Likely Story: Road Trippin'

After saying good bye to Al and Beth we went over to Virginia and stayed in another state park and camped right in their lake. Was a great couple of days just hanging out barbecuing, walking and getting scared in the car while Julie practices how to drive again! (She did alright;)

From there it was across to New Bern in North Carolina to see our cruising friends we met in Maldives Stuart and Sheila. Beautiful old town they live in, it's about 30nm up a sort of river system from the coast with a massive boating community, nice place. They live right on the water and at times have alligators on their front lawn!! We didn't see any but they're there, pretty amazing as they are 600nm north of the bottom of Florida and it freezes there in winter!? Brown bears are also a common sight and plenty of deer eating their roses on the front porch. It was a great few days meeting their friends and helping launch a friends boat and getting that going, driving down to Beaufort and checking out the Maritime Museum and having a look at all the boats around the place including theirs which is now for sale if anyone wants a great Stevens 47?? We also went one night to a music talent show (Julie thought we were going to a bar) at the local school which was a bit of a laugh and one of their friends was playing there who was really good. It was pretty interesting to see the small town out and about and it felt like it looks in the American movies from the presenter to the cheerleaders it was all there.

Card games with a few beers also got pretty serious and now we have brought them back to Sunflower and that has been distracting us from a few jobs also!! It was really good to see you guys so thank so much for a great few days.

From there a few hours drive to another spot to camp for the night in South Carolina and then home to Sunflower the next day, it was a great trip. Very interesting to see the countryside, a lot different than what I expected I just couldn't get over the greenness of the forests to the mountains it was all real pretty and completely different to the mainly dry west coast of Australia!! It's a big old country also with a lot of history that everyone is super proud of and wants to share which is real nice. And then there's the churches, I couldn't believe how many. There will be a tiny town and it will have at least 5+ churches one for each religion and race and a lot I have never heard of, I didn't realise how religious the US is. Then there's the cars, you are nobody in the country unless you have a V8 truck with a 6ltr engine, they're a dime a dozen burning fuel like crazy around the place with nothing in the back. We did 2400 miles and it cost us just $150 in fuel for our 2ltre car so fuel is unbelievably cheap. Yes it's a very diverse country from what we have seen from Miami to Ohio it has something for everyone!!

Now we are back we are all stocked up with nowhere to go!! Just waiting for the Hurricane season to end. Well we are actually anchored in the nicest little spot a few miles north of St Augustine all by ourselves in a very quiet little part of the ICW. It's great, just a short dingy ride in and a walk and we're at the beach which is real nice. We have been ticking a few jobs of the list and making some plans, the latest is refitting in Guatamala?? Maybe be there by the end of the year, who knows??!