January 27, 2021 was a cold sunny day, as we loaded up the RV and headed south for winter. We started planning this trip over a year ago, well before the pandemic. Our original plan was to spend 6 weeks at our place in Hawaii, then head south with the RV after my annual cross country ski trip in Canada, returning by Memorial Day. It is necessary to log on to the Florida State parks website at 8am, exactly 11 months in advance of your planned arrival and try to book a site. (If we had been in Hawaii, that would have been 2am.) We decided we didn’t want to go to Maui during a pandemic and the US/Canada border was closed, so we decided to start our trip early. We were able to make reservations in the panhandle (aka “the redneck riviera”) during the colder, slow season.
After a long, but uneventful day, we made it to our hotel, south of Louisville, KY, just as the snowfall was becoming pretty heavy. The next day we drove to Rickwood Caverns State Park in Warrior, AL. It was a small campground, with few campers, likely because it was pretty chilly at night. We unhitched and did some hiking. We also had our own private guided tour of the caves, which was really fascinating. Our tour guide, Morgan, is a geologist. She taught us a lot about the caves.
It was a chilly night, but we have decent heaters and a very warm down comforter, so no problem. On to the Florida panhandle!
FYI – I plan to post 2-4 times per month, based on the weather.
