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Three days, hundreds of miles, and one tropical storm... we've made it to Toronto!

July 5th - Cape Coral to Atlanta

The whole group ready to go... From left, Janet, Angel, Tripper (the gnome), Laura and Kathy.

We planned on starting out not too early... around 7:30 am... and making our way to Atlanta before dark. Amazingly, we did it! We didn't leave until about 7:45 am, but we got to Atlanta (actually, Stone Mountain) around 7:30 pm... leaving us plenty of time to setup camp, grab some dinner, and get to the park for the 9:30 laser light show. Or so we thought.

We had no problems checking into the campgrounds, until we got to our assigned site and discovered that someone else was already there. So, we went back to the office and requested a different site... no problem. The weather was perfect, and we were looking forward to seeing the laser light show. The man that checked us in suggested we take the taxi boat over to where the light show would be, so we went to wait for the boat... and we waited... and waited... and waited some more. 45 minutes later, we finally decided to just drive to the show.

It turns out that it was a good thing that we drove.

After driving around a bit, we found a pretty decent parking spot (well... actually 4 spots) and headed to the show. We brought our chairs and cameras and walked through all of the shops (closed by this time) to get to the field. As we're walking, we notice the sky starting to cloud up. After setting up the chairs, Janet and the girls went to get dinner while I stayed with our belongings. It's about 9:15, 15 minutes before the show, and we're starved (not having eaten since our lunch at the rest area). While we're waiting for the food, we started seeing lightning flashes and hearing thunder claps. The announcer came on and announced that the show may be delayed due to poor weather conditions. He did NOT mention that there was a major storm moving in quickly and that we should all walk (not run) carefully to our cars and head out as soon as possible... Noooo, he didn't even suggest that we might experience a torrential rainstorm and get drenched to the bone within seconds. So, of course, we didn't leave. The others came back with hot dogs and cokes and pretzels, and we started scarfing down the food (did I mention that we were starving?).

About halfway through my hot dog, and after being squirted with ketchup by Laura, it started to rain. And this wasn't any light shower... these were big droplets... and they came down in large numbers. Of course, with the lightning all around, we decided that standing under the trees was probably not the best place to be, so we followed the crowds to the big pavilion at the top of the hill. Once we got there, we realized that everyone else had the same idea. So, since we were already soaked, we decided to streamline it to the camper and wait out the storm in dry clothes. And that's exactly what we did. While everyone else had to drive home in wet clothes, we were able to change into dry clothes right away in the back of the camper and make it to the campsite in relative comfort.

So, it's a good thing we brought that camper to the parking lot instead of waiting for that boat taxi.

After returning to the campsite and getting the camper hooked up, we all pretty much zonked out for the night. The next morning when we woke up and tuned in the local news, we discovered that it wasn't a simple rainstorm that drenched us, it was Tropical Storm Cindy! Our first adventure (or as the girls say, "misadventure") of the trip.

We had planned to spend that morning in downtown Atlanta, but considering the rain from the previous night, we weren't sure we were ready to get wet again. But we decided to brave the weather and hope for the best. Which turned out to be a good decision. We checked out of the campsite and drove the camper to the Kensington station where we parked the camper and caught the Marta train into the city ("Marta" is Atlanta's subway system). The train took us right to the World of Coca-Cola where we learned a lot about the history of Coke and got to taste all sorts of sodas. We then got back on the Marta and headed to The Varsity. Now, if you've never been to The Varsity, you've got to go at least once. It's the world's largest drive-in restaurant, but we never drive-in... we go inside.

After taking in our monthly grease quota (I never said The Varsity served healthy food), we got back on the Marta and headed back to the camper. Our goal was to try to make Cincinnati that night and then head on to Toronto the next morning. Unfortunately, our plans were thwarted by an accident on the highways around Atlanta, and it took us 2 hours to just get out of the city! So, Janet and I decided that if we wanted to get into Toronto at a decent hour, and if we wanted to see Niagra Falls on our way in, we should probably drive through the night.

We took turns driving and sleeping while the girls entertained themselves in the back seat. They really enjoyed seeing the "mountains" of Tennessee and Kentucky (being from Florida, anything larger than an overpass is considered a mountain), and they slept through most of Ohio. We did have to pull over for about an hour to let the fog burn off, but we made it to Lake Erie in time for a breakfast on the lake. We found a great state park in Geneva, Ohio that was right on the lake, so we ate breakfast, refreshed ourselves and our clothing, and cleaned up the camper. Actually, Janet cleaned up the camper while the girls and I went out and took pictures of the lake. We then got back on the highway and headed for New York and then Canada!

After a couple of tense bridge crossings in New York (none of us are fond of heights... except Laura), we got to the Canadian border. The border guard asked me a few questions (since I was driving) and then asked Angel and Laura a few questions. The girls were a bit nervous but did fine, and the guard let us enter Canada.

Since we had driven through the night, we had some time to see Niagra Falls, so as soon as we crossed the border, we turned off and drove a few miles to the falls. We had planned on parking and walking out to see the falls, but the place was packed full of people. And then we saw the price to park... $18... since we were only going to be there a short time, we decided we'd do a drive-by of the falls and pick a less crowded spot to pull over and have lunch. We had one more PB&J lunch at a picnic area (we knew we'd be eating out a lot in Toronto, so a simple lunch would be just right) and then we headed out one more time for Ken & Jeanne's house.

The first part of journey was over. We'd made it to Toronto with only one adventure (misadventure) and were ready for a few days in one place.

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