St. Augustine, Florida

Today we got up and looked out and it was beautiful. Looks can be deceiving so Brock went out and stuck his finger in the air to see whether the winds were any lighter than they've been. He determined that they were. We still hadn't decided whether to try to move south or stay put again because Brock had a VERY busy workday today since all of his HTG documents and presentation were due to be turned in, plus all the normal work on his agenda. His board checking didn't go very quickly and that getting behind feeling started creeping up on him. He made the call to go ahead and move on since we really wanted to see St. Augustine, America's oldest continuously occupied city (settled by the Spanish in the 1500's) and we are running out of time before we need to be in Orlando for Brock's conference.

Our normal morning stuff completed, we moved into action to check out by the campground's checkout time, which is 11 am. At about 10:40 when we were just about to get the Yukon and trailer hooked up together, Brock asked Bri to check the tire pressures and wouldn't you know it, the same tire was very low again. Argh. We checked at the office to let them know that we'd be checking out a little late and then headed back to the establishment that Brock visited yesterday. The business owner was there and checked in with the guy who'd done the work yesterday. It seemed he just hadn't checked the recommended PSI rating since we are pretty heavy duty and had only inflated the tire to 40 when the other was around 70. That was a relief that the tire wasn't still leaking (we hope) that it had just been underinflated. The owner had us move so he could spray the area with soapy water and it didn't bubble so hopefully we are good. It is a good thing that Brock is anal about checking everything. I'm sure if it is still leaking we will find out soon enough.

Now, fairly stressed due to the amount of time spent on unplanned activity, we got on the highway headed to St. Augustine. We drove a short while and crossed over the Florida border and stopped at the first rest area because Brock had a call to make. We decided to go ahead and eat lunch while we were there. Brock's intended call never really happened since there were other issues that needed his attention with clients' servers being down and he ended up working there until about 2:45 when we got back on the road.

A couple of scary things happened on the drive. It was still fairly windy and so Brock had to pretty much stay tense the whole time. Secondly, right as we were coming in to the Jacksonville area (big city) an ambulance came up and passed us on our right on the shoulder. It really scared both of us because by the time we heard the sirens and Brock started to brake and pull over, the vehicle was right next to us. It really made my heart race. The ambulance got off at the next exit which was I guess his reasoning, but it sure seemed like a good way to make his own situation needing an ambulance. I was thankful for God's protection and Brock's good reaction time.

We drove to our intended campground, St. John's RV Park, a Passport America park that would have been within our budget. We didn't have reservations; I'd tried to call earlier during the drive, but their off season office hours would keep the office closed until right about the time we planned to arrive so we just chanced it. For the first time, that didn't pay off since we pulled in and saw a very full park that had no vacancies. The manager explained that there is a Good Sam Rally in Daytona Beach coming up. Doh! We didn't even think about that. Thankfully, she recommended another park that was just up the road which I'd looked at on rvparkreviews.com too, and it had decent reviews. She allowed us to call them from the office to make sure they had a space and they did. Hooray! Only drawback is that they aren't Passport America and they charged us extra for the kids and when all was calculated the price is WAY over our nightly budget goal, but oh well. It's a nice park, full hookups, and we're tucked into some trees away from the main road, but we're actually really close to the freeway entrance too.

By the time we got set up in our spot, Brock immediately went back to work and the kids and I finished up our school work. We didn't finish until very late in the day and I had to make dinner. Brock was still plugging away on his HTG stuff. The kids were pretty bummed that we didn't get to participate in any of the festive traditions that we sometimes do on Halloween. We didn't find a pumpkin patch. We didn't carve a pumpkin. We didn't trick or treat. We didn't find a harvest festival to attend. Most disappointing, we didn't get to hangout with our extended family like we usually do and we didn't get to wish Grandpa Ray a happy birthday in person, though the kids made him some silly videos. We love you, Dad!

Both Spence and Sky are already feeling a little better with their colds, but unfortunately, now Brynna is feeling puny. God-willing, she will also feel better quickly. Tomorrow, hopefully, we'll tour some very old forts and look around this very historical place.

Since I still don't have any good pictures to post, I'm going to try to upload Spencer's memory verse video from last week. It is hilarious. I couldn't watch it without "cry laughing" as the kids call it. He learned the whole chapter without any help from me just using his CD that is scheduled with his curriculum for this year. He came up with all the motions by himself and didn't want me watching even when practicing. He was very shy about me watching him make this recording, so I didn't, but now that it's recorded and he doesn't have to watch us watch him, he said he wanted me to upload to youtube. LOL (Uncle George, he wants you to pay attention to his muscles and wants you to know he's been working out.)