Our Cross-Country Trip

Jus’ Moseyin’ Across America!

Monday-Fri, January 6-10: FL Southbound

After shoveling our drive that had about 6 inches of snow on it from last night, we finally began our cross-country adventure around 9 a.m. Monday morning.  We had to change our route plans and head for Hampton, VA, to attend a family funeral and pulled into the Peninsula Funeral Home with just 10 minutes to change for the funeral.  After visiting some relatives, we spent our first night at Motel Wal*Mart in Hampton, then travelled down through NC and stopped our second night at the Manning, SC, Wal*Mart then another 300 miles to the pretty little town of Valdosta, GA, where we stayed at, where else, the Valdosta Wal*Mart.  Since the motorhome was still winterized and had no water in our tank yet, we were really looking forward to staying at our first campground with hookups.  But we had 6 jugs of water in the bathtub, and we were warm and cozy with the generator and propane heater working fine.  Even Stinky, our ferret and travel companion, found warm places to sleep.

         On the 9^th, we headed south to the Florida panhandle and stayed at the Apalachicola Bay Campground.  We ate at Sharon’s Seafood in Apalachicola Bay and toured around their little fishing town.  Friday morning, we headed up the Gulf Coast to Zoo World in Panama City where we visited Meerkats, Lemurs and other fun animals.  Then we continued to Fort Walton where we stayed at another Motel Wal*Mart and dined in our motorhome on a couple of pounds of royal red shrimp and corn on the cob—yummy!

Sat-Mon, January 11-13: Alabama

Saturday morning we headed for Gulf Shores at the southern tip of Alabama and stayed at Doc’s RV Park.  We toured the islands and wanted to take the ferry to Dauphin Island but it was closed for maintenance so we went to Fort Morgan instead.   The Fort was built to protect Mobile Bay from enemy forces after the War of 1812.   It was used during the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and as a training base during World War I, then reactivated and manned during World War II.  We toured the museum and walked around the Fort but didn’t stay long because it was REALLY cold, like below freezing (so much for the warm south!!).   We were told it was the coldest it has been down here since 1994.  So we went back to the motorhome, turned up the heat, checked email, etc. and had our own little clam-bake with crabs, oysters, scallops, shrimp, Redfish, corn and potatoes. 

Sunday we drove north around Mobile Bay to a campground on the western side and down the coastline to Dauphin Island, which you can get to by bridge/tunnel on that side.  On the island, we visited the Estuarium, a public aquarium with exhibits highlighting animal and plant life in the Delta, Mobile Bay, the Barrier Islands and the Gulf Coast. 

We took a different route back to the campground through Bayou La Batre, where we took cuttings from the Alabama State flower, the Camellia, and their State tree, the Southern Pine, for our scrapbook.  When we went through Irvington, AL, we were able to contact and visit a good friend we hadn’t seen in years, Jackie Silvers.