We are home! We were gone 52 days, drove 5723 miles, visited 14 states, and walked 201 miles. Denny drove every single one of them since he is a bad passenger and a worse navigator and I excel at both! I just hope I remember how to drive now that we are home :)
It was 3 degrees when we got up this morning but it was nice to be home and the kitties missed us :) I can't believe how much our kitten grew! He is a very big boy now.
We leave on March 19th for Italy with my sister Fran and her husband Jack, and will return on April 1st. I hope spring has arrived by then! There won't be any Italy blogs because I don't want to lug a heavy laptop along but we will have an ipad.
The blog is done for now but will resume when we take our next RV trip to Mt Rushmore and the Badlands July 20th. Hope you can join us!

We ran into heavy rain and fog in Cincinnati and all the way to Columbus. We had a nice visit with the Grove City Briggeman's (at least a few of them). The winter storm warning last night only left an inch of snow, so we are on the road again this morning. There will be one last post from this trip when we get home safely, probably on Friday ....if the weather holds.

On Thursday we moved to Gulf Islands National Seashore, Fort Pickens park, in Pensacola Florida. It is the opposite end of a group of barrier islands that go from Mississippi to Florida and make up the National Seashore Park. We stayed in the Mississippi park a week or so ago. Like all of the parks along this stretch of the coast, the sand looks like snow. This park has an old civil war fort that was mostly open to the public and very interesting. It was actually held by the north but surrounded by troops from the south!

Doesn't that look like snow drifts?

Testing the water in Pensacola, may have to have a few toes amputated from frostbite :)

It is surrounded by water, so Denny and I decided to walk to the point and back down the other side. Turned out to be 10.5 miles of beach walking in very windy conditions. The sun came out though and we were able to shed our outer layer.






 
On our walks we came across these guys, an armadillo and a dead starfish.

The sun sets on Pensacola and our vacation as we start a week long trek toward home. But first, we will make stops to visit some of our favorite people, our relatives!

Bastuba kitchen with Becky, Jay, Jacky and Andy

Sunset over the Gulf of Mexico, Pensacola