And now, the end is near

Hello again.

We are back in Vero Beach (which always has me singing "Vero Beach, far away in time; Vero Beach, far away in time". One for the oldies, there). This is our last stint of dog-sitting before we head back to New Hampshire where it all started 11 months ago. It is probably the last blog unless I get around to doing a highlights blog when I get home.

My brain is getting so full (or it's leaking like a sieve) that I have to take notes to remind me where we've been and what we've seen.

The dog sitting was a breeze - the three dogs were all well-behaved and didn't need too much sitting so we got to explore Vero Beach. We then headed north ad the first stop was Titusville and the Police Museum.

  

We did see another gator just cruising around his pond

It seems like a lifetime since I ran up a hill so I got up early one morning to run up and down a bridge to get my legs ready for a return to the Ribble Valley. The view from the top was worth the effort and if you squint you can see the launch platform at Cape Canavaral in the background.

Next stop was St Augustine, the oldest city in the USA. And what a beautiful city it is. There's a fabulous fort and some spectacular architecture

And pirates

The marketing director of this company might need to rethink the brand image

I struggled to choose which yacht to buy so I didn't buy either

Onto Florida's biggest city, Jacksonville. I'm sure it is nice when the sun shines but it was quite grey and misty for us. The street art was good

But the highlight (as well as watching Free Solo at the cinema - highly recommended unless you're scared of heights) was Sunday lunch buffet at a most unpromising establishment. This was proper finger-licking good food - fried chicken, ribs, shrimp, plantains, fried green tomatoes, pancakes, rice and beans. I didn't eat for a week after.

Art, the chef, hard at work

We have a new favourite place - Fernandina Beach, right at the northern tip of Florida. It's got history, culture and it's right on the ocean.

And then we nipped over the border to Georgia for a couple of nights. They've got nice beaches

and armadillos

The final stop on our trip was Tavares. Apparently the Seaplane Capital of the USA. I only saw 4 seaplanes so that doesn't say much for the rest of the USA. And it's nowhere near the sea. I did get to look at one up close

But it wasn't as nice as the motorbike in Mount Dora

Florida appears to be full of old people and they've booked up a lot of the campgrounds so we've been forced to stay in motorway rest areas

and we had our first Cracker Barrel experience. Cracker Barrel is a chain of restaurants that appears to be one of the busiest places on earth. There was a queue out of the door but the service was so swift and efficient we were soon fed watered and back out of the door in about 20 minutes. The car park was very comfortable. And free.

And that's us up to date.

We are here until Tuesday and then we'll be pointing the RV north and look to be back in New Hampshire before the end of March. We'll be stopping at Savannah and Charleston on the way up.

I can't believe it's nearly over.