Short mid-winter trip to the southern states

 Here we go again. This year, winter began really early, with the first winter storm mid-November! Our RAM camper is finally ready: last year, we had no cupboards! 

We left Kingston on February 28th at 10am. We were the only car crossing the border to the US! It went smoothly.  With no harassment or request to show our cell phones etc... The agent was quite friendly.

It felt great to hit the road! The sun was shining and temperature reached 14C. Our first night was at the Cracker Barrel in Frackville, Pennsylvania. This was going to be the first but not the last overnight at a Cracker Barrell restaurant! 

Next morning, Heiner used our new manual coffee grinder to make our first coffee of 2026! With the price of pre-packed ground coffee being exorbitant, we figured we might as well grind it everyday and have great coffee!

Next day, there was heavy traffic around Washington, DC. Stop and go for 1 hour. We will have to remember that stretch.  No fun!!! 

We spent the night  in Emporia, Virginia. The night was quite cold. But the diesel heater worked wonderfully; at the minimum setting, it kept the inside temp for the night at 16C. 

On Monday, we travelled through North Carolina and stopped in Selma at JR's Cigars to buy cigars! We anticipated that we will be able to sit outside, having a rum with our cigars.

A couple of hours later, we entered South Carolina and reached North Myrtle Beach. We were positively surprised by the place! A few years ago, we passed through Myrtle Beach and were horrified by the plastic junk lining the main street. This time, we went straight to the beach...it was really beautiful! We parked our RAM on Nash street (a Park4Night recommendation), took out our camping chairs, our cigars and a little rum!! Happy like clams! The water was too cold for swimming (14C) but the beach was truly beautiful!

 

 

We spent the night at the Murrell's inlet - another Cracker Barrel stop. Next morning, we went biking again: we explored the Markets Common Area and loved the new village like community and its quiet surroundings. Definitely an area that we would like to return to!

Our next stop was in Bluffton, South Carolina, Thursday March 5th. We had visited Bluffton the year before and found the area quite charming. The parking space is downtown at the waterfront. On Friday the Rotary Club had organised an Oyster fest...at first, this sounded tempting until we realized that the entry price was $75.00 (can)  per person if you want take part in the oyster-all-you-can-eat extravagance. 😕 We did not buy tickets but meandered around while people were sitting around and working on their oysters! 

Good that we did not go for the "all you can eat oysters" because this was a feast for Pros. Each person had her/his own oyster knife to open the huge oysters. For us, All you can eat would have probably resulted in one or two oysters and several cut fingers! 

These are oyster shells mountains left behind from various occasions!!!! I was told that the oyster fest usually takes place in February but that this year was very cold; hence the fest delayed by 2 weeks. And, interestingly, The Bluffton Oyster Company building  is built on shells from previous shucking operations over the last two hundred years.

We spent 2 nights in Bluffton and we really enjoyed the community. It is a very friendly and very clean town, On Friday morning, while I was standing in the door and preparing our daily cereal at the counter, a town employee, working on the park grounds, came up to me and ask with a smile what was the meal for today!!!! He thought we were a food truck! We had a good laugh! 

Here are some views of Bluffton streets and waterfront!

Of course, what you cannot see on these photos are the No-see-ums...and they all love Marleyne! With spray, it is tolerable!

Our next destination was St Mary's Georgia, another paradise for No-see-ums. That Saturday, the weather was great and so the parking spaces on St Mary's waterfront were full until early evening. 

 

Next day, we biked to the Crooked River State Park. It was an OK ride, mostly along busy streets. We came back to our waterfront parking mid-afternoon due to weather. Shortly after our return thunderstorms drenched the area for a couple of hours. Then it was No-see-ums fest again! Really bad: we had to close the door of the RAM. These insects are very small so they go through any of our screens! 

Nevertheless, we like St Mary's waterfront, and the stillness of the swamps.

A day later, we entered the "Free State of Florida"! 😎😂😎😅

We had made reservations for this trip and planned to overnight on another Cracker Barrel parking lot neat St Augustine. We reached the area early, so before heading for C.B, we parked the RAM in St. Augustine on an designated RV parking lot and walked into town. St Augustine is very touristy. We have so many good memories of the town. We had visited this place often with our sail boats, starting in 1991. That is where we had pancakes with our sailing friends John Cole and Ray of s/v Satori on our first trip south. This is a also a place where we celebrated Christmas on several occasions, including a Christmas Boat parade in 1999 and a New Years Eve event at the Mill Top Tavern.  However, this time, we just enjoyed meandering through the busy streets and enjoyed an ice cream...Ice cream is an expensive treat in St Augustine. With tax, it cost $7.00 US! 😌 It was delicious, however!

Close to St Augustine, we moved our van to ride our bikes on the Palatka Trail. It was an ok ride but we can find better ones! Like the Apopka trail for example! We really enjoy the Apopka lake with all its wildlife (and a lot of alligators!): this year, we found the gravel trail around the lake pretty rough (our joints are getting older?) but nevertheless enjoyed the outdoor experiences. 

After our bike ride, we spent a few hours relaxing in the park. We parked in the shade of trees, took our folding chairs out and enjoyed a beer. There are several peacocks at home in the park and this particular one was in the show off mood!

After Apopka, we headed for the Withlacoochee State Forest, namely our favourite Hog Island Camping. We like this area because it has potential! Kayaking, bike riding, and tick hosting...yes, from the first day on, Heiner hosted one or two nice ticks that we caught on time! They literally fall from the sky at Hog Island! The credit card tool is the best to get them off the body. And there were ants, and spiders, you name it, Hog Island has it!  But it is beautiful!  But we are bringing numerous bites back, still itching weeks after our return.

Only negative about Hog Island is the high number of generators running night and day! And noisy ones at that! 

Besides being victimized by insects, we had great ebike rides.  The Croom Trail, where we have biked for the last few years, felt so smooth after the Apopka Trail! 

 

And what about kayaking??? This year posed a different challenge: would Marleyne's tendonitis in the left leg keep her from getting in and out of the kayak???? Well, getting in went rather well. Getting out...not elegant, but it worked.

Florida has been suffering from extreme drought, so it seems! We were shocked by the very low water level on the river: At times, we barely had 4" of water under the kayak! We hope no alligator would be there because it would have been easy for them to get into our boat! Nope, no alligator. We managed to explore another branch of the river which was deeper and enabled us to kayak for 2+ hours. 

Weather reports for the incoming week made us move more south rather than heading back to Georgia.  The cold front would barely touch Sebastian and we easily found a spot (Nr. 19) for 3 consecutive nights at the Donald MacDonald campsite! There had been improvements at the campsite but it was quite empty! Everything pretty clean and no one had a generator running! 

We had some good rain showers and quite a bit of wind but that did not keep us from biking and taking long walks along the beach at the Golden Sand Park. 

Time came to drive back north...but with some nice excursions in store! There was now more traffic heading north: Americans from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut...It is amazing how long the convoy can be for just one couple! The longer the RV, the louder the generator...especially when the vehicle is a "vintage" one. 

We did an overnight  near Kingsland, Georgia. Another Cracker Barrel, of course! This one was especially well decorated!

Back in Bluffton, South Carolina: spring has arrived here. Azaleas are in bloom and our park is very pretty! 

With Spring in the air, we enjoy Bluffton's street even more. Beautiful properties, 

We finally make it the the Oyster Factory restaurant https://blufftonoyster.com/about-us/

to enjoy local oysters and fish (Corvina). Previously, the restaurant was closed. We must agree: The meal was quite tasty.  

But honestly, we could have eaten more oysters!

When we first arrived in Blufftonn on our way south, we went biking on Hilton Head. We did not like it that much as there was too much car traffic beside the - admittedly - nice bicycle paths. While the bicycle paths are great ...running along highways is not our thing. Upon leaving Hilton Head, we noticed, however, a sign indicating a wildlife reserve on Pinkney Island. And before leaving Bluffton on our second stop-over, we checked it out! We loved the place! The bike trails are not smooth (chunks of gravel) but the landscapes are typical of the low countries and we spent a couple of hours crisscrossing the area. 

                            This was a very nice closure for our stay in Bluffton, South Carolina.


And now, we were driving northwards...we stopped in Greensboro (another C.B) North Carolina for the night. Next morning, before heading to Virginia, we visited the Burlington, NC JR's Cigars outlet to buy a couple of more cigars!!! 

 

We had wanted to run the Blue Ridge Parkway again (we did it the year before, and loved the top-of-the-Mountain ride), unfortunately, it was still closed as there were many stretches under repair. Instead, we took the side roads to Dannville,VA and from there to Lynchburg,VA and on to Afton and stayed for the night in Harrisonburg, VA. This stretch is really beautiful and flowering trees and green hills made the landscapes look very spring like. It was Saturday and we were surprised to see the numerous breweries and distilleries  along the way with big crowds enjoying their drink and meals outside! Next time, we will sample!!!!

Harrisonburg: The Cracker Barrel was in a very unattractive area (but then nothing is attractive in Harrisonburg!) but we were too tired to continue towards Roanoke or Winchester. 

The next days were just driving...and Pennsylvania roads (#81) after Hazleton are terrible. Potholes! Even worse: Scranton is totally ugly (we drove thru to reach the Planet Fitness for having our daily shower). Even an hour after Binghamton, NY, the #81 was rather bad (thump, thump, thump). At least, we had good weather. Cold but without precipitation except for our last stretch from Binghamton to Syracuse. 

We liked out trip but..we are searching now for a way to bypass the sections of NY/Pennsylvannia Interstates in the future.  We are still recovering from hours of running over rough roads and the attention we had to give in order to avoid BIG potholes (happy that the van survived ...).

 

We have a few weeks of "rest" before we swill start on our European adventure. 

 

Stay tuned .... 

CUBA, one more time

 While we often said, Never again Cuba, this year's harsh winter made us bend the rule!

This time, we went to a ``fancy`` place on Cayo Coco. One very nice week at the Melià Cayo Coco.  With the exception of the restaurants à la carte, the food was quite good. We liked the resort, we liked the beach, and the people were, as usual, very kind and welcoming.  Should we ever go back to Cayo Coco, we would return to that place again. 

Thanks to a one hour delay departing Toronto with Air Canada, we arrived at destination quite late. But hotel check-in was smooth, we were driven in a golf cart to our room and then we went to the snack bar for beers and pizza.

This was the view from the bar at the lagoon.  A great place to watch a sunset while sipping a Bloody Mary.

Beach bar and grill restaurant. At noon, we enjoyed this area as there was always nice Cuban music and the setting was very relaxing.

The very spacious hotel lobby is where we enjoyed having special coffees. In the morning, around 11am, a group of musician also entertained the guests. In the evening, the first part of the entertainment happened there...If we wanted to be a bit away, we went back outside of the area to sip on a rum or a fancy martini. 

We enjoyed our large room with a view of palm trees. It was very quiet. Warm water for the shower was not always available, but that is part of the Cuban experience.

The beach was very long and we could walk for at least 1 to 2 hours passing different resorts that are spread along Cayo Coco. We could swim easily from our hotel as the water was not as shallow as in other places.

 

Being `winter`, we had 2 days of squalls and red flags and a bit of cooling off. Nothing compared to what we had left behind in Kingston.

There is really not much to do in Cayo Coco except to walk either along a very sunny road to the small La Gaviota Mall, or to the Marina, Delfinario (and from there back again along the beach)

Along the way we saw a Cuban cuckoo, one buggy with horses, and the famous Cuban cars parked at the Mall (fuel was in short supply).

Our return trip with Air Canada was problematic...the flights was delayed twice before being cancelled altogether and moved to the next day. Thankfully, we were kept well informed about the developments (in contrast to other experiences with Sunwing) and spent one more night at the resort!

We have been visiting Cuba for the last 25 years. We discovered the island in 2001 while we were sailing in the Caribbean.  

Entering the harbour of Marina Hemingway with a strong North wind is somewhat daunting.

While visiting tobacco plantations in the beautiful area of Pinar del Rio, we were hosted by the Star Tobacco grower, Alejandro Robaina!  

At anchor, we received daily visits from locals bargaining toothpaste, ropes, tools for langoustes! 

And from then on, our winters have been punctuated by winter visits in different parts of the island. Right now, the future of the island is uncertain.  

We have wonderful memories: But will we ever visit again? As of this writing, the last group of Canadian tourists have been brought back to Canada.  The tour operators stopped flying to Cuba - there is no more aviation fuel available to refill the planes for their return trip.