Heading North to the land of the SNOW???

On March 15th Ben celebrated his 71st birthday by driving Miss Daisy ( me ) towards the Canadian border. Our trip started at 08:30hrs when we jumped into the old jalopy laden down with trinkets, quilting supplies and a meager bag of dirty laundry.

As we left Leesburg, Fl our route took us through the Ocala National Forest the second largest National Forest in the U.S. state of Florida and covers approximately 607 square miles of Central Florida.




Sleepy towns of Umatilla, Atoona are noted as the GATEWAY to the Ocala Forest, Blink and you may miss them, although Umatilla is a little livelier with a little farmers market and a front street that is slowly being renovated and reminiscent of an old western ghost town before the cobwebs.

http://www.trolleytours.com/st-augustine/day-tour.asp



Over and hour into our trip we waive as we pass St. Augustine. I remember several years ago wondering around the waterfront, admiring the birthplace of Florida Jesuits and the ornate church and monastery in the 1500's soon to be upstaged by the Presbyterians. Notably one very prosperous church goer, Mr. Flager ( for whom a county was name after) held the church's purse strings as he came to financial aid of the Memorial Presbyterian church after it met the ill fate of the effects of fire. Soon after Flager helped develop other business in town- hotels, college. All part of his Florida East Coast Railroad and start up cities along its way. How did he make his money you wonder. OIL- liquid gold


http://staugustine.com/history/henry-flagler

As the day passes we find ourselves in Georgia, Savanah. We had camped south of Savanah in Mac Intosh Lake a sleepy hallow off the beaten track, We made many a number of trips into Savanah but not for the usual site seeing. We had a projet to work on while parked for 10 days, rebuild and insulate the RV bedroom, So needless to say we spent a lot of trips running to camping world and home depot, not to forget Ace Hardware! Savanah is really known for being the USA's first planned city and famous for it's architecture, not to mention the birthplace of the " founder of USA Girl Scouts" - who would have thought!!

As we spend more time on the terrain a familar sign appears and one can not help be amused as Pedro points the way north, Pedro you say................ Yes he is the little Mexican cartoon character that points the way north to the border of North and South Carolina. HIs bedroom community is called " South of the Border Soon it is time for us to pull over in Lumberton, NC it is end of day one.



Day two looks promising. The day starts of a little cloudy and by 10 am it is nice and sunny. We wonder how long we will be storm free hearing that bad weather my be headed our way, Ben winces as he sees snow on our 8th hour, We pull over and call it a night as rain, and temperatures fall and some reckless drivers left debris at the side of the road. THE WET ROAD threatens to soon be black ice, We stop and grab a room saver book and soon we are nestled into a lovely new hotel in Harrisburg, PA> Minutes from the famous Chocolate factory HERSCHY'S. We have seen the Carolina's, Virginia and now into Pennsylvania Valleys.