Oct 6, 2025 – There’s Always Something New to See

We live in south Florida and we have family in Indiana. That is to say, no matter how far and wide we travel across the country and through Canada, we travel between the two states like clockwork. Consequently, we are no strangers to Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.

You might think there is nothing new to see, but you would be wrong. That’s the beauty of traveling in an RV – there are a number of state parks worth discovering and plenty of small towns and cities to visit. This year, we saw a lot of new things on our route back to Florida, even though we were in areas we’ve been before. Because of their extraordinary natural beauty, two state parks stood out for us, neither of which we had heard about until recently – one in Alabama, the other in Georgia.

I will be the first to say that Alabama state parks are among the best. We’ve stayed in a number of them but recently, we discovered Cathedral Caverns. As with many Alabama state parks,  this one has a campground with full amenities including Wifi and laundry. We chose to stay here several days, giving us time to do some sight seeing in the area of Huntsville, but mostly it was to see the Caverns.

As we continued on, we made a left turn and head east across Georgia to George L Smith State Park. This park was recommended to us by a photographer friend of ours, and for good reason. As a photographer, I am a sucker for cypress tree swamps. If you time it right, you can see the fall colors of the pond cypress and tupelo, just like with other deciduous trees. Unfortunately, we visited the park on the cusp of fall, with barely a hint of color.

Nevertheless, the cypress scenes were exquisite, especially during early morning as the low sun sent long horizontal light beams through the swamp forest. The loveliness overcomes the fact the body of water was created by damming a river for a grist mill in the early 1900s. The mill no longer exists but what remains is the mill pond and what you see here.

And with that, we are almost home and will spend the final few days on the road getting some work done on the Casita (nothing bad, all good) and visiting Vivian’s side of the family. We are winding down. Summer in Newfoundland seems like such a distant past – another epic trip for the books. And now to prepare for the crowning achievement of RV travels. Stay tuned!