Away Is Home

How do you stay in touch?

As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been on the road a lot lately. I’m traveling across the country with my family and we’re documenting every moment of the trip on our family travel blog, Away is Home. Staying in touch with the ranch back in Winter Springs, Fla., can be a challenge, it turns out.

High-tech adventure in Mountain View

Computer History Museum

What were we thinking when we scheduled meetings in Mountain View while staying at our beautiful oceanfront vacation rental in Cayucos, California? It’s all North Coast right?

Well, it turned out to be a beautiful drive on the 101 with limited traffic. Three hours, but totally worth the chance to stomp on the Google campus. So many high-tech organizations crammed in one space. We also spotted signs for LinkedIn, Intuit, Meebo and Symantec.

But the very best part was our visit to the Computer History Museum. We hope you like the slides from their current feature call R/Evolution.

The road to Rockport

Texas speed limits are big!

Our Fulton-Rockport vacation rental

Good morning South Texas

Busy kitchen

View from our vacation rental

TV zombies

Who you calling´ chicken?!

Historic downtown

Pilar

Gotta fly

Splash.

Splash

Our @awayathome rental - thanks, @misskittys1

Cactus bloom

Joyride!

On assignment.

Bird watchers.

Dolphin sighting.

Bird watching.

Check out register with attitude!

At the pier.

Good morning Rockport TX!

Sunrise behind our vacation rental.

Moon and star, a night in Texas.

Smells better at night. Erysse on our pajama walk.

Aren at twilight.

Mile 1050. Dinner!

Mile 859 at the Texas state line.

Love bug massacre

Gas stop

Erysse drew a picture.

West Florida for 74 days. Who knew?!

Louisiana welcomes you!

Nice breakfast at the Hampton Inn. Coffee comes decaf (yeah right!), regular (nice try) and robust (oooh momma!).

Aren waits for pizza.

Iden chills after a long ride in the car. Rockport, TX tomorrow.

Quick run before piling back in the car. Great lunch: carrots with humus, buffalo chicken and pita chips!

I M Here

Fast break

Now leaving Orlando. Headed to California. Tonight we stay in MIssissippi, maybe Louisiana.

A coast to coast trip might seem ambitious for a family of five, let alone in a small sedan. But breaking it into several segments has really helped.

The first leg took us through Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. We overnighted in Biloxi, Miss. our first segment ending in Rockport, Tex.

We stayed at Sailhouse in Fulton with Miss Kitty’s Fishing Getaways and spent an enjoyable morning with Captain Tom on the intercostal aboard the Skipper. We made a few friends and met up for the shrimp bowl and crawfish at the Boiling Pot. The following morning we stumbled upon the Daily Grind in the historic district. The coffee was needed, but we stayed to take pictures of this quirky area.

Next stop Prescott, Arizona.

Best Kids’ Cruise — Disney or NCL?

If you have children, and you want to take a cruise, it’s gotta be with Disney. Right?

That conventional wisdom is strongly reinforced when you sail on Uncle Walt’s newest ship, the gleaming, 4,000-passenger Fantasy. It’s the third Disney cruise we’ve taken as a family, and it’s everything Disney promises it will be.

But Disney doesn’t rule the seven seas when it comes to the growing market for family cruises. There is another.

Where are America’s best European villages?

Drop into Helen, Ga., from Highway 17, a winding two-lane road that descends from Georgia’s famous Blue Ridge Mountains, and you’ll think you’ve arrived on the wrong continent.

What do you want see on Disney’s Fantasy?

The Elliott family will be taking a break from the road trip to get on board Disney’s newest cruise ship, the Fantasy. And we want to know what you want to see. Though the ship’s first run isn’t until March 31st, we’re being given a chance to preview the experience – complete with outrageous deck ...

Who has America’s best bears?

Mention the Smoky Mountains, and especially Gatlinburg, Tenn., and bears are probably the first thing that come to mind. Black bears, to be exact. The nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the last remaining places in the eastern United States where they live in the wild. But this Tennessee tourist town, where ...

Alpine Helen and North Georgia’s mountains

The mountains of North Georgia contain more than the Appalachian Trail. Up here you’ll find some of the most beautiful natural formations in the east. Not only is the area the former home to the Nacoochee and Cherokee Indians, host to countless awe-inspiring waterfalls and Tallulah Gorge, one of the most spectacular canyons east of ...

“Bearing” it all in the Great Smoky Mountains

Things got wild for us in Gatlinburg, Tenn. We expected it. Sort of. After all we’re going to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, home to more than 1,500 black bear, countless dear and wild turkey. And I had it on good authority that if you head over the Cades Cove just before twilight you ...

Young bears frolic in Gatlinburg mountains

What a surprise we had this morning, when over our morning cup of coffee, we spotted three bears foraging in the gorge behind our Mountain Rentals of Gatlinburg log cabin. The five bedroom home stretches over three floors and from the rocking chairs on the back porch we heard the rustle of branches before two ...