44 - On the road again

 

So, we packed up our car complete with kayaks and bikes and headed out again.  We'd arranged for another pet sitting position that we found on the website we'd joined called www.trustedhousesitters.com.   First up was Butler Beach (near St. Augustine).  We met Janice (not to be confused with our Cocoa Beach friend), were introduced to and immediately fell in love with Millie. Janice's house is also just across the street from the beach and an easy walk to the river so we got great sunrises and sunset views too.  Although, she's a bit of a bed hog, Millie is the sweetest dog and she loves walks on the beach.  Thankfully, this area of Florida allows dogs on the beach so we were all very happy.  We spent about 10 days walking Millie several times a day, enjoying the sights of St. Augustine, riding bikes on the beach and in town and kayaking several nearby places that Janice had told us about.   What a great time!

Our time was almost up but Janice wasn't due back until late afternoon.  We didn't want to leave Millie any sooner than necessary.  As a result, we left St. Augustine, stopped at the local brewery for late lunch and only made it to Jacksonville.  We parked and got our bikes out so that we could ride a little around town.  We knew the area from the times we'd kept our previous boats there so we enjoyed seeing it again. 

Next, we'd hoped to catch a ferry to Cumberland Island as neither of us had ever been there but, unfortunately, we couldn't get a reservation without waiting a couple of days or backtracking.  So, we continued north and made our next stops Jekyll and St. Simons Islands.  Both were great places to explore.  We, again, parked the car and hopped on the bikes.  While on Jekyll, we saw a huge ship - that we later found out was named The Golden Ray - lying on its side.  We got an even better look at it while on St. Simons.  It was fascinating to read about it and see all of the t-shirts around town with a picture captioned "Ship Happens"!

 

Next, we continued heading north and decided to head to Savannah for a couple of days.  We found a great Air BnB right downtown and were able to get a 3-day pass for the parking meter on the corner.  So, we parked the car and traveled everywhere by foot or bike - even taking a bike tour to give us more history of the city.  What a delightful town Savannah is and we were glad to have a little more time to explore than we'd had on our previous visits.

Leaving Savannah, we continued north stopping in various little towns along the way before finding our way to Wilmington, NC.  We stayed in a great place right downtown that had a rooftop bar and was just steps from the river and boardwalk.  We loved being able to walk or ride our bikes around town and to a couple of nearby parks.  Also, what turned out to be my favorite brewery of the trip was a super easy walk and even though there were at least 6 others in town -including one on the ground floor of our building - we went to the same Brewery 3 times!  On our way out of town, we walked around the former battleship USS North Carolina.    We thoroughly enjoyed our stay!

Next, we continued north to our next destination of Oriental, NC.  We've owned a boat slip in Oriental for almost 15 years and, while we've visited the town several times by land and gone out on others boats, we've still never actually taken our own boat there.  Regardless, we still love this little sailing town and this trip was no exception.  We again found great accommodations so we decided to stay a couple of days.  Since we didn't have a kitchen, we improvised with picnics at the local waterfront park.  We also happened to be there for both Halloween and the full moon.  In addition to the numerous kids running around in great costumes, a local group of women put on a show at one house with donations all going to a local charity.  What fun!  We hooked up with some old friends and also got to kayak Smith Creek - a tributary of the Neuse River.

We left Oriental and drove through the adorable town of New Bern.  The wind was whipping and it was pretty cold so we just walked around a bit taking pictures of - and in Pedro's case poking - the bears before continuing on.  We want to come back when it's warmer so we can explore a little more.

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We continued on driving only stopping for a fabulous Vietnamese lunch in Raleigh, NC.  I didn't take any pictures but it was sad to see so many businesses boarded up after being damaged during recent rioting.    

Finally, we made it to Louisville to again visit with family.  We enjoyed the wonderful weather and getting together with everyone we could.  Since we had kayaks, we took them for a couple of trips.  One trip was to a nearby lake in Taylorsville and another to Frankfort - Kentucky's capital - where the Kentucky River flows right through the downtown.  We could not have asked for a better day.  The weather was amazing, the leaves were so colorful and the local restaurant that we could reach by boat was open for the last day of the season.  It was a perfect day!  

I took way too many kayaking pictures to post but here's a link if you want to look at them all.

Kayaking in Frankfort, KY

At last, we were worried about the amazing weather not lasting and we'd agreed to do a couple of more house sits in the coming months so back to Florida we went.  We'll fill you in on that next time. 

Until next post!