We stayed a few miles north of Columbia, South Carolina at a Walmart when we drove down last night from Tryon. We are headed to Charleston but we decided that Columbia would be a good place for Luka to get his 6-month immunizations.
Today was a sad day for us all. We were going to have to say good-bye to our good friends. No more reminiscing about ice cream in Croatia. No more late night talks about sailing across the seven seas. No more jam sessions with a splash of wine. No more cupcake baking with an extra cup of flour thanks to Mila. No more bouncing travel ideas off of each other.
We had a dilemma to work out last night. We had initially planned on going to Crossville, Tennessee to visit a friend and skipping Nashville on this trip altogether. We had visited Nashville our last time here but it was just after the 2010 flood and a lot of places were in disrepair. We eventually decided that we needed to make another trip through Music City so we won’t regret it later.
We got a late start today but we can’t blame it on yesterday’s ghost hunting or the consumption of alcoholic beverages at the old tavern. It’s how we roll. We decided to leave My Old Kentucky Home campground today and head to Mammoth Cave National Park to see what the fuss is all about. We unfortunately did not even go see the Home itself. Something about a song plus we were running late and hungry equals next time. And since our good friend Carrie lives in Kentucky, we know for sure that there will be a next time.
Today is Monday and it is back to the regularly scheduled programs for the Trouts. Doug headed to work and the boys took school buses to their respective schools this morning. Only Melizza and Lucy are left as we were packing up and getting ready to leave.
After 5 nights in Brighton, today is our day to pack up and leave this beautiful campground. It also happens to be our last morning in Michigan and we are sad to be leaving but glad to have spent nearly 2 weeks here.
Last night at the Bay City Walmart was a cold one. Our 4-battery setup worked well the night before in Traverse City so we felt pretty good about using power pretty liberally. We still had a decent amount of juice left in the morning but the overcast skies are not really helping with replenishing our consumption.
Last night we spent the night at a Walmart in Traverse City. It is the first night of boondocking since we replaced our batteries in Grand Rapids just before we headed to Grand Haven. I also was able to charge up our pair of old batteries while we were plugged into power in Ludington and connected them via the umbilical cord for extra amp hours. They worked great. It is the first time for us to wake up in the morning after running the furnace off and on all night and still be in the green on the monitors. As we start to head south, we will be able to last much longer without having to run the furnace and get better charge from our solar panels.
Our weekend at Ludington has come to an end and this morning, we are all busy packing up our belongings and getting ready to hit the road again. The girls were sad that their new friends are leaving but we will see them again in a couple of weeks. We are planning to visit them at their homes in Ohio on our way down to Kentucky.
We parked at a Walmart last night practically next to a Sprint cell tower. Although there wasn’t suppose to be a 4G network here, we had full bars of 4G with our the modem. Marlene used the opportunity to stream her soap opera and got caught up with the lastest gossip at Port Charles.
We decided to stay one more night here at Indiana Dunes. We have been so busy riding the train into Chicago for the last two days and getting back late in the evening, we thought it would be nice to spend the day just relaxing and catching up with life at the campground and maybe do some exploring of the nearby cities.
We are now in Indiana. Indiana has only about a 40 mile stretch of shoreline by Lake Michigan and much of it is designated as either a State Park or a National Park. We woke up in the Walmart in Portage, Indiana and headed into one of the two campgrounds hoping to find a spot.
