Another change of plans…

We’ll depart Pensacola on January 2nd.

WE’VE DONE IT AGAIN. We’ll remain in Pensacola through January 2nd, and then we’ll take off and put Pensacola RV Park in our rear view mirror. We’ve loved staying here and feel a real attachment to our park hosts and others we’ve met here, but it’s time to go. You may recall that last October I announced our plans, but they’ve changed. One of the nice things about RV travel is that we’re not tied to an itinerary and are free to change plans whenever we wish. So, we’ve decided that until Spring it will just be too cold to go where we’d planned. Being life-long southern Californians, we’re not used to cold weather and don’t really want to learn to live with it. So here goes with our revised plan…in a nutshell, we’re headed south.

I’m going to show you some alligators in just a few weeks.

FAIRHOPE, ALABAMA. Our first brief stop will be in the little town of Fairhope, not far from the beaches at Gulf Shores, another part of the Emerald Coast we’ve so enjoyed along the Gulf of Mexico. Fairhope is home to about 16,000 folks, and is located on sloping plateau along the cliffs and shoreline of Mobile Bay. The town boasts lots of shops, boutiques and restaurants and offers sweeping views of panoramic Mobile Bay. We’re hoping to capture some of those panoramas with our new video cameras so we can really show you around the area. The Mobile, Spanish, Tensaw, Apalachee and Blakeley rivers flow into Mobile Bay and there’s a half-mile boardwalk called “Gator Alley” where I’m determined to finally get some good photos of alligators. For those of you who’ve followed us for a while, you’ll remember my frustration at not finding as many of these creatures in the past as I’d hoped, starting April last year when we arrived in the South.

Municipal Pier at Fairhope, Alabama.

View of downtown Fairhope, Alabama.

TAMPA AND ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA. After our brief stay in Fairhope, we’ll set sail back to Florida but this time to the city of Tampa, where we’ll spend a couple of months in the same RV park as our new Canadian friends Ben and Suzanne. The weather will be more like we’re used to having back home in San Diego. Tampa’s winter temperatures range from the low to mid 70’s during the day to the mid 50’s at night.

Ybor City is center to Tampa’s Latin community.

A BIG CITY. Tampa is a large city with a population well over four million people. There will plenty to see and do to keep us busy. The city is home to industry, professional sports teams, cultural arts and museums. One part of the city distinguishes it from other large cities: It’s called Ybor City and is the center of Tampa’s Latin community. At one point, the Ybor cigar factory was the largest in the world with over 4,000 people hand-rolling more than 900,000 cigars a month.

Pensacola is in the panhandle, at the upper left of the map. We’ll be moving to Tampa, located in the central part of the sate. St Petersburg is close by and will give us lots of things to see and do after we’ve explored Tampa.

Downtown Tampa, Florida.

St. Petersburg, nicknamed “Sunshine City”  is known for its pleasant weather, making it popular for golfing, boating, fishing and beachgoing. Its waterfront parks host the Dali Museum, featuring surrealist works of art, the Museum of Fine Arts, with works ranging from ancient to contemporary and Mahaffey Theater, home of the Florida Orchestra.

AND NEXT SPRING? After winter passes and things warm up, our plans are undecided. But Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee all beckon.

I’ll continue my story next time.