Last Post – return trip

We ended up staying at Rend Lake Rest Stop 4 days mostly due to bad weather coming up on the next stop and also in Florida. I had a migraine one day so that factored in. It was a great place to be stuck!

We left there Sept 29 and spent that night at Nashville-Franklin Elks Lodge #72. It was convenient and there were no issues.

Sept 30 we set out for Jackson Lake Island in Milbrook AL. We expected to like it enough to stay 2 nights – there is supposed to be wildlife there, at least some birds. About 60 miles from the destination we had truck trouble. Vic thought it was U joints. Whatever it was we knew we had to get off the highway and deal with it. We had been driving south on I-65 and had run into a couple of spots of congestion. Another one was coming up so we took the next exit, pulled over and started looking for a place to stop for the weekend. It was Saturday after 12 so we might not get anyone to look at it until Monday. Might as well get comfortable. Found an RV park combo conference center, and cabins. No one answered the phone but we went there anyway. The office was closed. We drove around the park and found a big empty parking lot. No sooner had we stopped than a woman came out saying there would be an event that night and we shouldn’t park there. We talked to her and found out it was a 90th birthday party for her mom. She said 100 people were coming!

She softened her stance when we explained our situation. We pulled off to the side to leave as much room for the guests as possible.

Vic was able to find a garage nearby, they diagnosed the problem and it turned out to be an easy fix. When we were driving over some rough road we hit one place just right to split a front truck tire. They fixed him up with a tire and problem solved. Yay!

We thought it would be nice to bring a gift to the birthday girl so Vic picked up a gorgeous white orchid on the way back from the garage. We took it over and met Ollie having her 90th birthday. She was set up in the place of honor with a silver tiara and a beauty pageant style sash proclaiming her age. The place was decorated to the hilt. Out of the 100 people there about 85 were relatives and she said she had great great grandchildren. wow.

We stayed there just the one night. This morning we drove to Tallahassee Antique Auto Museum where we are now. It didn’t work out to stop at Jackson Lake Island – another time.

In the morning we will do the last leg and then we’ll be back in Clermont FL.

We will sit in place for a while. We have the camper painting coming up and we have someone lined up to put disc brakes on the camper. We will get back to birding at Lake Apopka, Black Point Drive and other places. We want to see my sister Holly and her husband. Daughter Kelly is visiting for a few days in October (hurray!). I will continue to post about our future adventures.

We have visited 20 states and gone 17,000 miles. Whew! Hope you all have enjoyed following us around the country.

XOXO