "St. Rosa Sound RV Resort".
Site 46 is our site. More photos in a few days.

Some photos of our new home!

More photos to come.

Saturday November 7, 2015

I am full of energy this morning. Time to wash the MH. It really needs it.
The front of the MH is very dirty. I washed the front and right side only today.

I will wash the rest of the MH tomorrow if it does not rain.
We went for more groceries at Walmart, Publix and Winn-Dixie.

Sunday November 8, 2015

A boring day, rain and rain all day.
I am reading the news on my tablet.

Did I say it rained?

We finally decided to go for a drive in Pensacola.
A $1 for a bridge 3 miles long, not bad.

For the drive back, we drove on the other side of St. Rosa Sound.

I have photos of the RV Park we are in.
The photos were taken on Monday (tomorrow), but I put them up today.
The office.

Behind the office towards the RV sites.

The RV Park has only one road and it does a loop.

Behind the office, they have a nice relaxing area with a propane fire pit. It is on every evening.

The view for the pool. The pool overlook the Santa Rosa Sound.

The heated pool!

Some of the sites. Can you see our MH?

Some sites are close to the water. We can see the bridge between Navarre and Navarre Beach.

Our street.

Our site. It is a very nice RV Park, but the only drawback is that we have highway 98 ten meters behind us. Highway 98 is a 4 lanes boulevard with heavy traffic all day.

The RV Park seen from above. The arrow points to our campsite.

We are not complaining, it is a very nice RV Park and the view from the pool is fantastic.

Monday November 9, 2015

I bought a small kit of "lenses restorer" for one of my car front light.
When I look closely, it also has lots of moisture inside, not good.
On the left a before photo and on the right an photo after.

Eventually I will have to buy a new light for the car!

I always wanted to try a Mississippi Mud beer. It is a Port and Pilsner style of beer.
I actually enjoyed this beer.

The view from our dock.

Another good day.

Tuesday November 10, 2015

I am out biking this morning and found 3 caches.

After my bike ride, I finally finish washing the MH.

It is hot and we go to the pool to cool off.

What a view!

Wednesday November 11, 2015

I am out looking for caches this morning and only found one.

Here I am at the patio reading news on my tablet.

After a good lunch, we head to Navarre Beach and the pier.

This is the start of the pier in Navarre Beach.
One is a bar and the other is fast food.

We have to pay $1 to walk on this pier.
It is a really nice pier. It is the longest pier on the Gulf of Mexico.

Even at +22°C, this fisherman is cold!
He wears a snowsuit!
Notice the BIG blue reel on his fishing rod!

The majority of fishermen are at the end of the pier.

Cute couple!

The view to the east.

We also saw some turtles.

Who is this?

There are a few condominium high-rises on the beach.

The sunset viewed from our pier.

And it is gone!

I was not feeling very good today, oh well!
I hope it I will feel better tomorrow.

Thursday November 12, 2015

After breakfast, I jump on my bike and start looking for caches.
It is only +24°C, but with 95% humidity, I sweat a lot!
I found 5 caches, but a few more I did not go in the woods to look for them as I am wearing only my sandles and short pants.
One even mentioned poison ivy!
More clouds move in by late morning, but no rain.

After I got back, I joined Michele doing laundry.

Once we got back home, we noticed this big puddle behind our MH! The fresh water hose broke!

Another good day!

Friday November 13, 2015

The temperature is on the cool side this morning, but the sun is nice.
I am at the beach for my morning coffee.
The view to the west and a view from my chair!

A view to the east, the tide is low now.

We are heading to Fort Pickens this afternoon.
We are going by way of Navarre Beach.

We can only drive at 60 km/h for the 50 km to get to Fort Pickens.
We drive next to the Gulf of Mexico with the snow white beaches.

To get to Fort Pickens, we drive in Pensacola Beach with its condominium and beautiful boulevard.

We enter Gulf Islands National Seashore where is Fort Pickens.

A seawall protects the western end of Santa Rosa Island.
While I take the guided tour of the fort, Michele goes for a walk on the beach and the seawall.

The entrance to the Bay of Pensacola is a very good place to view dolphins.

White sand beaches.

During that time, I tour Fort Pickens.
One of the casemates for the canons.

The many casemates for the canons, remember that canons were also located above.
This fort was built to defend the entrance of the Pensacola Bay.

The Santa Rosa is made entirely of sand. Sand shifts all the time, to prevent the fort from falling apart they built the arches on top of reversed arches to create solid foundation.

Our guide was to give a 45 minutes tour, but we ended up with a 75 minutes tour and it was good.

There used to be a bastion here, but the bastion exploded in 1899.

Here I am coming back from the tour.

The sand is still moving on Santa Rosa Island.
The #1 shows where is the Fort and #2 shows where the entrance to Pensacola Bay used to be.
As you can see, the island has moved a lot since 1899.

After the visit, we drive back home by the same road we took driving in.

Patricia storm came through last October and it moved a lot of sands around. So much so that this road was covered with a meter and half of sand. This is some of the sand they had to move to open the road.