Round 2 – Headed West

After being home for a few months, we knew how Willie Nelson felt when he couldn’t wait to get back on the road again. We didn’t like having the RV just sit in the backyard; not quite what we bought it for. As with the first RV trip, the packing seemed to be endless. We again missed our intended departure date, and finally pulled out of our driveway at 6pm on Wednesday. We knew we wouldn’t make it far, but wanted to at least get moving. After gorging ourselves on an almost-mandatory dinner at Cracker Barrel, we stopped at a rest area south of Ocala for the night. Apparently you aren’t supposed to stop for more than three hours at any Florida rest area, but we slept the whole night there and the security guard never bothered us.

The next day (9/17) we drove all the way up near Apalachicola, where we stayed at the St. Joseph Peninsula State Park. Along the way, we stopped in Newport at Outz’s Too for lunch, which is an awesome little biker/redneck/dive bar and restaurant that lured me in with their $7.99/dozen oysters. It reminded us a lot of the Beer Shed, but with much better food, slightly less cigarette smoke, and an equal number of confederate flags.

With bellies full of fried fish and oysters, we finally pulled into the State Park at 4pm. We were all happy to be out of the campervan, especially the kids since we were at a beach again. After a brief period back in the RV due to rain, we again headed to the beach to watch the sunset.

Once the kids were asleep, Jennifer and I had to decide where we were going next. Our loose plan had become to beeline it for Yellowstone to see the sites out there before everything closed and/or got covered in snow. What we didn’t know, though, was which way we should drive – the southern route along I-10 or North and then West. GoogleMaps showed that the quickest route (but not by much) was to head north, which would take us straight through Birmingham. The deciding factor was that I have family just outside of Birmingham that I rarely see, so we agreed to head that way and hope we could drop in on them. With our route figured out, we went to bed and got out of there somewhat early the next morning.

Once we were on the road towards Birmingham (Pelham, actually), I called my cousin to see if they were open to us dropping in on their Friday evening, which they were. My cousin John, his wife, Heather, and daughter, Linleigh, were living with my Aunt and Uncle while they finished building their new house. My Aunt and Uncle, coincidentally, had left that morning to go stay with my parents at their mountain house near Murphy, NC. We got there around 5pm. Cooper and Linleigh quickly became best friends and disappeared playing in Linleigh’s room. A little while later, my other cousin James (John’s brother) and his family showed up, followed by Heather once she got out of work. We had a great evening catching up; it had been many years since we’d all seen each other. Though we were more than welcomed to stay in the house, we decided that it would be easier to sleep in the campervan parked in front of the house. We said our good-byes the next morning and started what would be another long day of driving.

Not much happened on the 19^th. We drove and drove and drove some more, briefly broken up by lunch at a rest area.  That was it, a rest area was the highlight.

Jennifer found a campground located just off the interstate in Whittington, Illinois, called Gun Creek. It turned out to be a good one, and cheap, too. We got there in time to let the kids play on the playground for a while before heading down the lake to watch the sun go down and the moon come up. It was an awesome sunset. We were out of there in the morning.