December 15 - 2017 Gistrup, Denmark

We made it home safely.

We spend Wednesday morning (the 13th) preparing the car and camper in the storage area at the campground and then off to the airport.

We landed in Copenhagen Thursday morning at 06.30 AM (Danish time).
Thomas and Adam were waiting for us 😊.
We had a 5 hour layover in Copenhagen, so Thomas and Bodil had offered to bring us to their house, instead of sitting in the airport. So, we got to visit Thomas, Bodil, Adam and Maja first thing in Denmark.
It was very good to see them again. And also, to get some of the food we had been missing:
Danish ryebread, liver pate, pickled beets etc. etc. (rugbrød, leverpostej, rødbeder m.m.)

We were back at the airport at 11.00. Our flight was at 12.00 noon.
As we were about to take off, we were informed that there had been an accident on the runway in Aalborg, and the airport was temporarily closed! ☹. After waiting for a while we were informed that the plane would fly to Århus, and we would be taken by bus to Aalborg ☹. A 1½ hour bus ride, that ended up taking 2½ hours due to road conditions (We are back in the northern hemisphere and winter 😊)

We arrived at Aalborg Airport 3 hours late. That we did not need, after a whole day of travelling.
Daniel picked us up at the airport (good to see him again too).

The house was still standing (Thanks to Jytte (our neighbor) and others). After having spent over 3 months in a confined space: 8 x 22 feet (ca. 2,5 x 7 m) everything seems so big and different. The computer screen is HUGE. There is no pedal on our toilet for flushing 😊. We can’t figure out how to use the microwave (mikrobølgeovn) or the remote (fjernbetjening) for the TV .

Now we are looking forward to seeing Annika, the rest of the family and EVERYBODY else.

It has been a fantastic trip.
It almost seems unreal that 3½ months ago, we were driving around in Minnesota trying to find a camper that would serve the purpose. And a coffee maker, pots and pans, silverware (bestik), flyswatter (fluesmækker), etc. etc. etc. (Everything you need to function in a home).
And then make our first move with the camper and the first setup at a campground.
We learned a lot about camping as we moved on, but we still consider ourselves to be amateurs - although a little more experienced now.  We drove over 13.000 miles / ca. 21.000 km. We visited all the states east of the Mississippi river, except for the state of Mississippi. And we saw and experienced A LOT!

We will fly back to Miami on March 13th and continue our trip westward.

We know that we have had people following us on and off on the blog.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

At least some snow - to help us get us into the Christmas spirit

Written by Mary and JJ

December 11-13 - 2017 Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Monday, the 11th we made the shortest move of our whole trip.
50 miles/80 km north to a campground in Fort Lauderdale.
That is also where we are going to store (oplagre) our camper for the next 3 months. The good news is that we got to store the car here also, for the price of one. (Originally, we were told that we had to pay for 2 spots, and therefore made arrangements for the car in Miami).

We have done some last-minute shopping. Getting the vehicles ready for storage, and not least packing our suitcases. Packing has always been a big project after being in Minnesota for 3-4 weeks. Well, it didn’t get easier after being around for 3½ months. We did it though. The exciting part is to see if everything made it without braking, when we get home

Christmas has been creeping up on us, during the last 6 weeks. Even before Halloween, we were seeing preparations in the stores. In mid-November, and especially after Thanksgiving, Christmas “exploded” everywhere. We see decorations, hear music, see lots of ads for Christmas gifts on TV, and in the stores.

First signs of Christmas at a store display - October 14!!!

First outside decorations - November 8, Pigeon Forge

November 14, Nashville

December 2 - now private homes have started decorating.
This house had LOTS of lights. This is only one third of them!

WE can not get in the Christmas mood. Is it only 2 weeks until Christmas? It definitely does not feel like it, or look like it. People are wearing shorts and sandals, swimming in pools and at the beach. We are surrounded by palm trees. There are even still some flowers in nature. 70+ F/20+ C is NOT Christmas weather for people who have grown up in Minnesota and Denmark!!!!!!

 

 

December 5, Kennedy Space Center

 

December 7, Key West

December 8 - Key Largo

The campgrounds are decorated now too. December 10 - Miami

December 10 - Miami

In a day, we will be home in Denmark again. Hopefully the 32 F/0 C temps and seeing family and friends, will help us “get in the mood”. We will be plunged into get-togethers and Danish Christmas traditions, so we think it will. And if not – Christmas will come anyway, and it will be great to be home, with the ones we love.

Written by JJ and Mary  

December 9-10 - 2017 Miami, Florida

We have not had more than 4 or 5 days of rain throughout our 3 months on the road. Saturday was one of them. (Weather forecasts (vejrudsigter) are very reliable (pålidelige), so we knew 3 days ahead of time, that it would rain).

We planned after that and decided to spend the rainy day preparing for our departure on Wednesday. Shopping and, not least, beginning the puzzle of packing. Luckily, we are both allowed 2 extra suitcases. Otherwise we would have to leave a lot behind.

December 10 – Sunday, was “Everglades” day. Both of us have been looking forward to seeing this place of special beauty and nature.

We learned that the Everglades is not a swamp. It is a huge river, that is shallow and filled with sawgrass (speciel type græs, der vokser i vandet) and other vegetation. It has an area of 1,500,000 acres (ca. 2 gange Fyns størrelse). It has a lot of wildlife – especially reptiles (koldblodsdyr) and birds. We picked a cold day to go, so we didn’t get to see too many animals, but we did see a few.

 

We started the day with a ride on an airboat (Vandet er ikke dybt nok til at både kan sejle med skrue, så de drives af en stor blæser). We chose to take a tour, that was given by the local Native American tribe – the Miccosukee tribe. It was early on a cold Sunday morning. Maybe that is way, we were the only ones on the boat😊 So, we got a “private” tour. Our guide was very good – a young man, who was half Native American. He knew A LOT about the area and the alligator.

 

 

We saw two alligators on the trip. The first came out of the warmth of the grass, when the guide “called” it. The next was a mother with a few babies. The guide explained to us about the lifecycle of the alligator – from mating (parring) to life expectancy (forventet levealder). He also demonstrated the gator’s eyesight (syn) by putting his hand VERY close to the gator’s mouth! He got her to open her mouth, so we could see her teeth.

 



Baby alligator to the left of the middle of the mother

He brought us to an “old village” – an island in the area, where a Miccosukee family lived, until damming of the river, and use of pesticides, made the water undrinkable. He told us about their way of life. Mary thought this was very interesting.

JJ thought the boat ride was fun! 😊

Again today, we ran into hurricane Irma. The storm caused a lot of damage in the Everglades – especially flooding (oversvømmelse). So much, that a lot of the park is still closed. We found a few places that were open again.

One was a short boardwalk trail, called the Anhinga Trail. It is named for a large water bird – the Anhinga – that lives in the area. We think, we saw one.

We also were lucky enough to see an alligator.

Then we drove around a little. We saw another gator.

And (we think) a white-phase heron (hejrefamilien).

 

This is the last “site” we plan on seeing on this part of the trip. Tomorrow we move for the last time, and then we have to get the car and camper ready to stay here without us for 3 months.

Written by Mary

December 6-8 - 2017 Miami, Florida

Wednesday, Dec. 6, we moved from Titusville to Miami. 240 miles/ca. 380 km.
We are on 184th street at a nice big and spacious campground, run by Miami-Dade County (amt).
It is hard to believe that we are, if not in the middle of Miami, then at least surrounded by it.

In the afternoon we did a trial run, going to the place where we are going to store the car and check the route to/from the airport. Time well spent, we think.

Thursday, we drove to Key West. From where you leave the mainland, around Key Largo, there is about 100 miles/160 km to Key West. That stretch is supposed to be beautiful. Well, it was not!

When we were in Minnesota in early September, we followed the news about the hurricane Irma, that hit Florida, and not least the Florida Keys. On our way down US 1, we got an idea how bad it must have been. There was debris (affald) – stuff like RVs (campingvogne), asphalt and cement (vej og murbrokker), a whole house (et helt hus), lots of refrigerators (køleskabe), palm trees… - on both sides of the road, and sometimes in the middle as well. This was, almost to the day, 3 months after Irma hit, but in a lot of places it still looked like a warzone.

We stopped at a tourist bureau, for a map, and were warned about the destruction (ødelæggelse). He said the trip wouldn’t be very pretty – but the water was still nice. He was right. The water was very pretty in the sunshine.  

We finally made it to Key West. Key West had been totally cleaned up, and we did not see many traces of the hurricane.

Key West is yet another unique (unik) town, like none other we have seen. Huge trees – mostly palm – shade the houses.

 

 
It was very warm – 88F/29C and muggy (fugtigt), so we decided to go to one of the waterfront bars for something cold to drink😊

We were surprised, that there were not many beaches. We found 2 small public beaches. (I guess if you want to go to the beach, you should go to downtown Miami).

We found two landmarks in Key West:

The marker of the southernmost point in the continental USA (USA minus Hawaii).

US Route 1. We have been running into US1 many times during our trip on the east coast. It runs almost 2400 miles / ca. 3800 km from Maine and south. In Key West we found the end of it. (We were also on it in Maine – not at the beginning, but close.)

And we found this “little” guy!

We saw lots of roosters (haner) walking freely around in the streets. We found out, that these wild birds have evolved (udviklet sig) from domestic birds (husdyr), that turned wild again at some point.

On Friday, we went back to Key Largo – the first and largest of the Keys. Off the coast of the keys, and Miami, there is a large coral reef (koralrev) (third largest in the world). We wanted to sail out to see the reef, in a glass bottomed boat. (We are too old to do snorkeling, let alone diving 😊 so we went for the glass boat).With the long drive Thursday, we didn’t have time to do that. So, we went back.

Once again, the weather was really nice for this kind of activity. We sailed about 45 minutes out to the reef. Then we floated around, looking at the coral and fish for about a half hour, through the floor of the boat. Then we sailed back. It was cool to see the fish and sea bottom. Unfortunately, it was difficult to photograph what we saw. Here are a few examples.

Some things we saw, that the pictures don’t show are: sharks (hajer), barracudas (geddelignende fisk), a turtle (skildpadde), blue and yellow fish.

We did capture the beautiful water color😊

Written by JJ and Mary

December 4-5 - 2017 Titusville, Florida

Our stay at Macon, Georgia was mainly because of the football game in Atlanta.
We also did some sightseeing, and quite a bit of shopping.
Macon is a city about the same size as Aalborg, but my guess is that it has at least 5 times as many stores, if not more. There are stores everywhere.
So, now we have to hurry back to museums, battlefields and nature before we run out of money, and room in our suitcases!! 😊

Monday, we made a major move. 400 miles/ca. 650 km from Macon to Titusville, Florida. Straight east of Orlando. A looong trip, but nice speed and nice roads (7½ hours). And back to almost 80F/25C temps - and shorts (it is supposed to cool off later this week though, and rain).
The campground is OK, but you can easily see that it took a beating by the hurricane Irma. Half of the campground is still closed, due to damages.

For years and years, I have been pestering (forpestet) and boring (kedet) my surroundings (family, colleagues, and not least of all employees) with the phrase “Man kan sende folk til månen i et jernrør” (You can put a man on the moon in an iron pipe). In reference to: Don’t come and tell me that this or that can’t be done!!  Today, Tuesday, we went to Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral. This is where the iron pipes took off from!!!

Sure looks like a "jernrør" to me !! 😊

This is how the Kennedy Space Center began the day. That was a surprise.
Also that everybody stopped. And we did not see anybody kneel!!😊

A very impressive place. If you are a space enthusiast, you cannot do that place in one day. We did though. The whole history is there:

Allan Shepard’s travel as the first American in space on May 5th, 1961. (The Soviets got Gagarin up there on April 12th, which made him the first human to enter outer space.)  Shepard’s flight was part of the Mercury program. The flight lasted only 15 minutes. Three weeks later President Kennedy raised the bar significantly when he vowed, that the US would put a man on a moon before the end of the decade!!! (There you have it: Get to work boys and girls! 😊)

 

After Mercury, followed the Gemini program, and eventually the Apollo program.
As we all know, NASA managed to reach Kennedy’s goal, when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, on July 20, 1969.  Considered the technological development 50 years ago, and with computer power a lot less than that of a modern smartphone, the moon landing has to be one of the biggest achievements in the history of mankind. 

The moon landing - Movie and artifacts together

 

A Danish newspaper - Middle of the bottom row.

The place is packed with artifacts, real ones: Rockets, spacesuits (some still with moondust), moon landing module, a spaceshuttle etc. etc. etc.

 

We think we have poor fuel economy. The transporter used to move the rockets from the assembly building (one of the biggest in the world), is going only 1 mph /1,6 kmt, but still fuel economy is as bad as 32 feet per gallon / ca. 2,5m per liter !!! (Thank you, Flemming)



Assembly building - Covers 3.25 hectares (8 acres/tønder land)
The flag is 209 foot (64 meter) tall

There is also a part about the next space program, Orion, the goal of which is to put a man on Mars, in foreseeable future. And also to reestablish the capability
of the US to send a person into space, which it has not been able to since the termination (afslutningen)of the Space Shuttle program in 2011.

There are many very interesting and informative movies. Some in 2D, and some impressive 3D movies.

In one of the movies astronaut Gene Cernan (Apollo 17) said: “Kids should go tell their teachers to strike the word impossible out of the dictionary (ordbog). If I can walk on the moon, nothing is impossible!!
I could not agree more!! 😊 😊

Written by JJ