Florida Panhandle

 7-22-2021

We got up just before 7:00, and got loaded quickly.  It was pretty simple since pretty well everything was in our one-room suite.  Joe and I drove over to the donut shop and brought donuts home to the kids, then we said our good-byes and headed out, at 8:20.  Other than the heat, the drive was pretty uneventful, except that when we pulled in to fuel, the RV didn't idle very well.  Joe has to look under the hood in the morning to see if something ate through a wire, or something.  we stopped at the Busy Bee to fuel and grab some lunch.  This is a smaller version of the Buc-ee's Travel Centers we have stopped at in Texas, but this one was very busy (living up to its name, I guess), all the pumps were full, so we had to drive around twice to fine an open one, and there was not adequate parking, so I got our Whopper sandwiches to go.  The Buc-ee's have tons of parking, and lots of gas pumps, and more "stuff" inside.  I didn't get a chance to shop since Joe was parked at the pump, but it wasn't nearly as grand.  We had stopped here once before, so I knew what to expect.

We got to our campground in Marianna at 2:30/1:30 (we gained an hour after Tallahassee).  Joe hooked up the electricity and as soon as the RV got cool, it was nap time.  This is a real nice campground (Stay N Go), just 1/2 mile off I-10.  

Of course, we had to make that difficult too.  Our new GPS apparently didn't have this road in it, when I put in the address, it didn't take the E part of the address, so it turned us west instead of east, alongside the Walmart and down a dead-end road, where we had to unhook to get turned around.  Joe then pulled up the campground on his phone, but he missed the turn and we had to go back over the interstate to get turned around.  I'm following him in the Jeep, thinking "what is he doing?????"  I left my phone in the RV so I couldn't call him, so I just blindly followed him, and he got us to the right place, the back way.  Had we turned right to start with, it would have been a very easy half mile right into the campground.  Oh well, that's typical of us anymore.

We drove back over to the main highway for dinner, and shopped Walmart a little, then we drove up to the caverns we are going to tomorrow, to preview our route.  It's only 5-6 miles, but we got to drive through the countryside a little.  

We had a great time with John and Bridgette, and getting reacquainted with our grandkids.  Hopefully, it won't be another 1 1/2 years before we see them again -- that was way too long, and they grew up way too much since we were last here.  They start school in under 3 weeks, Andrew in 3rd grade, and Catalina in kindergarten.  So they have a couple weeks to try to re-establish some kind of routine since we disrupted their lives for over 3 weeks.

I've been texting with Marilyn and Collins, who are in Bismarck, ND.  They have been 100 degree days, and today they set a record at 106.  Needless to say, they are not happy campers!  It's hard to get these motorhomes cooled in that intense heat.  I hope we begin to get a little cooler as we head north.

Our drive today was 339 miles, a little long for the leisure trip we have been enjoying this summer.  If we can get on a tour of the caverns tomorrow, we plan on leaving here on Friday.  It's supposed to be a constant 65 degrees down there though, so we may just spend the day!