Truck and Trailer Travel Tales: December 2017

Alligators, palm trees, surf and Orlando!!

After Hatteras, we continue our journey down the east coast looking forward to more sun and warmth.

We stop first in Carolina Beach at possibly the scummiest of campgounds (Walmart at least are clean and predictable).

Then off to Georgia. I just loved that state and the Savannah Wildlife Refuge and Alligator Alley was very fun!

Watching for alligators from the safety of being inside our truck.

Except when we try and see birds up close...not too far from the truck though..

We ended up seeing two! Low light though, so photo is not the best!

Then off to Tybee Beach close to Savannah for our first surf:

Henri loves that his board is longer than Gareth's!!

There is also beach art happening!

Had some good Georgia Style BBQ!!

And,,, finally,,, a palm tree!!! Yay! we are officially in the south!

Off to Orlando. First stop: flat tire on the busy highway! Yikes!!

This makes it look like the boys and I changed the tire but do not be fooled: Gareth was the hero that saved the day, keeping calm, while others (me) were freaking out. i'm surprised I agreed to this photo!!

In Orlando we stayed at a lovely campground called Bill Frederick Park. It was beautiful and affordable but no swimming in the lake..:

Universal Studios:

This day was crazy expensive but was it worth it? I say yes it was! My favorite was Diagon Alley and the Ride down Gringotts Bank! WOw! I now know what it's like to fight against Voldemort and Bellatrix! EEk!

You get to walk down the red carpet!!

Diagon Alley:

Gringott's

Then with the help of Optimus and Bumble Bee we fought Megatron but got tossed around and smashed into buildings and boy, I screamed really loud for this one!!

Minions the Ride was fun too. ( i skipped that one)

Our second favorite was the Jimmy Fallon Ride, racing him in a sports car through NYC and up up to the moon!

Very FUN day!!!

But likely won't do it again.

Once

enough.

Cape Hatteras, NC

Next destination: Cape Hatteras where we have rented a house for a week with our kite surfer friends: Lionel, Anouk et Sylvain!

Cape Hatteras is a group of beautiful thin islands with incredible beaches and birds and...kitesurf!

We had a great time there, especially living with our Quebecois and Swiss friends, using the hot tub on the deck over the Laguna and looking at crazy beautiful birds at Pea Island Wildlife Refuge: tundra swans, herons of all kinds, ducks, ibis, pelicans etc etc.

The hot tub and the house/sunsets:

Who's that I see from our living room window? why, it's Gareth!

On non windy days, I can SUP alongside stingrays and jellyfish from our little pier:

Our view in the morning!

Kite surfing:

Checking kites and repairing them:

More in the boys/jumping boys themed photos- they had so much fun on this particular dune:

Birds of Cape Hatteras:

that one didn't have a nice end:

Mes tres chers amis Rona et Josh a Washington DC!! My dear dear friends Rona and Josh in Washington DC!

WOW! Washington DC!!!! Who knew I was going to love that city so much!! Ok, I mean someone I dislike very much lives there, but he happened to be in China during our visit, so that worked out!

We visited my friends from San Francisco while in DC: Josh and Rona who were my roommates there back in 2000. We hadn't seen each other in 15 years! It was like travelling to the future to see that they look EXACTLY the same (what are they eating?) and they have the two most gorgeous fun kids, May and Jasper who really got along with Henri and Charlie!!

Navigating the truck and trailer in the streets of DC was challenging but Gareth is a pro! Parallel parking it on their street was also quite the task!

We started our time there by going to the Smithsonian Zoo which was 5 minute walk from their house. What a lovely zoo! The best I have seen. AND,, all museums and zoos are free in DC! yay!

Then dinner with our friends for a good catch up!
The next day we decided to go see the white house and the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum by bike! Henri 's bike was bust and I don't have a bike so we managed to rent a Lime City Bike! DC is really well made for bikers so we biked in traffic on Pennsylvania Avenue nice a safely in our bike lane. The people were so friendly and chatty!!!

Again, I was very surprised at how excited I was to see the White House.

The Air and Space museum was super fun and Charlie won the paper airplane making and throwing competition!!

The next day, our plan was to go to the zoo for the whole day.
However, we woke up to find a parking ticket on our truck. It was for having a trailer parked on a residential street.
The price was unreal at $1000 (usd). Gulp.
Needless to say, we were in shock and our friends were also horrified at this!

Our friends emailed their neighbourhood representative who got in touch with some sort of important politician to help our cause. Rona spent a good part of her day trying to figure something out for us. THANKS again!!

Anyway, a blog post was made about our situation - not by me but by the neighbourhood rep. and it made a bit of a stir and had many views and comments (not all nice which petrified me...).

Anyway a very resourceful Gareth biked back to downtown and appeared in front of a judge, having to swear on the bible and all that, to plead our cause. The judge could see the ticket was not really meant for a situation like ours and dismissed the ticket on the ground that the trailer (which is so small- 14 feet) was still attached to the truck.
Phew.
During his ordeal, the boys and I went to the zoo. I can't even say how amazing the zoo was (in case Gareth actually reads this blog...) It was WOW!

Said a sad goodbye to our friends and made our way south once again.

Here's the link to the blog post from the Neighbourhood Rep. Quite entertaining and upsetting. someone calls us hipsters for crying out loud!

https://www.popville.com/2017/11/thousand-dollar-parking-ticket-mount-pleasant/