Sunday 7 July
The shuttle bus at the KOA office left promptly at 9am and took us in to the nation’s capital. It dropped us off at the Capitol Building, which was closed as it was Sunday, so we decided to wander down the Mall. We walked all the way from there to the Lincoln Memorial, which is quite a distance and seemed even longer in the heat – the kids had not-so-good memories of being hot and tired in Central Park and were afraid we were going to repeat that!
There were no crowds along the way, just several joggers, and we were interested to see informal games on the grassy area down the middle of soccer and rugby league, not American sports. We wandered to the Washington Monument (which has been closed for repairs since an earthquake in 2011), and past it to the World War 2 memorial,and Lincoln Memorial. It was great to be able to just stand and read Lincoln’s famous speeches set out on the walls either side.
From there we headed towards the White House. Sam has been talking about seeing “Obama’s house” since we left Sydney, so was very excited to finally do this. While every other child talked about Disney, meeting princesses, and rides they wanted to go on, Sam always had two places he wanted to go – New York and the White House! I still cannot explain why…
We looked at the White House from the other side of the field a block away, and had been planning to walk up to the gates, but everyone (adults as well as kids!) were so exhausted from the walk so far, and hot and hungry, that we detoured into the Ronald Reagan building where there was a food court. At 12pm Subway was an early lunch, but meant we had several hours still to explore. As we plan to do a trolley bus tour tomorrow, we decided to spend the next few hours in a museum. We picked the Natural History museum, and enjoyed the exhibits there as well as an IMAX movie about surfing in Tahiti, and we were able to get up close to the Hope Diamond.
The bus was ready and waiting for us when we returned to the Capitol Building at 4.45pm, so we returned to the campground for a refreshing swim. Ross ordered some firewood (which they package and deliver to your camp ring on site for $6) and marshmallows for toasting, but we had to evacuate the pool when a storm arrived suddenly, so much to the kids’ disappointment, the campfire is on hold until tomorrow night!

PS. Being unwell, I got a couple of days behind in recording diary entries, and we have not had good wifi each night, so I will publish these posts as soon as I have Internet connection for long enough! It is at the top of our debrief list that our biggest mistake was not to get wifi access – the salesman in Target where we bought our American phones told us we wouldn’t need it because places like Starbucks, Maccas etc have it for free, but it would have helped us to have it on the road, especially at the pace we have been travelling! 😉

Saturday 6 July
I woke up not feeling great today. I wasn’t feeling fantastic on the 4th, and by that night was not feeling like celebrating anyway, but this morning was worse. Nothing serious, just achy and tired and in need of a day in bed. Not possible here!
We set off at 8am from the town of Dunn and our motel stop there. We had seen signs for a factory outlet selling a range of things that was called JR’s and sounded a bit like Wall Drug with its range, so we decided to stop there on our way out of North Carolina. I sat in the front with Ross and dozed…and was no help or support to him for the rest of the day!
After a few purchases of souvenirs, we returned to the RV to travel on to DC. I booked us in last night to a KOA just north of Washington DC, which offers a shuttle bus in, with drop off and pick up at the Capitol Building. I went and had a sleep and woke up to find Ross had stopped at Denny’s for lunch. (Actually, they had stopped at Waffle House at Tim’s request, but I couldn’t stomach that, so convinced them to have a main meal at Denny’s and save waffles for another day). We are finding it convenient to have a main meal during the day when travelling of meat and vegetables etc at a restaurant and then we just do a light dinner in the RV once we have found a campground and set up for the night.
After Denny’s, I felt awake and thought I should sit up front and encourage Ross again in his Herculean effort of driving. Yesterday he did 378 miles, today 335 miles. I lasted all of about half an hour, swapped with Tim who IS good at supporting Ross while driving, and went and had another sleep. The older four kids take turns in the front, chatting to Ross, bringing him water and snacks, watching the Navman to make sure we don’t miss any turns; and today Jarrod started reading aloud to Ross as he is the only one who has not been able to read any of the novels he has while away.
Anyway, I slept right through Virginia, and woke up to find Ross backing the RV into our parking spot at the Maryland KOA!
We were given the last spot available here, and are very thankful for it! The place is buzzing with activity and people – I even had to wait to use the laundry which has not happened anywhere else. As well as the shuttle bus to DC, the place has a large playground, jumping pillow, outdoor table tennis and snooker and chess, and a large pool with lifeguard on duty. And tonight they had a free icecream social at 7pm and a movie at 8.30pm. The kids started to watch ‘Finding Nemo’ but admitted to being tired so we brought them back to the RV for bed before the movie finished. It appears no one else has had as much sleep as me today – I don’t have much idea at all of what went on, it is all a blur as I slept through most of it!

Friday 5 July
I made the mistake this morning of thinking because we had passed Savannah and were ahead of schedule, we could add a few extra stops in to our itinerary. Big mistake!
While doing laundry, I always check out the brochures advertising things to do in the area. I found a booklet last night on Beaufort and Port Royal, not far from the KOA and convinced Ross this should be our first stop today. Why? Because some organisation voted Beaufort one of the best 25 small towns in America! It was very pretty, and at Port Royal we stretched our legs and climbed a four storey observation tower which was an interesting detour. We talked there about the fact we have been away for 40 days – it just doesn’t seem that long, and it is hard to believe we will be heading home in a fortnight!
From there we headed to Charleston, and specifically to Boone Hall Plantation which I had read was the inspiration for Twelve Oaks in ‘Gone With The Wind’. We got lost trying to get there, probably lost an hour of the day in the process, and when we finally arrived found it was a $20pp admission fee to even drive on the property, and we did not have the time for the tours it offered. So after all that, we politely declined, did a u-turn and drove on in search of a restaurant for lunch.
We had been travelling up the coast road instead of the main highway so we could take in more sights, but that meant we didn’t come across anything except McDonalds. We kept going until we found a Cracker Barrel restaurant, and sat down to lunch at 3.30pm.
I reviewed our schedule there. My next planned (extra) stop had been Cape Fear in North Carolina, as I had read scenes of ‘Revenge’ were filmed there. But it was too much of a detour to the edge of the coast, and Ross felt our other plan of heading to Charlotte to see the Billy Graham Library was too far inland, so we sadly dropped both plans and hightailed it along the main highway, planning to get closer to Washington DC. Along the way I was ringing KOA campgrounds and we checked out any others we came across, but the KOAs were all full, so we pulled into a motel at about 7pm. We had planned on dinner on the RV, but were still full from our main meal at our late lunch, so fed the kids at Burger King next door while we used their free wifi to plan Washington accommodation and itinerary. While we have given up other stops we wanted to make today, this does mean we will have two full days in Washington DC.
The TV in the motorhome doesn’t work, so the odd stop at a motel sees the kids glued to it. And it seems they manage to find a Star Wars movie on every time! As a result I have not seen any news or caught any episodes of shows I watch at home and was wanting to get ahead on…

Thursday 4 July
We set off from Orlando this morning prepared for a day of driving after three days of theme parks.
Morning tea was at Daytona Beach, where we discovered an event was on at the speedway. Ross considered going to it until we saw several street corners full of men holding up signs saying “I need tickets”. We figured we wouldn’t have much chance of getting 8 tickets, so moved on!
We the drove on for hours, stopping only to shop and have lunch at Applebee’s. Abi has been mentioning how small the four walls of the motorhome are feeling the last couple of days, and lost it with some of her brothers this morning, so our shopping trip was mainly about buying her some books to read so she could escape mentally if not physically from everyones’ company! Interestingly, Jarrod is raving about how much fun it is to be all together in this RV, but I guess he manages to escape as we are driving, thanks to technology. His Media teacher told him his only homework while away was to edit home movies and photos. As if he needs any encouragement to do that! So while we are on the road, Jarrod spends a lot of time on his computer with headphones on tuned out to the rest of us. We have enjoyed a couple of “movie nights” for him to show us what he has done so far, and he is putting them on YouTube. His username there is keepingupwithj0neses, and he has so far completed the first ten days of the trip.
Our goal for tonight was Savannah, Georgia. I had researched the town and they had some spectacular plans for 4th of July. We wanted to celebrate with Americans, so I made sure we all wore red, white and blue. As we arrived in Savannah though, our plans quickly changed! We headed to the park where Forrest Gump sat waiting for a bus in the movie, but there was no parking nearby (and I later read the seat Tom Hanks sat on has been removed and put into a museum!). We then headed for the river where the celebrations were to occur, but again parking the RV was impossible and we saw people walking for ages with fold up chairs and supplies. As we are not set up for that, we decided to just move on.
We ended up in a town in South Carolina called Yemassee at a KOA there. We were there in time for the kids to swim, but it was a quiet night with no fireworks and we just had dinner in the motorhome. We had to relive the fireworks from Disney World the night before and call that our marking of the occasion!

Wednesday 3 July
The shuttle bus arrived promptly again this morning to take us to Disney World. I had planned on being there for two days, thinking it would be needed to do all the rides, and to celebrate the 4th of July in style. However, everyone on the shuttle bus yesterday talked us out of doing a theme park on the 4th, saying the crowds would be enormous. Apparently when Magic Kingdom reaches capacity of 180,000 people they shut the doors and don’t let anyone else in, and on special holidays and Christmas, that sometimes happens by 10.30am!
As soon as massive crowds was mentioned, Ross was shaking his head at me and I needed no further information. As much as we have enjoyed being here, we have decided to move on. We will leave a day earlier than intended and the KOA will give us a refund for the last night.
Being our last day at a theme park on this holiday, I have finally got my act together! I sat down last night at dinner with a Disney World map, colour coded all the rides and attractions (black = will not do, green = enjoyed in LA so will do if there is time, blue = must do!), and drew a path to achieve it.
And achieve we did! We started the day (which incidentally was cheaper than Universal yesterday) with a ride on the monorail and straight to Adventureland to do the Pirates of the Caribbean ride which is a favourite of everyone. Then the kids went on to Aladdin’s Magic Carpet ride and we all went straight into the Enchanted Tiki Room because Grandma had talked about it at Disneyland but we hadn’t had time there. We now have the repetitive Tiki song to annoy each other with…
I then made everyone sit through the Country Bear Jamboree, because I remembered being really impressed with it as a small child…a trip down memory lane, but not as impressive in this day and age! We took advantage of the lack of crowds and enjoyed an early lunch, and then lined up for the Haunted Mansion, a must do as everyone had enjoyed it in Anaheim.
After that we headed over to Fantasyland. They have been doing major upgrades here, and still have under construction a Princess Hall and a Seven Dwarfs Mine ride. Belle had been desperate to go here all morning to see Princess Belle and the Beast’s castle. There is a whole village set up called Belle’s village. We went straight to see Belle but there was a 75 minute wait, and the Little Mermaid ride had a 120 minute wait, so we ducked into a Mickey 3D show instead. It was VERY well done, everyone was hugely impressed.
Tomorrowland was next. We did a Stitch (from Lilo and..) ride which was just strange, Monsters Inc comedy show, Buzz Lightyear ride, the People Mover, and Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress. Walt Disney created this for the 1964 World Fair, and I could see how impressive it would have been in that day. Today it was a chance to sit and rest while we waited for the time on our FastPass for the Buzz ride!
Having done something in all other lands, we returned to line up for “Enchanted Tales with Belle”. Our Belle of course was totally enamoured by the whole experience. It took us through her house, and then into rooms in the Beast’s castle, and ended with meeting Princess Belle herself. Both Sam and Belle loved that, and had photos taken with her. Belle did ask me on the way out though which one was the real one, so I guess it must have been a little confusing after bear-hugging another Belle on the other side of the country!
Ross valiantly agreed to sit through Its A Small World again, and we all then enjoyed Peter Pan’s Flight again on a FastPass. It suddenly poured as we were discussing what to do for dinner, so we ducked into the nearest store, Gaston’s Tavern, for a light snack. Belle was very happy to be back in HER village to eat. The Carousel was next followed by The Little Mermaid ride, Winnie the Pooh ride and we considered (well, I considered…) a show on the US Presidents, but it’s 22 minute running time meant we would have missed the fireworks.
We actually watched the fireworks from Main Street near the exit to get a jump on crowds leaving, so we wouldn’t miss our ride! The fireworks were fantastic as usual, but had a special 4th July theme, with the finale being all red, white and blue fireworks with 50 stars amongst them, to patriotic songs. I love their patriotism!
We were early for the 10pm shuttle ride home thankfully. And once back at our RV we found a note from the couple we met yesterday to say they had a successful day, so we put the kids to bed and went to make a late night visit to them. They understood exactly what Abi had wanted, and went to the trouble to wrap it secretly in several layers, so I actually think I may be able to pull off this surprise! 😉
Apologies for the event by event detail, but this helps my memory of the day, and reminds me what we loved most. It is a shame not to be doing any more theme parks now I have the FastPass system down pat and know how to plan the day in advance. We had a very productive day, missing only two other rides we would have considered but did not because of rain. And while we didn’t do any of the other Disney Orlando theme parks, we all felt quite satisfied with what we had been able to do. Especially Ross, who feels all theme parked out!!

Tuesday 2 July
Everyone liked their wake up call of “It’s time to go to Universal” better than yesterday’s accountants joke – go figure!! No one dragged their feet about getting ready, and we were at the front office by 9am waiting for our shuttle bus.
There are several KOA RV parks in this area, but I picked this one because it offered a free shuttle bus service to all the theme parks. We met a lovely older couple from South Carolina heading to Universal as well. They were very chatty and had lots of good advice for us when they heard our itinerary. And our bus driver sounded like Mrs Wallace from OBPS, so we guessed her to be from Boston, but she quite indignantly said no, New Hampshire! Same area to us!
Once through the gates at Universal, we headed straight for the Harry Potter land, to find the rides there were all 75 minute waits, and there was nothing suitable for the little kids. So I bought everyone a Butterbeer (which Harry and his friends drink a lot of in the books – don’t worry Dad, it’s not really beer!), and we headed to the Jurassic Park land. There we rode on Pteranodon Flyers and as we alighted from the ride at 11.30am realised it was all we had done so far!
Universal at Orlando is two parks next to each other, and as some of the rides were the same as the ones we had done in Hollywood, we thought we would have no trouble doing both parks in one day. When we bought the admission tickets we were offered a fast pass so that we would never have to wait in a queue for a single ride, but as this added approx $100 to EACH ticket price (!) we politely declined. It did mean though that we missed out on doing two rides of interest to us – The Amazing Spider-Man (which had an 80 minute wait) and a Despicable Me minion ride, which varied between 75 minute and 110 minute waits!! If we hadn’t had to be back in place to catch the shuttle bus at 6pm, we probably would have waited in line for the Despicable Me ride, but couldn’t change the pick up time, and figured the day was long enough by then.
We had an early lunch to beat the crowds, during which time it poured. Ross went to buy ponchos for everyone, but refused when he found they were $8 each! We did the Carousel in the Dr Seuss land as it was undercover and then split up so that Ross could take the older three back to Harry Potter World, while I did the rest of Dr Seuss land with the little three. While the older kids lined up for the one major ride for 75 minutes, we did The Cat in the Hat ride, a playground area called If I Ran The Zoo, and a trolley train ride on a track up above Dr Seuss Land.
Once we met up again, we headed over to the other theme park, but soon found there wasn’t a lot there to do that was suitable for everyone. Both parks are so expansive too, that it takes a fair amount of time to move between them and from ride to ride. At 110 minutes we weren’t prepared to line up for Despicable Me, but we did do there a ride that was my favourite, the ET adventure. We checked out a couple of other rides, shows and stores, but then decided with the time we had left to return to the Islands of a adventure park and do some water rides.
On the river rapids ride, Belle and I happened to sit in the seats that were smashed and we were both SOAKED! Belle cried and asked me was she melting, but once the bigger kids told her she had “won” by being the wettest, she was very happy! We decided to do some souvenir shopping on the way out, were caught up in the Harry Potter souvenirs without even looking elsewhere, but the lines to the counter were so long Ross made me leave my purchases there so we wouldn’t miss the bus. We arrived at the meeting spot at 6.05pm to see the bus driving away! Thankfully, the couple we had met that morning saw us and made the driver return for us!
We returned to the RV park to shower and change out of our wet clothes, and I put some laundry on while we went to dinner. We went just to the top of our street to a restaurant Ross wanted to try called Bob Evans, another chain we saw a lot of around New York State. We enjoyed good meals with salad and vegetables, and everyone had a free cookie for dessert, and luckily Tuesday night was their kids eat free night!
The man from the bus was also doing laundry when we returned, and told me a lot of their background story and about his wife’s health battles. They have a two day pass to Universal, so are returning tomorrow. I shared with him that one souvenir item I nearly bought was a Harry Potter souvenir surprise for Abi for her birthday. (Aside here: while everyone has been good, mostly always well-behaved and fun to travel with, Abi has been excellent at mothering the little kids and helping us with anything and organising everyone…even if I do cringe at some of her words because they could have come straight from my mouth…).
Anyway, the kind man took money I gave him and is going to pick it up for me tomorrow, which is awesome as I had told her at dinner how I had nearly bought it but had to leave to catch the bus. I have to tell SOMEone the secret, so write it here knowing Abi will not read this and will now have a lovely surprise for her birthday when we get home…IF I can keep it a secret for that long…

Monday 1 July
I woke everyone with the words “Happy New Year!”, but they weren’t really impressed with an accountant’s joke to start a Monday morning…;)
From our location at Fort Pierce we headed towards the ocean. Morning tea was at Cocoa Beach, where we found a surf shop and bought some goggles and beach towels. There we were given directions to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, so headed north planning to see a spaceship up close if possible before we headed to Orlando.
I cannot emphasise how much I underestimated the Space Centre. We drove a fair way into the area to park, arriving at 11.30am, and at the ticket office found the prices were $50 per adult and $40 per child. Part of me thought it was just too expensive and we should leave, but the kids were excited and we had travelled all that way…so much for the new financial year budget I had been constructing in the RV! 😉
Anyway, there were two IMAX movies to see (about the International Space Station and the Hubble Telescope); exhibits on the Hubble, and Mars Rovers, and space exploration then and now, and others; an Angry Birds Space Encounter play area (and gift shop!); a two hour bus tour out to the launch site; a memorial to astronauts that have died on duty (such as the Columbia and Challenger missions); and several jets and rockets to see. One exhibit included meeting an astronaut, but we skipped that because we didn’t know who he was. There was also a new exhibit called ‘Space Shuttle Atlantis’ which only opened on 29 June this year, and it was excellent. It provided background and history to Atlantis’ 26 years and 33 missions, information about the last mission of the space shuttle program in 2011, and we were then able to get up close to the actual shuttle. The bus tour was also excellent, and at one stop took us to the actual command room from which Apollo 11 was organised, and dramatised and replayed parts of that event.
What surprised me more than anything was how much today captured my attention. While I know where I was at the exact time the Challenger disaster occurred in 1986, I have never really followed the space program closely. I was expecting today to do a quick museum stop to see a rocket or two. Instead we were there eight hours and still didn’t get to see everything (we missed a couple of exhibits near the front gate, and only saw them as we were leaving after the 7pm closing time at 7.30pm). It was like another theme park, and we regretted underestimating it and not making an early morning start there to fit everything in. It was very impressive.
And of course the kids were impressed. Not surprisingly, Zac has a new “best day ever”, and spent a lot of the day videoing and narrating on the ipod, Abi told me three different times during the day she wants to go home and research space programs, and Jarrod wants to learn more about the Apollo missions. Sam said the day was “epic”, Tim wants to be an astronaut, and Belle announced loudly during the second IMAX movie that she wants to be a “princess AND a space astronaut”. So I guess they too were impressed and inspired by the day!
I feel it was money well spent and would certainly recommend it, but did find there was a lot of information to take in as I didn’t have a lot of prior knowledge.
Leaving there much later than we had anticipated, it was still another two hours to our accommodation at Orlando (which thankfully I had pre-booked last night). We arrived just before 10pm, set up quickly in the rain, and everyone was in bed promptly knowing tomorrow is going to be full-on. The plan is to go to Universal Studios, to ‘The Wizarding World of Harry Potter’!

Sunday 30 June
We left the Florida Keys this morning only once we had sourced key lime pie. I bought one slice “to go” for $3.95, and we all sat in the RV and taste tested. The result: Tim, Abi and Ross divided the remainder by three and polished it off! The others didn’t like it at all, and I thought it was ok, like lemon meringue (without the meringue, and lime instead of lemon!).
We drove through to Miami, planning to stop for lunch there. We headed for Miami Beach, intending to walk the boardwalk, but parking was impossible to find, so we redirected the motorhome straight to Fort Lauderdale.
Lunch was at a Denny’s on the way, so we could use their wifi. Ross found a review that suggested parking your RV at Harbor Shops, and catching a trolley bus from there to Fort Lauderdale’s beaches and Galleria mall, for 50 cents each. We found that a really good way to see the sights of the area. We had planned to get off at the beach on the way back, spend some time there and then re-board another bus as they toured every 15 minutes, but as we drove past and saw how choppy the water was and how windy the beach was, we decided to skip that and continue the sightseeing.
When the trolley bus returned us to our RV, we then drove another 107 miles to a KOA campground for the night.
Unfortunately we had some bad weather on the way and it has been raining all night, so no swim in the pool or time at the playground. The kids were stuck inside for the evening. We turned on the TV for the first time in this motorhome! Ross cannot get cable tv to work, so the kids watched a DVD I bought for $5 at Walmart. It is a Curious George movie, set in NYC, and it is fun to listen to them watch it and call out sights they have been to when they appear on the screen like the Empire State Building and Central Park! 😉

Saturday 29 June
Our blood pressure dropped a little further today. We were up at 7am and on the road by 7.45am, for the 4-5 hour drive to the Florida Keys. I reminisced about the good Tom Cruise days and the ‘Cocktail’ movie as we drove through Key Largo (perhaps to some of you that means a Beach Boys song rather than a movie…) and even though we weren’t stressed before that, we became more and more relaxed with each bridge we crossed and each Key we drove through. The whole area has such a relaxed, carefree, summer holiday feel.
The weather is warm and balmy, and everyone we pass is dressed to swim or fish. We enjoyed seeing so many ‘Slice of Life’ type boats (sorry, you have to have seen Dexter to understand that reference!). The Overseas Highway linking all the Keys has been named one of America’s most scenic drives, and we understand why.
We headed straight for the KOA RV park at Sugarloaf Key to book in. The kind manager was going to give us a site near the pool, but decided there was a noisy group of 20-something’s there, so upgraded us to a beachfront site. We reversed our RV into the spot, and the photos below show what was on our doorstep!
After a late lunch, we headed straight out to the beach behind us and then the pool for a swim. We then drove the motorhome into Key West at 4.30pm to explore Mallory Square and the main shopping strip of Duvall Street before the famous sunset at Mallory Pier. This is the southernmost point of the USA. I found a little takeaway place for dinner as the restaurants we looked at were expensive and didn’t have kids’ menus. The Conch Shack as it was called had three awards of excellence from Trip Advisor up from this year and the last two (is that what the Eagleview award looks like, Robyn?). We were too hot to eat much, so the kids and Ross all chose a hot dog, and I tried Conch Fritters with lime aioli. Now those who know me know I don’t try new things, but as this area is known as the Conch Republic, I had to be brave! And the fritters were delicious! With newfound confidence, I went in search of key lime pie, another specialty of the area. We opted for icecreams instead as we sat at the pier, planning to buy some pie on the way out.
We wandered back up to Mallory Square with our icecreams, where a crowd was gathering. It was surreal to see so many people all heading in the same direction, talking in hushed tones as if moving towards a religious experience. The Pier itself is busy and full of buskers and entertainers, on the pier (jugglers, firebreathers and singers), and in the water (jet pack joyriders, which the kids loved!). The sunset was amazing at first, but clouds covered the sun as it got closer to the horizon, so there was no grand finale.
We wandered back to where we had parked the RV next to a naval base and Coast Guard boat exhibit, and headed back to Sugarloaf Key, WITHOUT key lime pie! The route back did not take us past any of the stores we had previously seen selling it, so we have decided we will not leave here tomorrow until we have tried it!
It is now 10.45pm and the kids are back in the pool, as are half a dozen others! The weather is still so warm, we decided to take them for a rare treat of a late night swim. I am writing this as they cool off…oops! The manager just came to tell us the pool is actually closed! Abi saw a sign today that said the pool was open from 8.00am to 0.00 (ie. midnight). It now turns out that there should have been a 1 in front of the 0.00 (ie. 10pm)!! He was very nice, and the kids thought it was funny we had broken a rule!
Tomorrow we head to Miami…after key lime pie of course…

Friday 28 June
After a leisurely set off from Perry, we drove ALL day. Our goal was just to get down the Florida coast as far as Ross could cope with, to get us closer to the sightseeing destinations we are aiming for of Key West and Miami.
I served snacks and supervised homework as Ross drove, so our first stop was lunchtime. One thing we think Australia does better than the US is roadside rest areas and playgrounds. We have had trouble finding them along the way, and the couple of times we have asked the Navman for suggestions, it has taken us to dead ends! After finding such a dead end today, we turned down a nearby road and saw an oval and a parking area ahead so stopped there, planning to park under the shade of a tree, eat at the picnic table there, and play some soccer (with a soccer ball purchased at our outlet shopping day).
As we set up, a man drove up in a golf buggy to ask us were we the missionary family they had been expecting! We then discovered we were not at a local park, but were on the grounds of Ruskin’s First Baptist Church. He kindly let us use the space to have our lunch rather than remove us for trespassing. I suggested to Ross he had just missed his calling for a new career – it might have been an opportunity to live in another country and escape the embarrassing circus that is Australian politics! 😉
We reached a KOA RV park in Naples at 4.30pm, where Ross called time out. The kids were able to spend a good hour in the pool and time at the playground, I had all my laundry washed and dried and folded before dark, and we enjoyed a delicious dinner at the local Cracker Barrel restaurant. Recommended to us in Kentucky by the KOA manager who sat up talking to us half the night, we have looked for the restaurant since. It has even inspired me to try and recreate a couple of the dishes when I get home – shock horror! 😉