Florida Family Vacation - March/April 2014

Florida Family Vacation – March/April 2014

Winter 2014 – the one that Hell Froze over

We were no sooner back from our pre Christmas November/December thaw out vacation in South Africa than we returned home to the nastiness of the awful ice storm that broke all kinds of records in Ontario. I remember it clearly because I put our front doormat off to one side in a scrunched up heap while I cleared the front step. Well wouldn’t you know it but it got iced into position. It was when we got to the end of Feb and it was still a frozen scrunch that we knew we had to get out of the Winter from Hell.

Our plans for our March break/Spring break vacation to Florida were born out of desperation arising from way too many minus 20 degree nights and worse. A man can only take so much. It was time to hit the road and head south. Mmm - I could virtually smell the salt air and feel the sand between my toes. I was practically twitching with anticipation.

In my enthusiasm - I was clearly feeling a bit light headed - I suggested to Cher that we see if any of the kids/grandkids would like to join us on our road trip. Low and behold, Julia, John (2 yrs) and James (5 mths) offered to keep us company so we wouldn’t be lonely. Yiaaa!! It was going to be a family road trip. Thanks to Chris who sacrificed his wife for a month – sorry you couldn’t join us Chris.

Prepping for the Big Push South

Cher and I are still novices at this RV business. We are the only ones in the RV storage centre that had a beautiful cover protecting our RV from all those harmful UV rays, and preventing snow and ice from infiltrating where not wanted. We decided to get the RV out of winter storage a few weeks early so we could do a few odd jobs and get some servicing done while we drooled and dribbled in anticipation. As it happens, beautiful as our RV cover may be, it turns out we had not given any thought to the imprisoning impact of an ice storm on an RV held in place by a cover encased in ice. My first line of attack was to clear the three feet of accumulated snow around the RV. I decided shovelling was not half so easy as moving it with my snow blower. I’ll spare the details, but suffice to say that my beautiful RV cover was no match for the heat emanating out of the exhaust of the snowblower. Before I noticed it, I had managed to melt a six foot gash in our RV cover. I decided there’s nothing wrong with good old fashioned manual labor while I worked on how I was going to explain to Cher why she needed to start reviving her good old fashioned sewing skills.

Without overworking this story, it took a few shots of hacking at the ice with picks and shovels before we could free up the bottom of the cover which was successfully imprisoning our RV.  So we were free to remove the cover? Nope. I discovered the roof of the RV had about six inches of ice holding down the cover. Fortunately it was movable but only with a lot more of that good old fashioned manual labor and only one or two more relatively minor tears in the roof cover. I’m glad I have a wife who can sew. Finally we were free. Who would have thought heading south was going to be such hard work? It was as if the gods of winter were conspiring to keep us in their evil grip as long as possible. Fortunately we have the God of Spring on our side and at last we were loading the RV with an impossibly long lists of essentials and last minute shopping before we were ready to hit the road.

Hitting the Road

The big unknown was how John and James were going to cope with the six and seven hours of driving that I was planning each day. Rather reluctantly, on the advice of the ladies I agreed to tone my daily dose of driving down to five or six hours a day. I was looking forward to driving my Beautiful Baby south and the more hours a day I did it, the sooner we could begin thawing out. Oh how our lives are filled with disappointment and disillusion. As it turns out we have settled into a comfortable pace of managing about four to five hours of driving (300 miles) spaced out over the course of a whole day. Who said holidays are all about push, push, push?

Our first night was in Sarnia, to have a sleep over with with Leige and Cynthia (Cheryl’s sister in law) Mercier. They greeted our onslaught with grace and good humour although I am sure next time we suggest this idea they will “have something else on”. Cynthia runs a child care in her basement so had a whopping amount of Lego which we let ( two year old) John loose on – he thought he’d died and gone to heaven.

Routine, Speed, and Vacation Time

We have discovered that a team of three adults working in finely tuned harmony can move two infants, from sleep to morning tea, diaper changes, feeding/eating, diaper changes again and so on and so on, in no less than two hours. It doesn’t really matter how much one tweaks, and twiddles that process. So that means that an early day hitting the road starts somewhere around 9am on a good morning to 9.30am or so on an average morning.

We try and drive for a few uninterrupted hours to get some miles under our belts. During this time there is a frazzle of energy being expended mainly by Julia in keeping James fed and jogged as and when needed and appropriate and John read, sung and storied to. During this time, Cheryl sends her feelers and communication net out far and wide – anything from skyping her Mom in South Africa, to navigating our route, to clearing emails and/or booking our next sleep over stop. I of course am working hard at keeping the RV on the right side of the road and making sure that I overtake at least one truck an hour just to keep my self-esteem intact. I also indulge my favorite hobby of looking for the cheapest gas available – Hot Tip – so far Pilot stations with a Good Sam discount card are consistently the best deal around. I am open to any better ideas – this is every RV driver’s passion.

Our evening routine is about the same. Early supper, followed by baths, burps, teeth brushes, diapers, stories, prayer, Jesus songs and finally the blessed moment when all is quiet and we tiptoe around in grateful relief while we enjoy an hour or two of peace and quiet to play some games, watch some news and/or read our books. Having said that John has amused us daily and nightly, after he has gone to bed or his afternoon nap, with his chorus of singing, recounting the days events to his imaginary friend Mowgli and generally keeping us delightfully entertained with his version of events. We have each been sung happy birthday to on more than one occasion, so life is never dull. Early nights have been the order of the day, as Julia has the vagaries of James’ nights to contend with while we lie in bed wishing we could help, but rather guiltily glad that we can’t, as this is something that only Julia can do – thank you Lord.

 

Another highlight of our trip has been Julia’s creative way of helping John to appreciate and track the days and distance we are covering. Every state visited has an appropriately named gift; Ohio Ostrich, Kentucky Kangaroo, Tenessee Triceratops, North Carolina Noodle, South Carolina Stickers, Georgia Giraffe and Florida Fish are the gifts so far. We await Alabama and West Virginia with bated breath. She is also doing a Trip Caterpillar, which has a picture which gets filled in depicting something memorable for each day of our trip. So far we are at day 19 out of 26. Julia colours in while John critiques and comments. It’s hard to tell how much he is learning but it’s been a fun way to track our trip.

People Along the Way

As always it’s the people who make a trip interesting.

My nephews Jonathan, Michael and Christopher Cornish – they live in the Fort Lauderdale area and  have been developing and running their own import/export business for a number of years now. Their business is growing fast and after a number of years they are beginning to really see some good fruit for all their hard work. Are they hot shot executive types? Not really – just hard working young guys who are earning the respect of their suppliers and customers through integrity and hard work. We stayed with Jonathan and Nola for a couple of nights and Michael and Ashley joined us for most of the time. Chris is looking after business in Cape Town for a few months.  They all gave me a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday on March 22^nd – I had completely forgotten it was my birthday and was literally in my birthday suit about to hop in the shower, so the moment they arrived was quite appropriate – I managed to hop in bed and appear surprised, which I was.

North Beach RV Park, St. Augustines

·         Scottish Couple from Burlington, ON – bumped into them on the first warm day we’d experienced in months. Everyone was out sunning themselves in celebration. He had been CEO of a large pension fund and they have been doing RVing for some time. They had just figured out that Key West (as far south as one can get in the USA) is the best place to find great weather. He described to me his progression from a starter Class C, like ours, to his current state of the art Class A with all the bells and whistles. Like a good Scot and pension plan guy he had bought the RV used (got a good deal) and was able to tell me his average fuel consumption and speed on the I75 (60 mph). He retired at 60 and has been RVing for fourteen years. He didn’t look a day over 60. My conclusion is RVing holds off ageing -that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

·         Nice Guy, Name Unknown – popped by our RV as we were heading in for the bedtime routine. “I noticed you don’t have a vehicle to pick up groceries. I’m on my way to the store. Can I get you anything?” Such a nice gesture – we really appreciated it.

·         Couple of ladies – we stopped to ask them directions to somewhere. They couldn’t speak English and we asked them which country they were from – Spain, Italy, France?? Non – Quebec. They were in Florida for the winter. It seems we truly do live in two solitudes in Canada – enough said. Anyway I suppose my French isn’t much better than her English, so I shouldn’t complain I suppose.

Along  The Way

This has been a different type of a trip – mainly about enjoying our grandchildren and Julia’s company, so our sightseeing component has been limited - like the time we spent two years in UK when our kids were 4 – 6. We visited very few churches and sights of historical significance, but we didn’t miss a single playground. We loved our time in UK.

 

Nevertheless we have enjoyed some special places and sights. Our drive south has been through gorgeous countryside and progressing from no snow, to green grass and leaves on trees was like a man staggering out of the Sahara into a fully serviced oasis. Our best camping deal so far has been Savannah Visitors Welcome Centre, which lets one camp in their parking lot, which is right downtown, for $8. We really enjoyed being able to walk through Savannah without having to hassle about parking the RV.

We have loved the lushness of Florida at this time of year. We enjoyed Talahassee, the State Capital, which had their annual Spring Festival on but they score lower than 1/10 for availability of RV parking. As it turns out we finally found two metered parking spots in a side street and hoped for the best. As it turns out we didn’t even need to pay as it was a Saturday. This of course was only discovered after about an hour and a half of driving around in deadlocked traffic and some modest interpersonal stress within the cabin of the RV, to put it mildly. We loved the downtown Baptist church which opened their building up to the public to use their washrooms and chill out with a complimentary coffee or tea and a cookie. What a wonderful illustration of the church at work in practical ways that really count.

Our best camping find has been Topsail State Park in the Florida Panhandle, where we currently are gathering our strength before beginning the long journey north. For half the price we were paying in Southern Florida we are getting the best campsite yet – lots of shade, room, safe playing area for the kids, swimming pool and gorgeous beach. They even have a shuttle to take us to the beach daily. It is wonderful and we hope to visit again.

Concluding

It has been a wonderful holiday - exhausting in many ways, with us having to fit into the kid’s routines. However what a treat it has been to be with them 24/7 and get to know them so well. John’s sing along routine afternoon and evening has been a marvel to behold. James has gone from being a blob who had just conquered rolling over to being almost at the point of crawling. Today he did a full body push up, but just couldn’t figure out what to do next. He’s such a cool dude.

And so it’s back home in a few days to face the music of real life again. We have a full year ahead. Thank you Lord for a life that is so full of variety and blessing on so many fronts.

Rob and Cheryl Cornish

April 2014