Two weeks in and making friends

Hey Y’all! We have made it through our first 2 weeks on the road. Here’s how its gone so far… 

Jacksonville Florida was our first stop. Jax wasn’t a very far drive for us (about 2.5 hrs) but my baby sister Piper was moving into her first apartment and we couldn’t miss that! We stayed at Hanna Park at Pipers recommendation. Monday was spent moving stuff in and unpacking so we pretty much just crashed when we got back to the park.

The next day Piper and her boyfriend Stephen showed us their favorite spots around town. First we went to this AMAZING breakfast place called Maple Street Biscuit Company! OMG if you are in Jacksonville you have got to check this place out. They have the most delicious biscuit combinations and the coffee was fantastic! After breakfast Eric and I headed to the beach at Hanna Park. It was so nice and very quiet. After the beach we went for a 2.5 mile hike through the woods. Later that night we met up with Piper and Stephen for “tapas tuesday’ at their favorite art museum The Cummer.

Getting a little sassy

We had a great time, Eric said the coolest part was having Piper as our tour guide. I’m so glad we were able to spend time with Piper and see her city before we left.

Proud to call her my legacy!

Wednesday morning we left Pipers and headed up the coast. We started to get hungry around Darien Georgia. Now I know what you're thinking... you're thinking I was gunning for the Darien outlets but I pinky promise that is not at all what I was up to. See, I have been using Garden and Gun and Southern Living as our tour guide through much of the South, choosing BBQ spots and sea food joints I wanted to visit along the way. So as we approached Darien I navigated us off the main highway and put us on a course for the darling town of Darien... which if I am completely honest I didn't even know existed outside of the outlets. Life lesson time y’all! When you tow your freaking house behind you… you can’t just stop in small historic towns and riverfront restaurants without some serious planning. Needless to say we were still hungry when we drove out of the little town of Darien.  

According to SL this is what Darien looks like...
I can't actually confirm that,  but it did seem lovely from the road!

Savannah was coming up and we were still hungry. Not to be deterred by the great Darien debacle I grabbed my iPhone and googled 'RV parking in Savannah’. I quickly discovered that the Savannah Visitor Center has an RV section, where you can leave you RV and explore the town. It worked out perfectly! We ditched our house in the parking lot, got Winston and headed down to River Street. As we walked down the cobble stone street I realized people were staring and smiling at us… ‘perhaps they know we have just started out on an adventure. We probably look like adventurers, maybe a little gypsy-like… its gotta be Eric’s beard everyone loves the beard, or maybe my bright blond pixie cut. Yeah they can tell, we totally look like adventurers!’ Looking back at it now, I’m pretty sure they were smiling at Winston. He is the cute one in our group, and everyone loves puppy.

I didn't get a chance to take any pictures in Savannah this trip,
so here is a photo of us in Savannah when we were much younger... awwww

We made our way down River Street and decided to stop at Huey’s. We got a couple of beers and had just ordered lunch when, out of nowhere, this older dude grabs onto a chair and asks if can join us. “ Yeah man, have a seat" I quickly say “we’d love for you to join us”. The man sat down and explained that he has had 4 hip replacements and he needed to rest for a bit. We ate our lunch while the former Army Airman drank bloody marys and told us the story of his life. How perfect was it, that we would meet someone like that. I have had it in my mind that this trip would be like that. I want to meet people, interesting people, people we would not have thought to talk to in our former lives back home. Savannah was perfect. I’m so glad we stopped, but we had to make a little more distance before the day was over so after lunch we hit the road again. 

Edisto Island was our next destination thanks to some advice our friend in Savannah gave us. Edisto beach is definitely not a touristy kind of beach. You really had to know where you were going to get there… we drove through the most lovely oak covered backroads and past beautiful marsh land.

I love love love a marsh, its like a preppy swamp. It’s so Southern and calm. That is how I would describe our quick overnight stay in Edisto Beach State Park, calm. We only stayed the one night but it was so relaxing and peaceful.

We talked about staying another night but decided against it. We wanted to make it to Knoxville to see my sister Citabria by the weekend. So the next morning after we packed up camp and headed down to the beach for breakfast. We found a little place called "The Sea Cow". Eric liked the name and they had outdoor seating so Winston could join us. Shortly after we sat down a man walked up and began to chat with us. He was a local and came to the Sea Cow often. He told us about the menu and even included a few jokes. I asked him about where he was from. He told us he lived up the road a bit but he doesn’t have too many people over to his house. See, he owns a junk yard, he’s got a dog and the whole bit. He said he really likes old cars and enjoys just sitting in them remembering. The man said a lot of people don’t understand and think its just a mess. He doesn’t like to mow because he’s got about 12 feral cats on his 10 acres… the taller grass is good for them to hunt. The man defended his lifestyle to us several times, saying 'its not weird’. I told him I liked weird. He smiled and then our breakfast came. 

I'll get y'all caught up on our adventures in my next posts... I'm really going to make an effort to post more often. Eric says people like content so I gotta up my blogging game! There is still a lot to tell you about, like the winery we stayed at in Missouri, the flat tire incident, the evening we spent in the North Carolina apple orchard and the time our shore power cord melted... so y'all stay tuned!