Walt Disney World

My sister is fortunate enough to have four wonderful grandchildren. As soon as one of them reaches the age of 9, she takes them to Walt Disney World in Florida. This past March, 2015, Jan and I were fortunate enough to join her and our grand-nephew at the magical kingdom.

In order to get to Orlando in time to meet them, we left Austin about a week earlier, so we could take our time getting Frances Rene 3rd (our FR3 motorhome) to her destination. First up, was Lake Charles for a couple of nights. of course we had to sample some of Louisiana's best Cajun cooking at Steamboat Willie's. After checking out the local casino's, we packed up and headed further east.

Next stop was Bucaneer State Park near Biloxi, Mississippi. Spending two nights there, we once again visited some local casinos, and a local museum that had a display on Katrina - 10 Years After. Katrina was a devastating hurricane that flattened most of the coastline.

Next stop was Falling Waters State Park in Chiply, Florida. we only spent one night there. After a good afternoon of hiking around the state park, there was very little left to do. Not much of a state park, in our opinion.

Then we were off to Orlando. We stayed for 5 nights at the Lake Louisa State Park just 30 miles outside of town. On one of our off days, we visited the Kennedy Space Center. Very impressive.

The next day we went to Epcot Center where we met up with lil Sis and nephew. Epcot is definitely our favorite. The fireworks that night were astonishing. The next day we went to Walt Disney Studios. By the afternoon, we were pretty tired of all the walking, standing in lines, and the hot sun.

After saying our goodbyes to lil Sis and the nephew, we planned out our next stops. Heading up the eastern seaboard, we were eventually going to get to Cary, NC to see Jan's sister and her family.

Since we had not made any reservations after Orlando, our next scheduled stop had no empty RV spots for us, so we had to continue on down the road to Fort McAllister State Park outside of Savannah, Ga. Savannah is a kool town to visit. This is a very beautiful place, especially the old historic town area that is right along the river banks.

After a couple of nights there, we headed on up the coast to Myrtle Beach, SC.We stayed at the Myrtle Beach State Park, which was very crowded. The RV park had very little room between RV's. But the beach was wonderful, and we enjoyed sitting out on the beach in our newly acquired beach chairs that we bought at one of the million or so souvenir shops.

We eventually made it to Jordan Lake State Park outside of Cary, NC. Although a pretty park, we'll never stay there again. Apparently they lock the gates at 9PM, and if you ain't in the park by then, you are locked out till morning. Now, we like to stay at state parks, and every one of them we have stayed at before, gives the registered campers the gate code in case they are late getting back to the campground. Not at this place. So we had to be very careful not to stay out too late at night.

Anyway, we had a great time visiting with Jan's sister and her family.

After 3 nights there,  we had been out in the RV for a little over two weeks. We were planning to head thru Tennessee on our route back home, but the weather made us change our minds. Storms and even more storms were heading west to east, right towards where we were trying to go. So we headed thru Georgia and Mississippi till we reached Natchez.

Natchez is a favorite of ours. We stayed 3 nights here at the Natchez State Park. We love to go down and have lunch by the great Mississippi. we also like to travel the Natchez Trace Parkway. On of these days we hope to travel the full 400+ miles of the Trace.

Sadly, we left Natchez, and made our way to Kinder, La, where we spent two last days before heading the FR3 home.

We were gone a total of 24 nights, and travelled 3277 miles. The FR3 performed well, and we had a blast seeing the countryside. Especially Savannah, Ga.

Unfortunately, this blog was written months after the trip, and many details have been left out, (or forgotten as the case most likely is). I will try to keep this updated as we prepare for our next trip to Kentucky to find the Bourbon Trail.