A Recap

Let's back it up a bit and do a super quick recap of where I've been before I started this blog and my thoughts on the places.

Fountainblue State Park, Louisiana (April) - Decent park, rough RV sites, Mandeville about 20 minutes away probably my favorite Louisiana hangout. Found a great coffee shop there. Bad wi-fi, thus the coffee hangout.

Ocala, FL (May) - Stayed 2 weeks. Ocala RV Camp Resort. Decent little place with a pool, dog park, inexpensive laundry and nice people. Not too fancy, had good shade and helpful staff. Right off interstate. Spent time driving to all of the springs nearby and kayaking/swimming. Rainbow Springs was super neat, also visited Silver Springs, Silver Glen Springs (saw a bass vortex!), Juniper Springs, Salt Springs, Alexander Springs and Crystal River. Swam with manatees at Crystal River, however, come in December, they are sparse starting Spring. The town of Ocala wasn't great, very commercial and bad feel. It was about a 25-45 minute drive to nearby springs. Blackwater Inn Restaurant in Astor, FL was one of our favorite hangouts. RV resort wi-fi was not good enough to work on. Used cellular and nearby coffee/book shops. Cellular is poor or non-existent in many of the springs areas.

Stuart, FL (1 Night) (May) - Stayed in a county park. This place is worth mentioning because of two things. Nearby Juno/Jupiter. Loved this area, great beach, cool vibe. Also, one of the best Italian restaurants I've ever eaten at - La Forchetta. We stayed in this area on our way to and from the Keys and in a 3 night overall stay we ate here 3 times including packing up several entrees and a pizza to go.
Stayed two place:
Floridays RV Park - Basic dump, single non-air conditioned bathroom, site to pull up in, that's about it.
Phipps Park - Little country park, state park style bath house, plenty of open ground and trees. Lots are just large grassy areas. Have long hookups unless you want to be kissing your neighbor!

Key Largo, FL (May) - Stayed 2 weeks. Stayed at Calusa Campground. This is on the bay side. There is very little breeze and it is hot. The spots themselves are nice, they have a concrete patio with gravel rock and enough space for your RV on one side of the patio and car on the other. Decent bathhouse and pool. However, there are a lot of permanent residence places here that are very built up, so you feel a bit packed in as a result and any breeze is cut off. Food in Key Largo is great, just about any place we went was delicious. While there we snorkeled at the nearby state park (recommend the extended 3 hour snorkel, not much more than short money wise but get to go to better locations and really see great stuff. Also dived in Key Largo at Molasses reef fire coral area and deep molasses. Saw sea turtles, groupers, tons of fish and coral. Really liked! Went spearfishing in Marathon. Drove down to Key West (not recommended, either go down and stay and party in the night life, or just pass it up). Ate at no name pub (okay) and explored. Driving down, I would like to stay near Big Pine Key, that area looked super nice for next time.

St. Augustine, FL (May/June) - Stayed 1 week. Stayed at Compass RV park. Super nice, had a live band on first night around a fire circle. Nice shaded lots and staff and good bath houses. Laundry a bit pricey. Nearby convenient location to stuff. St. Augustine downtown is cute, historical. I really liked New Smyrna Beach though. About 45 minutes south. Just hang out at Chase's on the water and enjoy the breeze. In both places you can drive on the beach and park.

Alpharetta, FL (June) - Stayed with family!

Greenville, SC (June) - Stayed 1 week. Greenville has a great downtown and seems to have little to no traffic. Looked up a group called the Foothills Paddling Club and went white water rafting with them on the Nantahala (about 2.5 hour drive). Met some Couchsurfers to play tennis and to hike with at Paris Mountain State Park. This is also where my company's home office is, so visited my colleagues. Stayed in Rainbow RV Park. So this place is located in a very bad part of town. I had no issues while there, I had a nice shady lot with a patio. Staff had wood pieces available to help with any site issues. I was never given a key or info on bathhouse, so just used my RV shower for the week. It was inexpensive and I think a really nice lot, but the area made me uncomfortable.

Now you are caught up!

One big loop

Tonight I decided to randomly explore to the East of me. I started driving towards Oriental, a big sailing town. I was hoping I could walk around and enjoy it like I do New Bern downtown, but there really wasn't much to little place. Saw a marina that caught my eye if I had a boat to stay on.

My complete journey

Next I made it over to the Cherry Branch Minnesot ferry. My first NC ferry! Then decided to check out Emerald Isle. While there went to Third Street parked, got out and walked the beach. The beach there is okay. Lots of shells if you like to collect them, kind of a mixed light/dark sand. Not many rocks but due to shells still watch out. Water felt great on my feet. Good amount of people strolling around the beach and town walk ways to enjoy the evening sunset.

Emerald Isle, NC (Third Street Park entrance)

After enjoying a few minutes on the beach, I got hungry. Looking around I decided against several places and landed on Amos's Mosquito Restaurant. Place had good reviews. When I drove up, the amount of cars parked in the parking lot, on the road, up on grass, was intimidating, but I decided a good meal would be worth a wait. When I got in the wait was 20-25 minutes for table, but I was able to immediately get a seat at the bar.  The food was FANTASTIC! I got the single fried pork chop plate for $16.95. The sauteed spinach was probably some of the best I've ever eaten, the tasso gravy was delicious, the pork chop had a good crust and the potatoes were yummy. Enjoyed a nice malbac blend with my dinner. The place is a bit pricey but the food was executed well. My pork chop, while a bit overcooked, was still moist and the service was excellent. They have local seafood and nightly specials too.

Didn't think to take a pic of my meal but here's the restaurant!

Getting Started

Let's start by saying, I am not a blogger. Posting online, remembering to take pictures, these are not my thing. I am, however, an individual with a very bad memory. This blog will serve to catalog places I've been, track reviews of places I've tried and list the sites/articles I'm trying to keep track of.

I may post rarely, or in spurts. Posts will be short, to the point, clinical most likely. I put this out as a warning to those that stumble across my blog expecting more. This is simply put my travel diary.

A little background.. I started this journey at the end of April in Louisiana with my boyfriend. From there we traveled to Florida and spent 5 fun filled weeks. After that we stopped to visit my family in Alpharetta, GA. From there we went our separate ways and I continued on my own. I plan to continue this journey all over the US seeing beautiful places.