Newsletter 2 - On our 10 day road trip to Florida

Life has been very busy since the last newsletter, we haven’t even found time yet to visit Washington DC.  Shaun took us to the Air & Space Museum near Dulles Airport, amazing array of every type of aircraft, as with everything over here, huge, clean and well done displays, including the Concorde, I have always admired the contours of this aircraft and good to see it up close.  A helicopter which could also be used as an automobile (didn’t really become popular!) the Enola Gay, the aircraft which dropped the bomb on Hiroshima.  The Discovery shuttle was amazing to see, things are so much bigger when you get up close.  Over here we constantly have bags searched as we go into places, not a bad thing though.

The weather is heating up now, although quite pleasant, still some rain around.  Last Saturday we had a BBQ at Fairfax for neighbours & friends, a great afternoon, met some lovely people, some we remember from our last trip, great hearing about all things American, lovely food and company.  Pete even did his family favourite marinated chicken wings which proved very popular. 

Sunday was Fathers’ Day in US, that means Pete is ‘double dipping’ this year as it is in September in Aus.  We had a great day, Shayne & Lee both enjoyed having their Dads with them for the day.  The Dads were very spoiled, Shayne, Lee & Shaun presented both Pete & Bert with a Surface
Tablet, they are really enjoying that.  Shayne cooked a lovely breakfast for us all which we had outside, a really lovely day, followed with dinner at ‘Old Country Buffet’ where we could all indulge.  Thankfully they had just put out a new chocolate self saucing pudding with plenty of sauce, just for Shayne as it was also Fathers Day for him, made his day!!! 

On Thursday morning we packed luggage for 8 of us in the Kia and the Mustang and departed Fairfax at 6am for our Florida trip.  Now true Americans, we stopped at McDonalds for breakfast, the menu was quite different and again so many choices.  We stopped at some Rest Areas every couple of hours, these are really nice, lovely gardens, amenities in large buildings, clean and well-appointed and another building with vending machines for drinks, snacks and icecreams.

Lovely travelling down the 95 South wide freeway wide median and beautiful trees each side, roads are great and make travelling so easy.  Trucks here cannot use the left lane (in Aus it would be the right) and that works so well, especially as there are a lot of trucks on the road, just like at home.  Pete has been doing his share of driving the Mustang and also turns in charge of the Kia, he does like driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road.  

Our first day was about 400 miles (644kms) staying the night at a hotel in Charlotte, North Carolina time for a rest, hotel shuttle bus to buffet dinner, lots of choices including seafood and mainly Asian, sadly they had trouble understanding us when we asked for wine, settled on Coronas!  Next morning all up early, good buffet breakfast at the hotel, can’t believe how they all eat quickly and off, guess we will learn to do this as we become more Americanised.  Today here is the first day of summer, the longest day and to be about 80’sF (27+C) off to Orlando, Florida.  Our next State to enter was South Carolina stopped in Columbia, ooh not sure about this suburb high crime rate here, I was amused by the signs on the door of the Gas Station, (see photo) even had game machines inside. 

So on to Georgia, peach growing state and as Shayne says, Rednecks here, there is even a beach, Riviera, mainly populated by the Rednecks.  So far we have been through about 5 states.

Will end this now and keep further news for the next one.  As we are very busy, finding it hard to have time to do Newsletters.  Free Wi-Fi in hotels and some eating places is fantastic, we all get onto Tablets & phones at every opportunity.

Trust this finds you all fit and well.

Love from Jan ‘n Pete