Well, we survived Florida, but I sure don't know how.  We got to Dead River Landing on Monday, June 12th and it was really a nice place - portapotties, nice picnic shelters, a river (which really did look dead!).  Set up camp and enjoyed Monday very much.  Then Tuesday --- the rain started, and kept coming and coming and coming.  We spent three days hiding out in the picnic shelters, just going back to our site to sleep.  Friday the 16th it was finally halfway decent - but we had to leave the campground because we were unable to reserve for Friday and Saturday.  Soooo, we headed to Panama City to get gas and wait for a wire for money for cigarettes (for me, of course) and then went to the Holmes County Rest Area off FL Rte 81 and I-10.  Spent the night there in drizzle and basic discomfort.

Saturday we decided to hell with it and went back to Dead River Landing hoping there was an empty spot - a vain hope as it turned out.  A family had reserved 6 of the 7 spots and the 7th we already knew was taken.  We planned to just hang out by the shelter until Sunday afternoon when our reservation was, but luckily some of the people with the large family hadn't shown up so they offered us an empty spot.  We were happy!! The only bad thing was the big family had a gas generator they ran all night and bright lights on their camper that they left on until about midnight.

The people in Site 7 were sooooo cool!  It was also a family - the mother Julie and her husband Rick; Julie's sons Blade with his wife Kim; Austen with his girlfriend Samantha and Hayden.  We hung out with them a LOT - sharing between us the coffee, cigarettes, water and food.  It would have been idyllic - except it rained AGAIN for three more days!  I stayed in my tent for a couple of days, but it was just sooooooo wet and crappy I finally took it down and stayed in the van Monday and Tuesday.  We did have some fun though!  Tuesday Julie and them invited us for dinner - great burgers, hotdogs, sausage and cheese casserole - wonderful food!  We all just hung out for a while and then the family started playing a game called "Monkey On The Sidewalk", a sort of game of tag.  It was hilarious to watch!

Wednesday,  June 21st I got my SS so we left the free campground and headed out of Florida -- we had both had just about enough of it!  My next installment I'll discuss that!

I have never blogged before so I don't know how this is going to work, but I figured I'd give it a shot,  Diyanne and I are what is called "Boondockers", which means we live in her van and travel from free campsite to free campsite, staying in between at truck stops.  We've been doing this off and on since April 17, 2017 (there was a 2 1/2 week gap in the middle where I was at the City Mission, but that's not important).

The first part of the trip we went to GA, SC and FL.  I'm not going to go into detail here because I'm old and don't remember a lot of it.  What I do remember is being eaten alive in Florida, going to my first ever drag show in Daytona (what a blast!), getting rained out of New River Gorge, and driving, driving, driving!!!  We traveled for about 3 1/2 weeks.

This section we have (surprise!!) gone to SC and FL.  We're really just waiting it out in the Panhandle until I get paid on the 21st.  We're going to Dead River Recreation in Ponce de Leon, FL tomorrow; I'll start trying to keep track of stuff for this blog!

In the meantime, good travel plazas (truck stops):  The TA in Manning, SC has a fitness room and a great TV room; it's very clean and the staff is wonderful!!  The Petro in Ocala, FL is just amazing!  Has a wonderful store for souvenirs, a movie room, a TV room, a barber shop, an Iron Kettle - too much to mention!  The main entrance to the bathrooms don't have doors, so when you're washing up you can hear everything in the store, but that's so minor with the great stuff there.  We are at the Flying J in Quincy, FL, now and this is really nice too.  We've been stuck here two days waiting for our campsite tomorrow, but the staff is friendly - and they have a COVERED smoking area with rocking chairs!!

We've been pretty lucky with weather this time around, but we did drive down from Georgia to Floria in a driving rainstorm.  I'll write more later or sometime, just wanted to get started.