Ham Family Bed-n-Breakfast

We arrived in Florida on Sunday night. When we left Valdosta, GA the GPS said we were a mere 3 1/2 hours from our destination. The more we drove, the further away we seemed to get. It took us more than 10 hours!

On Monday the trailer went into the shop. They found 5 separate leaks, but nothing obvious to cause the mold issues. They also fixed the electric panel, the vent fan, and the slide wall. The dealership allows you to stay in the service bay when the techs are not working, but it became just too stressful to be there. Our friends the Ham Family decided that we could upgrade from the backyard campground to the bed and breakfast section of their hospitable home!

It is surprisingly quiet here, which is such a welcome treat! Christmas movies are playing and Christmas candy is cooling. This is just what we needed!

Memory foam

We are back "home"in the Walmart parking lot. Bone weary from travel and staying up too late enjoying friends, we pushed only as far as southern Georgia before stopping. Katherine has been dying to go to Cici's Pizza all summer so we indulged her tonight.

Robbin braved the black Friday sales to pick us up some memory foam. It makes or beds far too comfortable! I keep thinking how great it would be to pile several on top of one another. I might never get out of bed.

Good Friends

Incredibly, our very good friends Jim and Robbin have family just 20 minutes from Rachel and Michaels family! We are so lucky to be able to enjoy Thanksgiving twice, each time with people we love!

We went over last night to say hello, and on the way I was pulled over by the County police! I was so afraid! I hadn't done anything wrong, the officer had never seen Maine tags so he ran the registration through the computer and our came up unknown (the Georgia system had never seen Maine tags either!). While he was checking on my license another cruiser pulled up leaving me to believe that he had called his buddy over to come check out this vehicle from Maine!

We pulled the trailer over to Robbins parents driveway this afternoon to spend the night with them. It's so much fun to visit with friends!

Tomorrow we finish our trek to Florida. I'm looking forward to having hookups, sunshine, and seeing more good friends that we've missed!

Tired

We made it to Georgia! We arrived well after midnight, I think it was almost two! We plugged right in to shore power and still had no power. We borrowed as many blankets as Rachel had and I went in with the kids to sleep; I just couldn't take another minute. While I was sleeping the power came on. It was just a coincidence that we didn't have shore power...the breakers to the house were off. Sigh. Still there were some parts of the trailer not receiving any power but we had heat!

We had a fabulous time with our "soul family". Rachel and Michael have eight children and amazingly all the children pair up perfectly. They each have one from the other family that they are inseparable from, and Katherine pairs with the three "little girls" who are all ten. The moms can't get enough of one another, and the dads get along too well! The dynamic is truly amazing. The only bad part is having to say goodbye.

Problems

We woke up early this morning in the hopes of getting to Georgia today, but the battery was completely dead. We ran the car for a bit but could not get any charge. Drat.

We couldn't pull the slide in without the battery, so eventually we had Walmart charge it for us, a three hour process. When all was said and done we still didn't have exterior lights. We drove to a RV dealer, arriving at 4:45. They pulled it right in and found a bad fuse. Phew.

We stopped shortly after due to traffic and empty bellies. Within an hour the battery was dead again. Sigh.

I have had two large diet cokes and plan to just keep driving till we reach warmer weather.

Stopped for the night

We left Maine late on Saturday which made for a were hours of the morning arrival in Massachusetts. We visited with friends and family, planning to leave within hours, and instead repainted an entire room for my mother. It set us back a day but the room sure did look nice.

When we got into NY I decided to trust the gps. That never ends well for me. We went under a bridge with a 11' clearance and I mentioned to Gary that we really needed to remember to measure the height of the trailer and actually mark it on the dash so we would have that info handy. Just minutes later I happened to notice an 8' clearance sign and pulled right over. I started to have a panic attack because we were on a busy highway and the only solution I could see was shutting down the high way so we could back the trailer up to the nearest exit. A tow truck stopped and notified the police. We waited an eternity for him to arrive. His brilliant idea? To drive under the bridge slowly. Eeeek.

Apparently we were not even supposed to be on that road with commercial plates and/our towering a trailer. He ran our plates, gave us a hard time about our Patriots logos, and sent us on our way. It seems that they are extremely conservative with their signage as the bridge was well over 10'.

We finally made out into Pennsylvania where we are now parked at a Walmart for some shut eye. We are all feeling incredible grateful to be back on the road.

We have plans to spend Thanksgiving with our soul family in Georgia, and we are thrilled that it's going to work out that way. More good friends will be just 20 minutes away so we'll get to see them as well! Gosh, I sure have missed this nomadic lifestyle!

Almost

We are heading back out today. We had planned on leaving weeks ago, and we still aren't completely ready, but we are leaving today regardless.

We took our kitty in to be micro chipped yesterday. It feels very strange to be inserting a tracking device into something living, but we lost him for a week and it was very traumatic. I think it should have a GPS as well. We are pretty sure out kitty was stuck somehow out in the woods when he was missing, and the chip won't help with that scenario.

We are going to be unplugged for the next week as we travel south. Our route is still undermined as we try to see as many friends as possible on our journey. I'm so grateful to have the new phones to keep us connected. Not so grateful for the bill though.

More later! I hope to be able to report that we made it out of Maine today!