Orlando/Disney World

Orlando/Disney World

Oooohhh, Disney World.  You are, and always will be my favorite vacation destination. :)  When we were planning our route for this year and I realized we would be going through Orlando, there was no question we would be going to Disney.  My first instinct was to stay on site at their RV campground called Fort Wilderness but then I got to thinking that we would probably be doing other things in Orlando so we stayed at another campground, 15 minutes away. We actually got to drive and see other places nearby AND we got to drive to Disney World!!  (Big deal for me since we always just take the buses into the parks)
Double bonus for us staying off site since it rained the ENTIRE time we were there.  :(
We bought park hopper tickets for 4 days and I am SO glad we did!  It got old being rained on and trying to avoid the torrential rain when it came.  We did really well though!  Yes we got rained on but we never got stuck in a deluge. And only once did the parks shut down due to lightning, which was ok since we were done for the day anyway. We got to visit the new land of Pandora (from the movie Avatar) and we now know where the new Toy Story land will be for future visits.  Unbeknownst to us before arriving, the Flower & Garden Festival was happening.  All in all, YAY US!!  ;)
We visited all of the parks, met some friends for dinner in Epcot, enjoyed the shows and fireworks and had a great time.  One of the "off" days we drove to Tampa and St. Petersburg. Taylor and I had visited a school in St. Petersberg called Eckerd College many years ago.  I loved it and I wanted to show Gary the campus since he missed that college tour.  We did get a chance to walk around campus between storms but of course the buckets of rain came so we didn't get to walk around Tampa.  We did manage to drive onto the campus where the NY YANKEES (best team EVER) play for spring training and got to see the various businesses' banners put up to root for the Lightning.  SO FUN!  :)
Our other day off we spent watching the skies open to let the rain fall.  Despite the weather we still had a fantastic time!  How could we not? We are sailing through the country on our land yacht.  ;)

Tallahassee RV Park, Tallahassee, FL

We wanted a one night stop over to break up the drive to Orlando. Tallahassee RV park is located in a great spot right off I-10. The park has a lot of large trees around the park and between the sites. If you want to use your satellite, get one of the more open spots at the very front of the park. The park has a tiny bathroom, shown in one of the pictures, cable and advertises wifi. We did not get on the wifi successfully. The sites are long enough to park your toad or to leave it connected, but they are very narrow. The roads and sites are all gravel. We rate this park a 3 out of 5 due to the high cost, too narrow of sites and low quality amenities.

Gulf Shores, AL

As we work our way across the gulf coast, we keep finding new places that we love. Gulf Shores is currently towards the top of the list of the places we have enjoyed the most on our adventures. They refer to this area as the Emerald Coast and you can see why once you get to the beach and the water. Danelle had a trip home for a milestone birthday for her mom, so I had extra days to explore the area and enjoy the beach. The highlights of our trip were seeing parts of the NCAA beach volleyball championship, which UCLA won, touring the USS Alabama museum in Mobile, visiting the Naval Aviation museum in Pensacola and spending a day exploring the Destin, Florida area. I had a very interesting 2 hours at the USS Alabama museum where I met a gentleman who worked in the Lockheed Blackbird program on the CIA version of the airplane, the A-12, which has only recently been declassified. He took me under the ropes and behind the scenes to show me all of the cool aspects of his plane and told countless stories about the people, missions and technical details of the entire Blackbird program. I was totally geeking out.

Sugar Sands RV, Gulf Shores, AL

One of my favorite RV parks that we have visited over the last two years. The park is 10 minutes from the Gulf Shore public beach area in a very quiet area that is surrounded by mature forest. The sites are mostly back in with a few pull in sites. We stayed in one of the pull in sites. The sites are concrete and very long and wide. All of the sites have a picnic table. The park has two building for use for their visitors. The first building is the bathrooms, showers and laundry area. All were some of the nicest we have seen on the road. The second building has the main office and also has the community rooms. They have a large ballroom with many tables, games, a library, public computer and printer, TVs, etc., etc. They also have a large kitchen for the guests with all of the necessary equipment to prepare meals. Outside of the main building is a large grass area with volleyball, shuffle board, a playground for the kids and a large fire pit with seating area. There is also the pool if you are not interested in going to the beach. The wifi is free and very strong. This park gets a rare 5 out of 5 and I would put it in the same category as any of the best high end resorts.

Banking

This year our route is taking us through the south and the east. Our bank, US Bank, does not have a presence in these areas, so we are facing a new challenge of how to deal with banking without a local bank. I called our friendly help line at US Bank and after explaining to them that their mobile deposit system was not working for me, they told me about their mail box for "banking by mail." I used a deposit slip from our rarely used check book and mailed in a half dozen checks to the address they provided. After about 5 days, my deposit showed up in the account. Just another thing to keep in mind when going out on the road. Check with your bank on options.