Diary of our Travels
First months of Retirement

Cruises &

Florida to Alabama
  Page 1

December 10, 2003

We had the closing on our home and kennel in Morganton, NC today and spent the next week or so trying to get situated in our new home. Fitting the
belongings from a 3000 square foot home into a 36 foot long motor home and two storage units was more of a challenge than we had anticipated.  We parked the RV in our son Richards yard until the day after Christmas, visiting and celebrating the holiday with them. The day after Christmas with everything fairly well stored we headed east to our daughter Deb's house in Kernersville. Sheryl, Paul and children arrived the next day and we had another Christmas celebration with them.  Parking in the children's yards was very convenient free electric hook ups and our own traveling bedroom.  After celebrating the New Year  with Deb, Hadley, Austin and Sheryl's family  we headed south to Florida.  We found a very convenient camping spot on  A1A just south of Franks sisters house in Melbourne.  With the ocean just across the street and a Wal-Mart and grocery store on the other side it was comfortable. Nice neighbors and short drive to visit Franks mother.
We were able to visit both Toni Langley and Carolyn Paulsen with their English cockers and spent the month of January and most of February there.  Three side adventures - one the end of January when we took the RV over to Lazy Days camp ground for a RV rally.  There  were over 200 Fleetwood Discovery's at the camp ground that weekend. We learned a lot about maintenance and I took a driving course and got a certificate for driving one of the  big rigs.  That was just for emergency use and thank goodness I never had to use it. After finishing up at the Rally we went a few miles south to the town of Palmetto to a campground called Frog Creek. Great place camping under huge oaks with Spanish moss hanging off them and right next to a river with egret, and we were within a short drive to Tampa or to Sarasota so were able to visit with John and Margaret Lang, the Edwards and my cousin Doug Post and his wife Lynn. 
 

We headed back to Melbourne and spent several more weeks at the Campground there on A1A. Visiting Franks mother and getting the kennel records
ready for the accountant to decipher for the IRS.  Mid February we headed up to NC again to attend a dog show, get our taxes done and visit the children and grand kids for a few days.  We had credits from Holland America from our aborted Alaskan cruise of a few years earlier. They had to be used so we decided to book a cruise to use them up. As it turned out we had to book back to back Caribbean cruises to use them all.  The end of February and early March we spent on the Caribbean. First cruise took us to Grand Cayman, Montego Bay and Cozumel.  We had been all 3 places before but was fun visiting again and we did our own walking tours this time except for Jamaica where that isn't safe.  We did a jeep thing out into the country and saw some banana plantations, cattle farms and old churches. I got some nice photos.  We met some wonderful folks whose company we really enjoyed and that we hope to see again. Don and Susan McNair from Canada. They helped make this one of our most enjoyable cruises. We stayed right on the ship when it came back into port in Tampa and then went on some first time ports of call for us.  Key West was the first stop and we really enjoyed our time there.  

We headed south-east then for our next ports and visited Belize. They canceled the tour we were supposed to do in Belize because of the weather - high winds - not much to see in town except the stores made specifically for tourists.  Probably the most interesting was the stop in Guatemala I loved Guatemala - a very poor country but very pretty.  Mountains and very scenic areas.  We visited some well preserved Aztec ruins at Quiroga. Amazing and they are still finding more under the surrounding jungle.  From there we went to a launching point on the river where we boarded a boat for a trip across to a local restaurant buffet. After lunch we boarded the boat and headed back down the river. It was a 4 hour ride back to the Sea and a rough last half hour to the ship.  High winds made for a very rough ride in the small boat and several of the children on board got ill.  It took about an hour in the sea to get to the ship.  All in all I enjoyed it and never felt in any danger but did feel sorry for some of the less fortunate on board.
Costa Maya was a shoppers paradise.  Nothing on shore to visit with out transportation for miles except there giant shopping area.  They did have shows ongoing in the plaza with Mayan dancers and several singers with Caribbean themes.  Made for a pleasant day and Frank won me a Tanzanite ring by guessing how many loose gems were in the stores.

Tony Ganung, our nephew from Tampa picked us up from the ship and we spent the afternoon with him and the evening with the Lang's before heading back to Melbourne. Back at the motor home we spent the last few days of March getting ready to start our across the country trip.  Carolyn Paulsen had been nice enough to board the RV for us while we were on our travels by car.

3/31/04
We got back to Tampa on Saturday and after going back to Cocoa to get the RV and have it serviced on Monday we said goodbye to Franks family and left for the west coast. We are now in Carrabelle, Florida on the Gulf of Mexico and have reservations here till next  Monday morning.   We have no cell phone service except for the extended coverage here.  The name of the place is Ho-Hum RV Park  It is a beautiful place and right on the water.  They have a long dock for fishing.  The only problem right now is the wind. When that calms down a little Frank will I am sure be out there fishing.  They do have a web site  www.hohumrvpark.com 

4/7/04
We spent Wednesday to Monday in Carrabelle below Tallahassee.  Very nice and we visited the Maclay gardens and a couple of other attractions.  A friend who was supposed to take May for us while we traveled came down from Tallahassee on Sunday and Frank said that we couldn't leave May.  He has really gotten very attached to her and plans our days around her.  Fine with me.  We are on our way west now.  Stopped in Mobile, Alabama last night and spent the day today touring the Battleship "Alabama" and the Submarine "Drum"  all sorts of tanks and armored personnel carriers, planes, helicopters and memorials.
Went to a IMAX theater and saw the NASCAR movie.   Also toured an old 17?? either restored or reconstructed fort.  In otherwords a Frank type day.  I enjoyed it too and it made up for me doing  gardens and aquariums.  Tomorrow we head out again with the destination planned to be in Rockport Texas - near Corpus Christi by Friday afternoon and to spend the weekend there.

One of the lovely spots in the Maclay Gardens	Frank with May at the Ho-Hum RV park	Maclay Gardens Paths lined with old Oak trees. Azaleas and Camellias are abundant on the walks as are wild flowers.
Fort Conte in Mobile, Alabama Reproduction of a 1700 fort	Frank and I aboard the USS Alabama docked in Mobile	A submarine tour also at the Military Park  in Mobile, Alabama.

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