Red Top Mtn, GA

We left Savannah and drove to Macon, GA. We stayed in a Camping World parking lot that was the loudest place we had stayed to date. Interstate 75 was right next to it and the truck and car traffic was constant all night long. We hardly slept at all but it was free!

I guess I had better add here that when we left Savannah we filled up the MH. We figured we would hook up the Jeep after since it was a tight turn in the station. Well  I was supposed to get on I-95 south but like a dummy I wasn't paying attention and I got on heading north. Mo was blowing the horn but again, like a dummy, I wasn't paying attention. She went on down and turned around and tried to catch me but I had pulled off at the next exit and somehow she didn't see me so we ended up playing chase for about 2 hours. I had the phone so we couldn't call each other. Mo finally pulled off of I-16 and called me. We had both been to SC and back to Savannah! Well we got back together and hooked the Jeep to the MH and we sure won't let that happen again!

So.... We got to Red Top Mtn safely, which is always a blessing since you have to go completly through all of Atlanta! and then Marietta! We got a site and got all set up. This was Monday evening and the campground was absolutly beautiful. Pine trees and hardwoods, rock gardens, hills and senic views of Lake Allatoona. Lots of hiking trails and very few people.

                                                                                      That's us in the center there

 We could tell right away that we needed to stay longer then 3 days. We called Michael and let him know where we were and he planned to come visit Tuesday after work. That morning Mo and I went for a 4 mile hike on the Iron Hill Trail. It wound all around the lake with some great views.

We stopped and carved our "M n M" in a Beech tree, took a self portrat and had our photo taken by another pair of hikers

We finally got back and made a trip into Acworth to the local Walmart for a few items for later. Michael came by later and we sat around a campfire until about 8:30. Some neighbors came over and stayed until about 9 and then Mo and I just enjoyed the rest of the fire as it slowly burned down for the night. That night, after a shower to wash off the smoke, we slept like babies. Wednesday we had all to ourselves and we just bummed around the park. We went to Michaels' that evening and stayed with Declan and Collin so Michael and Carin could go out for a while. Thursday we hiked again and also talked to the park office staff about hosting there next year, it was that nice! If we could host for March and April it would work perfect. Maybe.......  
That evening Michael brought all his children out for a cookout. We fixed hamburgers and hot dogs on the fire and they were goood! About 7:30 Patrick, my brother who works for the US Forestry Service, came and we all sat around the fire and talked. Michael and the kids had to leave since they had school and work ,but Patrick stayed and we had a great visit. We don't get to see him very often so we had a lot of catching up to do. After he left, Mo and I again sat by the fire as it burned out. That is really a peaceful way to end a day.

Friday morning we got on the road early. We hoped to get away by 8am but it ended up being 10:30! We wanted to get to Summerdale asap so that we could go to Grandmommies' (Mo's mom) house and check on her. We drove straight through with no problems, got to Summerdale about 4pm, got set up and went to Daphne.
We'll be here for the new grandbaby that is due on Feb 25th, Sam and Leah's first, and probably leave about the middle of March.

Back on the road....

We reluctantly left Lake Oklawaha. I received all the parts for the tow brake and got it all installed successfully. I cleaned the outside of the motorhome good and Mo cleaned the inside. We were looking for a reason to stay longer but, it was time to go.  :(

Our plan was to go to St Augustine and stay a night, see some of the sights and maybe make Mass on Saturday. That kind of fell apart since the county commission posted no overnight parking anywhere, even at the Camping World and truckstops! So we went on past there and drove on to Jacksonville, FL. We had time to go to 5pm Mass and the Walmart we planned on staying at was just down the street from the church. So as we were going down the road, there was the church. We were 30 min early so I whipped it in the driveway just hoping there would be enough room to get in and then be able to get back out. Luckily it had a school with it so there was a big lot at the school that we parked in, after parking, we realized we were parked right in front of the rectory! We got back out ok and went on down to the WalMart. We never rest well in WalMarts, you just never know...... so we both sleep with one eye open and locked and loaded.

We left there and drove to Savannah to visit Carol, my older sister. We were lucky to get a spot at the Camping World there that had electricity and lots of room to put the slides out, and security.  We drove into downtown and had a great afternoon and evening visiting with Carol and Don. Carol fixed a super deluxe dinner for us. It was a beautiful day spent visiting and remembering old times and the good old days.

Today we're in Macon, GA at a Camping World parking lot again. Tomorrow we head for Canton, GA to visit with Michael and his family for a couple of days then back to Fairhope to welcome a new GrandBaby into this crazy world.

Peace and quiet!

We're in Ocala National Forest staying in an RV park named Oklawaha RV Park. We had gotten two free nights at the Tampa RV Show and figured we would work it in our route. Donna, the lady at the RV show is a resident owner of the park and was just a real nice lady. She really promoted the park well but you just never know, we sure didn't want to have a hard sell put on us when we got there and she assured us we wouldn't. When we called to make sure it was ok to come in the lady who answered said there was a rally coming in on Thursday of about 100 people. We only wanted two days so we figured we would be leaving on Wednesday.The place was virtually empty. Donna wasn't here but Alise put us on a site up the hill but told us if that wasn't the one we wanted, just pick one and let her know the number.
Now remember I said it is in Ocala NF? Well right across the road from the rv park, behind another 30 acres owned by this rv park, are the most extensive off road trail systems I have ever heard of. Literally over 125 miles of trails through the woods. There is a trail head 1/4 mile from the RV Park entrance. I was itching to run some trails! But wait ! did I also mention that we're right on Lake Oklawaha? We had to explore this also, there were trails down to the lake to walk and bike.  Oh no, there was no way we were leaving in two days. We upped our stay for two more days. Thursday the rigs started rolling in, only about 5 that day, they were all to be grouped together down near the clubhouse so it wouldn't bother us.
O yeah, gotta back up a bit...
On the way to this RV Park we went through a small town named Salt Springs. We were watching for it because that was a major turn for us. This was a small town but as we entered we almost fell out of our seats,

We couldn't stop fast enough then but we said that after we got set up we would come back down and check it out.
The benches out front are hand made and have 'Hopton's Drive In' routed in the back rests. If I could fit them someplace.....well I might have.

The next day we did just that. Unfortunetly it had closed down just recently due, of course, to the economy. We did find out that a lady by the name of Lisa Hopton owned it, and.... it is for sale.  We are NOT buying it!

OK, so where was I???

Oops, better back up a bit more to make this right.

When we were at our last stop, Fishermans Cove in Tavares, FL I completed my research of tow brake systems for the Jeep. It is basically an auxillary brake system tied into the MH brakes to use the Jeep brakes in conjuction with the MH brakes. It's required by law in many states. I didn't think it was really needed until I had a few quick stops and could feel the Jeep pushing me. So anyway I found a place in Tampa that had the complete package and we drove down and picked it up. That was a round trip of 70 miles and about 3 hrs time. We left for our next stop and I put off opening it  until we got there. When I unpacked it there were parts missing. Also the wrong instructions were packed! I called and fussed and was assured they would send out the parts asap. Thinking we wouldn't be anywhere we could receive them for a while I gave them Michael's address in Canton, GA.

Now, back to Oklawaha.....

Like I said this park is so nice and quiet and there is so much to do here that we extended our stay 2 days right off the bat. So now we would be here for 4 days. The second day I went for a run on the ATV trails, not knowing what to expect. They were of course, sandy trails through the woods. That went on and on! No signs, no markers and not one person anywhere! Not even a bear...there are supposed to be a lot of them in this neck of the woods but we never saw one.  A person could easily get lost, or confused, on these trails. No way for me to get lost though, my foot prints were an obvious bread crumb trail back out. Didn't need them though, I made a big loop on instinct and came out where I went in. Later Mo and I explored the trails in the campground. Mo had done a 2 mile walk earlier in the day so that night we were both pretty tired. When night came it was like another world. Pitch black, a breeze blowing and an Owl in the trees hooting away. It was truely the most peaceful and quietest night we had since ...???? So, the next day we extended our stay another 2 days. I called the brake company and had them change the shipping to here. Saturday came in a bit cool, with nothing planned I decided on a run, that would give Mo some girl time too. There is a trail system in FL that runs from N FL near Blackwater St Pk to somewhere in S FL. The trail passes right throuh Ocala NF and it crossed the RV parks road about 4 miles from it. So Mo took me to the trail crossing and dropped me off, we agreed to meet at another hwy crossing in 2 1/2 - 3 hrs. The trail was beautiful! Some hills but mostly flat, well marked single track trail. Here's a pic of the trail, this area was pretty wide and well groomed as was it all. The whole way I only saw 2 pices of trash, 1 cig Butt and a jar top.

Sunday we went to Mass in Palatka, FL, actually the nearest  town with anything. The church was small and old but very friendly. After Mass we went to get breakfast and decided on Golden Corral, there just wasn't anything else better that was open. We got there at 10:15 and ate some breakfast and then they announced the last call for breakfast, they were changing over to lunch. We looked at each other and shrugged, so we ate lunch there too!

I didn't mention thaat we had some neighbors come in on the second day. They're owners of the lot across the way and had lots of toys, 4 wheelers, scooters, a beautiful built up Jeep and a toy hauler motor home to carry it all. Neat couple, they know how to enjoy lifr! here's a pic of them on their camp ground transportation

 She has lights on her stand up electric scooter and, yes, thats a beer cooler scooter he's on. It's a riot to see him cruising along on it! (He has 3 for sale if you want one, 300.00 ea. and they go fast!)

Here's a couple of pics, the first is looking down the hill from our site. The building is the laundry and bathroom/showers. The rig with the puple jeep belongs to a nurse that lives and works in Ocala and just comes here when she needs to get away. In the distance you can see the rally rigs, didn't bother us at all. There was one rig that decided to pull around his site and enter instead of backing in and he ran over the main water line and broke it. The rush of water washed out all the dirt/sand under his rig and he sunk to his frame! been there! The whole park was without water for about 6 hrs including the time it took to pull him out of the hole. Didn't hurt us, we had a whole tank on board.

 Here's us set up, don't know what Mo's doing, probably nothing, we're doing that real good here!

On Tuesday we went grocery shopping in Palatka and Mo dropped me off at anothr trail head on the way back and I ran home, a good 14 mile run. The delivery from UPS was scheduled for Weds by 5 pm and I knew I would need a day to finish the install so we up another day. It came in yesterday about 4:30 and today we woke up to rain. It's now noon and maybe I better go out and get busy! but maybe we'll stay another day...................