We slept in the Crackerbarrel carpark and it was very noisy. Cars doing burnouts, trains honking and people turning up playing loud music. Mike slept through it all.

After a terrible coffee from the crackerbarrel we ready leave around 8.30am, full of confidence the car would start. But it didn’t. Same problem as yesterday.

Mike decided to Hotwire it directly but I thought I’d call Paul to double check this was the right thing to do. I’ve been so used to talking to him this time of day, but this time he wasn’t on the night shift so I woke him up.

But he was so helpful. He said we’d have to disconnect the Hotwire from the battery each time we stopped to avoid draining the battery. Something Mike hadn’t thought about. Then he suggested a switch to disconnect it.

Luckily there was an auto zone (like Repco) across the road. Mike got all the bits he needed and spent an hour wiring it all up. And guess what? It works!

It was a long day of driving today as we left Florida, drove along the coast through Alabama, and arrived in Gulfport in Mississippi at 8pm.

We parked in the far side of the island view casino carpark which is free to sleep in our van. Then we went in the get a parking permit and they gave us a $20 food voucher and $20 slot machine voucher each! So not only are we getting a free place to sleep, we’re getting food and gambling money!

We could have eaten at the diner for our $20 but we chose the flash restaurant in the non smoking side of the casino. We had a huge yummy salad to start. Mike ordered the petite steak and it was huge. He couldn’t even eat it all. I had salmon which was also a big portion I couldn’t eat all of.

Our dinner with our discounts came to $30. But then I won on the slot machines. I had no idea how much I won but I pressed the cash out button and it printed me a slip.

I proudly handed it to the cashier, announcing excitedly how I’d won. As she was processing my money she asked if I wanted security to escort us back to our car. I declined. Then she handed over my $8.75.

So our grand total for accommodation, meals and gambling cost us $20.

We left the casino about 11pm and it’s still really hot outside. They have a free shuttle that would take us to our van but we preferred to walk. It was good seeing security patrolling our area.

Our sleep in the far corner of the carpark wasn’t so good though. It didn’t seem as noisy as the previous night but there were sirens and trains.

Hopefully we’ll find a campground tonight as we need showers and need to top up our water and empty our tank. Everything has been full up due to the long weekend. RV parks have been chockers. But we’re moving away from the coast today so here’s hoping.

This morning I got up at dawn to go Otter Spotting. Mike was still fast asleep, as I ventured out on my own in the early morning light. Firstly, I walked out onto the floating pontoon to see if there were any alligators, but all was calm on the water.

As I walked further around the lake, I heard a growling sound coming from the bushes. I thought that can’t be good, the camp owner had told us there was a black bear in the park. So I headed back to the car where the growling noise got louder and more insistent. 

I looked around, but there was no sign of a bear. I walked closer to the trees, and the noise started again.

I woke Mike up to tell him to come and listen to the bear. But by the time he got up, the noise had stopped. And I still haven’t seen a bear.

I did see an alligator though, but they are becoming as common as squirrels.

We were going to stay another day, but we decided we should get heading towards Texas. We drove down to Florida, and followed the coast along the Gulf of Mexico. We stopped to look at a house made of glass bottles. While we were there, some big bug latched onto me and started gnawing away at my skin. I’ve had so many things biting me over here and I’m already covered in bites. So I hopped back in the van and smothered myself in bug repellent.

Then Mike got in the car and tried to start it, and it wouldn’t start. It turned over like it was going to start, but didn’t fire. We kind of panicked a bit, and rang roadside assistance, They said it would be 1.5 hours before a tow truck arrived. But then, 1 hour later they sent and updated text saying it was now 77 minutes before it would arrive. Then again 30 minutes later it said it would now be 78 minutes as it was coming from Tallahassee.

Anyway, it was Friday afternoon with a long weekend coming up. We did not want to spend 3 days stuck outside a glass bottle house. So we called a local mobile mechanic, he came had a quick look, said he’d get us back on the road today, and he’d be back in an hour. 

Then the tow truck turned up 78 mins early according to the text messages, before I had a chance to cancel it. He insisted he had to tow us to a garage around the corner. I rang the garage to make sure they could look at our car, and they insisted they could. So he towed us to the garage and when we got there they said they couldn’t look at it until Tuesday. Arrrrggghhhh. And the mobile mechanic won’t come and fix our car at someone elses garage.

So we asked the tow truck to take us back to where we’d broken down. That was the shortened version of our mickey mouse day.

Anyway, 3 hours later, the mobile mechanic finally came. He’d been very busy with a lot of breakdowns. He spent two hours diagnosing the problem, and not finding an answer. He swapped a few wires around the place, and eventually wired it up as it was originally and it worked. So it was possibly a faulty connection somewhere along the line. But he apologised he couldn’t fix the root cause, and said he couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t happen again. But he’s shown Mike how to hotwire it to get it started if need be.

He spent a good two hours in the stifling humidity and only charged us $75. We gave him $100 for his time.

We drove two hours to Panama City and are now parked in a free carpark at Cracker Barrell (A restaurant/gift shop). It’s pretty common to be able to park overnight in Cracker Barrell and Walmart carparks. There are two others camping here tonight.

Still 16 hours drive to Texas.

We don’t know what time it is! The clock keeps changing on us. My phone says one thing, my watch the other. I would trust my phone, but when there is no internet, it doesn’t update. We are both so confused.

Today as we were leaving the campground, I got talking to a local. She told us about another place which was good for spotting alligators, so off we went, alligator spotting.

I got some good photos of this one, which was lurking near the free campground there, apparently hoping to be fed. He started swimming towards us. I think he was attracted to the fuzzy microphone on the GoPro, so I asked Mike to put it in the bag. As soon as he did this, the alligator started swimming away. It’s pretty cool to be able to see them though, in the wild. No need to pay to go to an alligator farm now!

After the alligator spotting, I spotted a big turtle. That made my day as well. 

Then, the rest of the day was spent driving. I was navigating to Lake Talquin State Park in Florida, just west of Tallahassee. But when we got there, there was no visitor centre or camping. I double check where I had navigated to and realised my mistake. I had navigated to the Talquin state park instead of the Talquin state forest. Geez, I assumed they’d be the same thing. It was a 30 minute backtrack to the camping, which I didn’t want to do. 

So we continued on towards the coast. Mike find a free camp down a rutted dirt track, but I didn’t like the look of it, surrounded by trees, and nobody else about. 

It had gone 7pm by this time and the sun goes dow a lot earlier in Florida. About 30 minutes later we stumbled upon a really nice campground overlooking a lake. It’s absolutely beautiful, and only $20 a night. We may stay here a few days as it’s a long weekend here, and everything along the coast will likely be booked out.

Even though there are alligators here, people are still swimming. A family were just here and they were trying to talk their daughter into going in the water, but she was scared of alligators. Can’t blame her. We might try our inflatable kayak out tomorrow.

We awoke to rain, and our side door is still leaking. We decided not to stay another day as the area is quite damp, and the towering trees don’t help this. So, we drove straight to Providence Canyon State Park.

We arrived at 2.30pm hoping to camp, but there was only tent camping there. The providence State park is a series of canyons and they even refer to it as a mini grand canyon. But surely that makes it just a mini canyon…

We did a two hour walk around the canyon and down into it. The trail was mucky underfoot, and we sludged through what looked like a red clay, but Mike said it was a sandy silt. The canyons towered over us, a gradient of colour as the layers changed from a deep red at the top, to a light yellow at the bottom. It was really impressive, but I don’t think you could compare it to the immensity of the grand canyon.

The camping for RV’s was a 7 mile drive from the canyon, at the Florence Marina State Park. As we checked in, there were big black double decker bugs flying around. But these were to be the least of my fears. 

We found our camping ground, set up, and had our dinner (Spanish omelette with salad.) Then we went for a walk to the marina. I wasn’t going to take my zoom camera, as I didn’t think I would need it to take photos of boats in the marina. But we made that mistake one other time when we saw a snake, and I had to take photos with my phone. “Always take the camera,” Mike said. And we were glad we did.

Then when we saw the sign. Beware of Alligators. I had no idea we were in Alligator country, the lady at check-in said nothing about them. Perhaps you are just supposed to know. But we never do advanced research so we know nothing.

I looked into the lake of the marina and saw what looked like a log floating on the surface.

“There’s one,” I said, semi-joking.

“Don’t be silly,” Mike said.

I got my camera and zoomed in, and yep, sure enough, a gator (as the locals call them) lay on the surface, sunning himself.

I snapped a few photos, but was keen to move on.

Then we saw another one, closer this time, and it was swimming. I snapped some more photos, and got a video of it swimming, kicking myself that I still haven’t managed to find a decent tripod.

We don’t do much (any) advance research of where we stay, so little surprises like this are a real treat.

When we got back to the camp, we saw a couple who had been looking for gators in a different location and they hadn’t seen any, so we directed them to where we saw them. That’s just typical. I reckon if we had’ve gone looking we probably wouldn’t have seen them either.

The camp host said they’ve occasionally had them walking through the campground, but not often, so that put my mind at rest a bit.

A very exciting day. We are going to Florida tomorrow. Probably more gaters there.

Today was a another day of driving. It was a 40 minute drive to chattanooga to see the choo choo, but unfortunately we didn’t see it. But we did go to the Maple Street Biscuit Company which specialises in biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Biscuits in America are similar to scones. I chose the mushroom gravy, and while nice, it was very spicy. Mike had a egg waffle thingy.

It was a 3.5 hour drive to our next stop at Chattahoochee Bend state park, but it somehow took us 6 hours. Falling asleep in a Walmart carpark for 45 minutes didn’t help. So we didn’t arrive and set up camp until after 6pm.

We are camping in the forest, massive tall trees all around us. There is a bush walk right from our door step, so after a quick dinner of salad wraps, we ventured into the forest. The forest floor was carpeted in mulched pine needles and even though it was damp, it wasn’t mucky.

We walked for about an hour, listening to the sounds of the forest. Woody building his home, and squirrels rustling up and down trees. 

Mike stopped to point out a tree trunk that was all scratched up. “This looks diseased,” he said. 

“Maybe it’s be scratched up by a bear,” I said. Right at that moment, something big darted from the bushes. I screamed, Mike laughed. We had frightened a deer!

On our way back, we saw the deer again, just off the side of the path. It was just a Bambi. We stopped to watch him as he ate. Then he spotted us, and looked at us curiously, wondering what we were. He’d eat a bit more, then look at us again. Then we noticed his mother not too far away. Neither them seemed to worried by us. I managed to get a good close up shot.

It was after 8pm by the time we got back, had showers, and got to bed.

Today was a day of driving.

The morning was the usual. Orange juice, followed by coffee, followed by pineapple, followed by…Oh that’s right, that awful cinnamin flavoured granola we bought. Neither of us thought we could stomach it this morning, so Mike got out the cooker and made bacon and eggs.

We stopped at a visitor centre to ask about walks. He said we needed to watch out for ticks, they are everywhere. They carry disease and will drop out of the trees on you, he said. Make sure you spray poison all over your clothes, he said. Yikes. As if I wasn’t already scared of ticks!

We drove for most of the day, even though it was only 233 kms. We left Kentucky and are now in Tennessee, not too far from Chattanooga. You know the song. We saw a campground on the way called Skull Island, and that’s where we are!

It’s a weird name for an island but there’s some interesting history behind it. In the 1800s there was a town in the valley. Chattanooga was prone to flooding so in the 1930s, they decided to build dams to stop the flooding. The people living in the valley were told they had to move as their town would be flooded. They also had the option to move their dead from the graveyards which some of them did. But a lot of graves remained and when they built the dam and flooded the valley, the bones all rose to the surface and landed on Skull Island. Hence the name.

We chose a pleasant camping spot overlooking the lake and had a pleasant nights stay.

Not much else to report today. We did do a Walmart stop as I needed a few more things.

We had a nice sleep in the carpark on the side of the road. In the morning, a man commented that we were a long way from home. How did he know we were from New Zealand? Then he commented on our number plates. “Are you from Michigan?” I told him we were from NZ and he was even more impressed.

Today we visited Mike’s sister again, and caught up with his nephew, Tony.

Just after lunch we headed to Cumberland Falls which was a 2 hour drive. It’s like a mini-Niagra falls and quite a few people were there.

We found a lovely camp ground about ten minutes away from the falls, surrounded by tall trees and forest. We were surprised it wasn’t full.

I was sitting in the van offloading the last few days of photos when a subaru towing a teardrop campervan sped through the campground. Shortly after, a banging crashing sound. Did they just crash? 

Mike and another couple ran over to check and the car and caravan had got over a ledge. Apparently they had driven ten hours to get to this campground and must have been quite tired. They’d gotten out of their car and forgotten to put on the handbrake and the car and caravan rolled over the edge. They were lucky a picnic table was in their way and stopped them going over the edge of a cliff. Even more lucky was that nobody was camping there. They poor cat was in the car when it went over.

That was our excitement for the day. Oh, and we were robbed. The washing mashine took our $1.50 and didn’t wash our clothes.

It would have been nice to stay for a couple of days, but there weren’t many hikes around the area.

We woke up to heavy rain, and a leak drizzling down our side door. We duck-taped a towel to try and stop it, but it just drenched the towel. It might need new rubbers or something on the window.

Mike disconnected the power and water from our van in the pouring rain. We need an umbrella.

Today it was just a short drive to catch up with Mike’s family in Kentucky. First stop was Campbellsville to meet up with nieces Kayla, Sissy and great nephew, Greyson who is four.

Next stop Walmart, to buy umbrellas. It hasn’t rained since buying them.

Next stop, Greensburg, to catch up with Sister Ro, and nieces Mel and Rose, and great nephews, Killian (four) and Aspen (12).

Killian kept us entertained with his constant chatter and shenanigans. He was hilarious, like a mini Eddie really.

It was nice catching up with the family and a we stayed for Pizza. Tomorrow we’re catching up with nephew Tony.

We’re camping in an RV park on the side of the road, which seems a little weird. But there are five other Rvs here and I think they possibly live here. But there is power, water, and sewer on our site which we can connect to. Most of the campgrounds have this where you can hook-up on your site. Means you can stay for long periods and not have to worry about topping up water or emptying your black tank as it’s connected during your stay.

We are absolutely loving camping in Rodger. Even though the layout is a bit weird, it actually works and the bed is really comfy. The toilet right next to the kitchen is still a bit creepy, but Mike might be able to put a barrier around it or something.

Today we left Red River Gorge and headed towards Greensburg Kentucky where Mike’s sister lives. We drove for about 2 hours, then stopped at a Walmart to get even more stuff! We needed an axe to make kindling, and we also needed more food. While we were there I also saw an airhorn I needed to scare bears, two more towels, some pyrethrum to spray on our hiking gear as everyone recommends it to repel ticks.

Yesterday we were at red river gorge, today we are at Green river State Park camping. It’s really expensive at $45 per night, and really busy. It’s a Friday night and all the weekenders are here. As we drove in, we saw all the heads turn to look at our van. This is becoming quite common and Rodger certainly attracts interest.

We had a nice view of the lake until a big caravan came and parked right in front of us. We cooked bacon and eggs for dinner (the bacon here is soooooo delicious) and did our laundry.

That’s all folks.

Today was an exciting day. It started with a narrow and dark tunnel. We stopped just outside of it, and Mike got his tape measure out to make sure we would fit. While he was doing that, a similar sized campervan drove on through, so we felt a bit happier about that.

Our first stop today was the Gladie visitor centre to get some info on walks in the area. As we were talking to the lady, a guy came in and asked if that was our van out front. Wondering what we’d done wrong, we said yes is was.

‘Cool van,’ he said. ‘We’ve got one similar.’ He pointed to their 1987 Doge Ram, which they’d renovated. We’ve had so many people compliment our van. I thought there would be lots of them about, but it’s quite unique.

The first walk we did was up to a tower rock. It was just a short walk, but the rock was impressive.

After that, we stopped at the next major walk. A group of walkers had just completed it and I asked one of the ladies if it was worth doing. ‘Nah, it’s a bit boring,’ she said. ‘But there is a really nice walk to a waterfall just over there. Just follow the creek for a couple of miles.’

The waterfall walk wasn’t marked on any of the tourist maps, on all trails, or even sign posted. But we followed her instructions and it was the most beautiful walk we’ve done yet. Perhaps that’s why the locals like to keep it to themselves.

After that, we stopped at Whistlers Arch. The arch was nice enough, but it’s not what impressed us. Mike called me over to look at a red lizard and that was when we saw it, sunning itself on a rock. A venomous copper head snake. I cursed myself for not having bought my zoom camera to get a decent photo!

Our next stop was down a rutted potholed gravel road. I do worry about breaking Rodger, but Mike too it slowly. And it was well worth the drive. A short walk from the carpark took us to a lookout over a mini grand canyon but with lots of trees. It was stunning.

People are so friendly here. A man we met at the campground has invited us to stay at his place in Washington DC if we go there.

To finish the day, we headed back to the same campground and cooked tofu noodles for dinner.