Road Trip ~ Florida Back Home To Arizona

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

Continuing on from the accompanying thread, Catching You Up With Kaneohegirlinaz …

LET'S MOTOR!

We left Key West Florida, heading back to the Mainland on the Overseas Highway,
WOW!
That is really something.

Our destination was back to our Nephew's home outside of Tampa, FL for a short stay and then back to traveling.

He must have been reading my mind, because :

A) I wanted to eat a home cooked meal

and

B) PASTA!







YUM!
You know us well Mike …
A huge bowl of Spaghetti with all the trimmings, thank you.





The next morning, our Niece-In-Law made us breakfast, Uncle's favorite.



She and I then went out for a Girls-Only-Day-Out of lunch at Ruby Tuesday, which we don't have In The Middle Of The Desert; next on the agenda was grocery shopping at my new favorite place, Publix … we needed to re-stock our supplies before we shoved off again.



The Pup-ster was none too happy that his favorite Auntie and Uncle were leaving, but, we'll see you again honey (look at those sad eyes).

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

Next Stop ...

St. Augustine Beach Florida

I say, I say, BEACH!!
We found a great hotel right across the street







Believe it or not, we actually own beach chairs and a huge umbrella, which of course we brought with us on this Road Trip.
That was heaven!
We spent our first day just sitting on the beach and this is what we saw ...



Kite Surfers, just like we'd see back home in Hawaii …





… and some person in a blow-up Dinosaur suit … I have no idea why, but I saw it walking towards us from down the beach, coming towards us and kept on walking far past us.

Dinner time!









Kingfish Grill
What a beautiful spot for a restaurant, right on the Camachee Cove Boat Harbor.

I had this restaurant on my "list" prior to coming here and this place did not disappoint, at all!







DH ordered ala carte, Fresh Water Eel Sushi, Oysters and the Catch of the Day, as I recall it was Mahi-Mahi, and a side Green Salad.



I ordered the Chef's Special which was local Snapper atop a bed of Baby Bok Choy and steamed White Rice, YUM!



To finish off our fantastic meal sitting by the waters edge was another piece of Key Lime Pie, that we shared.

 

[bbqcoder]

Nice set of pictures. What a hoot that someone was wearing a dinosaur suit!

 

[GotGarlic]

Mmmm, mahi mahi is one of my favorite fishes [emoji39]

 

[cjmmytunes]

Love the pictures. My Mom and Dad went to St. Augustine for their honeymoon - they would have been married 60 years in April.

 

[Just Cooking]

Going to Florida Thursday.. I hope we have time to find some good eats, particular to that area.. 99% of our 3 days will be spent in New Port Richey..

Ross

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

Nice set of pictures. What a hoot that someone was wearing a dinosaur suit!

I giggled to myself all day long after seeing that... and they just kept on going down the beach until they were out of sight

Love the pictures. My Mom and Dad went to St. Augustine for their honeymoon - they would have been married 60 years in April.

We love to travel and I take a lot of photographs of not only food, but I should try to take more scenic shots. Like when we went over the 7 Mile Bridge TWICE!

Going to Florida Thursday.. I hope we have time to find some good eats, particular to that area.. 99% of our 3 days will be spent in New Port Richey..

Ross

Have a wonderful trip Ross. I do hope that you and Jeannie can eke out some time to wander on your own, we love to do that and see what we can see.

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

Well, let's spend another day in St. Augustine Florida …

There's so much to see and do here, so we'll just scratch the surface. It's been so hot and humid whenever we've been away from the beach, but let's brave it. We decided that it would behoove us to start this day as early as possible.

Castillo de San Marcos National Monument opened at 9am and I'd say that we parked the car shortly thereafter. Way back when, we purchased an America The Beautiful Lifetime Senior Pass for just $10 USD, such a deal. We can go to these National Treasures at no additional cost to us.









What a fascinating place!



The "bricks" are made of Shells. This was well worth it.



Ponce de Leone smack in the center of town, just over the Bridge Of Lions... wish I got a picture of that!

We had loaded the parking meter for several hours, that way we could walk around the Downtown area and have some lunch too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf-GXQFbbhA

The Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine was jaw dropping gorgeous. The oldest Catholic Parish in America, in the oldest city in America. We just sat there in awe, taking it all in, while others scurried about, we simply sat … well, truth be told, it was air conditioned and we kinda didn't want to leave.







Ponce de Leone Hotel slash Flagler College. I can't imagine actually trying to study in such a famous, architecturally beautiful site. We decided not to take the tour, mainly because we had seen it on You Tube.

We walked all of the "Square" in the Downtown area and it was getting on to lunchtime and we were HOT!





As I've said in most of my posts, I research places to eat long before we even leave for a trip, anywhere and this was no different.
I found PizzAlley and Chianti Room. We went in through the "Alley" on the historic St. George Street and decided that we wanted table service and AC, so we toddled to The Chianti Room in the back, much better choice!

Did you look at the time? Our parking meter was about to expire and we should head back to the hotel for the day... our pool and hot tub awaits!

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

Next Up ...

Civil War history.

My husband is a huge history buff and he has been trying to figure out how we could fit this site into our itinerary for a number of years.

Andersonville National Historic Site.

This is bit off the beaten path, with the closet city being Americus Georgia, where?
It wasn't far from our last stop, so let's go!

Well, thank goodness there's a Walmart close to the hotel we chose. Almost all of the hotel/motels that we've stayed, for all of these years of traveling, have had a mini-fridge and microwave oven, that does me just fine.
So let's begin our tour.



















This is a very solemn place and you could hear a pin drop. We spent the majority of a full day here.

Phew! Let's look for lunch.





We walked around the downtown area of Americus to this gorgeous old building that now houses a hotel. There's a sandwich shop in the lobby area that I thought would be okay, not! A half cold sandwich and small bowl of cold soup (both were suppose to be hot)was something like $12 USD, not good.

It's been a day and we need to get some shut eye, so it'll be dinner in our hotel room. Tomorrow is another city.

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

Why don't we continue with more American History and head to Natchez Mississippi.

Here is another locale that DH has been trying to get to, the Natchez Trace Parkway and Vicksburg.

Our plan was to start off on the Parkway in Natchez and take it North as far as Tupelo, MS. From there we planned
on making a bee-line for home.

But for now, let's take a down day, have something nice to eat and just rest up.







I had found Roux 61 Seafood & Grill long before this road trip started and it was delicious!

On the table was a Club Salad for DH and for myself, the Grilled Gulf Shrimp with Dirty Rice and Seasonal Vegetable, which was Sautéed Squash.
I'd never had Dirty Rice before, it was quit nice.

It's been a very long day and we need to get some shut eye.
Tomorrow is another city.

Bright and early the next morning, we started this section of our road trip at the Vicksburg National Military Park.



I wasn't the only little Hawaiian Gal that visited this Park today. "Tita" in Hawaiian is Sister











I must say, this National Park is beautiful! You can walk or drive it, we chose to do both.

Yet again, we spent the entire day here and by now we were pretty hungry.









The nice Park Ranger gave us a wonderful lunch suggestion that was down on the River front and what a find it was!

Rusty's River Front Grill

We made it there within 30 minutes of them closing.

THAT was fantastic!

Each of our meals included a salad that was heavenly, I'd never had Pickled Okra before, YUM!

My husband ordered the Fried Oysters and his side was the Veggie of the day, Southern Style Green Beans.
OH MY!!!

I went with the Two-Way Combo of Gulf Shrimp and a Crab Cake, my side was their Pasta Salad, very different.

We needed to have a piece of Key Lime Pie, so we took it back to the hotel room for later.

Now, I did make mention that we had planned on driving the Natchez Trace Parkway, but Mother Nature had other ideas the next day.



It was so foggy, nasty cold and raining like mad, that we decided that we'd give that part of the Road Trip up and turn our wagon train towards home.

So we spent that morning re-arranging our accommodations for different cities on a different route than expected.
But ya know, that's what's great about Road Trips, you can change plans when ever you like.

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

Okay, now we need to put some serious miles in that rearview mirror,

Let's Motor On!!





We stopped for the night in Forrest City, AR … it was just an overnighter to eat and sleep.
That, was horrible delivery food!
We've only done this one other time before, that is to order dinner from a delivery service, NEVER again.



We stopped somewhere, I can't recall where this was, to re-fuel and look what we found!
Remember when you got a bottle of Coke for a dime?





Another overnight pit stop in Yukon, OK. We found a grocery store for just a few essential items and dinner was in our hotel room that night as well, but NOT delivery!



I always enjoy driving through the State of Texas. I really don't know why folks saw that it's just flat and boring.









Just outside of Amarillo Texas is The Cadillac Ranch, a road-side attraction that I have been dying to stop at.

FINALLY!!!

The wind was wiping so hard that day and it was DANG COLD, but I was determined... DH stayed in the car.
I had my can of Gold Spray Paint and I was going to "Spread Some Aloha" come hell or high water.
It had rained like cats and dogs the day before and the mud was so thick around the Cadillacs to the rear of the row, that you could only get to the first one, but I did it!

One last stop for the night in Tucumcari New Mexico, this time we stayed at the Motel Safari on Route 66 rather than a big chain hotel.
What a really cool place! DH thought that staying at one of these old motels wouldn't be a good thing, but even he was impressed. I wouldn't mind doing an Old Route 66 Road Trip some day









We had linner or late lunch/early dinner at Del's Diner. That was delicious, loved the soup and salad bar that came with the meals, but now it was off to bed for us two.

And that was it folks!
From New Mexico it's just a hop skip and a jump back home.

This entire Road Trip from Arizona to Florida and back again took us five weeks in total. This was our third Cross-Country Road Trip, but surely not our last.

Now we're coming up on Christmas 2019 and we're pooped, so let's just hang out for now, because there's more fun on the road ahead.

ALOHA!!!

 

[Kayelle]

Ohh Kgirl, I really enjoyed the trip and thanks for taking us along!!

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

Ohh Kgirl, I really enjoyed the trip and thanks for taking us along!!

It's always my pleasure K-L!

Keep an eye-ball peeled for our next adventure

 

[Just Cooking]

Loved the Civil War segment..

Shortly after Jeannie and I got together, we traveled to Frederick Maryland to visit Jeannie's son.. He took us (because I've always been interested) to all the Civil War sites for miles around.. Four days of me being fascinated..

One of the most interesting vacations I've been on..

Ross

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

Loved the Civil War segment..

Shortly after Jeannie and I got together, we traveled to Frederick Maryland to visit Jeannie's son.. He took us (because I've always been interested) to all the Civil War sites for miles around.. Four days of me being fascinated..

One of the most interesting vacations I've been on..

Ross

I'm not the biggest Civil War buff, but DH, his older Brother and his Son are nuts for the stuff.

I can't tell you how many times I've been to Gettysburg.
DH's family mostly live in the Baltimore-DC area so that would always be our jumping off point to as you did, many of the Battle Sites.

I don't think that we've missed any …