the final post

Our sincere apologies for the delay in providing this summary - finally, the last post.

First from Amy...

I really hate to say goodby. So I'm just going to run through a few of my special moments.

(1) Miley Cyrus was a blast, getting to see my favorite singer, I loved it wouldn't you?

(2)the crown of the statue of liberty was unforgettable. Being probably one of the first in NZ since she reopened!!

(3) The new year at Disney was just magic. Seeing those fireworks being the magic kingdom.

(4) Busch gardens has the best roller coasters ever.

(5) And spending the time of my life with the most awesome family in the world.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about the trip as much as we enjoyed going on it.

From Amy

Hello its Deanna,

I would like to say my final goodbyes and to say how much I enjoyed my holiday. This has been a great experience for all of us, and has brought our family together. I have enjoyed every moment of it. Even the tough times, it has still been great.

Some things I liked...

Talladega = NASCAR racing,

Memphis = Elvis's house (Gracelands) and Sun Record Studio,

Canada = Great scenes

Indianapolis = Miley Cyrus

Vermont = Charlebios house

Montreal = Ice Hockey!

Maine = Strawberries (make that the Salisburys)

New York = Statue of Liberty

Washington = White House

Cumming = Christmas with cousins

Florida = Theme parks

Overall my holiday has been a blast!

Hi its Emma and the things I liked the most at America that were really fun, awesome and amazing were:

1 MILEY CYRUS CONCERT because she is my favorite singer and she is really cool!!! Her dresses were awesome.

2 NEW YORK because the statue of liberty, she was amazing because of the view. Times Square was amazing. All the lights were WOW and how we drove right through in our R.V.

3 NIGARA FALLS because they go around in a half circle and at night it was lit up.

4 Atlanta because my cousins live there and we had Christmas there.

5 I liked staying at the Strawberries and we had thanksgiving there.

6 I liked staying at the Charlebois place it was the time we jumped in the pond.

Thanks for reading my recount on America!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Hello from your blog editor for the final time. This summary conclusion has been a while in coming (due to slackness on my part) however here we finally are.

Our trip from Tampa to Auckland was long as you would expect. 7pm departure from Tampa after our 2^nd day at Busch Gardens and a quick feed, approx 9 hours to drive the 490 miles back to Atlanta. A few hours kip, then a few hours packing our bags before the 1 hour drive to the airport… which, due to poor timekeeping, meant we missed the luggage check in deadline by about 3 minutes for our flight to LA. Long story short, meant we got standby seats a few hours later and made it in time for our international connection back to Auckland. I have about concluded that missing the last night of sleep before you leave (as we did driving back from Tampa) is an excellent way to avoid jetlag on your return. It’s the second time I’ve done that when visiting the USA and have slept well on the flights home… meaning virtually no jetlag.

It’s really difficult to summaries such an enormous adventure in one final blog. I guess, in many ways, the story has already been told. In total we visited 26 states of the USA and 2 in Canada covering almost exactly 8000 miles. We typically free camped 4-5 nights per week, mainly in Walmart carparks but also on the side of the road, public carparks and the like. Many campgrounds were closed but we always managed to find somewhere to fill up with water and dump our waste when we needed to.

Our RV was amazing and thanks again to Mr Paul Seymour for his fantastic assistance with the purchase and refurbishment of what became our home for 10 weeks. There were a few challenges with the following items needing repair or attention at some stage of the journey:

1. our flashers stopped working due to a fuse being replaced in the wrong slot
2. leaky hydraulics affecting the slide out and jacks
3. broken spring on one of the jacks
4. faulty starter motor on the generator needed replacing
5. solenoid was faulty and not charging our batteries properly… and needed replacing
6. air conditioning units were scraped on the underside of a bridge causing a roof leak with one of them
7. roof air vent wouldn’t close properly meaning we had to disconnect the wind-up mechanism, then scramble up onto the (often very icy) roof to put a brick up there overnight when it was windy... and try not to get blown off in the process!
8. one of our wing mirrors got collected by a truck meaning we were without it for a week and had to replace it
9. our sewer hose broke and needed replacing
10. bathroom roof vent winder broke and needed replacing
11. some power points stopped working towards the end of the trip (hopefully Paul is cleverer than me and can work out what is wrong with them)
12. and I’m sure I’ve missed a problem or 2 off that list…

All that sounds like a lot, however in 10 weeks it only cost us around about 1.5 days delay and around US$1000 in repairs… which when compared with US$1500 per week to rent such a vehicle, is small change indeed! Out fun and games with the RV proved to be quite an interesting and challenging part of our adventure… but nothing we couldn’t handle.

One of my favourite stories from the trip was near the end at Busch Gardens when Emma was told she was 2” too short to ride the 3 big rollercoasters. There was no way we Woodies were going to be beaten by such silly rules… so the girls and I took Emma back to the RV and made her grow by putting her shoes inside a pair of Amy’s boots, then putting her hair in a bun underneath her beany. So then we could ALL ride the biggest baddest coasters in Florida!

Below are our 2 favourite video clips from the trip (neither of which have been posted previously). One is Sheikra, the newest roller coaster & Busch Garden, the other is the New Years countdown @ Magic Kingdon. Also a selection of our favourite photos.

I would like to conclude by thanking all our regular and part time followers – it has been our absolute pleasure to bring you the stories from our epic USA adventure. Thanks for your comments, and to those of you who tried unsuccessfully to comment, it was lovely to have you keeping us company on our travels.

So, for the final time, this is woodiesusaroadtrip.blogspot.com signing off.

the best rollercoasters

Hi its Emma

Last night we drove to Busch Gardens theme park because we heard it had the biggest and baddest rollercoasters. We got to the first big roller coaster and they had to check that I was taller than the height limit which was 54”. I was too short so the others went on the ride & Dad gave me money to buy an ice block. After that me, Deanna, Amy and Dad went back to the R.V to make me taller. The way we did that was... we leant me against the R.V and put a mark on the R.V to how tall I was and then we put Amy's boots over my shoes. We went outside and made another mark on the R.V on top of the other mark. I had grown a lot!!!!! we went back in the R.V and put my hair in a bun to make sure that I was taller than the height limit and went out side and put another mark on the R.V and I was extra tall!!!!!! so with a beany on my head, we went back to the theme park and went hard out riding roller coasters. It was sooooooooo much fun !!!!! we went on a roller coaster that the seats were held from the top not the bottom and went up side down 7 times!!! we went on it 4 times Amy felt sick after that but still went hard out riding roller coasters!!!

Hi now it's Amy

Before we found out Emma was too short we went on a wooden roller-coaster called the Gwazi. It was really old and really bumpy – it gets in your back. We wondered around the park we even found a ride in the same design as the rainbows-end roller coaster – there are about 7 altogether at Busch Gardens including as couple that are quite new.

In the same area we found the phoenix but you would know it as a pirate ship like at Rainbows end. The difference though is that it goes right around in a circle, completely upside down. The ride Emma couldn't go on was short but freaky. From the top it pauses before dropping you straight down @ 70mph. It only has one car but that car holds 24 people at once.

Mum wasn't feeling too well (not because if the mammoth coaster, just a bit off colour) so she went back to the RV while the rest of us kept going. One of the last rides we went on went up side down 7 times more and we got to go on it around and around again and again (as Emma reported above). It is supposed to be one of the best coasters in the USA and you can see why - it is really long and heaps of fun.

They say Busch Gardens is a bit of a combination theme park and zoo. In many respects it was similar to Animal kingdom but much more spread out (335 acres according to their brochure). They had a really cool African Safari section as well as loads of other animal displays. A few of the more exotic animals were white rhino, anteater, komodo dragon & white tiger. We also got to see the elephants being fed – one keeper got an elephant to lift his trunk up and threw food into his mouth from about 10' away.

Today was pretty similar but we only went on the good rides. We found one particularly conscientious gate keeper on the 1^st big coaster of the day so Emma missed that one today but at least she went on it yesterday... and the big red one today. So overall she has been on all the rides one day or the other. We also each got a bit of our hair wrapped which is when a person takes about as much hair as for a braid and wraps coloured string and beads around it. That took a while but they look really cool. We finished the day by donning ponchos and going on the water rides and freezing our fingers stiff.

Tonight after a quick feed of KFC we got underway for the long drive back to Atlanta & the start of our trip back home. Luckily we get to sleep while the olds drive – tomorrow 2 flights then back home to... summer. Yay!

From Amy

animal kingdom

Extra magic hours.

We checked in to a new camp ground last night, this one is part of Disney world. So this morning, (with these passes) we get to go to the park early, an hour early @ 8am. By the end of the day we had really got our money's worth from the Mount Everest rollercoaster because for a whole hour this morning we went on and off the rollercoaster. It was a gangsta ride, because half way through the ride you are on the top of the hill and the tracks are all bent. You pause… then zoom off backwards! Goodbye.

Ok you probably don’t want to know about everything we did today so I'll tell you the best things. Disney has a clever system called fast passes - you can only get 1 every couple of hours but if you work the system, you don't stand in line too much through the day. We got some fast passes to the African Safari and all squashed in on one row in a van, (Dad on one end, and me on the other, the rest in the middle so we could take pics). We saw all sorts of animals like flamingo, elephant, giraffe, rhino, some enormous crocs and a half zebra half horse on this trip. It was so cool seeing all the animals you would see in the wild of Africa and all within such a small area.

The next thing I will tell you about is the river rafting - now this was a goody. We were one of the only people that wanted to go on this ride because on the brochure it says 'prepare to be soaked' and it was a cold day so not very many people wanted to go on it. I didn’t get very wet either time (we went on twice) but Dad got the most wet both times - ha ha!

The last thing I want to tell you about is the last thing we did because its to do with dinosaurs, well it was cool we went on a ride that took us back in time, to find a dinosaur. But we got caught in a meteor shower (so it was a bumpy ride) in the end we came back safe! I was cool cause at the end a big dinosaur jumps out at you.

[and now an addendum from your editor. A couple of highlights for me were the animals - the number of African animals within quite a small safari park was amazing. There were also some gorillas, check out the video clip below. The kids got to stroke a large lizard (of some description) and there were some enormous spiders along with frogs, snakes etc. All the Disney rides are amazing, they all have a story of some sort to tell and the setup is always really authentic looking]

I need to tell you we have finished our time in Disney world but this evening we are driving to Tampa Bay to another theme park called Busch Gardens - it’s meant to have the coolest rollercoaster’s ever. We have had an amazingly great time in Disney world and would love to go back there again some day.

Love from Deanna

one small step for man... and all that

[ed. not sure whether we'll get any pics with this one - laptop about to die... anyway, here's the story...]

This morning we drove the 45 miles to the Kennedy space center, stopping on the way to buy some souvenirs at a place with a giant wizard on top. Nice to get a few momentos at about half the price they charge at Disney itself.

At Kennedy Dad really wanted to get a ticket to one of the extended but they were sold out.We had our lunch by the playground and then went into the I-max Theater for the 3-D show. We collected our glasses and took our seats. The show was about… can you guess? Well of course – Space! Did you know the first time America tried to get someone to the moon the rocket ship caught fire and the three astronauts aboard Apollo 1 died. After that failure America was determined to send a man to the moon, and be the first! Apollo 8 was the first to orbit the moon and it did a figure of 8 around the earth as well. No-one landed on the moon until Apollo 11 came along. Did you know the navigation system was trying to get them to landing a bolder filled place? Neil Armstrong (first on the moon) knew that if they landed there they would never be able to take of again so at the last minute he took the steering stick and steered the ship over without having time to tell the earth system. So with 20 seconds of fuel left he veered the rockets to land safely.

All the information I just gave you is a combination of all the short films we saw at the Kennedy space center. After the I-max we split up and dad went to the extra tour (he finally got a ticket) while we went on the normal bus tour. The tour started by the bus taking us to the observation deck there we could see the launching pads. The rocket travels to the pad upright on the morning of the takeoff - in fact it takes eight hours to get there on to “crawler” which goes at 1 mile per hour. It also takes 42 feet to a gallon! What a fuel drinker!!!

The second stop was at the Apollo / Saturn V center. Here there was an actual Saturn V (rocket) which is actually the most powerfull thing ever built apart from a nuclear bomb... and it's massive!!! Next to it was a green screen where they would take your photo and make it look as if you were in the Saturn V without gravity. At the last stop. We got to see real space stations in the makings!! When we got back to the main part we went on a simulator that tipped you onto your back just like a real rocket!!

From Amy!!!

By he way dad will tell you about his tour here:

Hi from Dad. in fact ours was quite similar (apart from an extra $22 to pay) except that we got a guide all the way and also got to visit both the current launch pads. I say current, but they have been used ever since the apollo program(me). I also got to see Stanley the Aligator. And I was also blown away by that Saturn rocket! The building they assemble the shuttle (& previous space aparatus also back to apollo) is the tallest single story building in the world @ 52 regular stories tall & also has the largest painted american flag. As well, there was the original control center for the apollo missions to check out & some amazing cinema & i-max presentations.

And, if I may skite briefly... There were 7 Apollo missions (all but Apollo 13 actually made it onto the moon) and this fella has now seen 3 of the actual capsules in real life. Apollo 14 here, and on this trip others @ Smithsonian & also the Air Force Museum in Dayton.

Also, the whole of Cape Canaveral is a wildlife sanctury and we got to see a couple of bald eagle nests (one of which the same pair had been returning to for 27 years) and even a real live eagle in the wild. Way cool!

no time to blog!

Greetings again from your tireless blog editor. It's fair to say that there has genuinely been no time for our little blog writers to do their thing over the last few days. New years eve (day) we got home around 2am, yesterday was earlier but (as you may imagine) bed was needed at the earliest opportunity. And this evening we left the park once they shut the rides down at 10pm... so again, little bloggers are sound asleep!

To fill you in briefly, New Years Day was spent at Blizzard Beach water theme park. The weather was rainy, windy and cool, meaning very few souls braved such an exercise as a water park. In fact, I think a few groups of rather hardy poms and ourselves pretty much ournumbered the American accents. One of the staff said there were 175 guests but I would say even that was wishful thinking - either way, I'd imagine there may well have been more staff than punters present. The staff certainly looked well bored! So although it was chilly, we had the place to ourselves and thoroughly did the park in around 3 hours... including the 120' vertical waterslide a few times!

Today was Hollywood Studios, lovely fine day but rather freezing wind! The locals were all rugged up warm and complaining that winter had arrived. Really awesome park with an indoor rollercoaster and tower of terror rides being a favourite of all participants. A couple of really amazing shows as well so altogether it's fair to say the Woodies got their monies worth!

Tomorrow we are having a break from the theme parks and will drive the 45 miles or so over to the Kennedy Space Center to see where they launch the shuttle and learn about all things space. Back to Orlando tomorrow evening to finish off Disney for the following couple of days.

Less than a week 'til we get home... and summer! Can't wait to catch up with you all in person soon.

Best regards... your friendly, helpful, cheerful (and perhaps a little weary) blog editor. (and I can assure you, the double chin is only because the roller coaster was going so fast - just check out the 3 other little faces if you want proof!!)

New Years eve @ Magic Kingdom

This post will be very short and sweet... because it's Dad and it's much too late to be posting on a blog. However, this evening was something special at Disney World. I have included below a video of the countdown to New Years and the fireworks - blog writers can fill you in on our day in more detail later.

Happy New Year one and all... from the Woodies

(ok, dodgy internet still giving me grief, this pic is the best i can do for now)

Christmas... but not white

I got woken up at 6:30 this morning when Dylan (my cousin, Daniel is the other one) came in to ask me whether or not I wanted to open my presents from Santa. I decided because I was already awake I would open my presents – of course we were all awake… it was Christmas after all! After all the adults got up & had their cooked breakfast we got ready for the day then read (a family tradition) the Grinch stole Christmas! I read the book this year even tho it was off the computer because we didn’t have the actual book here.

After that we opened our presents. This year I got heaps of clothes. (just what I wanted) and so did Amy and Emma!!! We had an early Dinner, Aunty Jo did an awesome job of making dinner we had ham and turkey… it was sooooo yummy. Later that day we went for a Christmas walk around a lovely bush walk we walked half a mile then walked back. We had an awesome Christmas it was lots of Fun.

The Day after Christmas

Well today we woke up late and watched T.V we played on the bikes played with our presents till Lunch! After lunch the Daddys and the kids went out to the shooting range, Uncle Paul had a 9mm pistol. When we arrived Uncle Paul and Dad got it all set up… Amy had the first turn at the shooting range while me Emma and the boys stayed in the waiting area and played with a cute dog called Reggie!

When it was my turn I had to put on some safety glasses and some ear muffs, Before we came uncle Paul showed us haw to use the gun so we knew how to load it and what to do! I got 3 shots got 1/3 on the sheet! Dad and Uncle Paul were so good. It was pretty amazing to fire a real live pistol at the shooting range. Dad says when in Rome do as the Romans do… and Americans love their guns!

Zion Southern Baptist Church

Today Dad woke us up at 8:00 to tell us we were going to a church that worships God really well! He was right, this church had no other white people apart from us they were all darker skin but their passion was amazing. They were hard to understand & there was a lot of yelling but it was a great experience!

After that we went to get a pie and a sausage roll from the Australian bakery. Once we got home we decided to go up Sawnee Mountain. (Emma was not well last night so she stayed at home,) the walk was so much fun we took photos at the top, played in the rocks & had loads of fun. We saw most of Cumming from up there. On the way down Dylan ran ahead and he took the wrong turn so we spent ages trying to find him. But we did so all was well in the end. Dad made me kiss the Indian Chief’s bum!

Stars and Strikes

We played for most of the day did the usual stuff. because there is not much to say I am going to skip to the interesting part… stars and strikes… well this is a massive place where you can go bowling, play laser tag, do bumper cars, and play car racing games, we did three out of the 4, can you guess? First we did bowling. This was fun we were put on 2 teams, Adults- Kids. We paid for1 hour than another half hour cos we weren’t finished in time. We all enjoyed the game (well almost every one) then had pizza for tea! Next was the games. We got 2 card with 20 tokens on it, every game was 4-6 tokens each. I played Nascar with Amy, we also played a motorbike game, an air hokey game, and much more! The last was Laser tag that was fun, we all got a vest with a laser. We went in a dark room and had to shoot one another for 7 min. What fun!

“ALVIN” yep, no body does that better then him.

The Dads went out to a car museum while Aunty Jo and the kids went out to the movies - Alvin and the Chipmunks, the sequel. It was great movie, well I wont spoil it for those of you who want to see it. But it’s a excellent movie!!! We helped tidy up the house as we are leaving for Florida tomorrow. Which means Disney for New Year, then another week in the warm weather. Cool!!! Lots of love from Deanna.