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Well we arrived at Atlanta and we were to stay at the Brookwood RV resort but only stayed a night because the Pageant we were shooting was at the Westin which was dog-friendly! So we stayed there for the pageant weekend. Jack and Jinjer hung out with us the whole time down in the ballroom area while we worked. They were perfect angels, not sure if the were our crazy dogs or someone replaced or drugged them. It was a great weekend, the pageant went smoothly, we relaxed at the hotel some nights and even got to park our motorhome at the hotel so we could get stuff from it if needed. But it was about to go downhill. Upon leaving the hotel we were cruising along just fine for an hour or so and then we hear a big bang. “What the hell was that!?” Sharon said. I think I knew, so I stopped the coach and went to have a look see. My suspicions were correct, a blowout. One of the rear tires was flat and we had used our spare in Florida a few months ago and not replaced it yet. So we got online and looked for tire companies in the area. One good thing is that it was still early in the day, around noon. We found one and we proceeded to limp along down the emergency lane until we could get off at the next exit which was less than a mile drive. I then got out and proceeded to take the tire off, but of course i did not have socket large enough so i sent Sharon off to buy one at a nearby Wal-mart while I worked on finding a tire place again. I finally found a place where for $288.00 I could get a tire. This was a setback for us, there goes all the cash sales we had accumulated that weekend. It was also so damn hot, nothing like mid day in June in the deep south to shorten tempers. Taking off a large RV tire is no easy task, I wrestled and wrestled and finally won. Well everything worked out, we got the tire replaced and back on the road. But the day was to get worse. Due to the high traffic on our pageant photos website that morning, from parents and contestants wishing to view the pics we uploaded from the weekend, our site crashed and became temporarily suspended. And that is what the web host provider put on the homepage “This site has been suspended, please contact billing”. So this is what all the potential customers of ours had to see until we got it straightened out. I was livid!! This was going to be the only cash flow for us since we used all of our cash up on the tire. So we had to stop and get an RV site for the night and get it all straightened out. What seemed to be an easy fix, just pay for more bandwidth became a nightmare of upgrading and configuring my own virtual private server. Took 2 days before we were back online! BUt once we were, we pulled up stakes and headed to Pensacola, praying that karma would dish us some smooth travels for a bit.

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We read on the internet of an RV park just outside of Ocala, Florida with a dog park and we had to stop on our way to Atlanta. The Ocala Ranch RV Park to be precise. The park was open, not a lot of trees, but good level sites and the park was empty this time of year, all the snowbirds have migrated back north by now. SO since it was empty, the “kids” had no others to play with but still just had fun with each other. They still love to play with each other because they can be as rough as they want to be with no one getting mad. We will stop back again when it is more full in the winter. And also to go to our favorite Thai restaurant we had found to date, Spicy Thai. It had incredible food combined with perfect ambience, a real treat to find! We also found a great tucked away little tropical paradise known as Rainbow Springs. We went kayaking and hiking with the dogs one day there and had a great time, we were amazed how clear the water was. It was a beautiful emerald green, teaming with fish swimming through the tall sumbmerged strands of algae. Reminds me of the kelp beds I saw on the discovery channel. Just a gorgeous place, a must see off-the-beaten path place.