Back and forth we go!

When we arrive back in Austin, TX, in August we always feel as though we have LOTS of time until we leave mid-November -- so how come this visit always flies by so fast?  Guess that must mean we are having fun?

Before we left we managed to enjoy "swamp-hosting" 10 Gator football games and spearheading our Gator Club's fall scholarship fundraiser, knocking off bi-annual dentist and annual doctor visits, chasing around a white ball while pretending to play golf weekly, and catching up wth as many friends who would put up with us.

The Gator "bye" week in October is our chance to skip town for a short trip and this year we flew to the NW for a quick visit with my parents in Burlington, WA, before jumping aboard a 1-week cruise down the CA-CA (Canada and California) coastline.  We carried shorts with us but didn't actually use them much as the weather was cooler than we anticipated (duh... it was the NW).  The ports were lovely -- 2 ports in Canada (Vancouver and Nanimo) and 4 in the US (Astoria, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles).  Cousin Sally Cole even met us at the Seattle port and drove us out to see the impressive nearby Snoqualmie Falls which were really overflowing from recent rains.

Us at Snoqualmie Falls

We always save the last few weeks in Austin to do maintenance work on "Max" the motorhome -- the biggest items being a full body wash and wax.  This is no small feat, believe me, but we get better and faster at it every time we do it.  The only "ick factor" is having to be on his 13-foot tall roof for part of the washing, but using our new Little Giant ladder made the waxing process easier this time around.  We also tackled a little underbody rust-proofing and unfortunately discovered a collection of Brown Widow spider egg sacks and momma herself in our generator compartment (related to Black Widow).  Needless to say they didn't survive the vacuum.  So glad they never found their way into the "house" area.

Clean Max 

By mid-November we drive clean and shiny Max to Florida to spend the winter months.  After a brief stop in Pensacola to watch the Gators whoop up on LSU with the local Gator Club and Jeffrey's brother John and wife Susan, we carried on to spend Thanksgiving in Gainesville with Jeffrey's dad and brother Richard and wife Cathie.

We braved the post-holiday traffic to get Max to Lazydays in Seffner (near Tampa) for an appointment to fix a few items. Our extended warranty picked up most of them and "paid for itself" as of this trip :-)  We aren't huge fans of extended warranties, but I don't think we'd ever buy another motorhome without one.  Too many things can go wrong when you drive your house through an earthquake many days a year.  It was all pretty mundane stuff really -- toilet seal, side mirrors, slide seals, and chassis battery isolator replaced. We also got two of our ACs serviced -- just like you need to do in a house.  We only spend 2 nights sleeping in Max in the service bay and the rest in the attached campground (a novelty as they deliver a newspaper to us every morning). Jeffrey also got to feed his fetish and roam around through the motorhomes that were for sale.  He loves to look even though I insist I am totally happy with the one we have.

As I write this blog post, Max is in a storage place in Tampa as we flew out to Phoenix to spend 10 days exploring the area with my parents (who were thrilled to escape the very cold and snowy NW). While figuring out their highway system, we checked out Tortilla Flat, Butterfly Wonderland, nearby Wildlife World, the Capitol Museum, and even took a day trip to Sedona.  Jeffrey and I even connected with Wendy and Ken Zitterich, full-time RV friends who are wintering in Parker, AR - and my mom, Sheila, is connecting with a college friend she hasn't seen in many years!

The 3 Nelsons and 1 Martin at the viewpoint atop the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona

The best Sedona view in town -- from the local airport!

That said, I hope you are all "connecting" with family and friends as 2016 rushes to a close. Happy Holidays!

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