Goin' Places --->: We have arrived!

We left Monday, February 4th for our drive down to Florida. It was -1 degrees when we left! Was hard saying goodbye to everyone but once we got on the road, we started to feel the freedom bug and it was feeling pretty good. Our first drive was an 8 hour trip to Kentucky. Thankfully, the Jeep was working wonderfully!! We got to Marc's Marine Core friend's home about 7pm. When we got out of the car, they had 4 gigantic steaks on the grill just about done to perfection! It was a wonderful suprise. Also, Asparagus, amazing baked potatoes, corn bread.. YUM!! Was so delicious! Marc got to catch up with Rich, and we met his fiance Jessica and sweet little girl Olivia. They made us feel so welcome it was definitely hard to leave!

The next day, we headed out to Sammie and Jeremiah's. It was only a 2-hr trip which was surprising! We got there and Sammie and Jeremiah created a delicious chicken dinner meal, and Mom came over too to eat. Sammie FINALLY got to open all her Christmas presents from Dad! Was fun watching her and she was very happy. We ended up having such a good time that we stayed another night!! Jeremiah showed us a little bit about his job and Marc and Jeremiah enjoyed playing video games while Sam and I played "Would you Rather". They made us another amazing meal and Sammie introduced us to their yogurt smoothies which were delicious!! In the morning, Jeremiah had us shoot at cans with a 22. and a muzzle loader which was pretty fun :) I wasn't the best shot and I blamed it on my glasses!~

Then we got back into the Jeep and drove for 5 hours to see our good friend, Free from the A.T. He was in Georgia. We had a great dinner at a little bar and lots of talk (Mostly about how we couldn't eat the same as we could just a few months before!) and then we got to meet his parents and see their beautiful home. If we would have had more time, it would've been amazing to stay there longer! Everyone was so welcoming and kind :) It was cool because a photo I took of Free hung in the kitchen of their home. I felt pretty proud to have something I took all the way in a home in Georgia!

After that, we had another 8 hour trip to Florida. We ended up meeting two other trail friends, Blue Sky and Gerber just a couple hours North of Fort Lauderdale. We had a great time catching up, eating, talking about what everyone was up to. Before we left, we had a nice breakfast at a little cow-themed breakfast diner. Reminded me of Wisconsin for sure!

Then we finally only had a four hour drive to Fort Lauderdale. It was a pretty calm drive, and there was even a camper that had overturned on the road and fortunately for us, it was on the opposite side of the road. All of the traffic was backed up for at least three miles, people were sitting on their hoods! And it didn't look like it was going to be any time soon that they were able to get out of there.

We got to our destination, and it was absolutely shocking how beautiful it is here! The place we are staying has water right outside of the building, it's a safe community and it has pools, gym and more! We are lucky to stay but are definitely hoping to find work not to put our friends out for too long! :) It is beautiful here though for sure!

I had my first STCW training course today, so far so good!! Can't wait to have the whole week done :) Will try and keep everyone informed as much as I can!

-Dana

Some PICS from our drive down! Will have to get some of our place up soon!