Day 1
7/11 Friday
I woke up early in anticipation of driving to Destin, FL. I took it so easy Thursday, I think I was anxious to get going. I snuck out of the room Davis and I were sharing so I didn't wake him and went upstairs to get some breakfast. Eventually Arden, Davis and Tracy came up. We packed up, and brought everything out to the RV. I had backed it into the driveway and opened the slides so we were closer to the house. I tried to put the slides back, in and they wouldn't budge. I was parked on a little bit of an incline, but I didn't think it would impact the slides going in or out. I spent 5 minutes trying to figure it out. I even googled "coachmen 32 bh can't get slides in". The first few posts were about needing to be on level ground. The third post is when I realized I was having a total dumbass moment. It said the slides won't work with the car running, which I had running, so I could have the a/c on. Duh! I turned the car off and closed the slides up. Tracy came out and said, "wow how did you get the slides in?" I let her know I had to pull out the wrenches and do some hardcore guy stuff to get them to work.
Davis and Arden helped pack the RV up. There was one moment where I was packing stuff into one of the outside storage compartments where the door doesn't stay open. I had it resting on my head as I was pushing stuff in there. Davis ran over and said, "let me hold that for ya Dad". They've been very helpful since we've been on the trip. I think raising the bar of expectation for them, coupled with being around their older cousins, and seeing their higher levels of expectations to help motivated them to step up. It's been a big positive, and I'm proud of them for growing up.
We pulled out of Reynolds and stopped to get gas, and conveniently our favorite Southern breakfast spot, Huddle House, is connected to the gas station. We went in for breakfast, and Kathy from the Lake Club cafe was eating breakfast at the breakfast bar. She recognized us as we walked in, and we both said hi. I texted my sister that she was there, and she responded "oh, I love Karen she's so sweet". I walked by to go to the bathroom and thanked Karen for letting us take over her little cafe a few days this week, and to tell her my sister said she was sweet and we love us some Karen. She said thanks and gave me a hug. A little southern hospitality at it's finest. I thought it was cute that a complete stranger would give me a hug in the Huddle House.
The drive to Destin was pretty easy relatively speaking. 4-4.5 hours is nothing for us at this point. Even the kids say no problem to that driving time. Whenever we get 100 miles from our destination, we always comment how we'll be there in no time. Perspective is everything. I think we've driven about 3500 miles at this point. Another 100 or so really doesn't matter.
Once you get South of Atlanta, an hour or so, the roads change to 4 lane county roads. It's pretty annoying to speed up to 75, and then 10 miles later decelerate down to a stop sign. It rained a little, and one time the stop light changed abruptly, and I slammed on the brakes and we skidded a little. I was pretty nervous but we were fine. It was interesting to us that Northern Florida is basically like Georgia, not like the usual thought of Florida that comes to mind, in say Miami, etc. Big green trees everywhere. It's not until you get really near the beaches that it starts to turn to bridges and seeing the ocean. Even pulling into the RV park, unless you look straight down the street to the beach, is surrounded by trees and could be anywhere in GA.
We pulled in around 4pm, and the kids were pretty antsy. Tracy took them to the beach while I got the RV set up. We noticed people were driving rented golf carts, and Davis really wanted to rent one. They rented for $40 for a 24 hour period so we put our names on the list and would pick one up Saturday morning. We didn't have a car, and Camp Gulf wasn't located in walking distance to much, except for an italian pizza restaurant across the 6 lane road. We carefully made our way across the busy road to eat. The restaurant was basically a pizza place with 5 tables. It looked like most of the patrons were Camp Gulfers, that also didn't have a car to drive somewhere. The food was average but we had fun talking about our adventures. The quality time with the kids just talking has been great. We've discussed how many kids they both want to have - Davis 20, Arden 4. I overheard them talking about when Tucker (10.5 year old Golden) dies, they were going to keep him and let him sleep in their beds. They'd take turns. Ewwwwww and Awwwww at the same time.
Everytime you drive into a nice bigger RV park there is a guy in a golf cart that drives in front of you and takes you to your spot. I saw this guy driving around after we got back to the RV, and asked him about the cable. We have connected the cable at each campground, but it has always come in fuzzy. Tracy hasn't seen her serving of Bravo in quite some time, so I figured I'd do a little research on what was wrong. Ironically he said "oh your antenna booster must be on". I went in the RV and clicked this little tiny button by the power supply to the TV, and BAM Tracy had Bravo. She was excited and pointed out my second dumb RV moment of the day. I laughed inside that we haven't hd TV in the RV the whole trip because of that stupid little button. I enjoyed no TV as it made Tracy, the kids and me have more good quality time. After a little TV we went to bed.
Favorite part of the day
Davis - when we went to beach and he saw guys surfing
Mom - going to the beach
Arden - when they went to the beach
Dad - seeing Davis' smile 1st thing in morning and cuddling with him
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