May 22, 1025

Our first night in the RV went really well. A couple months ago, we decided to get a campground membership that would allow us to stay for free in various member campgrounds throughout the country. One of those campgrounds was right along our route to Jacksonville – about half way between home and Jacksonville. We were able to easily get a last-minute reservation and pulled in around 9:30.

We all settled in fairly easily as we had taken a practice run in our RV at the end of February at the same campground. The RV cooled down nicely, and off we went to sleep, except for AnaClaire. She had probably slept since we left Cracker Barrel, and when we arrived she was ready to be awake and watch her favorite TV program.

I was so proud of how quickly we pulled up stakes and left the campground that morning. Charlie was sitting at the picnic table having a conversation on the phone, and the next thing he knew, we were started and ready to go. There is definitely something to be said for traveling with kids who can help disconnect, clean up, operate vehicles, etc. Not that we didn’t have some older kids who could do that the last time, but there were still an awful lot of diapers and toddlers making messes faster than anyone could keep up with.

Since we were only 2.5 hours from Jacksonville, we had time to take a detour. We headed to the Okeefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia to see the alligators. I didn’t realize it at the time, but there are evidently different areas of the swamp that offer tours. We had taken a boat tour back in 2012 at the swamp, and we wanted to do that again. We ended up at a different location, the Okeefenokee Swamp Park, and had a great time.

We took a boat tour, watched a presentation on various wildlife creatures, and had a train tour that gave us some of the history of the area. We were fortunate enough to see maybe 10 alligators as well as a doe and two beautiful little twin fawns. Of course, none of my pictures of the fawns turned out, but they were so cute to watch. Charlie took some beautiful photos of water lilies. It wasn’t even nearly as hot and humid as I was expecting.

Isaac, Dominic, and Amelia on the train. I can’t believe they’re already tired of me taking their picture!

Sitting in on the wildlife presentation.

Following the swamp tour we headed off to our campground in Jacksonville. Cities aren’t exactly on our list of places to go, and Florida on Memorial Day weekend definitely wasn’t one of our priority vacation spots BUT… Ben, a young man we’ve known since he was a toddler, is getting married. Ben and his family have been a part of our family for over 20 years, and we wouldn’t miss his wedding for anything. We’ve been to all of his family’s weddings, and they have been to ours, with still many more to go, I’m sure. Events with these friends are always events for the memory book. As a matter of fact, if you read about our travels to New England and Canada, it is Ben and his parents that we travel with. https://kiddingaroundfarm.com/2017/08/04/day-11-monday-july-31-2017/