We made it here

We had a great trip down the coast, starting with the Cape May - Lewes ferry ride on Christmas day. We got to the ferry terminal late at night and started to settle in to wait overnight. I was checking the engine when one of New Jersey's finest rolled up to roust us out of there. I guess we were some kind of a terrorist threat sitting at the terminal overnight. This country is out of control paranoid about terrorists but that's the subject for a whole 'nuther rant and tonight I'm just not in the mood to rant.

We spent the night in a parking lot across from Mickie D's and were back at the ferry terminal by 6:00 AM. The ride across from New Jersey to Delaware was a little bumpy but a great way to start Christmas Day off. Then we drove along the coast all the way to the bottom of North Carolina. That night we stayed in a KOA - generally we avoid KOA like the plague but we knew they would be open, clean and easy access. The next day we continued on down the coast and eventually turned inland at Daytona, arriving in Winter Haven around 11:00 at night. Along the way we stopped in Savannah, Georgia for a seafood supper. That turned into more of an adventure than we had planned because we ended up taking the bus into downtown Savannah, literally within easy walking distance of the historic Savannah waterfront. For future reference the signs for the visitor centre in Savannah will lead you into the heart of downtown Savannah.

On the plus side once we got parked in the visitor centre we were within easy walking distance of a variety of excellent restaurants. We just wandered along until we found a menu that we liked and walked in. We had a balcony seat overlooking the river from where we ate crabcakes, crab legs, shrimp, clams, mussels, crawfish, crab legs and probably some other sea critters that I have since forgotten about.

And don't forget Chesapeake Bay. What an amazing feat of engineering the bridge across that bay is. We guessed it at 20 miles long and I just checked Streets and Trips - I don't think that is an exageration. The bridge just goes on forever out in the middle of the bay. It feels like you are driving across the ocean. There's 3 incredibly long bridge spans supported by concrete piles. The bridge spans connect four artificial islands which serve as the starting points for tunnels that allow freighters to transit up the bay. They charged us something to cross the bridge - maybe $35 but it was easily worth it just to say we have seen it. We were in too much of a hurry coming down the coast but we will definitely go back that way in the spring. If we take about a month or 6 weeks to travel up to New Jersey that will make a very enjoyable trip. We'd like to spend some time around Savannah and around Charleston. Probably around Chesapeake Bay as well. There is so much history along that route. Its the area of North America that the Europeans found first and that still shows in the architecture and layout of the roads.

Today we moved on down to Arcadia. The rally here doesn't officially start until Monday but there are already about 40 busses here. Jack is expecting over a hundred coaches so there will be a lot more rolling in over the next couple of days. Our little incident was closely followed by many of the people who are attending the rally so we got a royal welcome when we arrived. We even got a power site despite our late registration. I didn't want to have them hold a site for us when we weren't sure that we would get out of Luke's shop. When we finally did get on the road again I sent Jack an email and he said that after all we had been through they would find us a power hookup.