When we left Warner Robins on Oct. 5th, we first spent 2 days in Savannah and Tybee Island. It was a beautiful area and if I ever make the jump to go to art and design school, I would definitely consider SCAD (Savannah Centre of Art and Design).

Next we stopped in Jekyll Island, a beautiful little island with a strong view to conservation. The highlight here was meeting a group that was doing shrimping over the beach and they let me have a go at it. I had to really control myself when I was constantly getting nibbled by curious little fish and rammed by panicked shrimp. I’m just glad I didn’t get nibbled by any sharks.

Next, we went to Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island. This was a great little beach town and our hotel was right on the beach where we spent most of the time looking for sharks teeth. It is supposed to be a hot bed for all sizes of teeth. The only one I brought home was given to me by a regular visitor who found one in about one minute. The only disappointing this about Amelia Island is that most of it was for sale. They had not faired well in the real estate collapse.

From there we followed the Flordia coast south and had dinner on the beach in Daytona. I thought it was great to be able to drive right onto the beach. I guess it just makes sense in the birthplace of NASCAR. After dinner we headed to Orlando, where I spent 2 days at a commercial real estate course.

From Orlando we head to the Gulf and stopped in Fort Walton Beach near Destin. This was a very touristy place and also another area hit by the real estate decline.

After ripping through Alabama and Mississippi we stopped in New Orleans. A fantastic place to visit. So much history in the French Quarter where we stayed. We even walked Bourbon Street with the kids at night. Lots to see and surprisingly the kids didn’t even ask why there where so many scantily dressed women in many of the store fronts. For us, New Orleans was all about the food. We sampled everything that Louisiana is known  for and I fell in love with crawfish (not crayfish!!) and Amelia with Gumbo.

We had one more stop in Louisiana and that was for lunch in Breux Bridge, the Crawfish Capital of the World. I had the crawfish platter with crawfish prepared in about 10 different ways. I was all amazing.

Our next stop was in Houston. Unfortunately, I’m not sure this is a city I would return to, but we did have a great visit with some old family friends. The first time since we left Winnipeg in July.

Our next stop was in Frisco to stay with more family friends. This time we took a break and we stayed a whole week. With beautiful weather and great friends it was a welcome break.

Next up was Gurdon, Arkansas for another day with friends of the same family. That whole family is great which is why we planned visit more of them after stopping in Jacksonville, Arkansas to visit a few mobile home parks. Originally, we had planned to stay in Jacksonville for a couple more months, nursing our new mobile home additions to health, but they have not yet come through so we stopped, shook hands and sailed on through to Conway, Arkansas to meet the rest of the family.

Our last “friendly” stop was in Garnett, Kansas to meet friends from the mobile home park world.

After one more night in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, we hightailed it back to Winnipeg. But not before getting hit by a nasty, slushy, slick snow storm. Luckily, we did not end up in the ditch like some many others we say and we got past Grand Forks (Super Target) and Canada Customs without incident and back into Winnipeg on Oct 30th, at 7pm.

Since we have been home, I have been get everything back in order. Going through mail. Updated Quicken. Filing. Banking. This next week I spent working on a plan for one of the parks we looked at in Arkansas and fired my mortgage broker. Now we are on our own and looking for someone to help us get another park or two.

Again, sorry I haven’t written for a while. Just needed to focus on the present as the present blew past.

I’m back.

Did you ever notice when you buy a new car, you start to see the same car everywhere you go? Well, when you buy something as unique as a mobile home park, you get the same reaction. Everywhere we go, our eyes are drawn to parks on the side of the road and they draw us in to look at them. Sometimes to see what features they have that we should consider and other times to see if they would be a park that we would consider buying. Either, they start to pop out of the woodwork.

That is the think about being down in the southern states. A significant percentage of the population lives in mobile homes. On Saturday, we drove to Milledgeville, GA and on the drive into the city we notice tons of single homes that were actually mobile homes. Mind you, these were good looking homes with finely trimmed lawns and trees. This is not quite like the typical mobile home park that is ill-kept and not the prettiest place you could visit.

In the future, that will not be our parks. We plan to turn our parks (yes, “parks.” we plan on buying more) into respectable communities where the residents are proud to live there. Why should it be any other way? We’re not talking about Ritz Carlton or Augusta National, just a nice place to live. That is our vision.

We left the house at about 7:30am and the fog was very think. At first, I thought the moon was trying to poke through and then realized it was actually the sun.

The trip down to the coast was very nice as State Road 96 was lined with trees. In some spots, it reminded me of River Heights in Winnipeg, where the trees from either side reach across and touch over the center of the road. By the time we reach Savannah, my view of forests took a totally different view. The moss just hangs off the branches as you can see from the first photo. It is the coolest thing. Savannah is a beautiful little town and we plan to go back again soon to spend some quality time there.

The main purpose of our trip was to get to Fort Pulaski National Monument. This was a Union fort built as protection from the British after the the War of 1812. However, was never really used for this purpose of course so it was home to 2 people, a commander and a maintenance person. However, at the time of the Civil War, the Confederates knew about the “large” number of forces at the based and walked in and took over. A little over a year later, knowing the construction of the fort, the Union forces used a new type of cannon to take back control of the park.

The fort is surrounded by a moat which is a playground for a few alligators (Amelia saw one). The mounds that you can see at the front of the fort in the picture are actually underground rooms. I was amazed that in the heat of Georgia, the inside of the fort and especially the underground, stayed nice and cool. Of course, out in the open the sun was pretty scorching.

After leaving Fort Pulaski we head to Tybee Island. We had no idea what to expect, thinking it was going to be a little beach and some place for us to get lunch. When we got there, we quickly realized it was so much more. Tybee Island is a little beach/surfer town that comes with the style of many towns like it. Brightly colored, very busy and many young people walking around in bathing suits.

Every where there was a spot to park, there was a meter or parking station for you to put money in. Every where! We lucked out and got parking right at the beach and then went for a walk to visit the shops and get some lunch.

We got to the beach and ran right into the water. I expected that the water would be cold or at least cool. To my surprise the water was really warm. I guess I have to stop using my trip to the Bay of Fundy in April as my basis for measurement and expectation.

However, looking out over the water you could see two storms coming in with lightening and everything. We weren’t in the water for 5 minutes when the life guards called everyone off the beach and 10 minutes later the water was coming down in sheets. By the time we were changed and driving away again, the street were flooded with water. So we had a short visit, but Amelia is already figuring out when we can go back to visit again.

Leaving Tybee Island we headed for Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. The coast is dotted with tons of fair sized islands, but only a few are accessible. Basically, between Tybee Island and Hilton Head Island there isn’t much to visit.

I used to work with someone who visited Hilton Head a lot and when I saw how close it was to where we were going to be in Savannah, I decided we simply had to go. I am very glad we did, for two reasons. First, Hilton Head Island is designed with a purpose in mind. All of the commercial centers along the main roads are build behind a layer of trees. All you see are the signs and entrances. It feels like you are driving through the bush to get to the store.

The other reason is that they had a public beach, which meant we got another chance to play at the beach. The clouds were still there, but they weren’t threatening. The waves were just big enough for the kids to play in. It was great to watch them jumping and body surfing in the waves, being so confident in the water. Amelia’s swimming lessons are quickly paying off.

After getting our fill at the beach, it was time for lunch. We ate at the Smokehouse Restaurant. The food wasn’t the greatest, but Katie was an excellent server.

Back in the car and headed for home. We got home around midnight, fully satisfied with an excellent day.

The days will be broken up with a morning drive, midday lunch and sightseeing, afternoon drive and evening entertainment. None of our overnights will be anywhere special, so we are just going to see what we see and stop when it feels right.

So the trip will consist of the following:

• Day 1: Drive from Winnipeg to Grand Forks to the Super Target to stock up on supplies and then through Fargo and finally to Ashby, Minnesota.
• Day 2: Drive to Minneapolis and visit the outlet stores, then continue on to Oakdale, Wisconsin.
• Day 3: Drive through Madison and then over to Lake Michigan for some beach time in Zion, Illinois.
• Day 4: Drive through the beautiful city of Chicago, then down through Indianapolis to end at Edinburgh, Indiana.
• Day 5: Drive through Louisville, where we were in January, and end in Nashville, Tennessee.
• Day 6: Drive through Chattanooga and on to Atlanta, Georgia.
• Day 7: Drive to Warner Robins and move into our home away from home at the Sandpiper Apartments so that we can do the laundry.

Seeing how the trip works out, we were able to delay the start of our trip by one day. That’s one more day to ensure we can pack everything into the van…and to get me a GPS unit for easy directions (and friendly conversation). There are some great deals on the Internet and I even found something in town that I should be able to pick up tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will probably write about the 3D puzzle that our van will become when I pack up tomorrow. Maybe I will even get you a photo of that. Here’s a sample from when we moved from Ottawa to Winnipeg. I hope we will do better this time.