Kardos Family Road Trippin’ Adventure

After leaving the Keys we headed to Kevin’s cousins house in Punta Gorda, FL. Yes… that’s exactly where Hurricane Ian just hit and luckily they are ok and the house only had minor damage to the pool area, but they’re still without power and it could be up to 2 weeks! Yikes! We left about 10 days prior to the big storm. While we visited it was gorgeous/hot weather so we had lots of pool time and did some exploring. On our drive back from the Keys they showed us a cool stop with a boardwalk area overlooking alligators!

Brian & Ashley were awesome hosts allowing us to stay in their bedroom, cooking meals, enjoying the pool, and having great conversations! Mason even allowed the boys to play with all his hot wheel cars and monster trucks!!

Since we were within an hour of Siesta Key, it was a MUST to go checkout the town and see some of the sites from one of Ashlee’s reality shows! We saw a few of the mansions they’ve filmed at, the beach, a few of the bars/restaurants, and even the store that Juliette worked at one season! It was fun to be a creeper for the day and see some of the filming locations 🤪🎉

After touring Siesta Key we made a quick stop to checkout the Fisherman’s Village waterfront in Punta Gorda… glad we did because it doesn’t look the same now after Hurricane Ian hit!

The next day it was time for goodbyes to the Kardos family! We had so much fun spending almost 2 weeks together. Thanks for everything!!!

From Florida we were headed North to Tennessee! On our way we made an overnight stop at Reed Bingham State Park in Southern Georgia. It was a nice campground with lakes and large campsites. The following day we packed up to head to Old Federal Campground on Lake Lanier just NE of Atlanta, Georgia. We decided to spend 2 nights here since we had such a great site with water views on both sides! The sunsets were amazing!!! We really enjoyed our time here and explored a waterfront BBQ restaurant and got some grocery shopping done in town. This was a little surprise gem of a campground that we ended up loving!! Plus it was our first campground in weeks without being attacked by bugs… what a relief!!

From Georgia we were off to explore The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Our site was riverfront at Smokemont Campground just 6 miles in the National park from Cherokee, NC. Tennessee post coming soon…