Landwhale Travelogue Adventure #1.

I must confess. I own a whale.

Don't get excited. It's not the fairy kind that drops huge upvotes on posts, but the wallowing kind that you ride inside. A land whale.

Our 1999 motorhome that we bought last year has taken us on several trips already, both long and short. Look at how nice and green everything is as we set out from a BJs parking lot in South Florida.

This time around, we have a 1500 mile trip from Florida to Wisconsin, and we called upon the landwhale to brave the frozen wastelands of Wisconsin for the first time. And it brought a friend. A 2014 Ford Escape. Because there’s no way I’m going to saddle up the landwhale every time to go for groceries.

Day 1:

Near Lake City, FL, we stumbled around logging roads at 2am looking for a campground that didn’t exist. We passed a few group campsites that were superbly creepy in the mist, but they were full of tents. And creepyness. Some guy was standing there outside his tent watching us go by at 2am. No way in hell we were stopping there, even if a campsite was available. I wanted to take a picture, but I was worried he might have a shotgun. Or attack dogs. We moved on.

_{We camped overnight in a Walmart parking in Lake City, FL.}

_{Nice little view of trees in the morning. It was a quiet place to camp. Not bad!}

_{Our kitties sometimes like to sleep under the driver’s side seat. Nice little cubby there.}

Day 2:

Our second campsite was another Walmart parking lot that we rolled into at 10pm. This was in southern Illinois. It had rained ALL DAY while we were driving, and ended up as sleet at the end. The one good thing about having the overhead bunk overhanging the windshield is that you never have to scrape ice off your glass.

_{Bleah. Nasty.}

Day 3:

_{Yes. You know you’re not in Florida any more when you have to clean ice off the pump before you can pump gas.}

_{Our traveling kitties made their home in one of the RV cabinets. They survived the trip, but are not excited about the cold. They are naked, after all.}

We arrived in Wisconsin late in the afternoon of the third day. Cold. Friggin cold. -10F. Not unexpectedly, our car needed to be jumpstarted, and then unstrapped from the tow dolly, and the tow lights removed. I couldn’t feel my fingers by the time I was done.

Thus ends Landwhale Travelogue Adventure #1. Assuming we don't freeze to death in Wisconsin, we will be retreating back to South Florida in early January.

Images by @negativer

Whale clipart by Pixabay

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