With a wonderful run at the Arizona Renaissance festival complete, Georgia is only a few short days away. But first one last trip to Florida! Our summer tour keeps us in the Midwest until October so I always try to hit the Sunshine state once more to visit family and soak up a bit more Florida sun! This year was no different.
We shot across the country on I-10 very easily. Not having the RV with us made the trip much faster. We didn’t have to fuel up as often and could travel at higher speeds. We were able to make one stop to visit friends without really costing us much time either. (There weren’t any ice storms like on the way west)
Once in Florida, we picked up the RV from storage and set up house at our favorite RV Park. We had two weekends off, after all. We had to put them to good use. Very rarely during the year do we get weekends off. This would be a great opportunity to visit my Dad and squeeze another Disney World trip in before making the 7 hour drive to Atlanta.
It’s always great to see my Dad and Stepmom.  After this visit, we don’t hit Florida till October.  And, my Dad loves to see Mia. We actually got to visit a couple times and my Dad got to see the RV for the first time.
Jes has an Aunt and Uncle from Minnesota that winter in the Orlando area. They offered to babysit Mia for a day so we could stay late at one of the parks “sans munchkin.†We gleefully accepted! Anyone with kids knows how hard it is to have adult time. In addition to the babysitting offer, they also bought us season passes to the Disney parks!!! OMG, what a generous gift! Thank you!
We intended to stay only one night in Orlando, but ended up extending our trip to 3 days total since we were having such a good time and the season passes afforded us entrance to all the parks as much as we wanted. We even went to multiple parks in the same day. What a great time!
One other thing we got to do while in Florida was visit the Bay Area Renaissance Festival. It’s the fair that the Tortuga Twins were born at! It starts later than Arizona and runs one week later. The Blue Team is performing there so I thought I’d surprise them and hand deliver their paychecks!
It was great to visit the festival in Tampa. I have so many friends and so much history there. I started working at that fair when I was 17 after all. It was cool to show Jes the fair where we got our start. I couldn’t even pay for a beer! There was always someone nearby that wanted to buy me one for old time’s sake. Who was I to argue? This was Mia’s first chance to play patron kid at fair too. We cut her loose to play in the dirt as much as she wanted. (We had never done that before) It was great to catch up with old friends and catch a buzz as a patron at a fair. (Again, something that rarely happens)
After our visits and park hopping it was time to make our way to Georgia. It was a mere 7 hour drive to the Georgia Renaissance Festival site. That might seem like a long drive to you but anything under 1000 miles is a quick commute to us.
That drive went by in what seemed like minutes. (Jes in the SUV with Mia following me might not agree) Once on site we got parked and started leveling and setting up our house. Time once again to get comfortable for the next 8 weeks. Hopefully we won’t have the weather issues we had last year. Talk to ya in May!
