Day 7: Marathon - 1/2 way to Key West

We headed out of Key Largo around noon for the 40 mile drive south to Marathon. We decide during our trip planning to take our time and explore more of the keys than just Key West. Today we checked out the Doplhin Research Center, several marina's with some beautiful sailboats and a couple of boating stores.

Taking Barb and Al along is like have our children with us when they were younger. They like to do some funny things and of course we have to save the moment for posterity.



During our walk around one of the marina's we ran into Hank & Ann Evans. What a small world, they're from Des Moines. Last August they retired, purchased a 42ft. trawler and began heading south. Hank is a former sailor and it turns out we had a number of similar friends on Saylorville Lake. They are going to meet up with a friend, the former mayor of W. Des Moines, in Key West. They plan on heading up the east coast, dropping down the St. Lawrence to the great lakes and over to Chicago before heading south on the Illinois River and eventually to the Gulf of Mexico. What a trip! Good Luck Hank & Ann!

Day 6: Ft. Lauderdale to Key Largo

This morning we got a little bit of exercise riding our bikes around the RV park. It didn't take us long to figure out that the vast majority of the winter time residents in this park we French Canadian. Very few of the people we spoke with answered in English. Almost every vehicle had a Quebec license plate.

Our friends Al & Barb Reiff arrived at the airport at 1:30pm. Last night we drove over to the airport to see if we could pick them up in the motorhome. It has an upper and lower level and we were concerned if it had enough clearance. The upper deck had the most clearance so we pulled up at 1:45 with the jeep in tow to pick up the white snowbirds for a week in paradise.


The drive down to Key Largo was horrendous. Somehow we took a wrong turn and ended up going through Miami. It probably only added a 1/2 hour to the drive but it was white knuckle driving all the way.



Following the cocktail hour we headed to an ocean side bar and grill for sunset and a hearty seafood dinner.

Day 5: Florida 2009

We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale around noon after a 2 hour drive on the Florida Turnpike. We are still trying to figure out the toll they charged us. The toll from Orlando was $24. The toll for the MH alone would have been $8 and the toll for the Jeep $8. Since the jeep was being towed by the MH there was an $8 surcharge, thus $24. Go figure!

We had a difficult time finding a campground that had an opening. We finally found one that had room in their overflow area, an open field. It was reasonable though, $60, ha!

After changing into shorts and a t-shirt we headed to the beach to catch some rays and a stroll in the sand.


There were several kite surfers taking advantage of the strong 20+ mph north winds.



After developing an appetite from the walk on the beach we asked a couple of police officers on horseback where the "Skyline Chili Parlor" was located. If you read our Key West blog 2 years ago you know that Kathy and I love Skyline Chili. Our home town of Cincinnati has well over 100 Chili Parlors and we love their 3-Ways!!! Well, Lauderdale has one about a mile off the beach.

Day 4: Florida 2009

We reached Florida about 1pm today. The temperature was about 65 degrees here which I hear is pretty normal for northern Florida this time of the year.



Florida has a beautiful welcome center where they serve free orange and grapefruit juice. As you can imagine they have tons of travel brochures so we picked up a couple on campgrounds.

This afternoon we stopped just south of Orlando at a very nice campground just outside of Kissimmee.


Across the street is the spring training facility for the Houston Astro's. Before grilling a couple of Iowa chops we toured the facility by bike. Tomorrow we are going to head to Ft. Lauderdale.

Day 3: Florida 2009

Boy are we glad we got out of town on Thursday. Here's a shot that a friend sent of the snow storm that hit Des Moines on Friday. The prediction was for 2-3 in and they got 7 in.

We headed out about 8am through the hills of Tennessee. The new braking system worked well as we encountered a couple of 6% grades. Traffic was fairly light until we hit Atlanta. Last time we came through here we learned that we qualify for the carpool lane since there are two of us in the MH. As you can see below the traffic through here, even on a Saturday, is terrible.

We stopped a little early (3:30)this afternoon so we could pick up a couple things at the store and find a nice restaurant to celebrate Valentines Day.

Day 2: Florida 2009

Following an uneventful night in the Wal Mart parking lot we drove over to Klaus's Service Center around 11am to see how Tim was coming with the installation of the air brake system on the jeep. The installation went faster than expected and he was just finishing up. Now he had to run the air lines from the MH. He also mentioned that their was a leak in the radiator on the jeep. I had noticed a minor leak earlier but it was getting worse. So his son picked one up at the parts store and proceeded to install it as his dad finished up the MH air lines. These guys do great work and they are very reasonable at $60/hr.



After going through the hookup procedure with Tim we headed south at 2:30. We drove until 7pm and stopped in Clarksville, Tennessee. No Wal Mart in sight but we found a big Sam's Club lot.

Kathy's great at driving the RV!

Florida 2009

Day 1: Key West here we come!!!

We headed out of Des Moines this morning about 8am. We had parked the motorhome in a friends heated building overnight to keep everything we loaded yesterday from freezing. They will be joining us in a couple of weeks in Key West.



The trip to Highland Illinois was uneventful (that's good)! We are stopping overnight in Highland to have a new braking system installed on the jeep we pull behind the motorhome. The auxiliary braking system will be tied into the motorhome's air brakes and will provide proportional braking on the jeep as we apply brakes to the MH. It will take about 6 hours to install tomorrow so we won't hit the road again until the Friday afternoon.

Tonight we are in our favorite campground, a Wal-Mart parking lot. It's safe because they're open 24hr. and they allow campers to stay overnight.

Gatlinburg

We knew it wouldn’t be long before the 6 girls would experience withdrawal from shopping, so late this morning we headed down to the Gatlinburg main street shopping area. There is a multitude of shops, exhibits and attractions. One of the attractions, Parrott Mountain, was being promoted by a street vendor. Here is Emily who was a little in shock that the bird was beginning to walk up her arm to her shoulder.

After kid photographs with the birds, we headed out to seek more treasures. The younger girls spent the majority of their time trying on every piece of jewelry in the Claire’s store. Following lunch, we stopped by the Movie Cars Museum. Here are the girls with the VW from the movie Herbie.

There are so many attractions here you could probably spent a month and not see them all. Of course, many of them we wouldn’t want to see anyway, such as wax museums, Ripley’s and trinket stores. Our goal was to take the aerial tram to the Ober Gatlinburg ski area on top of the mountain.

Unfortunately on Fridays they are closed for maintenance, so we decided to drive the extremely steep drive up the mountain. They have a variety of summer rides for the kids to experience. Al and I, as well as the kids, tried our hand at the Alpine Slide. We took the chair lift to the top.

Weight plays an important role accelerating the sled down the hill, so Al and I competed for top speed.

Paige and the other girls didn’t have this weight advantage.

Now it was time take out our aggression at each other, so we jumped behind the wheel of a bumper car and slammed into each other for the next five minutes.

For the first time for the entire week, we got to eat at a sensible hour. The other evenings we never seemed to arrive home until after 8:00. Following supper, we took to the links to play 18 holes of golf, miniature golf that is. Mary wins the award for the longest drive as she hit the ball over three fairways away. Al had a hole in one on #18 and won an additional round of golf. Who knows when he will use it! And it looks like Paige is going to be the next Tigress Woods since she posted the lowest net score.

Gatlinburg

I guess the trip wouldn't be complete unless someone got sick. In this case the cold that Paige had for the last week turned into pink eye. When she awoke, her eyes swollen practically shut. A quick call to her doctor got her a prescription at the local pharmacy. By lunch time it was getting much better. So, we decided to head for Cades Cove. It's an 1800's community in a beautiful valley in the park. The majority of the homes, barns and churches are located around the perimeter of the valley. The one-way circle road around the community takes about 2 hours by car.

Here is the old grist mill that was used to grind the corn from the surrounding area. There are no longer any residents living here, the last one died a couple of years ago.

Exploring the old structures is really interesting. The barn uses a cantilever construction that was developed in Europe.

On the way back we stopped by the stream that flows along the side of the road. We rested our weary feet while the kids played in the stream. Paige and Emily couldn't resist posing as a took pictures of the area

This evening we grilled outside and the girls made us S'mores on the campfire.

Gatlinburg

Today we headed into the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. First we stopped in the park office and watch a movie about the history of the park. The park has more species of trees than all of Europe and there are many creatures only found in this area. The reason for the diversity here was the glaciers that stopped just above the park.

Following a picnic lunch we took a 1mi. hike to the Sugarlands waterfall. It was fairly easy because the trail was flat.

The girls enjoyed climbing the hills surrounding the falls.

We decided to be a little more adventurous and tackle a longer trail so we drove to the Laurel Falls pull off and headed up the mountain. This trail was quite a bit more difficult. The entire trail to the falls was up hill, about a 1 1/2 mi. To make it harder there were a number of spots with steep drop offs so we had to be very careful. Al and Nancy decided to turn back. It was more than they wanted to tackle. We headed on up with the girls. We were not disappointed, the falls were beautiful. My pictures cannot capture it all.

It took us close to 2 hours to complete this hike so we were ready for a rest. We next drove to the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail. It's a driving trail about 6 miles long that winds to the top of the mountain. There are several scenic pull offs and a number of historic cabins, barns and out buildings to explore. This is the Jim Bales homestead from the early 1900's.

Along side of the homestead is beautiful stream. As you can see there are extremely large boulders in the stream. These boulders were also in the surrounding fields making farming very difficult.

Gatlinburg

Yesterday when we purchased the waterpark passes we purchased a combo pass to admit us to Dollywood. So, we headed to Dollywood today!

At JukeBox Junction, Kathy saw the miniature classic cars and had to go for a spin with Paige in a classic Corvette.

Now it was time for a train ride pulled by an authentic 1800's Baldwin steam locomotive.

The girls tried their hand on the skyrider before we headed for lunch. Boy, this place expensive, the food cost an arm and an leg, but at least it wasn't any good.

Now it was time for some of the wilder rides. First we tried the Daredevil Falls ride that put the 8 of us in this big log that eventually found it's way to a waterfall, a 100ft waterfall. The girls up front got soaked but we got wet too. Since we were already wet we headed for the River Battle raft trip . At each of our seats was a water cannon. The people on shore shot at us as we shot back. By the time we got off the raft we were totally wet.

Next we headed for the Mystery Mine. It was fast, fast action ride. We did 360's and dropped straight down twice. It was the wildest ride I have ever been on.
It was now 7pm and we were exhausted and headed for home base.

Gatlinburg

Al made several calls this morning about getting his motorhome repaired. The warranty service contract he purchased covers everything but the $100 deductible. They gave him to go-ahead to find a local repair facility. Unfortunately no one in the Gatlinburg area could work on the chassis and motor. They only repaired the coach items such as the slides, pumps, etc. A repair shop in Knoxville was located and they arrived at his site about 12:30. The repairman had originally thought the problem was a bad starter based on Al's conversation. It didn't take him long to find an electrical plug near the engine had overheated and failed. So, a new one is on order. It should be in by Wednesday. It's a good thing we're here for the week.

Following lunch we headed to Splash. It's a water park run by Dollywood. Today the temp is predicted to hit 90 before the cool front comes in on Tuesday. We thought the kids and us would enjoy the water activities because of the heat. It's really a great water park. It has wave pools, raft trips down raging waters as well as water tubes, pools and play areas.

Due to our late start we were at the park until it closed at 8pm. Boy, were we hungry so we headed down the street to the "Texas Roadhouse" for some ribs. We finally arrived home at 10pm, exhausted!

Gatlinburg

We are pretty much packed and ready to head out. It's about a 300 mile drive from Cincinnati to Gatlinburg. Our friends, Al and Nancy, bought a motorhome late last year in preparation of Nancy's retirement this year. Al retired about 5 years ago. They are also bringing along two of their grandchildren for this trip. Mary is 12 and Anna is 10. They should get along great with Paige 13 and Emily 11. Here is the group, minus Kathy and me, in front of their new Winnebago.

We arrived in Gatlinburg about 4:30 this afternoon. We encountered our first problem when Al's motorhome wouldn't start after stopping to check-in at the office. A quick call to AAA got it started and we moved it to the camp site. Al will call the repair service tomorrow to have it checked out. Our camp site is great although it's a little pricey, $50/night. A beautiful flowing creek runs immediately behind our camp sites.

The temp today is in the high 80's so the kids took off to the pool shortly after our arrival.

Gatlinburg

Last nights evening storms moved on and we had another beautiful day in Cincinnati. Our sister-in-law Kathy was a hit with the girls once again as she served them pancakes this morning. Here is a picture of Jerry and Kathy in front of their house with the girls

This afternoon we headed to our favorite restaurant for lunch. You guessed it, Skyline, in Delhi. Here are the girls having a "3-Way", chili, spaghetti and grated cheese. The other kids are Al & Nancy Auciello's grandchildren, Niki's 5 kids.

Now it's on to Al & Nancy Auciello's to prepare for our trip to the Gatlinburg.

Gatlinburg

This morning we decided to head to the water park for the girls to cool off. There is no swimming pool but they have all kinds on water fountains for the kids to play.

The photo below shows Paige squirting a couple of boys. I said she was flirting, she said she wasn't.


This afternoon we packed up the motorhome and headed to Kathy's brothers house for the evening. Jerry and his wife Kathy live on the west side of Cincinnati. Kathy was a big hit with Paige and Emily. She served them food and snacks they liked and let them watch their favorite cable TV shows.

Gatlinburg

We slept in this morning because we were exhausted from yesterdays activities.

For lunch we met with my aunts and uncles. It was great to see them all and catch up on all the family news.

Later this afternoon we explored the lake on a pontoon boat. Paige and Emily captained the boat up and down the lake.


This evening we visited Kathy's nephew Vern and his wife Michelle to see their new daughter, Ava. They also have 2 boys, Jeremy (5) and Landon (2). Paige and Emily had a great time playing with the boys.