Andrew Thomas Froeschke has arrived (Fri.)

Well, since the main event has happened, I guess I should bring everyone up to date on baby news.  Andrew started his trip just about a week ago, at 3:02 a.m. on Saturday, June 22.  Bridgette's water broke, so the day began.  She called the hospital while John let the dogs out (they probably thought this was a bit early, but I'm sure John explained it all to the 4 of them), and off to Tampa General Hospital they went.  John called us about 5:30 a.m., told us "it was time," but that we had chores.  So we went over, let the dogs out again and fed them, then headed into Tampa to the hospital.  Bridgette had a room on the 4th floor with a view of Tampa Bay, and we occasionally would see dolphins playing right below us.   Since her water had broken, she was immediately admitted even though she had not felt any labor pains.  We left about 8:00 p.m. to go to the airport to pick up her mother, who was having her own marathon just getting from California to Florida.

Today was Barbara's scheduled flight (what timing!), but Southwest had some computer glitch and cancelled all the flights for a while, so her flight from Ontario, CA was cancelled and she got rebooked on a flight out of Los Angeles Airport (LAX), which is a nightmare of its own.  She had a 2-hour scheduled layover in Kansas City, which turned into a 3-hour layover, and she finally arrived in Tampa about 9:00 p.m.  Her original flight out of Ontario had a scheduled arrival time around 4:00 p.m., so this made a much longer day for her.  And little did we all know, the day was a long way from being over.

About midnight, Joe drove back out to their house t to let the dogs out (they had a dog sitter during the day but had sent her home about 6:00 p.m.).  Barbara and I settled down in the waiting room for our own slumber party.

John came out with periodic updates on her condition, and we tried to find a comfortable position.  Finally about 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, John came out and told us the doctor had just said it was going to be several more hours so we should probably go home for a few hours.   So Joe drove us back home, and we all crashed for a few hours.  Joe and Barbara each got 3 hours sleep, and I got 2, so all together, we had 8 hours sleep.  I woke up about 8:30, and John called about 9:30 and said things were beginning to happen so we should head back in.  This hospital is on Davis Island, just over the bridge, and John texted us just as we got to the bridge "Out and Perfect."  That was the best news we could have heard!

So here's our little baby.

Andrew Thomas Froeschke was born at 10:29 a.m. on June 23, weighing in at 7 lbs 14 oz., 20 1/2 inches long.  And perfect!

We all went in to visit on Monday, and each got to hold him for a few precious minutes.

We all hoped they would get to come home on Tuesday, after the mandatory 48 hours, but Andrew was jaundiced then so they kept him for another day and put him "in a space suit" with a light under him.  We didn't go in to the hospital on Tuesday because we had waited all day in hopes they would be coming home. 

They did come home on Wednesday and began life at home with a baby.

When we got there, Andrew was sleeping in his new Lion King swing, in the sunbeam.  He looked very comfortable.  Of course, that only lasted so long and then it was time to hold the baby.  Even John got some daddy time while we were there.

We've been stopping by as much as allowed, trying to let the new parents have some time too.  And Barbara is there to pitch in with any help they need.  Every day is exciting, just to see the changes and to get to hold him close.

Arriving in Tampa (Tues.)

It rained off and on again during the night but I was able to get some pictures of this lovely campground in the Laura S. Walker State Park this morning.  Geocaching is big in Georgia state parks, and there are 25 geocaches in this park alone, but we didn't go looking for any of them.  Our neighbors were out in a little boat before they had to leave so I briefly chatted with them.

After Joe got up, we had a quick breakfast and prepared to head out.  However,

PROBLEM!

When we got ready to take off, the alarm for the hydraulic leveling jacks was still going off, and Joe walked around the front of the RV and saw that the spring on the front jack was broken (this happened to us on the Alaska trip too).  Fortunately, since we have everything including the kitchen sink with us, Joe had spare parts.  It took a lot of muscle, and our neighbors (the ones who were in the boat) brought over a pry bar to help with leverage, so Joe was able to fix it.  It only took about 20 minutes, then we were on our way, about 10:35. 

We cut down on Hwy. 441 into Florida, and we crossed the Florida State Line about 12:15, glad to be getting to our destination.  At Lake City, we cut over to I-75 and Joe kicked it up a notch so we could make Tampa today.  Gas in Lake City was $3.559 today.

We hit some road construction just on the north edge of Tampa, and saw a wreck in the other lanes but that didn't affect our lanes which was good.  We drove 277 miles today, and we got to our campground, Tampa East Resort, just east of Tampa on I-4, about 4:00 and picked out a nice campsite.  We intend to stay here for at least a month.  It's in the 90s here (heat index is 105, with the humidity), and I think there's a chance of thunderstorms every day for at least the next week. 

John and Bridgette were surprised that we made it in today, but they came by and we all went to dinner.  Bridgette is looking great, and except for not sleeping well, is feeling pretty good.  They are both really looking forward to Shooter's arrival, and hope it is sooner than later.

It took us 55 days to get here, and we drove 3,461 miles.  We are ready for a rest.  So this will be my last blog until I have some news to report. 

Croxtons, then to Georgia (Sun., Mon.)

We did get to have an easy day on Sunday, after driving 226 miles (most of them difficult) on Saturday.  Joe had some stomach issues so we stayed in the RV until about noon, then headed over to the Croxtons.  We enjoyed a fun afternoon with them, watched part of the NASCAR race, they fed us a great summertime lunch (Paul grilled hamburgers and hotdogs), and we played some dominoes with Hannah and her friend (Natalie was taking a nap, getting ready to go to a slumber party).

We had warned Paul that we needed to book an hour of his time for consultation on our new smart phones, but an hour was not nearly enough.  He spent most of the afternoon, off and on, trying to get them set up for us in a user friendly fashion (or dumbing them down for us, I'm not sure which).  We just hope we can retain some of what he showed us.

We left about 10:00 p.m., but Joe forgot his hat so we had to turn around and go back (fortunately we were not out of his subdivision yet).  Then about halfway back to the RV, Paul called and said I had left my camera there, so we made arrangements to get with Becky in the morning to get that back. 

Our campground, in Fort Mill, South Carolina, turned out to be in a great location to visit them.  It's less than 10 miles from their house, and the main road from the campground, once we got to it, is the same main road that takes you to their subdivision.  This campground is on the grounds of what was once Heritage USA, the old PTL Network (Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker) Christian-theme park, and the campground is part of the original campground when they were broadcasting here.  Some of the broadcast facilities are being used again, as The Broadcast Group.  This was just past the next row where our RV was parked.  Where we turned off the main road, we could see a huge roller coaster; we don't know if that was part of the original theme park or not but it looked pretty exciting (if you are into roller coasters, which I am NOT).

So we met Becky with my camera at McDonalds this morning, said our goodbyes again, and went back to the RV to get ready to hit the road.  It was rainy off and on all day, but when the sun came out it got into the low 90s and was quite muggy.  We got on the road about 10:40 and headed to Columbia, SC on I-77, then we started angling toward Georgia on state highways, 321, 301, and 84 to the Laura S. Walker State Campground just outside of Waycross, Georgia.  We drove through the towns of Denmark, Norway and Sweden on 321 in SC (who knew?). 

The day turned out to be longer than we intended -- Joe drove 334 miles and we didn't get parked until 6:30.  Just after Jessup, Geogia, we came upon emergency vehicles where a wreck had just happened, so we sat there for probably 1/2 hour.  We passed one field somewhere along the way that had some horses in it, then we noticed there was also a camel and at least one of those Belgium-belted cows.  Otherwise, the only wildlife we saw were some redbirds, some kind of white birds, and a suicidal turtle who Joe managed to avoid but I would guess its life expectancy was reduced to minutes. 

This state park we are in is lovely, but it is very wet here in Georgia.  All the rivers are full, most have overflowed their banks, and the lake in this campground is flooded.  We are just at the top of the Okeenokee Swamp, but we are not sure there is a road to drive through it.  We'll have to check that out in the morning. 

No baby in Florida yet, but Bridgette is ready!!!  More than likely she has at least a couple of weeks to go, but each day drags now.  We will probably arrive there on Wednesday and our plan is to get ourselves situated in a nearby campground.  It should be an exciting month!

To Charlotte (Sat.)

Reluctantly, we left the beautiful Great Smoky National Park this morning.  We sure enjoyed our time here in this park.  I would love to see it in the fall when all the leaves are turning.  Maybe that will happen some day.

We learned more about the fireflies.  This time of year, and this place, are special because of the synchronization of the fireflies.  Apparently, they all light up at once, then flicker a few times, then go dark.  And repeat.  Now we didn't know to watch for synchronization when we looked for them Thursday night on our drive, so I guess we missed something. 

Friday night we did go back to our Firefly Cafe -- that's where we learned this piece of information.  Also, there is only one other place in the world that this happens, somewhere in Southeast Asia.  And if a person drilled a hole in a globe and stuck a straw straight through from here in the Smokies, that would be the other place.    It was raining and we were pretty tired, so we did not go our evening drive.  Last night's bears would be hard to top so we thought we would just leave with those memories.

After much debate about our route out of here, Joe opted to drive back the Scenic 73 through Gatlinburg so right down the main drag we went, Explorer in tow.  The rock walls along this route extend right to the road, and the cars we meet don't always stay on their side of the yellow line, so it was a bit unnerving.   Mazie would not have liked this ride.  Fortunately, we didn't hit anything or run over anybody, but the opportunity was there. 

We made our way over to I-40 and headed to Asheville.  From there, I made the mistake of selecting Hwy. 74A, which looked like a regular highway cutting diaganally toward Charlotte.  This turned out to be another scenic drive, no trucks allowed (we are pretty sure we were not allowed on this road either because it had a weight limit of 13,000 lbs, which we exceed).  Most of the road was hairpin curves, up and down mountains, and through little tourist towns such as Chimney Rock Village and Lake Lure.

Poor Joe.  It was a hard day's driving for him.  And when we finally got onto another highway, the regular 74 I think, we still had 50 miles to go.  And we never found a place to pull off for lunch.  We did fuel before we got to Charlotte, $3.299, but we usually were seeing it for $3.459.   So he was not a happy camper.  Campgrounds around Charlotte are not too plentiful, but we did find one just across the state line in South Carolina.  We got in here about 4:30, got hooked up, then drove out to find some dinner.  Paul and Hannah drove out to visit us when we got back (we needed some technical help on our new phones, which Hannah is expert level (Paul's no slouch either).

Paul has entered the world of "hammocking."  He just last weekend went on a 12-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail, with other "hammockers"  for a "group hang."  He said the first one of these he went to, he was a little apprehensive about a group hang in South Carolina, but it turned out to be fun.   Instead of tents, they hang hammocks in trees and that's where they sleep.  Less weight than carrying a tent in their backpack, gets you up off the ground.  He posted a video on Utube of last weekend's trip. 

Today, Sunday, we intend to take it easy.  We plan to go hang out at Paul and Becky's this afternoon, and Paul offered to grill something for dinner.  Sounds like a great plan!

Pigeon Forge (Fri.)

Today's Excellent Adventure was Pigeon Forge.  After breakfast which I actually cooked, we fueled car again and headed out 321 to Pigeon Forge, only 15 miles but a pretty curvy road.  Pigeon Forge reminds me a little Bransn, MO.  It has lots of shows, mostly of the country music and country humor variety, along with lots of shops.  I guess it is known for the Outlet shops here, whereas Gatlinburg has lots of little touristy shops.  As we drove down the main drag, we could see there would be lots of fun things for kids to do here -- lots of miniature golf, race cars, bumper boats, etc. 

There's also lots of eating places here, and motels with pools.  We drove on up the main street (which is not main street) and ended up in Sieverville, which really adjoins Pigeon Forge.  That's where we saw the bigger outlet mall, Tangiers.  I bought 2 new pair of Easy Spirit tennis shoes, so I'll be stylin'.  It wasn't raining right on us, but there were clouds all around and the rivers were running full so we thought it must be raining pretty heavily in the mountains.

Joe spotted some road signs that explained some of his confusion.  He said, no wonder he got turned around the other day.  We''ve been saying all week that these Tennessee people have some strange road signs down here.

 A lot of the business in both Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg have water features.  Joe snapped this one out his window as we came back into Gatlinburg from Pigeon Forge.  It was a bit more grand than most.

One place we had driven by several times on the scenic drive back to the campground but never stopped turned out to be a highlight.  There's a sign warning of swift water, and a walkway around.  We assumed it was just another site along the river, but it was rushing water with a lot of power.  This is called "The Sinks."  We kept trying to get better photos.  Joe even cllimbed up on the concrete wall to get a better shot.

We got back to the RV about 5:30 to rest for a bit.  Joe actually laid down but I don't think he ever went to sleep.  I talked on the phone and worked on my blog until it was time to go to dinner -- back to Fireflys.

Apparently this is firefly season here, a big deal I guess.  There were some kind of firefly events at the visitor centers last night, and our little restaurant is extending its hours this weekend because it is "firefly season."  So on last night's EWVD, we paid attention to the fireflies we saw -- and we did see some.