New Year's Eve!


We decided New Years eve would be a fun time to head in the check out Key West. I have never been there before, but expected something similar to Provincetown. Of course, it was about, hmmm... Noon when the thought struck that maybe the restaurants
will be crowded..ya think? We had no information on hand about restaurants in Key West, so.... I gave our friend Shawn
back in Rochester a ring on the cell phone.. "Are you near your computer?" Thankfully - Shawn did some internet research
and a few cell phone calls and we got the last reservation for Mangia Mangia for the evening. Our own concierge! So after the afternoon siesta and showers - we drove into Key West just in time for our reservation. After dinner - we walked around Duval street on Key West. Eric and I ended up heading back to the campsite early because I started feeling rather ill right after dinner.
Brian and Greg met up with some friends and decided to hang out for the evening in town.

Bahia Honda State Park


A very nice park - we did a little poking around this morning. The vacation mode is setting in and no one got up until
10 or so. Our neighbors, on the other hand, all got up early to watch the sunrise. Everyone had their camp chair lined up on the road in from of their campsite and seemed to be happy spending the early morning watching the sunrise. We planned to cook each morning for breakfast while we are here, but the vacation mood is definitely setting in. Apparently, whoever is out of bed first is the morning cook. So.. I heard a lot of snoring this morning when I got up. Later we took some pictures of the campsites that we were hoping to get. They offer a little more shade and electricity.



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We were up late tonight cooking dinner. Greg made a peach cobbler in the Dutch oven for dessert.

Off to the Keys!

Out early this morning for a long trip to the Keys. Brian and Greg got ahead of us quickly
[ I do not drive the van faster than 65 ] Eric was doing very well today with his manual stick shift driving
lessons. We even hit some stop and go traffic were he did not stall the car and did some nice 1st gear
Takeoffs! Learning to “goose the sweet spot” on the clutch seemed to help him a lot. However – the real test was to come! We missed a extension exit on the turnpike and promptly found ourselves dumped onto the I95 downtown Miami in rush hour. We quickly took a side route past the airport to get back on the turnpike – but Eric definitely had some trial by fire with a stop and go highway traffic by the airport. Once we got clear of that – we headed down route 1 to Key Largo from Florida city. Driving the Keys is frustrating in that once you are on Key Largo – you think the rest are not far down the road, yet an hour later.....you still only half way down. By this time, the sun was setting and we seemed to be passing a lot of neat views so we stopped to take a few pictures, I wanted to get a dramatic picture of the van on the keys.

After which we continued on past Marathon to Bahia Honda State park, which is just past the 7 mile bridge. We got to camp after the sun went down and spent 2[?] hours with brian and greg setting up camp.
Note: do not plan complicated cooking the night of arrival.
After camp was set up, we started cooking sticky rice and chicken stir fry. All good - but we finished at 11:00pm! During dinner - some neighbors stopped by - a couple from Michigan. They spotted the Vanagon pulling in and wanted to come over to say hello. Their vanagon was not running well - so they left in at home for this trip, but they really liked my van Chilipepper. They said they have used the vanagon.com website before - so i told them to keep an eye out for my write up of the trip. After raccoon-proofing the campsite and looking at a scorpion next to our van, we headed to bed.

Orlando here we come!

We got a fairly early start the next morning and headed right through Jacksonville Florida on our way to Orlando. This was about the time I noticed that the van seemed to idling strangely after a long run on the highway. I figured that the Digital Idle stabilizer must be going south - Since I already had trouble getting the van warmed up in the cold. Hopefully not a serious issue for the trip. We rolled into Orlando around 3 and made it through the city center on route 4 before rush hour. We were headed to Greg's house [ Brian's twin brother ] As it turns out - Greg lives right next to Universal studios in Orlando. We met Brian and Greg's father before he headed back to Tampa and then Brian and Greg headed over to the airport to get a rental car.
Later that evening we headed out to dinner and went shopping for camping food at SuperTarget and Walmart.

Dollar Duz It

We headed out of Fredericksburg fairly early and made good time to North Carolina. We saw lots of Billboards for outlet shopping on 95 – so we picked one to stop at for lunch. They had a Carhart and a Wrangler outlet. That’s when we found the local dollar store chain entitled “Dollar duz it” We also stopped in a Western wear outlet and discovered Eric looks great in a Stetson! [ hmmm...future gift possibly] We ended up at a Cigarette and Wrangler jeans outlet. Strange place – but they had a neat Cigar room and I picked up some extra jeans.

We started driving after the shopping and drove right through to Georgia. Trying to avoid fast food for dinner – we stopped just outside Savannah at a cracker barrel. I formerly avoided this restaurant chain due to their discriminatory hiring practices, but they changed their hiring policies 2 years ago. So now – It is one of my favorite starch-overload restaurants. Eating there causes idrowsinesswsyness and puts me to sleep in less than an hour after leaving.

There was a Comfort inn right behind the restaurant when we finished – so we crashed there
For the night.

Here we go!

We headed out this morning around 8 and made pretty good time out of New York. I was concerned about getting out of any potential weather [ The Vanagon is terrible in snow ] We made fairly good time and hit the Washington Beltway around 2:30.
I thought we were doing pretty well but we hit a traffic jam on the lower east side of 495 by the river and ended up spending
2+ hours in creeping traffic. My clutch leg was numb! Traffic remained heavy on South 95 out of the capital almost all the way to Richmond. I was hoping to make it halfway through North Carolina today but no luck. I was stressing about it and Eric had to keep reminding me that we were on **vacation** and there was in fact no hurray. Good point. We called it a night near Fredericksburg. After grabbing some Chinese food - We stopped by Target to pick up supplies that I inadvertently left at home. Afterwards - We crashed at a hotel nearby.

Christmas morning, my brother Jim, his daughter Grace and my father came over to my sister Kristins house with gifts and we sat down with Kristin and Mark and my nieces Carolyn, Anna and nephew James to unwrap gifts. I always am the event cameraman, and never hesitate to add commentary to the video tape regarding gifts [ Especially if they involve Barbie in any way..] Right after lunch, Eric and I headed back to Syracuse to his folks house to celebrate Christmas with his family. His older brother John and his wife were in town with their newborn [May?] son Noah. What a hoot! A very happy baby. I pulled all the standard uncle-overstimulation-moves on him and he seemed very entertained. [definitely a keeper in my book....] After dinner Eric and I headed out to a hotel nearby. We actually did not make it out of the driveway at first. I left the stereo in the vanagon on the day before when we parked it [doh!] and it would not start. So after a jump - we headed over to the hotel. Eric reserved a jacuzzi suite! woo! woo! A nice way to finish Christmas day

Eric and I spent the holiday hustling around New York State a bit. After celebrating the holiday with my roommate Gabe here in Rochester, we drove the van loaded with camping equipment over to leave at Eric's folks house and pick up the next day. from there we headed down in Eric's car to my hometown Owego to spend Christmas eve with my family. My sister Kristin was helping to coordinate the Christmas pageant at church that evening for the Mass - so we all went to the 4:30 Mass to see my nieces and nephew in the pageant. Afterwards, we headed over to my dad's to hang out and eat pizza. My friend's Burt and Mary were in town for the holiday as well, so they stopped over to visit. Christmas eve ended very late at my sister's house quietly "getting ready for Santa"

Next year I think anyone in the house still eager for Santa needs to be in bed by 4:30 [ that's all I am saying.... ]

I have been planning on creating a blog for a while now - but never seemed to find the time or event. So I figured i would start
one to document Eric and I's big Holiday trip. We started planning this trip well over a year ago when I became fixated on the idea of spending New Year's near a beach. I had some idea of a pig roast, a ukelele and fireworks. My friend Brian Porter was quickly ensnared in the plan as we searched for the perfect camping spot somewhere warm that we could drive my VW camper.
As it turned out - we quickly settled on Bahia Honda State park in the Florida Keys. Beautiful Park with very nice campsites right on the beach. I figured this would be the best destination for our trip and started looking to make resevations. HA! It never strikes me that maybe OTHER people may stumble across these bright ideas before i do.. So of course, here I am trying to make a reservation for a beach campsite at what turned out to be the most publicized camping ground in the United States. [ Thanks L.L. Bean!] Oh yeah...I wanted to have one their seven best sites on New Years too. So 2004 was out because they book a year in advance....So Brian and I teamed up last year in January and Brian managed to nab a site for New Years. All of the previous summer i was occupied with making sure the van was running well to keep the trip car drama free. I was mostly successful [ more later..] So unlike previous years where i put the van away in the fall before the cold weather - I kept the van out to get it ready for the trip - which mostly consisted of carefully packing it and getting the oil changed.