Our 3-Day Drive Down to Florida

We left Wisconsin on June 28th, 

and for the next 3 days we made our way down to Florida.  

There is an area in Indiana

where there were TONS and TONS

of windmills.  

We also discovered that Indiana's 

roads are horrible!  

VERY bumpy!  

Guess they can't afford to fix the 

roads if the tax dollars 

are going towards windmills.  

There were thousands of them!

We found a BW3's to eat at right next to a 

Walmart.  This was great because we could

park in the Walmart parking lot

and walk over to the restaurant. 

Remember:  we can't just

stop at any 'ole restaurant due to standard

parking lots not being big enough for our truck

and RV...and because of our son's food

allergies.  Finding a safe, accessible 

restaurant could be challenging.  

We made it to Kentucky the first night.

Henry wanted me to take pictures of all the

baseball fields that we passed along the way.

The first night we ended up parking in a Love's

truck gas station and slept.  

We asked for permission before doing this.  

Since we were in a gas station parking lot,

we were unable to put out the slides on our

RV which prevents us from getting

back to the boy's bedroom.

Henry and Sage slept in the master bedroom.

I made the dining table into a bed for 

Scott and me.  

This is the next morning.  

The truck that was parked in front of us had

already left.  Our truck and RV look 

so little compared to the big rigs.

Our RV is 41' long.  

Those big semi-trucks are 53' long.  

For those wondering, we are able to shower, use the bathroom, brush our teeth, wash our hands, etc. in our RV even while parked in a parking lot.  We even had lights / TV, etc thanks to our generator.  Not only does our RV serve as our house and home, but it is also our very own hotel.  

Back on the road.

We found a Sonny's restaurant for dinner.
It was located right in front of a Sam's Club.

Atlanta drivers were even crazy on 
a Sunday evening.  The amount of cars
was not bad, but the actual drivers were
just CRAZY!  Darting around like they
were contestants on Frogger. 
Just in case you didn't know:
It's not a good idea to cut in front 
of a truck pulling a 15,000 lb RV.  

We stopped and slept in a rest area on Sunday night.
These parking spots seemed designed just for RVs 
so they could put their slides out.  

We have 3 slides on this side, but 2 are in when 
this picture was taken. 

Finally, on day 3 of driving, we make it to Florida!

Daytona Beach!
This is where Henry grew up.

Every time we would stop for diesel, 
Henry would clean our windows.
Scott decided that was a job that he could do!

I think the most challenging thing traveling
with an RV and having a diesel truck,  is
is finding a gas station that we fit in.
We can't get diesel from those truck stops 
because you need to have a commercial license/card.
So we have to find actual gas stations 
with a diesel pump and sometimes
it's challenging.   We use the app iExit to find
diesel, rest areas, restaurants, and more. 

We stopped in Port Orange and had lunch with Henry's dad at a Red Robin.  Red Robin was in the 'Pavilion', a large shopping area, so we had ample space to park.  While we were still in the parking lot, all of a sudden, Henry's best friend and his wife drove right up to us.  They were leaving Chuckie Cheese and spotted our large RV.  Ha!  They knew that it had to be us.  We chatted with them for a few minutes, then went on to lunch.  While sitting in Red Robin, Henry's sister called asking where we were.  He told her, and she said, "I knew that had to be you guys!  I just saw your RV and truck in the parking lot and thought what are the chances that someone else has the same one with Ohio license plates too."  So she came inside and had lunch with us too.  She just happened to be over in the shopping area doing some shopping when she got off work.  



We finally made it to our campsite
around 4:30 pm.  We have tons of 
space here.  This picture was taken with me 
inside our RV looking out our front door.  
Yep, we have our very own little palm tree
out our front door.  
There is no campsites to the right of us at all 
(so no one would ever be to the right of us),
and no one is on our left for 2 spots.  
I will tell more about this park once we leave.
We have been here for 3 weeks now
and plan to leave maybe next Saturday.

If you look closely, you can see the pond that is
behind us here.  We have not seen any 
alligators, but we do see really cool 
sandhill cranes and turtles all the time.  

It's a pretty quiet campground.

This is the road to the right of us.
See those things with lights on top of them?
Those are the electric/water hookups for each
campsite.  You see that there is NO ONE at those 
campsites.  

That night, we went to the Olive Garden with
Henry's parents and sister.  
His sister is a 'Gamer' just like them.

The 3-day driving trip went really well!!  The boys were great, no incidents (I'm terrified of getting a flat tire!), and we ran into minimal traffic.  There was only 1 time that one of us lost our minds and that was Scott.  His regular diet does not include anything artificial (no artificial colors or preservatives).  We did play the 'Skittle game' where the boys got 1 Skittle per minute to help pass some time in the truck while driving.  On the second day of doing this, Scott showed us that his little body couldn't take that sugar and artificial food dyes anymore.  Thankfully his fit was short-lived.