With Jack Frost nipping at our heels in Kentucky, on November 11th we finally began our journey south to our new home in the South – Riverbend Motorcoach Resort in Labelle, Florida. It would be about a 15 hour, 990 mile straight run on I-75. Because we don’t like to drive more than 3 to 4 hours a day, we planned on three overnight stops. Wish I had something exciting to report about our trip but I don’t, although I guess that is a good thing when you are on a road trip in a 40,000 pound beast.

Here’s an interactive map of our travels so far for the winter of 2015/2016, click on the brackets in the upper right hand corner to get a full size image:

As we headed south, we had some traveling companions that decided to hitch a ride with us. Not humanoid types but cute (at least initially) little lady bugs. When we arrived at Taylorsville State Park, we noticed swarms of lady bugs flying near our coach, guess they were searching for their own winter resort (aka our coach). At first it just seemed like one or two got inside, but here we are into the new year and there are many more! They are not only inside our coach, but outside our coach, in our van, in my hair, crawling up our legs, hiding under our pillows, walking on our food – they’re everywhere! EGADS! Guess our bus is a perfect breeding facility for Labybugs! Anybody want some? Oh well, a nuisance for sure but guess it’s better than the carpenter ants guests we acquired up in Maine!

We even called on our great and mighty critter hunters to earn their keep by helping us be rid of these beetles. C’mon kitties, swat those buggers! HA! A yawn and the gentle sound of snoring was all the response we got!

Yes, we do love these cute little beetles but they finally began to try our patience. We would try and scoot them out the door but other times, the only sightseeing they did was up the hose of the vacuum cleaner.

Anyway back to our journey….
Off we went, our first day leaving the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington headed for the Chattanooga North KOA in McDonald, Tennessee (our review) about a 4 hour drive. If you’ve followed our blog you know how we feel about KOA campgrounds – this one lived up to our not so great expectations. Amazingly though, we actually had a pull thru site that we fit on, so we didn’t bother unhitching the toad. Quiet evening.

The next morning (November 12th)  we set off for our next destination, Crossroads Travel Park in Perry, GA (our review), a 3-1/2 hour drive. Although this campground wasn’t the best we’ve ever visited, according to reviews and a conversation we had with the very friendly owner of the nearby Grillmaster BBQ, the new owners have put a lot of effort into improving it and are making good progress.

We thoroughly enjoyed our take-out dinner from Grillmaster BBQ next door – really good beef brisket. Not sure what the Grillmaster’s secret is but the potato salad was probably one of the best we’ve had! Besides stuffing our faces with BBQ, there’s nothing exciting to report about our stay here. Since we had to unhitch to fit into our pull thru, the next morning we headed to a nearby Waffle House for breakfast.

On the final night before our arrival at Riverbend, we stayed at Grand Lake RV & Golf Resort in Citra, FL after another 3-1/2 hour drive. Very nice place and a steal at $18.50 (Passport America Rate), we wouldn’t hesitate to stay here again in the future (check out our review for more details). Although they had a small cafe there which served dinner, we decided instead to take a walk around the resort and have dinner on board, followed by a quiet evening watching TV.

The last leg of our journey would be another 3-1/2 hours but it seemed oh so much longer because we were really anxious to get there to see our site and friends. Finally, on November 14th, we arrived. Ah, yes, it was good to be “home”!

It didn’t take long for us to settle in. We had a few projects planned. More about that in our next post.