Westward Ho!

6:38 am - Thursday - January 10th - Quincy, FL -  39º F (feels 33º F), 52% humidity, wind 9 mph out of the north by northwest.......cloudy today with a forecast high of 54º F.

What a wonderful travel day Wednesday was!  The skies were clear, and blue, the temperature was in the low 60's, and the roads were straight and flat as we cruised westward across the Florida 'panhandle', but I get a wee bit ahead of myself.

We were up a little after 7 am Wednesday thinking about our departure preparation.  Our goal was to be on the road by 10 am, but sometimes life intervenes, and it takes a little bit longer.  TLE ran to the store about 9 am to pick up a few things whilst I finished putting away the very few things we deployed during our two day stay in St. Mary's, GA.  Around 9:30 am Roscoe and Geni dropped by while on their rounds of the State Park to say their 'until next times', and we ended up talking for about an hour.  They are thinking about upgrading from their travel trailer to a class A motorhome, and wanted to take a tour of ours.  We talked for over an hour, but, alas, it was approaching 11 am and we really needed to get moving. 

We hugged, and promised each other to reunite over New Years day at the end of this year in the SoCal desert.  Once we were rolling we had one more task......empty our black and gray tanks as we will be dry camping for the next few days.  By the time we finished with that it was almost 11:30 am.

We initially cruised south on I-95, then I-295 and finally merged on to I-10 west bound.  In all we covered over 230 miles Wednesday before landing in Quincy, FL at the local Walmart.  We'll be on I-10 until just after Baton Rouge, LA where we will begin angling up to I-20 via secondary roads, which will take us to Ft. Worth, TX where we will again angle northward up to I-40 for the balance of our journey westward.

We stopped at a couple of Rest Areas along the I-10 corridor during our drive, and at one we got out of the coach and walked for about .75 miles before continuing westward to our day's destination.  Typically most Interstates have Rest Areas every 60-80 miles, but along this stretch of I-10 (Jacksonville to Quincy) they are spaced about 30-35 miles apart so you have plenty of options for taking a break.

We arrived at the Walmart around 4 pm, found a spot to park, and by 7 pm we had been joined by several other RV's for the night.  We'll be under way in about 2 hours, or less, so time to sign off for today.

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Nomadic friendships.......

7:19 am - Wednesday - January 9th - St. Mary's, GA - 56º F, 90% humidity, wind 9 mph out of the west......sunny today with a forecast high of 61º F, but we will not be here for that high.  Today is moving day, and we will end our day about 200 miles west of our current location as we begin to work our way back to the western half of our great country.

We began Tuesday with a nature walk along one of the nature trails in Crooked River State Park.  Neither of us is really into identifying trees, or birds, but we just needed to get out and take a walk.......

 The Crooked River in the background

 The nature trail.....nice a shady

.....we were back at the Newell by 11:30 am after a 2.4 mile meandering walk, and waiting for Rosco and Geni to finish their volunteer shift.....I don't know if I mentioned it, but they are camp hosts here at the State Park, and work about 4 hours per day cleaning vacated sites, and cleaning restrooms.  We planned to drive south to Amelia Island, FL to visit Fort Clinch State Park and explore this old Civil War fort.  It was originally being constructed by the Union soldiers until they abandoned it still under construction, then was taken over by the Confederate troops, and then when they abandoned it to send the soldiers north to fight the Union, the Union troops returned and continued construction......

Aerial view courtesy the internet

 That horsehair mattress looks so uncomfortable!

 Rosco standing next to one of the 8" cannon of which there were about 40 when the fort was first constructed.

 Each cannon was on steel track and could be rotated 80º in either direction

....the entire fort was constructed of red brick, and the attention to detail in the construction is quite evident.......

....we wandered around the fort learning about life as a Union soldier in the 1860's, and stood talking for quite a while on one of the parapets all the while thoroughly enjoying the sunny skies and balmy breezes blowing in off the the ocean.  It was just a delightful afternoon!

By 4 pm it was time to head back to St. Mary's and happy hour at the Wee Pub which offers 2 for 1 beers and 2 for 1 appetizers from 3 pm to 6 pm Monday through Friday.   The never ending conversation continued unabated through 8 brews (2 per person) and probably about 8 appetizers consisting of seared tuna, pigs in a blanket, sliders, etc.......

.....by 6 pm we were on our way 'home' where we spent the rest of the evening sitting by a campfire talking, enjoying the star lit sky, and more talking......about 9:30 we bid our adieus, and each headed to our respective homes for the night.  Our visit with Roscoe and Geni was all too short, but there will be a next time.  It is these nomadic friendships that add spice to the vagabonding life we live and we would be the poorer for it if we had never met Roscoe and Geni at Yellowstone.  Thank you guys for a wonderful two days!

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which helps defray our travel expenses to a small degree.

A small bump in the road.......

8:38 am - Tuesday - January 8th - St. Marys, GA - 56º F, 99% humidity, wind 1 mph out of the south by southeast......mostly cloudy today with a forecast high of 74º F.

Monday was moving day....time to leave our site for four days at the corner of Rose and Martinis.  Our goal was to be moving the Newell out of the driveway and over to where the trailer was parked between 9 and 10 am, and we were right on schedule when I lit the fires of our Detroit Diesel 6v92 around 9:15 am, then the unexpected happened.....a 'small bump in the road'.......

.....the left side of the coach would not come up to 'ride height', however, the right side did, so we were listing severely to the left.  I also noted that the air pressure on both my gauges would not get above 100 psi.....usually within minutes the coach is up to 'ride height', and air pressure is registering at 120 psi.  Okay, I'm thinking, something must be leaking somewhere.  I turned off the DD, exited the coach and walked back to the engine bay to check the rear '6 pack' and even before I open the passenger side engine bay door I can hear a very loud hissing.  That's good, because at least the leak is obvious.  I open up the bay door and zero in on one MAC air valve almost immediately.....coincidentally it is the valve that has the 'ride height' solenoid attached to it.....

......on the lower right side of the valve is an 'exhaust port', and was it ever exhausting.  I carry 4, or 5 of these valves as backups, and so it became immediately apparent something was wrong with the valve, so I got out one of the spares, then set about removing and replacing the defective valve.  In all it took about 90 minutes to complete the task, and when I started everything up again the left side was still not rising, but I could manually raise it using the 'leveling mode', and I could not before.  Now here is where it gets interesting.....after completely raising the left side using the 'leveling mode' I flipped the switch back to 'ride height', and the left side,which was now higher than normal settled down to ride height and stayed there.  To test the system I manually lowered the the rear, then put it back in 'ride height' again, and the rear raised back up again......cool, it's fixed!

By this point we were over 90 minutes behind our schedule.....la de da.  I moved the coach over to the trailer and quickly dropped the trailer back on the hitch, inserted the VW and we were on our way north to St. Mary's, GA.  Why St. Mary's, GA?  Well, that is where our good friends Roscoe and Geni, are spending the winter volunteering at Crooked River State Park.  We first met Roscoe and Geni at the Mammoth Hot Springs General Store in Yellowstone two summers ago (2017) and became fast friends by the end of the summer.  When we were working at the Grand Canyon last winter they came to visit us and we had dinner. Neither TLE, nor I could imagine being this close to them and not taking a couple of days to visit them at their winter job.

After a completely uneventful 197 mile drive (including a couple of rest stops) we arrived at Crooked River around 3:45 pm, and after registering at the office headed to Site # 4, which Geni had so kindly reserved for us.  As we approached the site we could see Roscoe and Geni standing there waving us into the site.  We parked and exited to hugs, and a couple of cold brews.....what a great welcome!

After talking for about 30 minutes we agreed to reconvene at our site at 5:15 pm and drive into old town St. Mary's for dinner.  We were able to catch the sunset at the perfect time......

 Left to right: Moi, TLE, Rosco and Geni

Beautiful sunset

.....after spending time watching the sunset we headed to the restaurant....'St. Mary's Seafood and More', reputed to be the #1 restaurant in town, which is verified by Yelp who gives them 4.5 stars on 193 reviews.  I had their special, which was Blackened Tilapia, and Blackened Shrimp.....OMG....I'll leave it at that.  TLE, Roscoe and I chased our entrees with Ying Lings, and Geni had a Fat Tire.  We talked endlessly as if no time had passed since we last saw them a year ago at the Grand Canyon.

We had planned to sit by the fire after dinner, but the NCAA National Championship pitting Clemson against favored Alabama (5.5 point favorite) was on at 8 pm so we deferred the fire to Tuesday night.  The game was close for the first 1/2 with Alabama up 16-14, but in the second half Clemson scored 30 unanswered points to win the game by 4 touchdowns......a complete upset for the ages.   I know our friends Richard & Rhonda (Richard graduated from Clemson in 1979) had big smiles on their faces around 11:30 pm Monday night.

Thanks for stopping by!

When you shop Amazon, please use our link (below) to access their website.......we will appreciate every purchase you make using our Amazon Affiliate link, and  remember, using our link will not add one penny to your purchase, plus we will receive a small commission which helps defray our travel expenses to a small degree.