Chapter 14 – Florida Bound
While she had been living in New York, Ginny had been contemplating her future and traveling once she had two children. She knew she wanted to see more of the States and picked up a couple of tourist guide books. She also talked to the different travelers who passed through her hostel and got a better idea of how different Stateside traveling was from Europe. As she had already discovered, train coverage wasn't as comprehensive or cost effective as it was in Europe. Part of that she realized was due to the vast amount of land to be covered. Other travelers advised that traveling by bus was a cheaper alternative, although it could be slow depending on how many stops and side jaunts the route took to smaller towns. Most everyone she talked to advised that having your own car was ideal, if you could afford it. Another discussion had come up one evening regarding RVs.
The term was new to Ginny until it was explained and she realized an RV was what she knew as a caravan. She had actually seen a couple of muggle caravans as a child. One was temporarily passing through Ottery St. Catchpole and another was parked at the coast when she had been on a family outing. She knew they were basically small houses on wheels, but had never really had a close look at one. Intrigued, she checked some books at the library and was fascinated by what she saw. The library also had a computer that connected to the internet. The tool was new to her, but it offered additional information and even gave her an idea of how expensive they could be. She found a listing for several dealerships and decided that it was worth at least exploring the option. If driving was the best way to see the States, she liked the idea of having a built in place to stay, especially since she would soon have two small children.
With this in mind, she took two different trains down the coast to New Jersey. Once she arrived in the town that she had decided on, she loaded herself and Seb up and walked the two miles to the dealership. That was something else she was trying to get used to, the different measurements that were used in the States. When she arrived at the dealership, a salesman immediately joined her and she expressed that she was a complete novice who was interested in learning about RVs. For the next two hours, the salesman, Joe, guided her around and showed her the different classes. She looked at one of the giant buses out of curiosity and was amazed, although she quickly redirected her focus on a Class C. She gave Joe her budget and he directed her to several used RVs on the lot. Ginny found one that she especially liked, but it was a couple thousand over her budget. Seeing her hesitation, Joe offered to bring it down right to her budget and she agreed. It was a seven year old, 30 foot with a single slide out in the living area, a queen bed in the back, an over cab bunk, pull out sofa bed, and split bath with a small child size tub with the shower. Adding on an extended warranty and tax, the total came to just over her book payment. Joe seemed quite taken with the young mother and even spent a couple of hours showing Ginny how everything worked and giving her driving instructions.
Finally, as the sun was setting on a long day, Ginny strapped Seb into his seat using the seatbelts on the couch, and pulled slowly out of the dealership. The first night she only went a short ways down the road to a local RV park, with a stop at a store for groceries, sheets, and a few other necessities. That night, as she worked on her hookups for the first time, she had a brief thought of how amazed her family would be to see her now. Once that was done, she cooked a simple dinner and then bathed Seb in the small tub. Once he was asleep, she curled up in her own bed and reflected on how far she had come.
The next morning Ginny was up even earlier than Seb and started to look through her maps and guide books to decide where she was heading next. The fall weather was turning cool and she knew she wanted to head south, but had to decide on a route. She had read about the fall colors in the Appalachians and decided to go that direction. Once Seb was up and fed, she decided to head west toward Philadelphia. She had been reading some US history and wanted to see some historical sights on the way. She found an RV park outside of Philadelphia near a train line and stayed for a couple of days. She took the train into the city and looked around the historical sights. Once again she thanked the gods that Seb was such an easy going boy. As long as he was fed, changed, and had his mother on hand if he fussed, he was happy to ride along and take in whatever sights she was interested in.
After Philadelphia, she spent one day near Baltimore and then moved on down to DC. She found a place to stay in Virginia and then utilized several train connections into the city. There was no way she could see everything, but she felt she was starting to get a feel for each city and she was learning a lot. On her second night at the RV park in Virginia, she received a call from Javier. She hadn't talked to him in a couple of weeks and he was checking in to see how she and the baby were doing. When he heard she had an RV and was heading south, he made her promise to stop in Charlotte and see him. She agreed and was happy that he still seemed interested in seeing her since he had been a bit distant.
After DC, Ginny drove west and headed into the mountains. It was early November and the colors truly were spectacular. Over the previous week she had been thinking about funds, especially when she put a hundred plus dollars into her gas tank. She knew she still had some savings, but would have to start thinking about a job before long. She was due in early January and also wanted to find a place to settle by December to get prepared for the baby's arrival. As she drove on south through the mountains, she pulled over at a number of scenic overlooks and noticed that fall brought a lot of tourists out to the mountains. With that in mind, Ginny decided that she should maybe pull out the duffel with her magic show props. She hadn't done her show in months, but with her new wand it came back effortlessly. Just before she crossed into North Carolina, she found a particularly large and well-populated overlook. It was big enough that two tour buses and a dozen cars were already there when she arrived. Parking the RV, she put Seb in his stroller and set up her show just outside her door. Soon she had an audience and was back into the flow of her performance. As the tourists came and went, she received a steady traffic of onlookers and had to empty her hat several times. After a couple of hours, she took a break and fed herself and Seb before then performing for a couple of more hours. When she was done, she was pleased to find that she had earned enough to cover her gas for a few days. As she continued on down through the mountains over the next couple of days, Ginny found three more stops where she pulled over and performed for a few hours. By the time she swung back east to head for Charlotte, she had made enough to travel for another two more weeks.
On the way to Charlotte, she stopped in Asheville and immediately liked the bohemian feel of the town. Looking at her calendar, Ginny realized she was overdue for a checkup and asked around until she found a small clinic where she could get herself and the baby checked on. The nurse at the clinic was a bit surprised to be asked to do a prenatal checkup for someone who was just passing through, but Ginny brought all her previous records and was in good health, so the exam went quickly. When the technician decided to scan her, Ginny finally had the answer she had been waiting for when she was told she was expecting a girl. With everything going well, Ginny thanked the nurse and then went to pay cash. That also surprised the staff, but they finalized the paperwork and gave Ginny a copy before she headed on to her next stop.
The day before she got to Charlotte, Ginny called Dean since they hadn't talked in over a week. She was surprised to find that he was in Germany working on a mural commission. They talked for a good while and he was astounded to find out that she was caravanning through the States. He worried about her and her advancing pregnancy, but she assured him she was fine. He also took a couple of minutes to talk to Seb, who now knew a dozen words and happily strung a few of them together with some babbling while he talked to his father on the phone.
At the start of the third week of November, Ginny arrived in Charlotte and settled herself in an RV park south of the city, about ten minutes from Javier's apartment. She called him to let him know where she was and he showed up a couple of hours later when he got off work. Following her instructions to the numbered lot where she was parked, he knocked on her door and Ginny opened it a moment later. When Javier first saw her, his eyes went wide and Ginny grinned.
"Hi Javier, come on in."
Javier stepped up into the RV and looked around briefly before turning back to look at Ginny.
"Wow Jen. You look great. Very pregnant."
Ginny laughed.
"I would hope so at almost 33 weeks. How are you doing?"
Javier took a seat on the couch and picked up Seb, who was happy to see him again. As he played with her son, Ginny updated him on everything she had been doing. She showed him a couple of the magazines that she had modeled for and he seemed quite impressed. He in turn updated her on what was happening with his job. When she asked about women, he admitted to one brief relationship, although that had since ended. After talking for a half hour, Javier offered dinner and they went out to a nearby restaurant. When he drove her and Seb back to the RV park, talk turned to Ginny's plans.
"So Jen, where are you off to now? Are you leaving right away?"
"Yes, I'll be leaving in the morning. I've already seen most of Charlotte. I'm going to drive down to Florida. I want to get somewhere warm and find a place to stay for a while. I'd like to be settled within the next two weeks and then stay until the baby is born. I'll have to find a mid-wife when I pick a place."
"I was wondering, when the baby comes, I'd like to see her."
"Of course. Like I said before, I want her to know who you are. How much you're involved is up to you. I've also been thinking about names. I know when we talked before I told you I wanted to include your Basque culture, but we didn't know the sex yet. There is a name that I like. It's actually an aunt that you've mentioned, Amaia. What do you think?"
"I like it. I appreciate you bringing my culture into it. What about a middle name?"
"Well, I've been thinking that with Seb I named him for the countries where he was conceived and born. Since she is going to be born in the States, I want something that ties her to here. The thing is that it's such a melting pot with names from everywhere. I was thinking though that Charlotte was our first home in the States and that it would be a good middle name. Amaia Charlotte Jacobs-Albaroz. Seb's last name is hyphenated as well, so my plan was to keep with that pattern."
"It's pretty, I think it will fit. It's a bit of a mouthful with the last name, but she won't use that every day. I think you picked well."
"Excellent, well that's decided. Now I can start using her name when I talk to her."
Ginny and Javier talked for a few more minutes before he got up to leave. He gave her a quick peck on the cheek and then stepped back.
"One more thing Jen. I know you're doing well for yourself, but I want to help you. Here's some cash for expenses."
Ginny was a bit surprised, but accepted the money without looking at how much there was. She thanked him and gave him one last kiss before he left for the night. When she checked the envelope later, she was surprised to find two thousand dollars inside. She knew he had a very good job, but was still surprised at his generosity.
The next morning Ginny was up early and headed out of Charlotte, aiming south. She drove a few hours until she reached Savannah and then found a small park north of the city to stay for the night. After asking around the park, she found that there was a bus that connected into the city and decided to stay a few days. The next morning she loaded Seb into his stroller and headed to the bus stop. It actually ended up taking three different buses and nearly two hours before they made it to the city center. Ginny took a few hours and looked around, including taking part of a walking tour through some of the old neighborhoods. Seb was as good as always, but by mid-afternoon he was getting fussy and Ginny began the long bus rides back to the RV park. As she tried to comfort her fussy son, she reflected on her travels in Europe and definitely missed having train coverage near most major cities.
Having had a feel for Savannah and not wanting to endure the buses any longer, Ginny continued her drive south. A short ways south of the city she stopped at Fort McAllister and took about an hour to walk around. As part of her self-studies on US history, she had read a bit about the Civil War and found it fascinating. As a child, her mother had schooled her before Hogwarts and had given her plenty of wizarding history and some British history, but nothing else in regards to world history. Now she was making a point to do more than just sightsee. She wanted to learn about the places she was traveling through. She had come a long ways from the sheltered life of a pureblood English witch.
Later that day, she crossed into Florida and had a choice to make. She could continue down 95 and head down the Atlantic coast, or she could cut inland and take 75 down the middle of the state. She also had the option of going even farther and traveling along the Gulf Coast. She decided she wanted to stay along the Atlantic coast and stayed on 95 as she passed through Jacksonville. She stopped just north of St. Augustine and decided to stay for a couple of days. It was now the first of December and she had just over a month to go before she delivered. She knew she wanted to find someplace longer term in Florida, but hadn't decided where. She spent several days looking around the beautiful old town of St. Augustine and made a point of talking to a number of people along the way to get a feel for the city and what it had to offer. Although she liked the town, it didn't quite seem to be what she wanted, so she continued on down the coast.
Ginny's next stop was to take a couple of days at Cape Canaveral. She was in awe of the technology that went into the space program. As she toured the museum and took a tour around, she couldn't help but think that her father would probably have a seizure if he was ever given a chance to see what she was seeing. After the Cape, she made her way down to Vero Beach, cutting off of 95 a short ways to visit the town. She stayed for a few days and thought she might have found her place, but then a storm blew in off the ocean and she decided that she didn't want to deal with the unpredictable weather that came with living so close to the Atlantic.
While Ginny was traveling and thinking about her family and what they would think of her travels, her latest letter arrived on Arthur's desk at the Ministry. The last letter he had received had been nearly a year before and once again had been anonymously mailed from a central London drop box. This time when he picked up the letter and saw the post mark for New York City with Ginny's handwriting underneath, his jaw dropped. Carefully slitting it open, he drew out yet another brief note that basically assured him that his daughter was well and enjoying her travels. Looking at the letter, he didn't see any readily identifying marks except for the post mark. The last couple of letters had been the same as the first so he hadn't had them inspected further. Now he thought that maybe there would be a clue beyond the fact that Ginny appeared to be in the States. Heading downstairs, he found his friend Gene again, who greeted Arthur with his usual enthusiasm.
"Arthur! What's going on? Still upset that I beat you at darts last Thursday?"
"Well, maybe a bit Gene, but actually I have another favor to ask. I received a new letter from Ginny. This one is postmarked from New York City and I was wondering if you could take a look?"
"New York? Wow, she is traveling around. Let me see if I can find any clues."
Gene took the letter and envelope and spent the next five minutes carefully inspecting both. When he was done, he shook his head.
"Arthur, I'm sorry, but I can't help you more than you know. The paper is American and the ink is standard. About all I can tell you is that it appears she did actually write this in the States rather than have someone just drop it when they were visiting there. I know it's not much. How long has she been gone now? She hasn't contacted anyone?"
"Thanks for trying Gene. I'm not surprised, but I had to try. She's been gone about two and half years. I'm glad she's doing well, but the family is still not right without her. Molly's incidents are getting worse. The healers say the process is inevitable and would have happened anyway, but it's still hard to see her get upset when Ginny is mentioned. She's missing a lot with the family."
"Wow. I feel for you Arthur. I can't imagine if one of mine took off for this long. Didn't she say she'd be back in a couple of years?"
"She said she may be back in a couple of years. She left it open ended. I check in with her close friends periodically, but no one I've talked to has heard from her."
Gene commiserated with his friend for a couple more minutes before Arthur left and let him get back to his work. That night he presented the letter to Molly, but no tears flowed. She just gripped the letter and stared at it for nearly an hour, unmoving. He passed the word on to the rest of the family that at least Ginny had been heard from.
Meanwhile, Ginny was continuing her exploration of Florida and enjoying the temperate December weather. She reached Miami and soon came to the realization that deciding to drive an RV through Miami traffic was a bad idea. Once she was south of city and out of most of the traffic, she and Seb found a small diner to grab dinner. The diner had a rack in the front lobby with a plethora of tourist brochures and Ginny took several to her table to look at. One was an advertisement for the city of Homestead and announced itself as the 'Gateway to the Everglades'. The Everglades were something she had read about and was interested in seeing, so the ad was appealing. Checking her map, she found that Homestead was only about another twenty minutes down the road. With the sky darkening, she decided that she would make the town her next destination.
Shortly before seven, Ginny pulled into an RV park slightly south of the center of town. She had driven around a bit and the place looked nice. After a long day of driving and with her son starting to get fussy, she parked her RV, took care of her hookups in record time, and settled in for the night.
Over the next couple of days, Ginny spent time looking around the town. It was decent size, but not too large and everyone was friendly and welcoming. The RV park was also closer to the center of town than a lot of places she had stayed, making it easy to pack up the stroller and walk where she needed to go. She was now 36 weeks and located a nearby midwifery clinic for a checkup. Unlike previous checkups, the clinic took all her records and didn't make any kind of fuss over the fact that her prenatal care came from three different states. Although a bit surprised, they did agree to accept cash and also gave her an approximate cost of an average delivery in their birth center. The final point that made her mind up to stay in Homestead occurred five days after she had arrived.
Ginny was on her way to the manager's office to talk to Gloria about a monthly rate when she saw the woman was outside the office hanging a sign. As she got closer, Ginny saw that the sign was for help wanted. Intrigued, she approached Gloria, the owner of the park.
"Hi Gloria. Nice day out. You're looking for help? For what?"
"Oh, hi Miss Jen. I fired Troy yesterday. I told him not to come to work drunk again and he didn't listen. I don't care if he is my best friend's son, I need someone stable. I've been too patient with the boy."
Ginny grimaced. She had interacted with Troy on a couple of occasions and had disliked him from the beginning. Besides being frequently drunk, he also seemed to avoid bathing and still considered himself enough of a stud to flirt with every woman in the park. Shaking her head, she turned her attention back to Gloria.
"So Gloria, what exactly are you needing help with? I'll be honest, I never saw Troy do that much."
"Well, you've got that right. He was supposed to help with maintenance, but I've got Jim coming in now as needed for that. Mainly what I need is someone to help in the office during our peak check in times on Fridays and Saturdays. Also, I need coverage on Wednesday nights. It's probably only 18 hours or so a week, but I'll go crazy trying to deal with the weekend rush on my own."
"Hmm, well that's not much. I might actually be interested if I can keep Seb behind the counter with me. He's a good boy. As long as I set him up with snacks and toys, he entertains himself. What's the pay?"
"Really? You'd be interested? I've got no problem with you keeping Seb with you. You've only been here a few days and I can already tell you're reliable. If you're interested, I'll let you have your slot for nothing. Make it a trade."
Ginny's eyes almost bugged out. What Gloria was offering was better than she had hoped and would help her stretch her funds even more.
"Alright Gloria, that sounds more than fair. Of course, I'll have a week or so that I'll need to take off when this little one is born in January."
"I understand. I'll figure something out. Maybe recruit some friends who owe me. Well, I guess I don't have to worry about this sign. It's Thursday now, so you can start tomorrow. Say around eleven? I'll need you until six. Same hours on Saturday. Then on Wednesdays, I'll need you from six to nine."
Ginny agreed to the arrangement and left to continue with a couple of errands. As she pushed Seb down the road, she realized that she would soon need a double stroller. Forgoing some other stops, she headed to a large store on the edge of town and finally managed to finish her baby shopping for the new arrival. When she was done, she called a taxi to help get her, Seb and all the purchases back to the park. The next day she started her new job working the office with Gloria. Once again she felt herself settling into a new city with a sense of relief.