RV photos

Sorry it's taken so long - Mike was going to do this but is still in DC so I'll post what I can find. Sorry, I have no idea of specs! They're pretty self explanatory. Excuse the mess!

Karen

Hi I'm back from Washington now and so here is some more specs for those thirsty for detail:

It is called a Class "C" RV, sleeps 6-8, is 29ft long and 8ft wide, 12-13ft height clearance. It is an Automatic, petrol V-10 engine with a 55gal fuel tank (we are averaging around 250 miles per tank). There is an excellent gas heating system and a very large fridge, the plumbing system is also quite excellent. On the downside the space seems huge but the layout is not great and the internal storage is mostly sacrificed for external storage which is cavernous. The sound system is abismal as are the rattles, and some minor leaks with rain. Our family business used to be manfacturing motorhomes and campervans in Australia, sadly nothing much has improved since 1989 and in many cases is nowhere near as good as what we used to build in Australia. Gripes aside it is a really terrific way to travel with a large family and I'm enjoying playing my role as (Robin Williams - R.V; Nigel Thornberry - The Wild Thornberrys).

You can find more info on the specific RV we are driving by following this link - http://www.campingworld.com/rvrentals/Motorhomes/ Scroll down till you find the J-29former life our family business

Michael

The Florida Keys

When we started planning this trip 10 years ago we let our imaginations run wild and thought up all the places in the world we’d like to see. One of Michael’s desires was to go down to the Florida Keys and drive on the 7 mile bridge where the bridge goes to the horizon and beyond. Today, we did that.

The Keys are a chain of coral islands which are off the end of Florida. They have been connected with bridges all the way to Key West (which is closer to Cuba than mainland USA!) We drove down about 2/3 of the way, through Key Largo and Islamonda and dozens of tiny Keys and over lots of bridges. Often the water was on both sides of the road, only a few metres from the edge of the road, the Gulf of Mexico on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. After lunch at a park by the ocean at Key Largo and a few hours driving, we came to our bridge.

As far as the eye could see, it was bridge. It went for ages. A truly amazing thing, and we’re so thankful we were able to do it.

Tonight we’re camped just south of the bridge in an RV park on Long Pine Key. Our 30 ft RV is dwarfed by the other vans here. Most people have their van, also a sports car, a jetski, a full outdoor furniture setting, a golf cart and a boat. Not us! We have lines full of wet swimmers outside our van and not much else. But, we reckon we’re some of the most content people here – we paddled in the crystal clear, blue Gulf of Mexico today, we finally drove over our bridge, and we are so thankful to God who has made all we are seeing.

Karen

On the road again...

We picked up our RV yesterday, and hit the open road after 2 weeks in Orlando. We went east, out to the coast where we saw the space shuttle launch (see Mike’s separate post!) and had dinner with our friends Kelly, Jeff and Wyatt. We even enjoyed pumpkin pie for dessert!
After dinner we decided to make some headway into our trip south so bundled the boys into the RV and set off into the dark. The shuttle had launched 3 hours before yet there was still gridlock – amazing that so many people had come out to watch it. We did some tricky back street driving (especially tricky in a 30 ft vehicle) and avoided much of the traffic.
After nearly 2 hours of driving we were all exhausted so pulled into an all night rest stop to spend our first night in the van. The truck rest stops are patrolled by armed security guards so we felt pretty safe (although the boys were scared of being shot if they went to the toilet in the night!) Not a great night’s sleep – besides a cranky Aidan with temps of 39.2 degrees, we had huge trucks coming and going all night. So an early morning and off we went, on the road again…
Karen