We are home now and getting back into the swing of things but I hope to continue to journal the rest of our Florida trip.  We have one camera that is currently missing - and Hannah took her camera with her to a friend's house this evening...so I'll be adding pictures as I find them!

Island on the road....Day 4

Easter Sunday!

Yes, the tell tale red egg that signifies a visit from the Easter hare was spotted quickly as two boys emerged from the camper -

The red egg!

Hmmm...I think all that's missing is the Wolf suit

.

We had a nice breakfast of hard-boiled eggs, citrus fruit, bacon, and toasted crossiants.  This camping toaster is actually one of our favorite pieces of camping equipment.  It was a gift from my sister-in-law and family and I have to admit that we were skeptical at first but it works great!  One of the great things about camping is that you can bring special little items that can make a meal feel homey - like my sicilian orange spread. Yum!

I was a little worried about Easter clothes being presentable for Mass.  I had ironed everything, placed the clothes on hangers and then carefully spread them out on the beds of the pop-up under the bedding.  Once we arrived I could hang them up and I think we all managed to look pretty well for campers.

Easter 2010

Mass was beautiful at the Cathedral Basilica of St.Augustine.  After Mass the children all enjoyed their first ice-cream cone after our traditional lenten sugar fast.  And later that afternoon....we were on the beach!   The only thing that didn't get planned out so well was Easter dinner - hot dogs over the campfire.  Oh well, there were no complaints.

Island on the road....Day 3

Saturday was the last stretch of driving through North Carolina, South Carolina, and a bit of Georgia before we reached sunny Florida!  We were very grateful that the weather was pleasant and the children all traveled very well.  I passed the time getting ready for Easter morning in a pop-up camper.  I wasn't sure your typical Easter baskets would travel very well so instead I printed out some paper baskets from The Toymaker

I printed a bunny basket for each child.  For the girls I chose the pretty little egg basket from the same page and for the boys I picked put the Chocolate truck.  I printed them before we left, along with tape, scissors, pipe cleaners, tissue paper, and thread.  When I had all the baskets cut out I started making butterflies.

We rolled into the campground around 7:00pm.  We are pretty good at setting camp up quickly and we were all settled by bedtime.  The children were tired from traveling and went to sleep quickly.  I set up a little corner of the camper for Easter morning.

A surprise waiting for the children

But I know the big question on Aidan's mind as he difted off to sleep...would the Easter Hare find us in Florida??  We'll see!

Island on the road.....Day 2

Most of Friday was spent driving through Virginia.  As we got closer  to the mountains we appreciated the scenary as we've been watching the Waltons on DVD's from Netflix.  Hmm....we all wondered where Walton's mountain might have been.  We expected to get to Grandpa's house around 2:00pm.  But the GPS seems to calculate the arrival time based on the posted speed limits of the roads being traveled.  We all wondered how on earth these twisty curvy roads could be traveled at 55 mph by any vehicle let alone one pulling a pop-up camper.

As we watched the GPS add more and more minutes to our destination time we did enjoy the land of Christmas trees!  The boys were busy imagining which hills would be best to sleigh ride on.

Finally we get to Grandpa's!  We haven't seen Grandpa in over five years.  In honor of Good Friday we had a fish and chips dinner with hush puppies.   The beautiful smokey mountains were in the backdrop. 

We went to sleep to the sounds of peeping frogs and a babbling brook.  We were up the next morning and on the road again but we were all very happy that we got at least a brief visit with Grandpa.

Island on the road........destination St. Augustine, FL


We're ready!

All packed and ready to go!

Crossing Dingman's Bridge takes us out of New Jersey and into Pennslyvania.

Dingman's Bridge

The plan was to make it through Pennslyvania, Maryland, and West Virginia before stopping at a Virginia campground for the night.   But....before we made it out of PA we got the news that the campground in Virginia did not accept campers after 10:00pm.  We were not going to make it.    Ok plan "B" except that we did not have a plan "B".   That was the first insance that we were all glad Ed brought along his netbook.  We stopped at some point in West Virginia to find a hotel.

A family seeking shelter for the night - will there be room at the inn?

YES!  We found a hotel in West Virginia that included breakfast in the morning.  Next stop - North Carolina to see Grandpa.

We're almost ready.....

Well...sort of...there's still the actual business of getting everything into the pop-up camper but we are getting there.  I am trying not to dwell on what we will be missing here at home as we attempt to take our road trip in these last days of Holy Week.   I did recently purchase Lingua Angelica which has selections that are appropriate for Holy Thursday through Easter.  I also have The Beloved Son to play as well.  Of course I'll try to sneak in some of these selections between listening to stories on CD. We are well armed to battle the many hours of driving with  -

The Lightening Thief

Book 2 of this series we started on a different trip

and Book 3

These should be good for about 25 hours of driving time and just in case..we've got one more The Hobbit.

And speaking of being armed and ready, apparently Aidan has big plans for our trip to Florida, here are the items on his very own packing list -

Wallet

Tiger

Panther

(I think it is a leopard, I suspect Aidan thinks of him as his own personal Hobbes)

Wind up LED lanterns

Circle-a-word book

sketch pad

Glow-in-the-dark book

And last but not least.....

his turtle back pack

Upon examing the contents of the backpack this is what I found:

Aidan's alligator catching kit

Yes, Aidan plans to catch himself an alligator,  hence the need for a large carabineer and old clothesline.  The screwdriver is in case he loses the key to the alligator's cage.  The caution tape is in case the alligator escapes.  And of course the small tape measure is to measure his alligator. 

The other items are simply what any boy might need to enjoy any trip - a harmonica, cars, flashlights, pencil, and a phone.  After negotiations (as in Mama saying "No, you can not bring that") we decided that the broken flashlight and old hand held house phone would stay home.

Back to packing....