Today was another travel day. We left late morning after a few cups of coffee, breakfast and some exploring of the RV park. YellowHammer RV (last night’s RV park) wasn’t the quietest place (tradeoff for proximity to I-65), but it’s super convenient and well set up. (For future us: the bathrooms & showers were clean and they had 4 washers & driers – front loaders. The center-row pull through spots were cake. Spot 22 FTW. We’d definitely stay here again.)

Here’s a view of our spot. There’s a nice pond on the other side. If there were ducks, they failed to visit us.

We’re still learning about towing with this truck. It gets better mileage while towing than my Tundra and it has an aftermarket 70-gallon fuel tank. Truck range is now definitely way more than bladder range. With the old truck, I always spent time the night before a travel day figuring out exact fuel stops along the way (where could we fit, when was the right time to stop, how do we not waste too much time, etc). Now fuel planning is more like: “maybe we’ll stop once for fuel whenever we’re bored on our multi-day journey.”

It’s weird.

We made it to the Florida panhandle early this afternoon and made it back to easy mode on Interstates for the rest of the day. The signs for our old homes of Panama City and 30A taunted us a little, but we stayed on target. Just after sunset, we made it to Alachua, FL and set up for the night at Traveler’s Campground. We’ve stayed here before and it works really well for an overnight stay. The spot arrangement is different than every other place we’ve stayed…it’s pretty much just a series of single-lane roads that you enter at the end of the campground and stop when you get to the last spot that isn’t taken. They make it easy though. Everything’s level, plus full hookups, clean bathrooms and even a good variety of rescue animals you can visit. Like I said, easy.

Sophia noted that we’d have a nice view of the stars were it not for the dude who left his super bright exterior lights raging though. Come on, man.

For those who grabbed a map and are scoffing our distance-per-day stats, there are reasons. After 20+ years dragging travel trailers around the US, we’ve learned we prefer a more chill travel experience. We plan a reasonable trip for each day and do our best not to have more than 1 long day in a row. I also really prefer to get to our stop for the night before dark because setup is way simpler when you can see (we did fail the before-sunset goal today though). That all takes a lot of the stress out of it and gives us more time to enjoy the coffee and any visiting ducks. When we get to where we’re going, we’re still in good moods and we can easily wow the new neighbors with our trailer-parking prowess. It’s better for everyone.

Tomorrow’s our last travel day. Serious fun – soon!