After 39 years in the Sunshine State, I have left Florida behind. Each year when the hurricane season would end, I would breathe a sign of relief and enjoy the next 6 months of relatively calm weather. November is a particularly nice month in Florida. The last hurricane season I was not so lucky. No sigh of relief, just weeks of no power and months of clean up and repair. Yes, 2024 was a rough season. Two major hurricanes hit Florida back to back, within two weeks of each other. Evacuating – especially with pets – is not a fun or easy task.

Also, Florida has changed over the years. When I first arrived in 1986, St. Petersburg was a pretty quiet, casual little beach town. St. Petersburg didn’t even have a rush hour. All that has changed. With the threat of hurricanes only becoming stronger, the high insurance rates, and the influx of new residents, I made the decision to sell the house I had lived in for 35 years, and return to my home state of Oregon.

I re-homed my chickens to a very nice young man, loaded up the cats, and undertook a 3200 mile trek in a rented Cruise America RV, swapping out driving with my sister.

My sister and I had planned to do the drive in six days, but we ended up pulling into home base in Oregon at the end of day 5. We overnighted in KOA Campgrounds in Tennessee, Missouri, Nebraska and Wyoming. The cats learned a rhythm and we all got to Oregon in one piece.

Our route took us up I-75, through Atlanta, then I-24 west of Chattanooga. Our first night at the Chattanooga KOA was quite nice. It was quiet and pretty far off the highway. We saw deer driving in. The cats had survived their first day on the road.

From Chattanooga we took I-24 through Tennessee and into Missouri, then I-57 to I-64. Tennessee was the prettiest state, as seen from the highway.

Right out of St. Louis we took some smaller roads, and it was quite scenic. We ended up on Highway 130, then I-29 for a bit, headed towards Lincoln.

Our third night on the road was spent at the Lincoln West KOA. The winds were howling and it was exhausting trying to keep the RV in a straight line down the road. We were very happy to park. The campground was fine, but it was so windy that we couldn’t even be outside. This KOA had the best shower of anyplace I can think of. What a nice surprise and we luxuriated in the hot shower.

From Lincoln it was due west on I-80. My sister had driven this route many times and it was her choice. We made good time and ate up the miles. We traveled steadily westbound on I-80 through Nebraska, and into Wyoming. We were on I-80 for the entire day.

Out of Rock Springs, Wyoming we continued for a short while on I-80, then took a cutoff so as to avoid Salt Lake City. We headed northwest on Highway 30, crossing into Idaho.

I had never traveled in this part of Idaho before and I found it very beautiful in places. We had our one and only moose sighting early into the Idaho territory.

We finally merged onto I-84 and continued our westbound marathon drive into Oregon.

Of course I found the drive through Oregon to be beautiful, and we were happy to be on the home stretch. We had left Wyoming very early, and drove right on through past sunset.

We pulled into my sister’s house in the suburbs of Portland around 10:30 PM. We had been on the road about fourteen hours. I dropped her and had a few more miles to drive solo, with the cats.

As much as I didn’t want to drive from Florida to Oregon, having done it once in 1986, it was interesting. It is a great way to really see the USA. We stopped only for fuel and overnights. My personal observations; Atlanta was awful to drive through and scary with the amount of traffic, Tennessee was pretty, the people were friendly in Missouri, there are some very straight roads in Nebraska, and Wyoming was very monotonous. Idaho had some very scenic areas I didn’t even know existed. Oregon was the best!

So now we live in the Great Northwest. The land of tall trees, beautiful wine country, great pinot noir and wide beaches where more often than not the beach attire is jeans and a sweatshirt. The cost of the drive including the RV rental, fuel and KOA Campground fees totaled $5292. I kept all my receipts and tracked the mileage. We averaged 8 mpg over the entire trip.