Goodbye Motorhome

With ‘fingers crossed’ the motorhome would sell, we rented a house in St Augustine Beach for our last month on the East Coast.  It was a really cute little beach house, only 100 metres from the beach, restaurants in walking distance and most importantly a parking spot for the motorhome.  It took us close to 2-3 days to unload the motorhome, which reconfirmed our decision to ship our excess ‘baggage’ home.

3A Street, St Augustine

Our walk to the beach, just a hop, skip and jump

The motorhome sold within 4 days of moving into the house, so we were pleased that we were all ready to pass it on to the new owner.  This also coincided with Richard’s gall bladder incision becoming infected.  So off to the hospital again for Rich, courtesy of an ‘overkill’ of their ambulance service, which included the arrival of two rescue vehicles (more like fire engines) and 7 rescue crew!  It took Rich almost 2 weeks to recover from the infection.  During this period, the new owner – Jim, picked up the motorhome.   Over the next couple of days whenever Chloe was upset she would ask to go home to the motorhome and we would have to remind her, the motorhome was gone.  Now she says, ‘the motorhome’s gone, Jim’s got it’ and she’s happy to go back ‘home’ to the house.

We also rented a car – a twin cab ute.  As you can see nothing is small here in America.  We needed the ute to take our ‘excess baggage’ (four large boxes) up to Jacksonville where they will be shipped to Melbourne.  You are allowed to drive your car on the beach here in St Augustine, so of course we did.  I think Rich was quickly becoming attached to his ‘truck’.

Big Big Big Car

We explored the ‘old town’ a few times.  We visited the oldest masonry fort in America – Castillo de San Marco, walked through the historic centre, lined with many old buildings from various periods, including the oldest wood school house in the USA.   The town also contains many Spanish Colonial Buildings as well as some extravagant 19^th Century Architecture, thanks to millionaire Henry Flagler, who upon holidaying in St Augustine in the late 1800’s, found the town wanting in hotel facilities.  So he built his own, the Ponce de Leon Hotel, which is now part of Flagler College.

Kids running amuck at coffee shop!

Oldest Wood School House in USA

Streets of St Augustine

Ponce de Leon Hotel - now Flagler College

Most of our days were spent either on the beach or playing minigolf, depending on the weather.

 

The most elaborate mini-golf we've ever seen

St Augustine, Florida

From Jacksonville we headed south only one hour away to St Augustine on the coast.  We decided to base ourselves here while we had the motorhome for sale.  St Augustine is a popular tourist destination, being the oldest continuously occupied European city in the U.S. since 1565.   Therefore if we were here for a while, we had both beaches and interesting tourist sites to explore.  Not sure if the kids would agree, but there was also mini-golf!

For the first week and a half, we stayed at three of RV Parks in St Augustine.  The first RV Park was situated right on the beach, fantastic location, however at first glance we weren’t impressed.  It looked like something left over from the 70’s in small coastal towns of Australia.  It contained many permanent mobile homes on sandy sites.  

By the time we did the rounds of the other RV Parks, we actual came back to this one and decided it was pretty good.  We realised the permanent sites were holiday homes so it wasn’t as ‘down and out’ as first appeared.  Plus the kids loved the playground, it had a huge pool that we had to ourselves and it was a hop, skip and jump to the beach – we’re obviously getting fussy!!

Luke's first camera shot - thumb and all!

Huge pool - all to ourselves!

Halloween was approaching, so the decorations were appearing around town.  Luke was starting to get excited about the ‘candy’. 

Most supermarkets had some type of ‘kiddie’ trolley, which we nicknamed the ‘amazing’ trolley.  On first seeing one many months ago, I said ‘wow, that’s amazing’ as I envisaged the kids happily sitting there the entire shopping expedition, which of course didn’t happen.  So I would be left pushing these huge trolleys around the aisles with the kids running amuck.  But the name stuck, so every time we went to a supermarket, Luke would always ask – is there an ‘amazing’ trolley.

Jacksonville, Florida

Ten days after his operation Rich felt well enough to move on.  We had been at the same RV Park for 3 weeks and we all needed a change of scenery.  We were very grateful to the RV Park owners in Brunswick who had been extremely kind and helpful.

RV Park Brunswick

We headed south and crossed the border into Florida.  We stayed in Jacksonville, one of the largest cities in Florida.  We had a few logistics to sort out, like selling the RV, organising flights to the West Coast and shipping our ‘acquired goods’ home. Rich kept reminding me how much easier it would be just to put everything on a yacht and sail home – yea right!

The RV Park had a good internet connection, so great for re-organising our life but also had a playground for the kids, a pool and even a lake beach with a stage! 

We took some photos of the inside of the RV for the ebay ad, so here’s a look at our home for the last 7 months.

Dining room and lounge all in one!

Love the bench space!!!

Sightseeing in Brunswick, Georgia

Between inspecting boats and hospital visits, we did manage to do some sightseeing around Brunswick, pre and post operation.

We did a few day trips to St Simon Island, about 30 minutes from the RV Park.  It had a great park for the kids, mini golf and a maritime theme with the St Simon Lighthouse – something for everyone.  It was a lovely quaint village, no large shopping malls, just small antique shops, boutiques and cafes.  It reminded us a little bit of home, like places such as Apollo Bay or Sorrento on a smaller scale.

We also discovered a fabulous frozen yogurt shop, where you make your own and therefore can have as much or as little as you like.  It was great for monitoring the ‘kid quantity’ size.  Let’s just say I’m not quite sure the word ‘small’ is in the American vocab when it comes to food.  Even Luke’s eyes have popped out of his head on many occasions when he has seen the size of his ice-cream!

There was also another tourist spot close by – Jekyll Island.  The island is full of wildlife, great flat beaches on the east side and tidal marshland on the west.  It also has a historic district with buildings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  

The most impressive being the Jekyll Island Club Hotel first built in 1888 for exclusive club membership only by many of the world’s wealthiest families at the time – Morgans, Rockerfellers and Vanderbilts.  It is now listed as a Historic Landmark and run as a luxury resort.