Sweet Home Alabama...

Sweet home Alabama! Well, it’s our home for 4 nights at least. Wherever the RV rests is home at the moment, and right now we are on the Gulf Shores in Alabama. Its 7.30pm and Dan & the big kids have gone to play pool at the recreation centre of the RV park. Barney is being amazingly quiet. He has a new puzzle, which he must have made at least 20 times in a row now. As soon as he has made it, he puts it back in the box and starts again. It’s a super hero puzzle. A jigsaw puzzle is so much more entertaining when you have not had any toys for three weeks. Actually, we have been without a TV since we left home too, but today Dan bought Luke a DVD in Walmart. It’s a 4 DVD set of old cartoons. And when I say old I mean really old. Half of them are black and white, and they are all extremely politically incorrect. They are the sort of cartoons that Barney wouldn’t sniff at normally, but today he has just loved them! He’s playing them on the old laptop right now while I type this.

If I don’t blog every day I forget what I’ve blogged about and what I haven’t. I’m having to look over my last few posts to make sure I don’t repeat myself. We are doing so much that if I don’t blog about it, it becomes one big jumbled blur in my memory.

So what have we been doing? Well, let me think. Since my last blog post we spent one more night in Mexico Beach, and then moved on to an area further west, still in Florida, near Denton. And now we have just arrived in Alabama. The last few days in Mexico Beach were filled with the most amazing thunder storms. We had one storm that must have lasted at least 6 hours. When I say storm, I don’t mean a storm like we get at home in Northern Ireland. I mean 6 hours of terrific full on lightening and clapping thunder, with torrential rain the just doesn’t stop. We had a lot of that for about three days, with sporadic sunshine in between. We took a drive to Panama City in the rain just to discover that there was nothing there to be seen anyway. So to avoid the rain we stopped for a lunch/dinner at one of those American all you can eat buffets. Jimmie just loves these places. Every day he begs us to go to one. He must be growing or something because he’s almost impossible to fill up. It’s amazing how much food they will let you eat for $7!

On our last full day in the Mexico Beach area we took a drive eastwards to St Josephs Peninsula. It was a lovely drive there and we got a full day of nice weather. The peninsula jets out into the Mexican gulf and gets quite narrow at parts, so that you are driving on land with sea at both sides. The area is filled with the most amazing (expensive) beach houses. We enjoyed just driving through it, but at the end was a state park. Almost as soon as we drove into the park we were met by three wild Deer grazing at the edge of the road. We stopped, wound down the windows and watched them. They didn’t seem to mind us at all. Dan gets so excited whenever we see real wild animals (as opposed to zoo animals, that is). The park had a nature trail and its own 9 mile stretch of white sandy beach. On the nature trail the kids discovered the remains of a huge crab which they examined, as well as many empty oyster shells scattered along the shore.

We spent the afternoon on the completely deserted beach. It was quite windy, hence it being deserted, but that’s not a problem for us Brits. It was still warm enough for the kids to play. The sand along this stretch of the coast is not like normal sand. Its extremely fine, and caster sugary. Its just so soft but gets everywhere. Even when its in your bed it isn’t itchy like regular sand, as its just so fine. Which is a good thing as I reckon there’s a few buckets worth of sand inside this RV now. Every night I have to sweep it out of the bed before I get in, just to discover its made its way back in before me. The sand is also really white, but this beach had stretches of black sand on it too.

That afternoon we took a drive further east, back to Apalachicola, where the lady in the seafood grill had told us to take the kids. We stopped at a ship docking area filled with old rusty fishing boats, many still in use, but many half sunk! All along the edge of the dockyard were empty oyster shells. Dan was filled with visions of running his own shrimp boat just like Forrest Gump! Next to the shipyard was an educational centre, which was free. We love free educational stuff for kids! On the way into it Jimmie noticed a small wild tortoise scratching his way into a hole in the wall. We all crowded round to look at the little thing, and then the kids each took a turn to pick him up before putting him back into his nest. He poked his wee head out at us and took a good look too. I was as excited as the kids to discover him, but then later on we found a big wild tortoise on a nature trail in the same area. The educational centre was fantastic, but we only had 20 minutes there before it closed which was a shame. It was full of free leaflets about Florida wildlife, for the kids to take away. There were all sorts of stuffed dead animals from the area (all of which had died of natural causes I hasten to add!) - so the kids got to touch real (dead) raccoons, foxes, otters, beavers etc. There were real whale bones set out that the kids could touch and stand next to, and we discovered that one whale vertebrae was almost as big as Annabelle! One of the scientific rooms has real bugs to look at under microscopes, as well as jars upon jars of pickled fish and reptiles from the area around the centre. Everything could be picked up, touched and examined, which was a real bonus. So often in these sorts of places its not possible to really examine the things on display. There was also a small aquatic centre next door with fish from the area swimming in large pools. Barney was particularly taken by a baby turtle that swam behind its Mummy wherever she went.

So that all must have been on Friday, as today is Sunday. Yesterday was spent driving from Mexico Beach to Denton, which was half the drive to Alabama. We took a detour off of route 98 to follow the coast road through some really lovely places. One of the small towns we drove through and stopped in was called ‘Seaside’ and it is the area in which the film ‘The Truman Show’ was made. The beach houses in Seaside are just awesome, and many have won architectural awards. We stopped and took a walk (I think we were lucky to find an RV parking space here as I’ve read in the tour books that RV parking is almost impossible here) and recognized some areas from the film. If you’ve ever seen the show you will remember that Truman lived in a perfect little world, everything was beautiful and pristine. Seaside is just like that. Oh, I could so easily live there. But I’d have to be a millionaire I think.

We also stopped at Panama City Beach before Seaside. It is the area where all the college students go for spring break. It’s very touristy and full of theme parks, water parks and crazy golf areas. We stopped and let the kids have a game of crazy golf in a place with a safari theme. They really enjoyed themselves, and even little Barney did well at it. He surprised us all by getting the first hole in one! We had no RV site booked for last night as we weren’t sure how far towards Alabama we would get. But just before 4pm, after coming out of seaside, we spotted a really nice looking state park with Rv’ers camped up. So we drove in, not expecting them to have any spaces left for us. Just as Dan walked into the reservations office he heard the woman on the phone saying “yes Maam, we only have one space left for tonight, and that’s for one night only” so he started waving frantically at the women. She said “hold on a moment” to the person on the phone, and Dan said “can we have that space for tonight?” so she told the person on the phone that the space had been taken already, and we got somewhere to park for the night. It was called Topsail Hill Preserve State Park, and it turned out to be a lovely place. There was a heated outdoor swimming pool, outdoor amphitheatre, tennis areas etc, and the place was just idyllic. It also had its own stretch of beach but we weren’t there long enough to use it.

So that brings me to today. The last stretch of drive to Alabama Gulf Shores was 2.5 hours. We didn’t leave until 10.30am as we decided not to wake Barney up and just let him sleep as long as needed, sine he’s been having so many late nights. I did this stretch of drive as Dan’s been doing so much of it lately. When we got to the camp site the man had accidentally given our reserved space to someone else with the same name as Dan who had just turned up! He was so apologetic and said he would find us another RV park to stay in. Then he decided that we could park in a spare spot that the owners often used themselves. He has given us use of their screen room and a discounted rate to make up for the mix up. He seemed like a really nice man, and had an amazing Alabama accent. I wish I could describe him. I watched him chatting away to Dan, and his face when he found out the cost of petrol in the UK! “Jeeeeezus”, he said “I’m a gonna stop me complaining now bout the price of gas here!”

Well there seem to be a lot of mosquitoes in Alabama. Despite having fly screens on our door and windows we seem to have spent all evening swatting mozzies. We are spending two nights here at the Gulf Shores in Alabama, then two nights at Mobile AL, before moving on to Mississippi, where we will spend four nights before going to Louisiana. At the end of Louisiana that will be the first quarter of our trip done! Doesn’t time fly?!

Mexico Beach

I haven't got too much to say today. I think I talked myself out with the death row blog post. Today is day 3 of our stop at Mexico Beach on the gulf of Mexico in Florida. We are staying at an RV park called 'Rustic Sands', which is 5 minutes walk from the beach. Its a nice enough park, although I get the feeling that most people staying here are here long term, whereas we are just passing through.

The drive from Thomasville in Georgia, to Mexico Beach in Florida was really lovely. Our satelite navigation system likes taking us cross country and missing out the freeways. It sometimes means it takes us longer to get places, but I'd much rather see the scenery than the interstate highways. The drive was 2.5 hours through logging countryside. We were one of the only cars on the road and we stopped to admire the views and stretch our legs at various points. We have now moved into another time zone and are 6 hours behind the UK, instead of 5.

Most of Tuesday and Wendesday (yesterday) were spent at the beach. We are staying in the least built up or touristy stretch of the coast, which suits us perfectly. There are a few small shops, and the beach is almost totally deserted. I just love deserted beaches. To be honest, as a child in England I hated going to the beach, probably because the beaches were always packed to capacity with every inch of sand space being filled. Because its still winter here the beaches are empty. But it feels like summer to us, so we enjoy having the place to ourselves. Don't empty beaches just feel so tropical and luxurious? The sand here on Mexico Beach is so white that you need sunglasses to look at it. The sea is really calm, no waves (much to the kids disappointement) which adds to the peacefulness of the place. Theres a lot of wildlife here, including the usual sea-gulls. The pelicans are particularly prevalent and Dan got some good photos of them.

I'm not sure what we will be doing today. Its almost 10am and Barney is still fast asleep. We are letting him sleep today as he is just so over tired. We are just chilling out in out PJ's and relaxing.

We discovered the cutest row of shops here on Mexico Beach, including an ice cream shop called 'Scoops Up'. (Where the kids had the bluest ice cream ever made, and ended up with blue poo's the next day!!!) Dan and I ordered a hot fudge brownie to share, which turned out to be a hot fudge brownie covered in ice cream, and cream, and walnuts and chocolate sauce. Wow, it was just heaven in a bowl!

We decided to take a drive to Apalachicola on Tuesday night. We wanted to get some seafood for dinner. Actually we didn't plan to drive that far but we missed a turning and ended up in Apalachicola, which had an area of restaurants which looked so pretty as they were all lit up with fairy lights. Barney thought it was still Christmas there. We went to a place called the Seafood Grill and had an absolute feast of a meal for half of what it would cost at home. The kids meals were as big as the adults meals, which was great for Jimmie who often eats more than the rest of us put together. He had fried oysters - yes oysters were on the kids menu! Annabelle had fried shrimp, Barney had fish, Dan also had the shrimp and I had a combo of fish, oysters and shrimp. Well, it was just delicious. I never knew oysters could be cooked (not that I've ever actually eaten oysters before). The woman serving us told us about some free educational places we could go to - we may actually do that today if Barney ever awakens.

On the way to Apalachicola though, I saw the sun was about to set and got Dan to drive the RV near to the beach. I had heard the sunsets on Mexico Beach were awesome, and thought it would be lovely to sit on the beach and watch it as a family. So we parked Thelma up under the moon, and headed onto the beach, where we all sat on a big fallen tree and watched the sun setting together. Barney was really mesmerized by it. I don' t think he's ever really understood why it gets dark at night before.

On the way back to the RV Jimmie saw a board with a big red button on it and just could resist pressing it. As we walked closer to him we heard the sound of a phone ringing and then "911 Emergency, which service do you require?" Well! The look of horror on Jimmies face as he realised that the big red button was an emergency button for anyone that may have been stranded on the beach! Dan raced over and appologised to the women on the other end of the call saying his "very young child had accidentally pressed the button" and she said "no problem sir". After a few minutes we all had a good laugh about it. The big red button looked so irresistable, and Jimmie had thought it would tell him something educational about the beach!

Tornado's and Raccoon's

Aren't they just adorable? I'm not really sure what the average American thinks about Raccoons, but we think they're just the cutest things. There have been 4 of these animals rummaging around outside our RV today. They are still there now, at 11.48pm, peering up at me through the fly screen, hoping for more food. The kids fed them some of our sugar and fat free kiddies biscuits. They just keep coming back for more and more. At first we sat quietly behind the screen dropping out the odd biscuit, but now they are used to us we can just chat away and move about, and they don't get scared and run away. It was great to see the look of delight on the kids faces as they made friends with the Raccoons. I'm hoping not to find 4 dead raccoons with large distended stomachs on the patio in the morning.

Well, today has been a stormy, rainy, miserable day, and there are warnings on the news of storms during the night in our area. We don't mind, as we've had so much sunshine. Today we took our second day at the Kennedy Space Centre (see post below). We watched an amazing 3D movie at the Imax there called 'Magnificent Desolation', which was narrated by Tom Hanks. It was a movie all about walking on the moon. At 40 minutes long, even Barney sat glued to the screen. If you ever get a chance to see it, I'd highly recommend it. In the early afternoon it was raining a fair bit and we'd had enough so we decided that I would head back to the RV and make some lunch while the kids played a bit longer in the Luna Park. It started raining really heavily on my way back to the RV and I arrived so wet I had to change my clothes. Then I started preparing the lunch, and noticed the wind had picked up a bit. Fifteen minutes later Dan and the kids burst into the RV, soaked to the skin, waffling about some announcement in the Space Centre. It turned out to be a Tornado warning announcement telling everyone to come inside, to safety. Of course, Dan couldn't leave me unaware in the RV, so they'd had to come meet me. We put the radio on and immediately heard weather warnings.... "severe storms and tornado's spotted in the Cocoa Beach, Merrit Island and Canaveral Coastline areas." And where were we? Right bang smack in the middle of Merrit Island and the Canaveral Coastline. By this time there was a lot of thunder and lightening, and a downpour of heavy rain. Now I was quite panicked, but tried to stay calm for the kids sake, but Annabelle was extremely scared. I told her that there was nothing to worry about, and hastily called Pat to ask what we should do. I had no idea whether we should head home, or go back into the Space Centre, or just sit it out. We don't have Tornado's in Ireland! Pat said she'd never been in that situation and wasn't sure what was best but told us to head home as the weather was ok there. As I put the phone down we noticed hundreds of birds all flying away from us at once! We knew that couldn't be good! Dan said "follow the birds!"

By the time we got the engine started and headed back onto the main road things seemed to have died down. But I noticed a large patch of trees that were all broken in two, and destroyed, which I'm pretty sure wasn't like that before (we'd driven up and down that stretch of roads a lot of times). When we stopped to get some groceries the man in the queue was telling everyone about the Tornado he had seen rip through the area. So it seems we came pretty damn close to it, even if we didn't actually see it. We were all more than scared, and all day on the radio have been warnings of Tornado's. Only a few days ago in another state 55 people were killed by a Tornado. The weather man on the radio warned "If you're in a mobile home or RV, get out and find a building, get into a bath tub, a closet, or under a table, and stay there until the danger has passed!"

On that note, I'm off to bed. We have a long drive to Georgia in the morning.

Last Day In Florida

Yes, today is our last day in Florida. These two weeks have felt like a vacation, but I think once we start moving it will feel more like a journey, or travel. Tonight will be our last night here at the Great Outdoors, so we are taking Pat and Jim out for dinner to say thanks for all they've done for us. They've really helped us find our feet here, and I'm sure the whole trip is going to be a lot easier for us now we've had a practice run here.

Tomorrow we head up to Georgia, where it will be colder. We are going to drive the 3.5 hour drive from Titusville here, to Okefenokee, just across the Georgia/Florida border, but we are going to take all day doing the drive, stopping at various places along the way. Okenfenokee is a swamp area. We will be spending two nights there so that we can explore the swamp a bit, before taking another 3.5 hour drive up to Jackson, where I will be visiting with my friend who is on death row. Some of you will remember me posting a few weeks back about the trouble we had getting police clearance forms in time to visit the prison. Well, we got all that sorted and sent off before we left for America. But 2 days ago the forms still hadn't arrived and the prison were unable to clear us for visiting. Yesterday however, I received a call to say that the forms had arrived (posted on 28th Jan, arrived 11th Feb - and I paid extra to guarantee their arrival in 5 days or less, tut tut.) So I am so pleased that we should be able to visit E on Saturday. I'd have felt so bad for him if the forms had got lost in the post, as he is really looking forward to meeting us. I'm a tad nervous about visiting America's death row, but its certainly an experience not many people get to have.

Anyway, today we are off to the Kennedy Space Centre, for the second time. We went yesterday with the free two day passes someone gave us. At the moment its 8.30am, and Im typing this in bed because everyone else is still sleeping. It's a rare thing indeed for me to be the first one up, but it seems to be happening more and more here.

Yesterday we had a great day at the Kennedy Space Centre. There was a fabulous space park for Barney to play in, and he could have spent the entire day there. The kids and I went on a shuttle simulator, which basically simulates a rocket blasting off into space. We sat strapped into seats as the rocket faced up to the sky, so we were lying backward in out seats, then it started shaking violently, and making a hell of a racket. Theres a lot of shaking, a lot of moving about, and then suddenly the top of the rocket opens, and we are in space. At this moment, the shaking stops, and they manage to create the weird sensation of weightlessness. It's very clever, we all actually felt as if we were floating.

We took the coach tour out to the launch pads, and various other places. But we plan to go back today to see all the things we missed. Dan really enjoyed it I think. He's a typical bloke, loves all the big bits of machinery, and sheer scale of the large rockets. Here are some of my fave pics from the day. You can see the rest of them in Florida Album 3.
(The last image of the hands is Dan and the kids touching a real piece of the moon).

Update on the last 3 days (Feb 8 - 10)

It's been three days since my last blog post, although Annabelle has written a wee post (just below this one if you haven't read it yet). The past 2 days have been quite relaxing. We purposely did nothing in order to relax, refresh, and spend no money.

On Friday though, we took the kids to 'Gatorland'. We really don't want to do much in the way of theme parks and extremely expensive days out, so this seemed like a bit of a compromise for the kids. A day out at a park, that would be somewhat educational and to do with nature. Gatorland turned out to be far more expensive than expected. Once inside it became obvious that it was the type of place that would attempt to suck parents dry of every penny they had on them. I had prepared a packed lunch with drinks to take in, in an attempt to save money - just to be told at the door that "due to the health and safety considerations of the animals inside, visitors are not allowed to take food and drink into the park", just to walk into the park to be met by lines of drink vending machines, a cafe and a coffee shop. That made me rather angry. The park seems to have the idea that people should pay to come in, and should then pay to feed the animals. For an extra $7 per person we were able to sit on an alligator, watch a gator wrestling show, and feed the alligators hot dogs. However, the alligators were obviously sick to death of the hot dogs and the birds eat them instead.

We watched the alligator wrestling show in somewhat discomfort. None of us felt entirely happy about the alligators mouth being taped up whilst a man performed stunts and tricks on him. Then the kids got to sit on an alligator and get their photo taken, which they did, but it was obvious that our family felt a bit uncomfortable about the whole thing.







Having said all this, the kids did have a fabulous day there. Jimmie and Annabelle both said that it was a much better day than they had been expecting, and Barney enjoyed the whole day immensely. Included in our extra $7 was also a train ride around the park, which was disappointing to say the least. Barney was excited to be on the train, but disappointed that the ride was over so quickly.

We did see an awful lot of alligators, and got to stroke a baby one. The park also had a little petting zoo (where you can pay more money to feed corn to the animals) which Barney loved. Although the park is for alligators, it has unintentionally become somewhat of a bird wildlife sanctuary. There are birds everywhere, of every size and colour. They have just moved in of their own accord, and seem to thoroughly enjoy eating the crocodiles hot dogs.

Half way round the park we discovered a water play area, and I let the kids play in it on the grounds that they "didn't get too wet". Jimmie and Annabelle's idea of not getting too wet is to stand under water fountains and drown.




This is my favourite picture from Gatorland. What a brave bird! You can see all the Gatorland photos in Florida Album number 2.



When we'd finished up in Gatorland we decided to take a drive down International Drive as it was as close as we would get to it. The kids were excited to see some museums which had been built upside down.










Yesterday and today have been relatively quiet lazy days. Yesterday I did a lot of laundry whilst the kids played in the pool. We surprised Luke with a $1.97 paddling pool from Walmart which we filled with water for him to cool off in. In the afternoon we went over to Pat and Jims lot for BBQ Burgers, and to meet some of their friends, Frank and Cheryl from the RV forum. We had a lovely time there.

Today Pat and Jim loaned us their golf cart again, and we took it back out on that nature trail. Barney loves getting out of the cart to walk through the big palm trees. He likes looking out for various 'creatures' with me. I think the days we spent exploring the Great Outdoors on the golf cart have been some of the best days so far. When we got back Dan cooked up a BBQ and we all sat outside for dinner, whilst the squirrels sat watching us, hoping for a treat. Tomorrow (Monday) we are heading off to the Kennedy Space Centre, something that we are all looking forward to.

Here are my favourite photos from today...

Cape Canaveral - Atlantis shuttle launch

After writing last nights blog post, and seeing the racoons at the RV door, I shut down the computer and heard some rustling outside. When I popped my head out, I saw a large Armadillo shuffling across the patio! I was so excited. I'd love to sit out there one night in the dark and just watch all the wildlife. I'm sitting with the door open again tonight hoping to catch a few more creatures of the night on their adventures through our lot.

This morning, as planned, we got up early and drove Thelma to the area where we could watch the shuttle launch for free. We all just drove there in our PJ's and had breakfast when we got there. Even at 8 am there were quite a few RV's parked up, but we found a nice spot and set up for the day. The plan was just to relax and enjoy the weather until the launch, which was scheduled for 2.45pm. Dan ended up taking Barney for a walk, and 2 hours later they returned back to the RV, totally worn out from their adventures. They had found a kids park and Barney had burnt off a lot of steam there. On the way back the draw bridge over the river opened to let some tall boats through, which thrilled little Barney. Whilst they were gone I just chilled out on a rug on the grass and got a wee bit sunburnt. Annabelle and Jimmie watched Apollo 13 on the laptop, which was quite apt for the shuttle launch.

A police offer stopped next to our RV at one point and gave the kids some tattoos, which were Titusville police department tattoos, with a space rocket on them. Barney thinks hes now officially a policeman and keeps arresting people!

I had thought that the kids might think the launch was a bit of a let down after waiting around all day for it. But actually they all got really excited about it. Barney just thought the whole thing was awesome, and was full of chat about the atronauts inside, and what they might see in space. As planned, at 2.45pm precisely we heard a roar and a mass of flames and billowing smoke, as the rocket lifted off. We managed to take a few photos as the whole thing happens a lot slower than you would think. It was a phenomenal sight. I know Dan particularly enjoyed it. One of Pat and Jims friends has given us free passes to the Kennedy Space Centre (tickets would have cost us $150), so we plan to go there on Monday, now that the kids are enthused by the rocket launch.

Our Northern Irish flag caught the attention of two local passers by, and they came to ask us where we were from. They were two American guys, one of which was still living in the 70's Woodstock era, and the other knew so much about British history that he put me to shame! They stayed and chatted for over an hour, eventually getting out our big map of the US and writing points of interest for us to visit along the way. The hippy guy thought we were the coolest travellers he'd ever met!

After the launch there was a mad rush of traffic as everyone tried to leave at once. All that remained along the sideway were the RVers, who all sat outside their vehicles enjoying the view and ignoring the mad rush to leave. We didnt leave until a few hours after the launch. We stopped at the play park Barney had discovered earlier, then came home for a swim before bedtime. I took the kids swimming whilst Dan tidied up Thelma a bit. When we came back he said he had some news for us. The purchase of the new laptop, satelite navigation system, cell phone and various other bits we needed came to almost 500 pounds - a huge chunk of our budget. When he went online this evening he discovered that we won 500 pounds this week on the premium bonds! So thats covered the expenses and we still have our budget. Great news!

Squirrels love cornflakes

As I sat at my new laptop to write this blog post, Dan and I noticed something dart past out RV door. It is midnight here and the kids are all asleep. We got up and peered through the flyscreen door to see two racoons sniffing their way through our back yard. How exciting! Two wild racoons looking right as us, then carrying on with their business. I never realised how big they are. Obviously, we dont get racoons in Northern Ireland. Our neighbours told us that last night they saw wild deer walk right past our RV door whilst we were all sleeping. I'd love to see that one night before we leave.

Well, here is a photo of our pet squirrel named "Shadow Ranger" by Barney. He came right up to our RV to eat some cornflakes that Luke had left in a bowl. It was an exciting start to our morning, yesterday.

Yesterday was spent mostly shopping. We found a K-Mart and a Walmart and bought many of the things that we need to make life more bareable over the next few months... garden chairs, a barbeque, a cell phone, a potty for Barney, and a satelite navigation system. We have noticed a huge difference between the US and UK supermarkets, and the American way of eating in general. For one thing, no one sells the cordial that you add water to to make orange squash. In Britain each Tesco devotes half an ilse to squash drinks. Over here an entire ilse is devoted to fizzy drinks, and they are so ridiculously cheap that its obvious why people drink so much of it. We are struggling to find something healthy and cheap (apart from water) for the kids to drink. At home they would only get fizzy drinks at a party. Another thing is that the cost of ready made food is much cheaper than foods that need cooking or preparing. Which I guess is why so many people eat out. Today we saw hot deep fried chicken sitting next to uncooked chicken, and the hot chicken was cheaper!

Anyway, having said all that, after our shopping we stopped at 'Dogs R Us' for lunch and had American Burgers and fries. We are determined not to eat out more than once a week, for fear of coming home twice the size we left. So far preparing food in the RV has been easy enough. We have cooked a few hot meals but mostly we are living on salads, cold meats, and bread or crackers. Bread is so expensive here though!

After our burgers we took a little walk over to the Indian River which runs through Titusville. The kids enjoyed walking along the little fishing peir there. That evening we all sat outside in the cool night air, in our new walmart chairs, listening to the sound of a million crickets. The kids put on some plays for us and we had a good laugh watching that before bedtime. Its great to be able to spend so much more time as a family.

Here is a picture of the alligator that lives in the lake behind our RV's, and a pic of the kids and Dan enjoying the pool.

Today we decided to have a quiet day and not do much. In the morning though we drove down to walmart to buy some essentials. Dan went in to get bread and milk, whilst the rest of us all got ourselves washed and dressed, in the Walmart parking lot. This RV is great! When Dan got back we all had breakfast in the RV just parked where we were, before driving 'home'. Today Jim and Pat, our super neighbours (possibly the kindest people on the planet?) invited us round to their place to meet some RVing friends of theirs. Some of them lived here in 'The Great Outdoors' too, and some had travelled many hours to get here. One of the men, Gary, kindly spent a few hours trying to fix my laptop but it was decided in the end that the only solution was to buy a new one. So this evening we headed back to walmart and ate dinner parked in the parking lot, whilst Dan went and spent a huge whack of our budget on a new laptop (although I must say that it was half the price to buy here, than at home). Anyway, I'm rambling off subject again. Dan was presented with a birthday card and Pat started a chorus of Happy Birthday with a big chocolate cake. Barney had a willing (or perhaps captive) audience for many hours and chatted merrily to anyone that would listen. He is rather over tired at the moment as he is going to bed much later here than he would at home. We have had a few tantrums and a bit of bad behaviour from him, but inbetween times he's been having a fabulous adventure.

The pictures above show Pat and Dan with the birthday cake, some of the people outside the RV at their place (Jim is on the far right), Annabelle and Jimmie looking cool, and Barney talking the ear off of Pat.

Right now its almost 1am, and we have to be up by 7am to drive to our spot near Cape Canaveral to see the planned shuttle launch. Its not very far away but we plan to get there early in order to get a good spot. We can spend the whole day chilling out while we wait for the launch (if it goes ahead).