16th July 2009; Manatee Springs to Chipley

We woke up at a reasonable hour this morning, Adrian kept us busy calling him back to our pitch while he wanted to go and play with the girls in the next pitch. I put our roof tent down while figuring out how to fold the mosquito netting tent for storage. Alison reminded me that it was going to rain and I had better get it folded before then. How on earth was I going to do it, I thought!

I had my breakfast and then decided to bring the tent down but first having to clean the bird shit off. I didn't do too badly considering it was the first time I was doing it. Alison must have felt guilty as she helped me with the little bits and pieces for storage. By the time we packed everything up it was 11.15am and I still needed to shower. As I finished my shower, it rained and I had to wait a few more minutes before I could get to Tuah reminding myself that it was lucky I listened to Alison about the rain coming!

We went back to Walmart to enquire about the possibility of changing the Auxiliary battery but it was a two hour wait and I thought it better to move on and find somewhere else to have the job done. As we proceeded on the I-10 West I wondered where Alison had input the GPS for us this morning as it was not following the coast. She had input Pensacola as the destination and it was another 180 miles drive. With the rain coming down on and off I thought it better if we found a motel for the night as it would not be fun camping in the rain.

We found an offer for the Super 8 at Chipley near Panama City, another 50 miles drive and decided to head for it giving us internet access to update the website and away from the rain. We enquired at Days Inn for their rates but the Indian chap behind the desk refused to budge on his quote saying that it was a new hotel. Well f he would rather keep the room vacant we cannot argue and went to Super 8 which turned out to be a nice surprise, unlike the dodgy looking one in Norfolk.

Before that we spotted a Walmart nearby and I went to enquire if we could book Tuah in for tyre rotation and change of battery. Unfortunately they work on first come first served basis and it looked like I have to get up pretty early if I wanted the job done tomorrow. For dinner we tried the sweet and spicy chicken from Wendys to have with the fired rice Alison made this morning. We discovered then that Adrian would eat the nuggets from Wendys, an alternative to McD. As Ami had sworn that Wendys chilli concarne was the best we tried a tub and Alison agreed with Ami while I thought it was nothing special.