Happy Holidays 2013!

Jeffrey writes a Holiday letter each year.  Below is its debut on our blog, so enjoy!
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It has been quite a year. Some of it very fun and enjoyable traveling – visiting and exploring with the motor-home – and some of it very confounding because of the motor-home and the issues of the mobile life style. Nothing serious, but it helps that we have a background that includes basic electrical knowledge!

We left Austin, Texas last December as planned and traveled until mid-August. We spent most of the time in Florida and Raleigh but made it as far north as Connecticut before we turned around and headed back south for more Raleigh, more Florida and eventually back to the Austin area. I think the highlight for both of us was Washington, DC and the impromptu Civil War history sub-plot that we weren't expecting.

When we got back to Austin we flew to Burlington, WA to visit Maren's father Rick and Sheila and while there we explored the north west corner of Washington state with them. I joked to Maren that we were visiting 3 of the 4 corners of the US this year without even really planning it. Well, upon our return to Austin, Maren found a cruise for my 50^th birthday that included Key West, FL – and a few weeks later we planned a trip to meet up with Rick and Sheila in December in San Diego! Now I wish we had made it all the way to Maine in the motor-home before we turned around. Next year we will have to try harder ...

Now, just because we are full-time RVers, that doesn't mean we don't plan other side adventures when we are out on the road. We just have to carry luggage with us for when an airplane is the mode of transportation. In March we flew from Raleigh to Miami for a Caribbean cruise with David and Mary and kids. In June we flew from Raleigh to Cancun, Mexico just in time to experience Tropical Storm Andrea forming and a very wet week. 
 
The fall in Austin was a blur, and that is when we had some electrical issues with the motor-home. We had a few different problems and it took a bunch of investigation (by us) and several attempts by the experts to get it right, but we think that this problem is now behind us. Issues are a given for full-time RVers since every trip is a windstorm and an earthquake to the home. We expect this and so far it hasn't changed our minds, yet. In the middle of all this we ventured to west Texas and the Big Bend area. Is that the 5^th corner of the US? Driving there and around the area we saw the great expanse of Texas with the views to match. Did we mention that “the stars at night – are big and bright …. deep in the heart of Texas”?

We again plan to be back in Austin in 2014 in time for another season of Gator football (lets not talk about that!) and hosting game watching parties with the Lone Star Gator Club. That will also let us catch up with Austin friends and repeat the cycle of getting our regular doctor and dentist visits out of the way before hitting the road again for 2015. 
 
In summary, our travels let us visit all the parents, all the brothers and sisters-in-law(5+5) and all the east coast aunts(4), uncles(5) and cousins(8 + spouses); and even some 2nd cousins and extended family! Next year's plan is still in the works, but look out mid-west family - it might happen this year. (We will let you know as soon as we figure it out).

I try and make an effort to keep friends and family up to date via Facebook but we realize that not everyone uses that. The blog gets updated at least every month, so look for the real story of this year's adventures and future travels in this blog (http://marenandjeffrey.blogspot.com).  If you'd like us to email you when we add new posts to our blog, please click here -> https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1Nfel34nwmpCGfpXeJxCqZoy6_uJOCru7KTk01pDMicI/viewform

We wish you the very best for the New Year and hope you are spending the holidays making memories with family and friends.


Jeffrey & Maren
171 Rainbow Drive #7173 Livingston, TX 77399
512-689-4896

Lovely Florida Weather

 We are enjoying the fantastic Florida "winter" weather as we finish up our service trip in Tampa.  In fact, it looks like we hightailed it out of Texas just in time as the cold weather descended into the Lone Star state shortly after we left.  After a week enjoying Jeffrey's parents in Gainesville (and a Gator football game too), we dropped Max off in Tampa and flew to San Diego for a week to celebrate an early Christmas with my Dad and Sheila.  Our flight west was supposed to stop over in Dallas but, due to ice and snow, it was cancelled and we were rewarded with a direct flight instead (oh darn!).  We would have booked that direct flight originally if it hadn't been so much more expensive! ;-)

Once we got there, San Diego was a real treat.  We've been back in Flroida for 4 days and my feet are just now completely recovering from all the walking we did at the famous San Diego Zoo, the sister safari park, Seaworld, and the Midway carrier museum -- and we barely scratched the surface of things to do in that area.

 

Midway Carrier

Christmas trees at Seaworld

Swimming Hippo at Zoo

Turtles at Seaworld

While we were away, Max stayed at Lazydays Tampa and got some TLC -- new bedroom carpet and a nice smooth satin finish on the Corian kitchen counter.  I had no idea Corian was so sensitive to scratches.  Guess I better be more careful in the future! He also got a new engine air filter and some sealant on the roof, but those are really just general maintenance. We bring him back in mid-January to have Winnebago inspect his roof as we are seeing some odd ridges in the fiberglass.  There is no leaking and it has a 10 year warranty, so we aren't concerned.  Either they'll decide to watch it or replace it -- but neither should cost us any $.

Tomorrow we head over to Florida's lovely east coast -- first stop is Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Hobe Sound! We always think the "next stop" is going to offer us more "down time", but that never seems to happen.  There are just too many family and friends we want to see and fun things to do in the places we visit!

Wrapping up our Texas Visit

On our way back from our west Texas Big Bend trip, we made a successful side trip to get Max his annual fluid/filter service, arriving back in Georgetown with just 2 weeks left before we head east for the winter.  It was enough time to get final dental cleanings, catch a few more Gator games with our beloved Lone Star Gator Club, enjoy a few last meals with close friends, and get Max's new replacement EMS installed. 

We unfortunately endured one final electrical snub when we smelled burning plastic the day after we got back. Thankfully it just turned out to be improper wire caps that were used the last time they fixed our water heater wiring.  Still a bit scary though and we were none too pleased the local service place had goofed up.  Hopefully that is all behind us now!

I write this blog update from Pensacola where we have stopped for a few non-driving days to visit with Jeffrey's oldest brother, John and his wife Susan.  They are always great hosts and treated us to a favorite dinner of salmon fillets with cherry pitachio topping (YUM!).  We also joined them to watch the Gators play Georgia Southern with the NW Florida Gator Club.  Well, turns out that was NOT the best use of 4 hours as the ending was very disappointing, but at least the company was good :-)  ... even got a picture (see below) of us with their mascot.

Tomorrow we move on to the Williston Crossings RV Park that is near Gainesville and will stay there a week while we visit and enjoy Thanksgiving with Jeffrey's parents. A huge cold front is once again chasing us east this year and Austin is enduring a winter storm scare, so our timing was good.  Unluckily, we have been driving into a head wind every day on the road so far -- sure would be nice to have a tail wind tomorrow, but the weather report is not optimistic.

From Gainesville, we will head to the Tampa area to drop off Max at our favorite service place for a few upgrade items (new carpet in the bedroom and polish the corian counters in kitchen) while we fly to San Diego to rendezvous with my parents for a week.  We'll spend the end of 2013 and early 2014 in the Hobe Sound and West Palm Beach areas to enjoy the (hopefully) warm SE Florida sun and our nearby family and friends.

Livin' in the Wild Wild West

Okay... I know west Texas is not necessarily the "wild wild west", but this old song by the band Escape Club was stuck in my head the entire time we were there!

We are on our way home (Georgetown TX) from this over-a-Gator-bye-week Texas side trip.  It was organized by the Escapees -- the group we are members of that helps us with our Texas state residency so we can vote, have an address for insurance purposes, and get our mail forwarded to us.  The itinerary included Ft. Davis, the McDonald Observatory (solar and night viewing), the Marfa lights, the Museum of the Big Bend (in Alpine), the Indian Lodge at Ft. Davis (for a lunch), and the Chihuanhuan Desert Nature Center.

It was really a fascinating area -- so remote, so dry, and with vistas and mountains that were very beautiful.  There were 20 RVs total with all of us parked together at an RV park in the Ft. Davis area. No surprise that we were the youngest couple, but the next oldest was only 5 years more.  It was a mix of full-timers and part-timers.  Escapees had arranged a tour bus to take us to all of the sights we visited, so the "rigs" just stayed parked together all week.  Most of our meals were catered by the RV park staff or we ate at diners and cafes for lunch on the road.  On one afternoon we had a little extra time and mobbed an ice cream shop.

After the organized trip, the RVs scattered in all directions with the two of us driving Max to nearby Marathon so we could leave him parked for two days while we drove the car to see Big Bend National Park. Talk about ANOTHER amazing place! We have already decided two days wasn't enough and we'll have to come back on a future trip so we can do more of the wonderful hikes. Apparently the busy season starts November 1st, so we beat the crowds and were often the only car in sight as we explored the park. Clearly Big Bend is one of the best kept secrets in Texas. On a wildlife note, we managed to hit the tarantula breeding season, so we had to watch the road carefully to make sure we didn't run over any of them as the males were on the march looking for ladies!

Our only mechanical issue on this trip was with the car (Moby). When we tried to drive him after towing him 2 days across the state, we got a brake warning.  We were concerned that this would prevent us from driving him around Big Bend and we would have to cancel that part of our trip, but a local Exxon (the only mechanic in the area) was able to read the computer codes on the car and figured out the problem -- a small vacuum leak in the system that enables the RV to brake the car when we are towing.  When disconnected, this leak affected the car's brakes when it tried to run in hybrid mode.  Anyhow, our new mechanic friend just bypassed the leak temporarily so we could stay on schedule and the company that manufactures the system we installed has already sent us a replacement part that we can install when we get back. Never a dull moment!

Gremlins and Doctor visits

Wow, another month has flown by in Texas!  Thankfully the temperatures have moderated considerably -- in fact, the high today is only 59 degrees but that is an anomaly.  We'll be back into the 70s and 80s tomorrow.  It it perfect weather to do some remaining "outside" Max work, but rain is a deterrent at least for a few days.  Thankfully our "before we hit the road again" TO DO list is finally getting shorter!

One big item accomplished is we have most of the annual doctor visits finished.  This process seemed a little more stressful to me this fall, probably because of the threat of having a medical problem interrupt our travel plans.  But so far so good :-)  We are also making some progress with our golf game and visiting friends in the area.

The best news is that we think we have finally found our electrical "gremlin".  Replacing just the water heater element did not fix things as we managed to throw breakers less than an hour after getting home from that repair -- so we spent a few weeks playing musical chairs with our wiring to try to remove possible causes.  This exercise did not bear fruit, but Jeffrey gently poking a wire behind the water heater caused a big POP, a burning smell, and blown breakers both on the coach and at the outside pedestal.  So back we go to the service place the next day and they pull out a clump of scorched wires that were hidden behind a cover -- all burned and with melted insulation that had clearly been unhappy for quite some time.  Not sure how they missed seeing this at the last service appointment... grrrrrr

At any rate, we are all fixed up and hope this is the final item in the chain of events that caused so much havoc.  Jeffrey is reluctant to install the new EMS until we are "sure", so we'll continue to run with the EMS disabled for a few more weeks and just manage our own power until we get back from west Texas. 

West Texas?  Yup!  We are taking a side trip this weekend and driving Max (pulling Moby the car) to the Fort Davis area.  We'll be part of a 5-day organized RV outing with 20 or so other RVs and will get to see all kinds of sights in that area -- McDonald Observatory, Marfa lights, etc.  We are hoping the U.S. government opens back up by the time it is over as we want to visit Big Bend National Park for a few days before we head back to Georgetown.  I promise my next post will have some pictures of this trip!

A Hot Time in Texas

My, how the last month has flown by.  We mistakenly thought that once we got back to Georgetown things would calm down considerably, but that was not to be!

We decided to dodge the Texas heat for a week and flew up to the nice cool NW to visit my Dad and Sheila in Washington state.  The 4 of us had a grand adventure ferrying over to and enjoying 3 days in the Cape Flattery and Hurricane Ridge areas.. absolutely beautiful parts of the U.S.A.  Also got to see my aunt Pat and Dad's cousin Ray and wife Carolyn.  Can't say enough about the nice weather though!  We always get lucky and have sunshine when we go up there.

Once back at Max, we braved 100+ degree days for the last week of August and successfully kicked off Gator football game watching parties with our Gator Club.  Unfortunately, Max's electrical woes took a new turn and we lost half the brains of our energy management system for some unknown reason.  Though we had plenty of power coming in, this EMS is responsible for making sure we don't overuse it, so part of its job is to monitor what devices are on and selectively turn lower priority things on/off if needed -- like water heater, engine heater, washer/dryer, etc. Generally is doesn't need to do much for us and we rarely notice it cycling things, but running our full compliment of air conditioners in the Texas heat can definitely kick it in.

Of course this issue happens over the Labor Day holiday weekend when we can't get to the service place in a timely fashion, so we have a few days to put our former-engineering heads together and diagnose what might be going on.  We are able to limp on one A/C in a VERY warm coach and to our great surprise, the company that makes the EMS is actually answering phones on Labor Day!  We come up with some ideas and get Max to service the next day where they confirm the problem and order a part that seems to fix us right up -- hooray!  (and hooray for extended warranties)

Deep breath of relief ensues as Jeffrey has decided he wants to celebrate his upcoming 50th birthday with a Carnival cruise out of Galveston over the Gator football "bye" week and Max is fixed just in time.  So Key West and the Bahamas, here we come!  It is always nice to just drive to a cruise ship and not have to deal with airline flights in and out. The cruise is terrific and we valiantly try not to over eat and try to get some exercise every day.  We return to only mid-90 degree heat in Texas, so the fall is starting to cool things down a little at least.

We are thrilled to find Max seemingly happy and with no obvious electrical issues when we get back -- and that lasts for only 2 days.  We wake up on Jeffrey's birthday expecting to give him a day of rest and relaxation and no errands :-)  and whammo... we have the same EMS problem again on the new part.  Sigh.  More research and several phone calls later and Jeffrey is getting more and more educated about how things work.  He is able to rig a way to temporarily bypass the EMS -- which means we just need to manage the power levels ourselves.  We also have a new clue as we heard the water heater breaker flip right before the problem.  In hindsight, this was happening "before" too.  So as I write this, we are sitting in service having the heater element replaced and hope we have finally tracked down our little electrical gremlin. 

Is this making us question full-time life in a motorhome?  Nope!  But it is definitely mentally challenging us more than we ever expected and keeping life exciting!

Completing trip #1!

Well, we survived the drive through Shreveport, LA, and the roads were no problem at all. Sure wish they would fix I-10 on their south edge though -- at least before we drive it again this December!  We even survived our first drive past the Dallas area, though we did cheat a little and pick roads that skirted east of the city so we could miss the worst of the traffic.  We have also learned to avoid rush hour.

We next enjoyed a fabulous 3+ day visit with friends, Mike & Lori Brindle, who live in Lake Kiowa, TX, which is just south of the Oklahoma border.  Their gated neighborhood even had a small campground with full hookups for Max, so we weren't too far away from them. Unfortunately, we were now fully engulfed in the dry Texas heat, so enjoying their golf course was not a good option.  We did, however, venture away from their little paradise to check out a nearby zoo and amazing casino right over the Oklahoma border.

Unfortunately, Max took issue with the heat (or maybe it was the huge power requirements to almost constantly run his 3 air conditioners) and started to suffer some mysterious power outages. It didn't take long to spot an unhappy breaker in his power panel.  The bad luck is that it was one of the uncommon ones and had to be ordered, so we were forced to limp back to our Georgetown RV park with only 1 A/C in order to get to a service place that could patch us up. We will now add an extra $40 breaker to our "spare parts" box :-)

In the end, we got back and organized in time for the annual SEC Picnic where our beloved Lone Star Gator Club gathers with the other alumni clubs to kick off the upcoming college football season (in the picture below, we are the ones in the funny tan hats on the right next to the blow-up "Albert" mascot). We sure had a lot to share and catch up on with them! It was great being back to our "Fall" home where we can enjoy our Austin friends and eat some truly wonderful BBQ and Tex-mex food for a few months!

Westward bound

After spending a final week near Gainesville seeing Jeffrey's parents, we began our trek westbound -- the goal being  to get back to Texas in time for the SEC picnic mid-August with our beloved Lone Star Gator Club.  Lucky for us, Jeffrey's brother and sis-in-law Susan live in Pensacola FL, so they are a very nice place to stop and hang out for a few days.  On our drive over, we stopped at a Pilot to fill Max with diesel and found ourselves the lucky recipients of a freezer full of Haagen-Daz ice cream from a trucker who was going to have to throw it away because the outside box was damaged.  Lucky for us, the single-serving containers of chocolate fudge brownie were totally fine!

We also enjoyed our final days on the nice Florida highways as we have found the southern states further west to be BUMPY... at least in a motorhome.  We have learned to "batten down the hatches" on rough roads, including putting rubber bands around the silverware so they don't clink-clink-clink.  As a result of our bumpy trip over I-10 when we came east last December, we decided to detour up to I-20 and see if it was any smoother.  It also gave us a perfect opportunity to visit my cousin Peyton and her family who had just moved to Jackson, Mississippi.  Jackson also has a zoo (see pictures below) and, while it was so-so, we pretty much had it all to ourselves (as well as the planetarium in town).  Found a few more folks in the local art museum, but the real crowds were at one of the local indoor malls keeping cool!

As I write this update, we have plodded further west to Mindon, Louisiana just for a night stop and will do another 1-day drive to Terrell, Texas tomorrow.  As it turns out, the worst of I-20 was at Jackson and it has been better as we go west -- though we have been warned that the road out of Shreveport may be bumpy too.  Guess I better keep the rubber bands on!

Back to the Sunshine State

My, how time flies!  Hard to believe it is almost the end of July.  We wrapped up June by sliding back down I95 into Florida, stopping for a few days in Jacksonville before cutting over to the Gainesville area for a week.  We had offered to help re-supply our Austin-based Lone Star Gator Club with some Gator raffle/halftime prizes and had fun going to flea markets and area stores for great deals to save them money.  No surprise that it is much easier to find this stuff in Florida than Texas :-)  Now we just have to find a place in Max to stow it all for the trip back to Austin!

As scheduled, we arrived for our big "fix the floor" service appointment at Lazydays on July 8th. We managed to add a few more things to the "needs fixing" list over the last few months, the most inconvenient being a clothes washer leak. While the floor and other items were being addressed, we entertained ourselves in the nice customer lounge watching golf, working on puzzles, doing some computer work, etc. Only had to stay in a hotel one night while the new grout was curing... and even then, we had Best Western points so it was a freebie. 

Sidenote: the campground at Lazydays has the most advanced laundry facility that we have ever seen.  You can pay for your wash/dry machines with a credit card and then get a text message when your load is done.  Pretty cool.

Now for the unexpected.  If you find yourself sitting in a great service place, it is only natural that you start thinking of any other things you'd like to do -- not "fix it" stuff but "nicer" stuff.  We calculated that we were under budget on fuel and campground fees for the year so perhaps we could indulge ourselves and get the better satellite system. The one that came with Max was tossed on as a "deal sweetener" by the dealership where we bought him, but turned out to be an older model that was very finicky and getting more problematic as time went on.  We were tired of spending 30 minutes to an hour getting the darn thing pointed and happy every time we moved to a new place.  Ergo, we splurged to get a Winegard Traveler.  Unfortunately, after that money was committed, we discovered that our "house" batteries were pretty fried and just past the NAPA 3-year date.  Kaching!  Did you know that RV batteries cost almost $300 each?  well, we need 4... sigh.  Guess the RV maintenance budget line item needs to be a bit bigger next year.

Below is a picture of Max with his new roof satellite dish  :-)

The end of a wonderful spring

By the time we left Cancun, Mexico, tropical storm Andrea (yes, it was bad enough to actually get a formal name) had made its way out of the gulf, actually dumping a bunch of rain on lonely Max in Raleigh as it went on its NE track.  Our last few days at the "Grand Mayan" were actually nice -- so long as you watched the sky carefully for the occasional shower.  Funny enough, we found this to be the case when we got back to Raleigh too.  Guess it is that time of year when thunderstorms break out randomly many days.  Reminds me of my years living in south Florida!  Anyhow, before we flew back to the U.S., we snapped some cute photos of local wildlife at the Grand Mayan resort (see bottom of post).  Gator friends, it is a crocodile, not an alligator :-)

Once back to Max in Raleigh, we helped celebrate our nephew, Karl's, high school graduation. His parents (my dear college friend, Mary, and Jeffrey's brother David -- they met at our wedding), threw him a fabulous BBQ party at home ahead of his formal graduation ceremony.  So amazing to witness this milestone in a young man I once held in my arms shortly after he was born almost 18 years ago!  AGH!  Where has the time gone?  Needless to say, it was with a heavy heart that we left NC yesterday as we continue our "just the two of us" journey south.

Our first stop was Gaffney, SC, where we had an appointment to get Max aligned and inspected -- which we deemed a worthwhile expense after our first major jaunt on bumpy roads these last months.  Lucky for us, there were no issues... just a few minor adjustment and we were on our way.  Once again, the "chassis" part of our coach has been almost bulletproof.  The "house" part will get its time in the service bay next month when we finally buckle down and get the floor grout fixed in Florida next month.  Oh Joy... probably should have our heads examined for choosing hurricane season to do this!

Weather to stay or go?

After a day visit with our final Connecticut friends, Guy & Joan Clark, we started our 5 day run back to Raleigh.  Guy and Joan had fattened us up with a fabulous dinner the night before we left, so we were energized for a few long days of driving.  By the way, "long" is relative in this lifestyle.  Four hours in a car is no big deal, but motorhome travel is a little more intense.  There is a lot more to watch out for, you generally go at a slower speed, and a small "bump in the road" is really amplified.  We still haven't gotten to a level of comfort that we even listen to the radio when driving.

Anyhow, stormy weather showed up on the forecast for the entire week, so we opted to leave our options open and not make firm park reservations until the day before or even the morning of.  Day 1 was the road back to Pennsylvania -- which sure seemed rougher than the same road to drive east on a few weeks earlier. Day 2 storms held off in the morning, so we high-tailed it over 250 miles and managed to pass through the rest of PA, a corner of Maryland, West Virginia, and finally stopped in Winchester Virginia.  Jeffrey thought this was a great accomplishment -- being in 4 states in one day. 

While Winchester looked like a really neat town and we wanted to stay an extra night to have a day to explore, the RV park we picked (Candy Hill) was a not a good experience.  It was nice enough, but it was right beside a major freeway with loud trucks cruising by at all hours.  Instead, we outran the afternoon storms again and made a run for Richmond on Day 3.  Since we only needed 1 more driving day to get back to Raleigh, we had 2 full days to explore Richmond a bit, even though it rained on us most of the time.

Our final driving day was uneventful but rainy through Virginia, finally drying out once we hit the North Carolina border. The upside is that Max had a nice exterior wash and looked pretty clean after a dirty trek to parts north.  We got settled in to our RV park near Raleigh and enjoyed a week's worth of visiting with Jeffrey's two local brothers and their families.  One casualty of our recent rough road driving appears to be our washing machine which has sprung a small leak underneath somewhere.  Lucky for us, our family in Raleigh have extended the use of their in-house laundry facilities, so our washer repair can be added to the list to be fixed at our next service appointment (at Lazydays in Florida in July).

I write this blog entry from near Cancun, Mexico where we are enjoying a pre-25th wedding anniversary visit to our "timeshare". We arrived by plane (Max was left to rest in Raleigh) and unfortunately, the wet weather has followed us once again and we managed to land right in the middle of the first gulf tropical depression.  We have had wet stuff every day and some of it torrential, but it is still a lovely part of the world.

We will return this weekend just in time to help celebrate our nephew Karl's graduation from High School.  Crossing our fingers that the rain doesn't follow us home!

WOW Connecticut!

We experienced our first "big" hills as we made our way through NE Pennsylvania, stopping for a night in our first KOA park north of New York in order to see friend and former IBM colleague Thorne Ventura and his fiance Lin. The KOA was a bit tight and heavily treed which did not make our roof-mounted satellite happy at all -- had to deploy the portable one and practically put it in the street behind us to get a signal.

Our next week was spent near New Haven, Connecticut, home of Yale University and close to Jeffrey's cousin Pete.  We really enjoyed touring the college and seeing the New Haven Museum... quaint but interesting.  Spent quite awhile trying to find a big "Yale" sign like our own University of Florida has, but only found a small thing.  Odd. We didn't find New Haven to be the wonderful coastal town that I had imagined.  It was much more industrial around the waterfront than expected and there were many depressed areas around the city.

Our next week in Old Mystic, CT was the complete opposite -- an absolutely fabulous area with tons to do and not enough days to do it all.  In addition to the famous Mystic harbor town (and delicious "Mystic Pizza"), there is a terrific reproduction of a 1840's shipbuilding town (part of which is still actively restoring old ships), an aquarium where Dr. Robert Ballard's office is located (he found the Titanic), the ability to tour the U.S.S. Nautilus (the first nuclear submarine), and so much more. 

But the biggest reasons to visit this wonderful area was to see Jeffrey's other cousin Tim and my former college roommate, Lisa Pickett and her husband Zack. -- oh, and their adorable yorkie Zoey! Lisa and Zack really rolled out the read carpet for us and gave us grand tours of the Mystic CT and Newport RI areas on their weekend off. We then kept ourselves very busy every day of the week and then seeing them most evenings for dinner. Good thing we were well rested from our slower "New Haven" visit!  Below is a great picture of the four of us taken from a "cliffwalk" in Newport, followed by the best beluga whale picture I took at the aquarium.  Funny, the whale looks tiny, but it is actually 15-20 feet long. 

Tim is a busy guy who bounces between New York and Niantic CT in his job.  We were lucky to get a nice evening visit with him and catch up.  His Niantic cottage is close to the water and we can see why he escapes the big city as much as he can.  We are sad to be leaving this area as we U-turn and head back south again to get to Raleigh by Memorial Day.  We highly recommend putting this place on your bucket list!

Civil War Tour

Though it wasn't actually planned this way, the last two weeks have been an amazing refresher about the American Civil War.  We arrived in Appomattox, Virginia after leaving Raleigh and realized we had landed in the heart of the civil war surrendar that occurred in April 1865.  Our RV park was across the road from a new Confederate Museum and we were only a few miles from where General Robert E. Lee surrendered the armies of Northern Virginia to General Ulysees S. Grant.

Because it was the annual anniversary of this surrender, we caught the end of a week-long series of events and presentations about the war in both the museum and at the Appomattox Court House grounds where the surrender actually occurred.  We both found ourselves remembering small pieces from our long-ago school history lessons, but we definitely got a much more detailed experience.

While in the area, we also spent a day with former Austin friends, Bob and Karen Rasmussen.  Funny enough, they took us to another historic site -- Thomas Jefferson's second home in Poplar Forest (west of Lynchburg VA).  Besides being a cool place to tour, there was a craft beer festival going on to raise funds for the organization who is maintaining/restoring the site.  Needless to say, we had to contribute to the cause and sample some of the special brews.  Below is a picture of the 4 of us in front of Jefferson's house.

Our next RV park was in Louisa, VA, for a night to visit with a special cousin, Annie Gavan Tillack and her husband David. He is an avid (and successful) hunter and we were fortunate to drive away with a lovely chunk of venison bologna to fortify us for our next stop -- Washington D.C.

I can't say enough about our 9 days there.  We were in Cherry Hill RV park which is specifically known for its D.C. proximity. It was easy to access the metro to go in to the city -- which we did almost every day.  We even drove the car in several evenings... once with the bikes so we could ride all over the Mall and see the big monuments.  We both lived in nearby towns as children and remembered bits and pieces of visits there, but to enjoy and appreciate the museums and history as adults is definitely something special too. I even got my picture taken with the cherry blossoms!

We decided to pace ourselves and not try to do more than 2 big things each day with one exception... the Holocaust Museum by itself was enough for one day.  To continue our Civil War experience, we made it a point to go to Ford's Theater where President Lincoln was assassinated only 5 days after Lee surrendered to Grant in Appamatox. In fact, John Wilkes Booth's original plan was to just kidnap him and perhaps ransom him to end the war in the South's favor.  The war surrender changed all of this and he went for a kill instead.  We didn't get to do everything on our D.C. list, so we'll just have to come back!

I write this update from our next stop -- Dover, Pennsylvania.  So far we have made day trips via car to Hershey (to visit the chocolate) and Gettysburg (to visit the battlefields). Though the exact spot where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address in 1863 isn't marked, we did get to see the railroad station where he arrived and see the house he slept in before that speech.  The National Park Service has a fabulous museum, painted cyclorama, and movie about the 3 days of the battle. Before the invention of "moving pictures" to visually tell stories, Cycloramas were used.  This one was opened to the public in 1883, is 27 feet tall and 359 feet in circumfirence, and is mounted in a circle so you can see the full battle scenes (and resulting devastation) in a full 360 degrees.

Not sure that we have any more Civil War history in any of our next stops.  Guess we'll find out!

Spring break cruise and then further North

After suffering through a cold month in Raleigh (have already decided to wait an extra month before heading up here NEXT year), we took a break and enjoyed a Caribbean cruise over the school "spring break" with Jeffrey's brother David, his wife (and my college friend) Mary, and their 3 terrific kids -- Karl (age 17), Anna (15), and Isaac (13).  They had never cruised before, so we got to enjoy watching them explore cruise ship life for the first time.

We sailed on the Norwegian Epic from Miami to St Maarten, St Thomas, and the Bahamas.  The boat held over 4000 passengers (biggest one we've ever been on), so there was no lack of things to do.  I must say that bowling and playing pool when the boat is rocking is an interesting challenge. We also really enjoyed the shipboard entertainment which included Blue Man Group and a Cirque show.  Mary even got tapped to go on stage with the Blue Men to be part of the show and was a celebrity for the rest of the cruise as fellow passengers came up to her commenting about it.  I have included a few pictures from our snorkeling adventure below.

Got back to Raleigh and was pleasantly surprised by beautiful warm weather.  Our RV neighbor said it was cold and rainy the entire time we were gone (glad we missed it).  We have proof of the rain part as our tupperware container that catches water from our small slide leak was just about full.  We had this leak addressed at our last service appointment and it no longer leaks when the slide is OUT, but now leaks when the slide is IN... go figure.  It is back on the list to re-look at when we have another service appointment in the summer. Luckily it doesn't stop us from traveling... just a nuisance.

As promised, below is the next few months of our travel itinerary!

4/12 - 4/13:  Appomattax, VA -- Parkview RV Park to see friends Karen & Bob Rasmussen
4/14: Louisa, VA -- Small Country Campground to see 2nd cousin Annie Gavan and husband David
4/15 - 4/23:  College Park, MD -- Cherry Hill RV Park to pig out on Wash D.C. museums & monuments
4/24 - 4/30:  Dover, PA -- Gettysburg Farm RV to enjoy more USA history
5/1:  Lake Ariel, PA -- Just a one night stay to get us closer to our next stop
5/2:  Wallkill, NY -- Newberg KOA to visit friends Thorne Ventura and gal pal Lynne
5/3 - 5/9:  North Branford, CT -- Totoket RV Park to connect with Jeffrey's cousins Tim and Pete Martin + see the CT coastline
5/10 - 5/16:  Old Mystic, CT -- Seaport Campground to see college roommate Lisa Pickett and her husband Zack + maybe a car day trip or two into Rhode Island
5/17 - 5/18:  Back to North Branford to catch a quick visit with friends Guy & Joan Clark
5/19 - 5/23:  Hightail it back down to Raleigh NC
5/24 - 6/23:  Another month with our Raleigh friends and family
6/24 - 6/28:  On the road back to Florida
6/29 - 7/5:  A week near Gainesville, FL in the Williston Crossings RV Park
7/6 - 7/7:  A few days in Seffner FL prepping for our RV service appointment
7/8:  Max goes into the shop to have his floor worked on AGAIN.  Hopefully they'll get the grout right this time... plus fix that slide leak.  We are proud that we haven't managed to break anything else yet!

Chasing the cold weather to NC

Wow, how time flies when you are having fun! It has been over 3 weeks since my last post as we were about to leave Gainesville FL on our way to a 6-week stint in NC. Heavy rain and storms chased us across FL to Jacksonville for a one-night stop so we could visit with Jeffrey's brother Richard and his wife Cathie. We almost stayed a second night to wait out some heavy rain activity, but were lucky as the weather moved past us by late morning so we could drive through Georgia for our next one-night stay near the southern border of SC and then another night near the northen border.

This gave us a chance to try our new annual Passport America membership that gives you discounts for short stays at certain parks.  If these are along your route, they are a great deal at 50% off.  We haven't yet tried the "stay overnight in a Walmart parking lot" option as we prefer a park instead. It may sound like we aren't driving very far every day, but we have determined that 200 miles a day or less is ideal and we like to get to our destination by 2pm to have some day left to explore or relax.

Made our final road trip "leg" on February 28th to get us near Raleigh, NC where we have two of Jeffrey's brother's, their wives (both of which Maren went to college with), two nephews, and a niece.  We also arrived just in time to celebrate a milestone birthday of my maid-of-honor.  She also happens to be one of our sister-in-laws, having met one of Jeffrey's brothers at our wedding.  Lucky us!

Max is parked in nearby Clayton (since Raleigh itself does not have RV parks), but we are only a 25 minute drive to the nearest family and are spending as much time as we can hanging out with the them as well as connecting with former IBM friends who are now based here. We are also getting lots of experience with cold weather.  We have had numerous nights that dipped below freezing and require us to decide to run either our propane furnaces, our heat pumps, or both.  Thankfully, Max's dark paint warms him/us up quickly once the sun comes up, so we aren't needing heaters during the day.  By the way, this dark paint is NOT as welcome in the summer months!

Our plan is to be here until mid-April, but We have been busy planning our travels for the few months beyond NC so we can find parks along our path. It is really quite a process -- decide where to go and who to see, what parks are nearby, do they match our needs, get a reservation, etc. Some RVers don't bother planning in this detail, but we are still newbies and prefer to have things arranged ahead as much as possible.  The size of our rig (41 feet) also limits what parks we can stay in as some only have spaces that are smaller.

I'll post our next itinerary soon :-)  For now, enjoy the picture below... Max hanging out with the "big boys" at a rest area we stopped at on the way north. 

Final Gator sports before leaving Florida

We have really enjoyed seeing so many Gator sports while staying near Gainesville -- several men's and women's basketball games, women's lacrosse, and even women's gymnastics.  We cap it off with a final men's basketball game tonight before we hit the road again.  Didn't make time for any baseball or softball, so we'll save that for next year's visit.  We have already made a reservation for this same RV park for March of 2014.  It is amazing how busy Florida is for RVers in the winter, so you need to book way ahead for a nice RV park.

Aside from Gator sports, we have had a great visit with Jeffrey's parents and even made it down to see my uncle Marshall and aunt Diana in St. Pete one more time while letting Lazydays in Tampa have Max a few days to replace a part that wasn't available on our first service visit.  We are hoping that things will even out and we'll have fewer issues now that we've had a few good "shake down" months.  We opted to defer having the floor grout fixes done until this summer, so we'll get back down here sometime early July (yeah I know it will be hot and humid!)

We also drove down to Brooksville for a day visit with our new "RV" friends, Bill and Linley Zinger.  We met them on our first trip to Lazydays as they were purchasing their first Class A motorhome and will be fulltiming as soon as their house is sold.  It is fun to share experiences with folks who are also choosing to embark on this somewhat wild lifestyle :-)

Our adventure now takes us over to Jacksonville and then up the east coast
to North Carolina, so stay tuned!

Jeffrey with his parents, Jack & Evelyn Martin

Go Gators!

After enjoying our final week in Lake Louisa state park, we made the short drive to Williston Crossings RV Park in Williston FL, less than 20 miles from our alma mater, the University of Florida in Gainesville.  This also put us close to Jeffrey's parents who retired in that area.

Our first 3 days were a happy whirlwind of watching live Gator sports... first a swim meet Friday night, then men's basketball Saturday night, and finally women's basketball Sunday.  I'm in heaven!  Hopefully we'll be able to squeeze in a few more matchups before we move on later this month. 

Our new park is really lovely.  We have barely had time to explore, but we managed to find the clubhouse and take advantage of the $4 pancake and sausage breakfast they host every Saturday morning.  Our nice pull-through site is surrounded by tall trees, but Jeffrey was still able to get our portable satellite dish to work (after the roof mounted one couldn't get a clear signal).  I have attached a photo of Max "head on" in his current home with his slides extended. 

We also met our neighbors on one side, CW and Sue.  Everyone we have met on this adventure has been extremely nice and these folks are no exception.  It doesn't take long before you start swapping experiences, park recommendations, maintenance tips, lessons learned, and my favorite -- problems that you've had and how they were fixed.  All of the these items are PRICELESS when you live this lifestyle!

We head to North Carolina by plane tomorrow to attend a friend's wedding and as soon as we get back, we take Max back to Lazydays for his final 2 service items... fixing a few issues with the tile floor and replacing a "slide lock" (helps keep the wall slides tucked tight). 

We're Free!

We are finally free from our Lazydays experience!  Actually, in all fairness, they did a fabulous job getting our variety of little things fixed and we plan to make them an annual stop if we have anything that needs to be addressed in the future.  They were also great at "putting us up" each night -- wether in a service bay or in a parking space -- but always with at least electricity and sometimes with water/sewer connections too. We also saved a decent amount of money from refunds from the on-site campground we barely used.

We still have 2 items to get addressed (waiting on parts), but we knew there would be a re-visit at some point in the near future -- hopefully before we leave Florida in late February so we'll have a clean slate (at least until we manage to break something else!).

Moving on, we are now in Clermont, FL in Lake Louisa State Park.  We got a surprise in that our site does not have full hookups -- electricity and water only -- so we'll likely have to drive the rig over to the dump station a few times during our 2-week stay to empty our gray and black tanks.  That being said, so long as we don't do a bunch of laundry, we should be great.  In fact, the campground has a small laundry facility that is cheap ($1 a load to wash) and is MUCH faster than our own smaller washer on board.

We have only been here a few days, but have already "cleaned house" (doesn't take long!), re-provisioned our groceries, and visited with some of  Jeffrey's local family.  Today is a "down day" -- catching up on some email, making the next allergy shot appointment for Jeffrey (which involves finding a new doc in the next town), arranging our next mail delivery, etc... our new "normal" life while on the road.  The good news is that we do all of this with a beautiful view of one of the park lakes right out our window (see picture)!

New experience in Tampa

Okay, I know pretty much every day is a "new experience" in this lifestyle we've chosen, but this one deserves a little reflection.  We arrived in the Tampa area at the Lazydays campground to enjoy the sights and get a little final warranty work done on Max while we are here.  Little did we know, but it turns out Lazydays is somewhat famous nationally for their RV sales and service business.

After enjoying a quiet weekend and terrific evening visiting with family, we took Max over for our Monday morning appointment at the Lazydays service center.  Our service experiences so far have been very "hit or miss", especially with a rig as big as ours, so we were a little stressed.  Nevertheless, we turned over our "home" to strangers so they could tackle our remaining warranty items.

As I write this, we have been in a service bay for 3 days now and the service techs are REALLY kicking butt and getting things fixed!  Almost all of our items are minor things and none are preventing us from traveling, but maintenance and repairs are part of life when your house drives down bumpy roads. Instead of having to return to the campground every night and pay there, they save us a few bucks and just give us any hookups we need and just let us stay in the service bay. The only downside is that our roof satellite dish can't see the sky, but we have a portable unit that we set up on top of the car instead.  We are far from alone as there are folks living in their RVs in the service bays around us (this place has over 200 bays!).

Lucky for us, most of our issues are already fixed and a few others are just awaiting parts being overnight air-shipped from Winnebago (what a great company!). Lazydays is offering us free breakfast and lunch every day and also has fabulous free  seminars so we can stay entertained and learn more about using, maintaining, and enjoying our RV.  We are anxiously awaiting the outcome of investigations into a few remaining repair items ... so stay tuned to the next blog entry!

Celebrating the 2012 Holidays in Florida

We proceeded on to our next big set of linkages with friends and family is in south Florida... specifically Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Hobe Sound.  From there, we have lots of folks we want to see who are conveniently located either a short drive north or south of us.  We had two more hops to make to get there -- Tallahassee and Bushnell, FL.

Wet and windy weather seems to be chasing us across the country this whole trip, so we cut our Tallahassee RV Park stay to just one night (turns out we thankfully missed a huge storm the night before we got there) and added a night to Bushnell at the Sumter Oaks RV Park. This is another "Escapee" park, so we enjoyed meeting a number of other full-timers.  It is always fun to share stories of "life on the road" and we especially like getting new "RV" tips.  You'd think we wouldn't have too many stories of our own yet, but we find that is not the case.  Especially nice was participating in the weekly "dine in" -- dinner of pulled pork, beans, slaw, and dessert for only $6 each.  What a deal!

Finally made the last drive segment to Hobe Sound on Dec 21, arriving just in time for an overnight cold snap of 40ish degrees. Enjoyed meeting some RVers next to us who are planning to go full-time in another year or two. They had also traveled quite a bit world-wide and Maren went to see the movie, Lincoln, with them one evening (Jeffrey not interested, though I suspect he just enjoyed having some time alone!)

Our two weeks in Hobe Sound were super full of lunches and dinners almost every day we were here... such a treat to have enough time to see everyone for a change!  Rang in 2013 with the usual resolutions to exercise more, eat less, yada yada  :-)