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Quebec City Here We Come

“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” Tim Cahill

Traveling the Miles as Best Friends

I’ve been having challenges with keeping up with my blog mostly due to spotty internet access. I will no longer post on my travel blog, but I will instead be posting on Facebook. I know not everyone has a Facebook account. If you would like updates via email just let me know. You can text me if you have my cell or email me.

April 1 Covid-19 Update

Hello friends and family! We wanted to give you all a current update on our travels. As state campgrounds have closed and our reservations have been canceled, we’ve been trying to decide the best course of action for us to take. We are currently at a campground close to Everglade National Park and plan to stay here at least another 10 days. We are like everyone else, washing our hands often and keeping our distance from other people. We are happy we can take long walks every day in the fresh air. We’ve been having happy hour outside with other vagabonds like us. Our chairs remain 6 feet apart.😊 We are hoping to start heading north before too long, but are waiting to see the progression of this virus. Crazy times indeed! We miss our friends and family! Stay safe and well!💕

Fort Desoto State Park Florida (March 7 to 14) Before the craziness caught up to us!

We dropped off Sunny at a nice dog sitter in Clearwater since he was not allowed in this campground, and then we drove to Fort Desoto and unhitched our Alto. We partially set up camp and then drove about a half hour to Tampa to pick up Ruth(my sis) and Judy at the airport for a week of camping with us.

Campground Life

Early morning light shows our little Alto nestled in amongst the palms.

We had to walk a few feet from our campsite and look through the gap in the trees, but the reward was a beautiful sunrise!

The full moon was stellar at night and still beautiful in the morning!

Dinner in the instant pot gets a thumbs up!

We had a few fellow Alto owners here at the campground. Great meeting and chatting with you, fellow Alto owner, Carol. :).

Gorgeous full moon casting light and shadows over the campsite.

Enjoyed the camaraderie of other Alto owners as we shared travel stories by the campfire.

Saint Pete Beach

Enjoyed a long walk on the beautiful white sand.

Another walk on Fort De Soto beach stopped here at the beginning of this cool bird sanctuary.

The friendly foursome. We look pretty good for having walked a couple miles. Poor Ruth Ann hurt her foot and couldn’t get those steps in with us!

Beach side of the beautiful and historic Don Pedro Hotel on Saint Pete Beach.

Crazy hubby says, “ Finally, finally, here it is! That pink building my wife kept seeing in the distance every time we crossed the bridge(coming into the island Fort De Soto is on)!”

Lots of history and visits by famous people at this lovely hotel!

My sis and I posing for a picture! Later while sitting alone, she got offered a free drink🍷 🤔

Phillies Spring Training (We got to see one of the last games:(

Phillies Spring Training. (We got to see one of the last games before everything was canceled.)

Breakfast at Lenny’s an iconic Phillies restaurant.

Yay for Ruth, prepared with her Phillies shirt!

We were so excited to be at the stadium. Spring training was on my bucket list!

You gotta have hotdogs at a baseball game!

Tampa Downs trip to watch the ponies! My sis has connections with the guy who has called the races for many years. He heard she was going to be in town, and provided us with box seats next to the finish line!

On the way in, Roger posed next to this beautiful Bottle Brush tree.

It was fun just watching the beautiful horses walk by.

Okay, so how do we place a bet??

I think he’s in first place! We actually lost $30 and considered this cheap fun!

Thank you for giving us this fun experience! What a super nice guy! He has been announcing races here for 40 years and loves it. He would announce mock races in the living room as a young boy driving his mom crazy!

North Beach at Fort DeSota

Two days after we left this beach closed!

Judy loved the palm trees! I think she’s even smiling!

We switched campgrounds for one day. This was our last day with Ruth and Judy! We were so HAPPY to have them visit and happy that we got to do a lot of “ last time for this”activities !

Goodbye Ruth an Judy! Thanks for sharing our adventures!

Sunny rejoined us and we are glad to have you back!

Dr. Julian G. Bruce St. George Island State Park- Florida (March 1-6-2020)

On our way to our next campsite we stopped in Perry Florida to buy groceries. It was Sunday morning about 10am when we finished our shopping. We sometimes like to attend local churches, so we looked for a church close by. We knew we’d be a few minutes late but decided to go anyway. We found a great little community church called Cornerstone that met in a local high school. We couldn’t help think of our previous and much loved church in Gresham, OR with the same name. This Cornerstone was also a VERY friendly church that made us feel welcome. As we were getting into our Alto to leave, the pastor’s wife came driving by and stopped to say hi. Soon her husband came by as well. We had a quick chat and found out they were going to St. George Island as well. They weren’t camping but staying in a condo. We told them our campsite number and they came by our last night there. We had such a refreshing time together sharing stories from our lives! It was such a lovely connection! Joan and Gary, it was so nice to make some new friends!

After setting up camp we took a short evening walk to check out Apalachicola Bay and were rewarded with a pretty pastel sunset!

I’m enjoying the beautiful evening while Sunny is saying, “ Hey, are you taking my picture again?”

The water was so calm and beautiful with the colors reflecting off the surface.

The next day we hiked back out to explore the rugged coastline of the bay.

Walking down the path, we met a couple from Maryland walking their dog. I heard them call their dog Sunny. I stopped and introduced Sunny to Sunny. Both dogs were named Sundance with the nickname Sunny. That made for a fun connection!

The bay looked quite a bit different than it had the night before.

Sunny and Roger waiting for me to catch up.

Sunny had to pause for a lovely roll in the sand. We were hoping he hadn’t chosen the spot because something died there!😳

Enjoying the scenery while trying to rack up those 10,000 steps.

Walking around the campground Sunny met another sheltie. He was wondering why he had to walk while his new friend got to ride.🤔

This pretty cardinal kept coming by our campsite many times for a visit. I think he liked our Alto.

We had a short walk to the gulf beach, and noticed this alligator lounging on the bank of this pond.

Had a couple of nice walks on the beach. Dogs are banned from most Florida beaches and we miss watching Sunny running on the beach!

We went out to the Blue Parrot for some delicious chowder one afternoon. We enjoyed the Tiki Bar atmosphere right next to the ocean.

People are always quick to offer to take our picture. (Especially when we are trying hard to take a selfie.)

We left Saint George early in the morning. A beautiful new day is dawning.

We were excited because this was the day my sis and Judy were flying into Tampa and we were anticipating some lovely time with family.😊Thanks sis and Judy for coming from Kansas to hang out with us in our Alto. Our next campground did not allow dogs, so we found a dog sitter on Rover.com. We dropped Sunny off at Peggy’s house in Clearwater for a doggie vacation. It was hard to leave our sweet Sunny for a week, but Peggy made us feel very comfortable and confident that he would be well taken care of.

Sunny posing next to the beautiful sunrise. He has no clue that he is headed to his doggie Airbnb.😃

We stopped along the way to take some pictures of damage done by the last hurricane. This house was totally demolished as were several others.

Looking forward to our next campground and time with family!

Manatee Springs State Park(February 25 – 29)2020

THE GATOR INCOUNTER

It was a chilly morning for a short walk to the springs, but it was well worth it! However, reflection on the water this time of day, made it difficult to see the lounging manatees.

I love to stop and listen to all the jungly sounds.

Looking for the manatees while clutching my warm cup of coffee,

Lots of these vulture birds hanging around . They let me get pretty close to them.

Up,up and away! I guess that was close enough!

Jeanie is walking point on this hike. Sunny is wanting to catch up!

Stopping to read information about Florida’s trees.

I’m amazed at all the beautiful bird sounds.

Sunny blending in to the background. He’s hoping he doesn’t have to pose too much longer.

Love these eerie looking shadows as we walked along the trail.

Lots to contemplate and enjoy along the way. (Who is in deeper thought?)

There were lots of deer hanging close to the campground. Sunny would have loved to herd them.

It was so fun to see this gator as we paddled by on the Suwannee River.

We were thrilled to see that gator lounging on the log as we paddled by. BUT THEN! 😳 How quickly things change! These old folks flipped their canoe (I maintain that my husband is responsible) about 50 yards from that resting gator!!!!We then managed to turn over our partially submerged canoe, climb back in from waist deep water and make our way back to the dock while bailing water out of our canoe with a water bottle. Sorry gator! No Whaley meat today! *We didn’t realize we had it all on video until we got back to our campsite. We laughed as we watched our dunk into the water!

After our traumatic canoe dunking we showered and headed out to dinner at Tony’s seafood restaurant to celebrate survival!

We were rewarded with a gorgeous sunset on our way to dinner!

The sun exits once again with a splash of color!

TONY’S RESTAURANT in Cedar Key. This was a GREAT recommendation! We ordered delicious clam chowder and shared a triple shrimp meal which was super good as well.

Saint Andrews State Park Panama City Florida (February 23-25)

After a long drive with a VERY sick G-Top driving we were very glad to be at our campsite! (NOTE FROM ROGER: I gutted it out having to pull over 3 or 4 times. Jeanie, with her arm still in a cast wasn’t comfortable with driving the truck. I just didn’t want to disappoint Knox and glad that we continued on. The next day was FUN)

Stretch out those kinks Mr. Knox after a 3 hour drive….

I guess Knox thought that Sunny should get to eat at the table tonight. Well, technically on the table!😳

Relaxing with this delightful young man! Live grandma time!

A beautiful sunset across the bay to finish off another day of camping!

The beach was an easy 10 minute walk from our campsite.

On the way to the beach, Knox and I stopped to admire an egret.

Knox LOVES the beach! His energy was amazing!

An old gun emplacement on St Andrew’s gulf shore.

Running In The Waves…

Roger buried a half dozen coins in the sand for Knox to test his new skills…. A+.

“Look at all the treasures I found!” An old penny, a gun pendant, and a toy car which is for little brother, T. Rock! HIS MOM DOESN’T CALL HIM THE FINDER FOR NOTHING!

Suwannee River State Park-Live Oaks Florida (February 21 and 22)

New Adventures With Grandson Knox

We picked up Knox in Tallahassee and spent 4 nights with this delightful little guy. His excitement and high energy was contagious!

Knox practicing his selfie skills. Look at that beautiful smile!😊💕

Camp life

Time to challenge G-Top in a battleship game. Knox looks pretty confident here!

Dinner by the fire! Burr it’s getting chilly!

Roger up before dawn on a very chilly morning!

Guess who was still in bed waiting for the heat to kick in?🤔

We took a quick hike to a very interesting cemetery with family plots out in the middle of the forest. The cemetery is all that remains of what was once a thriving river town in the late 1800’s.

Couldn’t help but hum the Suwannee Ruver song as we hiked along the River. ( I guess we are kind of old folk now!😳)

“Way down upon the Swanee River,
Far, far away.
That’s where my heart is yearning ever,
Home where the old folks stay.…”

Sunny and G-Top pausing along the river trail for a wave! 👋

Spring is starting here. Trees are starting to bud and bloom.

Enjoying a peaceful lunch spot down by the river!

These protrusions are called knees. They are actually part of the Bald Cypress trees which grow in the wetlands.

Knox loves to climb trees. We stopped to listen to the sounds of the birds.

We have a tree hugger! Actually trying to show the circumference of this Loblolly Pine.

Question from Knox: “Is it okay for me to jump to that (small square piling)”. ANSWER: “Nope.”

We love the look of these Saw Palmetto plants!

There are always fun places to explore that tantalize the imagination. A rock stuck in the roots!

We loved spending time with this little guy!

Fred Gannon Rocky Bayou State Park-Niceville Florida (February 18 and 19)

Sunny and I relaxing by our little Lightchaser!

Looking out at the river from our campsite.

I like the the warning not to swim with alligators—not the least bit tempted!😳

Getting ready for a little hike. Nature trails are always interesting!

Sunny has marked his territory in so many places!

Lots of pretty lichen dotting the sides of the trail!

We stopped at this cute little beach for a picnic lunch!

Oh my! Alligator footprints right by our feet! Lunchtime is officially over!😳

Topsail Preserve State Park Santa Rosa Beach Florida (February 14 to 18)

We pulled into this campsite, engaged our caravan mover and used our remote control to position our Alto for privacy. Within a minute, 3 of our neighbors came over to watch us and they asked lots of questions about our Alto!

I’ve read a book numerous times to my lovely grandchildren in Tallahassee. There is a quote from the book that keeps running through my brain as I sit inside our tiny house and look around. “ I love my home. I love my nest. In all the world my nest is best!”

Valentine’s Day flowers from hubby to brighten up our little home!

Love these rugged Santa
Rosa Beach Gulf sand dunes!

Beautiful spot for our quaint and simple Valentine’s Day picnic lunch! We had begun our walk and a few minutes later came upon this swinging bench which was pretty private, just for us.

This little guy was just hoping we would drop some of our lunch!

We had a invigorating walk on the beautiful white sandy beach. After leaving the beach we had another 15 minute walk back to our campsite. I was in a groove this day!

An Oregon coast kind of day. The sand is whiter and the temperature is warmer but the feel of the foggy grey is the same.

Chillin😎 in Light Chaser! Morning coffee and toasted Sourdough bread “blobs” from daughter, Sarah. TASTY

A highlight of our time here was meeting Mack and Mary from Tennessee. They are seriously thinking about buying an Alto and asked to come see ours. We had a lovely time sharing our love for our little home. We topped off the evening with a delicious meal at a lovely restaurant!

Thanks Mack and Mary! We had a lovely time!😊

Falling Waters State Park-Chipley Florida (February 9 to 12)

* Not our favorite campground, but we can always find something of interest to see.

Southern Magnolia Tree. Roger LOVED seeing this magnolia tree in a natural setting!

Looking way down into the sinkhole! Don’t let go of Sunny!

Florida’s highest waterfall, 74’!!!!The water falls into a 100’ deep fern covered sinkhole. Of course this pales in comparison to our magnificent Multnomah Falls in the Columbia Gorge.

We met some new friends at this campground, fellows Oregonians, Jeff and Denise.😊 We had such a good time with them, and regret not getting a good photo of us together.