On The Road Again

Osprey Cove RV Park
US Naval Station -- Mayport
Mayport, FL
GPS: 30.378405, -81.404034

Departure day finally arrived. We've spent the last week shutting down the house and getting the Cougar ready to travel.

"What's the big deal? You've done this before.", you say.

Yes, we have. But it has been two years, the house we are leaving is different, and our worldly possessions have changed -- both in the house and in the Cougar. The Cougar has aged just sitting for over a year, and I found several problems resulting from inactivity that needed to be fixed. Finally, our mode of travel will be different this year than in the past. This year our stops will be one week, not three months. That alone made me reconsider taking many items. We got it all done -- except what we forgot -- and we rolled out at 9:30 AM.

I've been planning this trip for over two years and I thought everyone was familiar with what we are doing. Those who follow the blog may not be, so let me synopsize what we are up to.

Our trip focuses on the "The Great River Road" which is the scenic byway running the length of the Mississippi River. We plan to follow it from New Orleans, LA to Lake Itasca, MN. I laid out the trip in roughly 150-mile increments with a seven day stop at each place. Considering a 75-mile radius around each stop, lets me visit every interesting location along the river.

There are two other parts of the trip. First getting from Titusville to New Orleans, then getting from Minnesota back to Titusville. I'm working on those legs.

Today we traveled to Jacksonville, FL, just 149 miles and three and a half hours.

We pulled into our first stop, Osprey Cove RV Park, at 1:00 PM.

The US Naval Station-Mayport has two RV parks for military travelers – Pelican Roost and Osprey Cove. They are close together and operated out of the same office.

Today was really hot, so getting the Cougar set up and the A/C running had top priority. Thank goodness things went smoothly and uneventful. With that finished, we went to the office at Pelican Roost to register, which gave us a chance to look the place over. This naval station is right at the mouth of the St Johns River. Our brief drive around the station revealed an aircraft carrier and several smaller ships (destroyers, I think) docked here.

For dinner, we found a Thai restaurant in a nearby shopping center, had a nice meal, then turned in early. It felt good to be sleeping in the Cougar again.

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