Day to Early still a Dollar Short!!

After reviewing my first 3 posts I noticed that I was commenting on the day that I was writing. Using Howard's post as my guide figured that I need to mention what happened the day before.Not that anything exciting really happened either day.So, that being said you already read about my super exciting day yesterday. Doctor's appointment being the highlight of the day. Not to spoil tomorrows post but I slept all day today.

So with all that being said I thought that I would write about how this camping lifestyle became a dream for me. Well in the crib my parents while married had a pop-up and we would camp most weekends in the northeast. At the time we lived in the state of my birth New Jersey. Add joke _____ here. Of course with me being so young I do not remember to much . But I unfortunately I do recall a time that I innocently wandered off to play with a fellow camper kid.At the time I was probably 4 or somewhere like that. And believe it or not my Dad was not very happy with me after the relief of finding me. He borrowed a friend of his tent to take me in there and introduce my bottom to his belt. Well it was not a pleasant meeting as you can imagine. The fact that I still remember it 33 or so years later should tell you that I did not leave any bruises on the belt. The belt certainly won that encounter, That is not on the list of reasons of this lifestyle , but it is my first camping memory, so I thought I would share.

When I was around 10 years old my mother sold our house in Miramar,Fl and bought a motor home. This was two years after the divorce of my parent. My cousin Cory flew down to Florida from our destination Tucson, Arizona. On our trip we had many stops that got my traveling juices flowing. It was long enough ago that I do not remember any of the names of campgrounds, but I will share what I can. Of course, we had to take my cousin to Disney World in Orlando and all the fun stuff that area has to offer. We went to visit a lifelong friend of my sister Joy's in Marietta,Ga. She at the time was a student at the University of Georgia to become a chiropractor. It was the first time I was every adjusted and of course the snapping sounds your body makes freaked me out at that age. We stayed at this great campground right on a lake. We met this other family and ended up staying an extra week then we had planned. The on thing that really sticks out about that campground was the red clay. In Florida we just have dirt and mud so the red clay was very unique for me.

The next stop that sticks in my mind is in the smokey mountains in Cherokee North Carolina. We met up with a friend of my moms that she had known from our days in New Jersey. We got to do some of the tourist stuff like kids rides and games. Cory was around 13 at the time and her and my moms friend's son liked each other. I walked in on them kissing one night(seemed like a big deal at the time). The campground we stayed in was right in the middle of the mountains and i still have a mental picture .

After leaving North Carolina we headed to Nashville, TN. Once again we knew people there and ended up staying a month. I will never forget going on all the rides at OpryLand. Especially this big round tubed water ride, where a group of eight people sit on this big tube and splash all over the place. We were soaked, which did not bod well because we were suppose to go out to dinner after the park. So we went anyway to Shoney's Big Boy restaurant. The husband of the friend we were staying at was the manager. I still see the funny look on the peoples faces when we showed up all wet. They looked outside to see if there was some rainstorm that they did not hear.

After leaving Nashville we went to Memphis and did the whole Elvis thing. My next memory was in Dallas,TX. We went to the South Fork Ranch. Of course for any of you that remember Who Shot JR, also recall the show Dallas. It was a really neat experience to see a place that I had seen on TV. It was a big beautiful mansion in the middle of no where. The area around it had a bunch of really rundown shacks.

That was the last memory of our stops before getting to Tucson,AZ. I do think of how amazing it was to drive through the mountains. My mother and I lived in Tucson for about two years before moving back to Florida. I finished the sixth and seventh grade while there. We also had the chance to travel to California on a summer vacation. We went up to San Francisco which I loved because of the tour if Alcatraz. Down to LA LA land. I walked the stars and Rodeo Drive and loved all the sites. Then we finished up in San Diego. We went to Sea World and took in all the beautiful treasures of San Diego. I still think about how great the weather was while there. It is one place I hope to get back to on my own journeys.

Well these trips opened up something inside me. The opportunity to actual go to and experience places and things that you just hear of or see on TV. even writing this entry got my mind traveling on a highway somewhere in this vast and diverse country of ours. I look forward now to creating my own memories and meeting some wonderfull people along the way. Thank you for taking a trip down memory lane with me and I'll see you tomorrow.