We finally left Florida!

Ok, so today we are driving. I am sitting in the passenger seat typing away while I stare at the most cool scenery. We are on our way from Georgia to Alabama today and decided to skip the freeway and took route 96 to 280 across the states. I just finished up driving my leg of today's journey and I got to drive over the Chattahoochee river! It was super cool, mostly because of Alan Jackson's song...Lol. I really prefer driving on these local highways over the interstate, the 4 lane highways where everyone is in a major hurry gives me massive anxiety, especially when I am a passenger so this is much more enjoyable. Plus, we get to see a lot of local towns and communities and that is more interesting to look at then the billboards that litter the sides of the interstates.

We spent yesterday driving to see Scott and Misty in Warner Robbins, GA and had a really nice time visiting with them. We stayed up till midnight eating snacks, playing Uno and enjoying some of the finer things in life. They are busy preparing for the wedding of Misty's oldest daughter today so we just stopped in for the night and are headed to Alabama now where we have plans to meet up with my oldest friend in the world, April. I haven't seen April since my wedding (19 years ago) and I am really looking forward to catching up, meeting her youngest kiddos and her husband. We are staying in a state park there so it will be more rustic and woodsy than the ritzy RV park we just left.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I have got to recap the last few weeks for you. It has been very busy for us in Florida. Sammy came and stayed with us when he finished up his contract at Gable Stage. He got booted off campus at the end of the semester but still had a full week of work at the the theater so he set up at KOA in Broward County and roughed it for the week. He is such a trooper with the most even keeled "can do" attitude I have ever seen, especially in someone so young. He always finds a solution to the problems life tosses his way! By the time he got to us, he was pretty burnt out, but it was his 20th Birthday! Eric and I were so happy to see him on his birthday, especially on such an important one. While Sam was with us, Eric took him sight seeing to his favorite place - Sholom Park, took him clothes shopping, we went for a sunset drive through service roads in the national forest and ate sandwiches at a boat ramp in High Springs, FL. It was fun.

On Saturday of Sam's visit, we drove down to the Tampa area - we used to live there when Sam was little but he doesn't remember it and Eric just down right hated living in that part of Florida so we were in for an adventure. We have some very good friends who live in that area, friends who have been a part of lives for 30 years, The Waller Family (Jackie, Phil, Sue and Keith) are family to us and this chance we had to see all 4 of them together with all 3 of us was too perfect to pass up. We also got a special bonus meeting Phil's girlfriend Elyssa. We had so much fun reminiscing, telling tales of our adventures and just catching up. Sammy just loves them too, especially Jackie, so it was the perfect night.

While we were down in the Tampa area, we also went to Caladesi Island. Let me tell you a little bit about Caladesi Island, IT IS THE BEST BEACH HANDS DOWN! When we lived in Florida, Sammy and I used to go over to the island quite a bit. We would go with Jackie a lot, I brought every visitor out there and show it off. I feel so blessed to have had that magical place as part of my life. To get out to the island, you have to go to Honeymoon Island State Park in Dunedin and then take a small ferry out to the island. Of course, you can also get there if you have your own boat but we don't so we take the ferry. You get a 4 hour window between drop off and departure for the ferry, which is just the perfect amount of time to spend on an island beach...unless you live there of course! Or you are like me and could spend every moment of your life on the beach!

Sammy was busy laying out trying to fix the train wreck of a sunburn/skin peeling situation on his back and Eric has a new camera, a real camera, not just his phone any more so we took a long walk down the beach, Eric taking pictures, me searching for shells and both of us frolicking in the water and playing among the trees growing on the beach. It was really magical. See, Eric had NEVER come to Caladesi Island before. For many years, the beach was a place Eric just didn't go. Thankfully, that has slowly changed and now we spend lots of time on the beach.

I am so happy to have had the chance to visit here again, spend time there with my 2 favorite people. My heart was so full of joy and gratitude by the end of that visit - between the beach, seeing our long time friends and being there with Eric and Sam, there could not have been a more perfect day.

So one the major perks of the fancy RV place is the swimming pool. I spent many many hours in it the first few weeks were staying there and got myself a bomb ass tan! But, the pool broke, like right before Sammy came to visit! It was broken for 2 weeks. IN those 2 weeks, I realized that without that pool there was nothing special about the resort. In fact, I started hating on it every chance I got. I complained and bitched about everything. LOL. Anything slightly off, I found it and complained about it. Hahha! The pool got fixed the day Sammy left and suddenly I was happy again with the RV resort. hee-hee. I mean, its like 30 minutes to drive anywhere so the best thing to do after work is the pool. I had missed that. I feel sad it wasn't working while Sammy was here with us because I think he would have really enjoyed it but sadly, he missed out.

Backtracking still here, for Mother's day, Eric and I spent the day in St. Augustine, America's oldest city. We toured the old fort, walked through the cobbled stone streets window shopping and sightseeing, had lunch in the bottom of the largest indoor swimming pool in the country (of course, its not full of water anymore), spent time wandering the Flagler museum and went to the pirate museum! I love pirates, - really I love all things that are on the fringe: pirates, vikings, witches, hippies, gypsies, etc so i was stoked to visit the pirate museum. Sadly, it was a little bit of a let down but we had a lot of funny being our silly selves anyway. We then took a ride out to the beach and walked and shelled for a bit! It was the perfect day.

One Saturday, Eric and I took our bikes to Gainesville and rode on the rail trail path for about 10 miles. The trail is an old railway that has been converted to a walking/biking path - very much like the St. Marks Rail Trail in Tallahassee! It was a neat way to see the city. Of course, I read the map wrong at first, and we went a mile or 2 in the wrong direction - oops! When we were headed the right direction, we followed the path through the city and out to some trail heads and into Payne's Prairie with some beautiful views and overlooks.

We were trying to beat the weather that day so we started out earlier and finished up with the ride about noon. Since it was so early, Eric took me down to Sholom Park as I hadn't had the chance to see it yet. I am so glad Eric found that park. For him, its a peaceful respite, a place he instantly connected with. It really has a special magic to it that is palpable.

On our last weekend in Florida - the same weekend we were in the Tampa area, Sammy left Sunday morning to head to MA, Eric and I headed out to go swimming at Ginnie Springs we had visited several springs but none that were swimming holes so I was super excited to squeeze this last thing in before leaving Florida. We got up the springs area, and saw state park after state park closed due to capacity and were pretty sure we had made a colossal error! It was Memorial Day weekend after all - duh! We got up to Ginnie Springs, and on the left was a massive open field filled with tents - people tent camping in the open field. We also noticed several porta potties scattered in the field! Um, I love to camp but this just looked gross. The field was full of people cooking out, moseying about and standing in line for the potties. It looked like a campground you would see at a 3 day festival. You know the kind you get blazed or drunk out of your mind for the weekend and the forget the conditions are disgusting! Yuck - not for me. We got into the line to get into the springs, it was about 20 cars deep and the line monitor told us it was 25$ each to get in because of the holiday they jacked the price up - what a bunch of fuckers! We chatted and each noticed different things that raised all our red flags. We continued to creep forward in the line with me bull-headishly insisting we should continue on. There were a billion people there and the Park wasn't closing. Why was this park still open but the state parks closed to capacity! Why I tell you, because they were making bank and were not going to stop letting people in no matter how crowded. I watched a man gather several chairs, a cooler and a bag from his car while his children and wife went ahead of him, I then watched him drop that shit and pick it back up several times because it was too heavy or burdensome. With each drop and pick up, I could literally feel his frustration growing. Then I noticed the porta potties in the parking area too! There were no proper facilities and they were charging a mint to get in. We were next in line and both Eric and I - basically simultaneously- wigged out and decided this was a colossal mistake! Eric quickly reversed and maneuvered the truck out of line and we very narrowly missed making a horrible judgement call. We made a plan to get to a spring the next day I would do some research that night and we would have a better chance of actually enjoying ourselves. Check out this picture below of Ginnie Springs, can you imagine me being stuck in this cesspool of humanity! YUCK!

We took the back roads back to Reddick, stopped in a little town called Micanopy and walked around their delightful little downtown for a little while. We also stopped into Payne's Prairie State Park for a nice walk and photo opportunities. It ended up being a super day!

The next morning, we got up super early, like 6 AM! Packed a bag, a lunch and some drinks and headed back to the Springs area. We ended up at Gilchrist Springs state park for the day and had a nice time swimming in the spring, taking a the short trail around the area, eating lunch on the sand and wrapping up our visit about noon. It was perfect, definitely full of people but not quite like Ginnie Springs