Astronauts, beaches and bikes... Welcome to Florida

It was about a 2 hour drive from Savannah to Florida. We arrived and found a campsite called Hanna Park in Jacksonville right at the top of Florida. It was a lovely park, very quiet, it felt like we were the only ones around. It was getting dark we had some diner, showered  and went to bed. The park had loads of animals making noises including squirrels and a raccoon that came up to see if we had any scraps left over pretty cool for our first stop in FL. 

Day 1: Hanna Park was near the beach, so in the morning we went for a run along the beach this time with runners (learned our lesson from Myrtle beach). It was super hot and we only managed to run about 5kms.

After breakfast we were on the move again following highway 1A down the coast. The drive was really cool; we passed loads of beach towns and massive beachfront mansions. For lunch we stopped off at a small beach. I had a swim, the water was amazing (and free).

 

        

By late afternoon we had reached Daytona Beach. However coming in via highway 1 we got a little lost and were not actually able to find the famous beach. We had actually by-passed the beach and popped out to far down the coast. After asking for some directions we found our way. However it was getting closer to 6pm and needed to find the Daytona Harley Davidson (the biggest in the world) before it closed. Luckily we found the store with about 15min to get in have a look around. The store was amazing, beautiful bikes, every kind of merchandise you could think of and a crazy workshop you could watch bikes being worked on.

After the Harley store we made our way back to Daytona Beach, driving past the famous Daytona race track on the way (it was massive would love to have seen a race). By this stage the beach was closed to cars so we did not get to drive Hank along the beach.ut we got to walk it. The sand was crazy hard, just like asphalt; you could understand why they allowed cars to drive on it.

The beach was really busy with people swimming, lounging around or ridding bikes. We walked back up along the boardwalk passing a massive slippery slide, restaurants and shops. I even got asked if I knew that Jesus loved me (Marc walked off), I said that I was a Catholic, which shut her up pretty fast. It was cool to see Daytona Beach but not too much to do there unless you were on holidays.

After our Daytona experience we made our way to get something to eat. We had decided to try an American drive-in, were going to try the chain, ‘Sonic’ drive-in but the one we were going to was closed. So a change of plan we decided to keep driving and make our way to Titusville. On the way we drove past this cute little place called ‘Pappas Drive-In’ just the place we were looking for so we stopped and had an amazing experience. It was awesome the server came up to our window took our order and then when it was ready brought it over and sat it on a try on our window. We both had the cheeseburger and shared a thickshake. The food was so delicious, burgers were full of flavour and the thickshake was mainly ice cream, the straw was useless, you needed a spoon to eat it!
 

 
That night we drove into Titusville and found a Wal-Mart to camp. The car was really hot after the big day of driving, there were mosquito’s everywhere (so we could not leave the windows open), it was very hot and humid as we were in Florida; these factors made it extremely difficult to sleep.   

Day 2: Seriously last night was the worst sleep ever we did not sleep much because of the heat. I don’t think we are going to be able to do a lot of camping in the car with the humidity and the heat. We tried everything; sleeping sitting up, on our hands and knees and even on our heads it was funny for a moment but the worst night sleep ever.

Today we are going to see the Kennedy Space Center; we were pretty excited (even with lack of sleep) and arrived just as it was opening. On the drive there Marc saw his first alligator in the marshy water next to the road but I missed it.

The space centre was awesome; to start we went on the 'shuttle launch experience' a simulator ride so you could get an idea what it was like to take off into space. It was really interesting to find out how complex everything was.  After the launch we checked out a real space shuttle and watched a 3D film on the space centre that’s currently orbiting earth which was amazing.

Last we went on a tour of the launch pads and the buildings where they get stuff ready. Everything was huge. We are so impressed with NASA now we want to become astronauts; either by going back to school or getting really rich somehow.

After the space center we continued down the coast for a couple of hours before stopping at Juno Beach for the night. The weather was still extremely hot and humid so we stayed in a Super 8 hotel for the night.

Day 3: I LOVE HOTELS!! Feeling a little more human again after a night in air conditioning we continued our drive to Miami. We followed highway 1 all the way to Miami Beach only stopping for lunch. The drive was interesting but after a while most of the Florida coast looked the same.

We arrived in South Beach late afternoon, parked the car and walked around Lincoln Rd Mall. It was a very busy place with high-end restaurants, bars and shops. Apart from Starbucks, everywhere was way to over priced for us to drink at. While we were walking around Marc saw ‘Good Charlotte’ walking down the street.  We also saw a lot of really beautiful rich people and their little dogs. It would be a cool place to visit on vacation but not when your not working for 12 months. 

That night we found another cheap hotel out near the airport to stay at before we left for our cruise. Miami was big, beautiful and expensive. I think we will look around more once we get back from the cruise.

Welcome to the South Y'all

Day 1: After a night in Richmond,VA Wal-mart, we started to drive further south to North Carolina following the I95. 

We arrived in North Carolina around lunch and stopped at the visitor center for a bite to eat. Once in NC we turned off the I95 and started heading east to get to the coast. On the way we nearly ran out of petrol again. We were off the major highway so there were not as many petrol stations around (as in none). It was a stressful 30km before we finally drove past an exit to a small town we were hoping had a gas station as Hank was running on fumes. We pulled into the small town, luckily we made it to the pump and avoided a long walk.

After another hour or so we had finally reached a town called ‘New Burn’ and Highway 17 that we were going to follow along the east coast. Along highway 17 we started to see a lot more damage from Hurricane Irene with debris on the side of the road, fallen trees (some completely uprooted), ripped billboard signs and some damaged houses. So happy we stayed back in Washington DC for the storm to pass. On the way we stopped off at yet another Harley Davidson store in Jacksonville, NC. The people were super nice you have to love the southern hospitality.

By late afternoon we had driven all the way down NC and were now in South Carolina so stoped at another Visitor Centre for some dinner before we headed into Myrtle Beach.

We arrived at North Myrtle Beach after dark, so could not really see the beach but looked around at the old school beach carnival before we decided to go and find a Wal-Mart to stay for the night. There was one just near the 'Tanger' outlet mall just down the road so we decided to camp there. The drive along the US1 was really amusing with hundreds of huge discount beach stores and mini golf, it was crazy. When we made it to the mall we took a wrong turn and somehow ended up on an expressway going in the complete wrong direction to where we wanted to be, the detour took us about 15 min to get back to the right turn, so stupid! That night we setup camp at Wal-mart again our new home.

Day 2: In the morning we made our way into Myrtle Beach. We parked a little bit back from the main beach, then ran up the beach to check everything out, it was about a 5km run in total. Both Marc and I ran in bare feet it felt pretty good except for the blisters on our toes from the sand. 

Myrtle beach was full of high-rise condos and another beachfront carnival. The beach was still super straight and there were loads of people out enjoying the sun. After our run we went for a swim it was a ruff swim with loads of waves and a steep drop from the shore but it was really refreshing. Beaches are great because after the swim we had a free ‘Beach’ shower, we wanted to break out the soap but decided against it :)

 

All clean we made a move for Savannah our next destination. On the drive out of Myrtle beach we stopped off at Myrtle Beach Harley Davidson to get dad yet another pin for his collection. The SC costal drive was very similar to the NC drive just with no damage from the hurricane. For lunch we stopped in at a picnic area that also had a farmers market. We did not look at the market just stopped to make some sandwiches. While we were there one of the workers came up and had a little chat with us. We told him where we were from, what we were doing and he was in ore. He asked loads of questions about Australia, listed off some famous aussies and said that he always wanted to go but it’s only a dream at this stage. After talking to this guy it really made us stop and think about just how lucky we were to be on this amazing trip.

After lunch we continued down the coast passing through Charleston, SC stopping only for petrol. At the petrol station I got haggled by a homeless guy for some change. He welcomed me to Charleston and opened my car door for me, he knew that I had change from the petrol and there was nothing I could do god dammit.

Before we left SC we stopped off at the ‘Carolina Cider Company’ a shack on the side of the road. It was a great place to stop as we got loads of free samples of their cider, condiments and boiled peanuts. Everything was tasty, so of course we walked away with our own; a bottle of peach and cherry cider, jar of horse radish mustard, cherry jam and a small pecan pie mmm.

We arrived in Savannah, Georgia by late afternoon and stopped off at a visitor information centre and booked ourselves onto some tours. A Ghost Tour as Savannah was the most haunted city in the US and a Paula Deen Tour (food Network celebrity chef), as we liked her southern style of food. 

That evening we were booked onto the ghost tour so we parked our car and walked down to River Street that run right along the river for a look. Savannah was beautiful, full of old parks and streets lined with big oak trees covered in Spanish moss it was very picturesque. River street was lined with renovated warehouses that now housed restaurants, bars, souvenir and gift shops. It was a very busy place.

8:45pm we were on our ghost tour, much to our disappointment our tour guide was a drama student and instead of telling us the ghost stories ended up loosing us in the explanation of the different sad events that had occurred. Savannah was very beautiful at night and a little creepy so not a total loss. The tour ended on a high note when we were taken to a creepy warehouse, another actor did a much better job explaining one of the sad stories and trying to freak us out.

After the tour we made our way out to another wal-mart for the night about 10min out of town.   

Day 3: Ah Wal-mart you did it again, it was a little hot but a good night. After some breakfast we made our way back into Savannah for the Paula Deen tour.

 Paula Deen is famous for her southern cooking. The start of the tour was a little slow as we just drove around Savannah for a bit listening to bits and pieces about her life, and how she got into cooking. We passed her famous restaurant ‘Lady and Sons’ then went about 15 min out of town to Wilmington Island, Paula’s brother bubba’s restaurant ‘Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House’. The food really was awesome it was a buffet style but nothing like a normal buffet as it was done on a much smaller scale. Everything was so delicious but my favourite dishes were the mash, green beans and desert ‘Gooey cake’. I loved the food so much I even purchased a copy of Paula's first cookbook so I can try and reproduce the food back at home. On the way back to Savannah the tour guide raffled off a small goody bag and much to our surprise we won (out of 7 people).

 Next we made our way back to River Street and picked up a couple of souvenirs (including another Harley store) and had a better look around. Mid afternoon we stopped in at the ‘Moon River Brewery’ for a couple of local beers, then last but not least we had a quick drive around Savannah following the tour route looking at all the beautiful old houses, parks and the cemetery, before we were back on the road and heading for Florida.

The Nations Capital = Hurricanes and no bloody parking

Washington was only about an hour away from Baltimore, after a short drive we arrived right in the hub of everything. There were loads of huge grand buildings, parks and monuments. We arrived around 10am, perfect time as the museums were just opening. However we were just about to find out that parking was impossible. We drove around for about an hour, not able to find any available parking anywhere it was driving us crazy. At the end we decided that our only option was to drive further out and catch the train back in. Finally we found a parkade near the subway in a place called ‘Friendship Village’. After all this it was lunch time by the time we made it back to downtown Washington.

We walked around the monuments first; Whitehouse, that was a lot smaller then we thought but still pretty cool. Then we made our way to the reflection pool and Lincoln memorial, unfortunately the reflection pool was all fenced off and dug up as the original pool was sinking and they needed to fix it so it really was more like the reflection poo not pool, very disappointing but nothing you can do as it’s going to take 2 years to complete. Lincoln memorial was huge and very crowded; next we made our way past the Korean War vets memorial then to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial that was probably my favourite of them all. Last was the Washington monument that was closed off because of the earthquake a couple of days ago that caused the monument to crack. We were running out of time so decided to only go to the holocaust museum today, the main exhibit was huge about 3 floors full of history and artefacts. It was very sad but we learnt a lot more about how Hitler actually got into power.

It was late afternoon so we headed back to the car stopping of at our 5^th DDD place ‘Sonic’ a ping-pong restaurant for dinner. It was awesome, the tables where ping-pong tables, the pizza was exceptional and you could even play ping-pong for free out the back. After dinner we made our way back to the car, which took us a bit to find as we went to the wrong parkade. That night we drove out to a park and ride for the night.

Day 2: Hurricane Irene was on path with Washington and the east coast of the US. It was meant to hit Saturday afternoon, high winds rain and flooding were meant to be coming so Marc and I had organised a discount hotel room for the next 2 nights to escape the storm. There was no point moving forward as the next part of the trip we were going to the coast then we would be stuck right in the middle of it.

It was raining and after the horror first day in DC we decided to just check in early to the hotel room, we were super early so had to wait for a room. We were staying in a place called Stirling just near the Dulles airport, there was a huge mall just next door to the hotel so we decided to walk around there until our room was ready.

Once our room was ready we moved in for the next 2 days. From here we did not do much just caught up on emails, the blog and skyped the family to let them know we were ok.

Day 3: During the night a lot of rain fell but the winds were more like a storm not a hurricane. It turned out that the hurricane died down before it hit NYC and was more like a tropical storm. This was really good news for everyone on the coast.

We did not do much at all on the Sunday just relaxed and enjoyed the break from the road to sightseeing.

Day 4: After 2 days in the hotel Marc and I were all refreshed and ready to get going again. Marc had always wanted to go on a cruise so he booked us to go on a 5 day cruise leaving the following Monday from Miami. However our credit card had been maxed out (later found out someone had stolen our credit card number, made a copy and was buying up big back in Ontario), so had to call back later once the credit card was working again.

After a late check out we drove back into Washington to finish seeing the Smithsonian, this time we found a park and ride station first so it was no where near as stressful. First we went to the air and space museum that we loved, as we have never really seen much space history in other museums. We got to see the different types of spacecraft and the first ever aeroplane. We also tested our reflexes and I was like a cat super fast! There was a fighter jet simulation ride there we went on, Marc drove and I was the shooter but he kept spinning us around in circles and I could not shoot anything.

Afterwards we walked up to capital hill and the US capital building. We were going to see some of the other museums but it was too late in the day and only had about an hour before they closed so we just walked past the art gallery and natural history museums, stopping to look at the sculpture exhibit in a garden and a petrified tree. The Smithsonian was incredible the size of the museums was huge and all free.
We headed back to pick up hank and left Washington DC heading to Richmond for the night before we started to head down the coast again. In Richmond we stayed at another Wal-mart, which was becoming more like home with all the car parks we had now stayed in.