This is our eleventh year of retirement
and living on the road. Many friends ask when we are going to settle
down as we have been in every state and province so we have seen it
all. This year sure proved that wrong as we visited over 35 places we
have never been that included adding nine state capitols to our been
there list. Of course seeing friends and family in various places of
the country is still the greatest thing about our lifestyle. To
accomplish all this we put 8,309 miles on Opus and 10,417 on the CRV.
We traveled from the shore of the Pacific across the Southwest, north
through the Rockies, across the Great Plains and the Midwest to
WashPA and then south along the Atlantic coast ending in South
Florida. Our average trip was 173 miles, as we stayed in 48 places at
an average cost of $21.08 per day. While the cost of RV parks has
risen the last couple years, we had 25 nights where we stayed at no
cost. The average cost of fuel was $2.62 a gallon, the highest in the
last three years, but still lower than the days when it was near
$4.00. Opus is now a teenager so we continue to do updates and
replace things that have worn out over the eleven years of
fulltiming.
We started the year in Yuma where we
had the first of a few RV projects done, peeling clear coat on Opus
repainted. We are happy we got to see our old friends Dick and Joan as
Joan passed away soon after our visit. 2017 was the first year in a
while that we did not make it to Betty's RV Park, but we did get to
see many of the friends we have met there along the way. In Yuma we
had a Betty's West happy hour with Rick, Barb, Dan, Merlene, Dan,
Peggy, Tom, Ann, Clay and Christy. A grand time was had by all. Our
next stop was San Diego where Bernie and Dodo were in the same RV
park and Paul and Trudy were in the one next door. We got together
with them several times. Mike and Sherri flew out for a week so it
was a fun month with old and new friends exploring SoCal. We went to
the Coronado, Balboa Park, a whale watching cruise, the zoo, a trip
to LA. Bernie and Dodo joined us when we marched in the January 20th
woman's protest against you know who.
In the middle of February we moved to
Tucson for six weeks. This was the first time we have stayed there,
so we had plenty of new things to do and see. During the first month
we went to the Desert Museum, Biosphere 2, Tubac, Titan Missile
Museum, Mt. Lemmon, a pastel art show, Mission San Xavier and a one
man play about Fredrick Douglass. We also got to spend time with
Alan, Sharon, Carl, Vickie, John and Sharon. We had a great evening
when Don and Sharon invited us to their place in Benson. We had
dinner and got caught up with all our travels. We later learned they
bought a house in Benson and will be traveling less after 20 plus
years on the road. The last two weeks in Tucson we moved to the
fairgrounds for the Escapade. We were on staff so it was a very busy,
but fun week. It was great seeing many of our Class of 07 mates;
Howie, Norah, Sal, Bobbie, Bob, Molly, Jim, Bobbie, John, Lora, Rick,
Terri, Sandy, Mike, Mike, Trish, Ron, Linda, Dave and Kathy, who all
started fulltiming the same year we did. We later learned that Ron,
Linda, Dave and Kathy are settling down. Gary, Anita, Bill, Jan,
George and Nan, who we met at Betty's, where also there. At every
Escapade we look forward to seeing Mark, Daune, Jean, Lanny, Lois,
Dave, Brenda and many other SKP friends. Betty's and the Escapees are
the two greatest sources of new friends we have made on the road.
From Tucson we headed to Deming, NM for
a few days to recover from the Escapade. While there we discovered a
great off the beaten path restaurant Adobe Deli, visited the Luna
Mimbres Museum and did a day trip to Mexico to have lunch at the Pink
Store. We moved on to Socorro to check two very different things off
our list. We visited the Trinity Site in White Sands Missile Range
where the first atomic bomb was exploded in July 1945. Trinity is
only open the first Saturday of April and September. The next day we
toured the Very Large Array National Radio Astronomy Observatory, the
huge radio telescope on the high plains of New Mexico. Our next stop
was Albuquerque for two weeks. We left Opus there and flew to DC to
visit Nanc's sister Michelle and her husband Keith. We were
celebrating Michelle's birthday so her sister Judy came in from
Marietta, Ohio and her brother Dave and his grandson Braedon flew in
from Lacey, Washington. We had a great time with family and exploring
a bit of the DC area. Back in Albuquerque we had our friends Larry
and Amy for dinner.
We then went to Canyon de Chelly
National Monument, a place that was the home of native Americans who
farmed along the fertile river valley. This is one of the most
beautiful places we have seen. It was then on to Monument Valley, oh
wait, this is one of the most beautiful places we have seen. We have
seen Monument Valley in so many old Westerns we felt like we had been
there before. We also drove to Moki Dugway, a great twisting turning
gravel road that leads to the Bears Ears National Monument. Little
did we know that the president would soon be reducing the size of
this beautiful, natural and cultural wonder. Next was a week in
Cortez with a stop at Four Corners along the way. While in Cortez we
toured Mesa Verde National Park with its beautifully preserved and
restored Puebloan cliff dwellings. We also visited the Anasazi
Heritage Center, did a day trip to Durango and I won at the local
casino. Our luck changed the day we were leaving Cortez when Opus
would not start after we fueled up. After a long delay we were towed
75 miles to Farmington, NM where our luck changed again as the repair
was only a new fuel filter.
We moved on to Salt Lake City to add
the state capitol to our visited list and toured Temple Square. From
SLC we drove across the salt flats to Lamole, NV where we spent a few
days parked in the yard at Joe and Kathy's beautiful log home. They
live in ranch country and we had another first when we watched calves
being rounded up and branded. They were great hosts showing us around
there neck of the woods. Next stop was Boise to tour the Idaho
capitol and then almost 600 miles to Helena where we toured the
capitol and state history museum. From Helena we had a short travel
day to White Sulpher Springs where we checked out the 2 Bassets
Brewery and soaked our bones in the hot springs. We drove two lane
Highway 12 across Montana staying one night on the banks of the
Yellowstone River before a stop in Medora, ND to pick-up mail and
visit the Teddy Roosevelt National Park – North Unit that we did
not visited on our previous stay.
Next stop was Bismarck where we toured
the capitol, one of three that is a skyscraper. It was then south to
Pierre to add the South Dakota capitol to our list. We had a great RV
site on the banks of the Missouri River near where a plaque
proclaiming the land was French territory was buried in 1743. It was
this land that was part of the Louisiana Purchase and explored by
Lewis and Clark. The plaque was unearthed by local teens in 1913. Of
course all this land was the homeland of Native Americans. In
Mitchell we toured the Corn Palace and the McGovern Center. Our last
stop in the Dakotas was Sioux Falls where we visited my cousin Grace
and her friend Marlene. It's always great seeing friends and family
on the road.
An issue with the slide rollers in Opus
changed our plans and we headed to Omaha for a week. We failed to get
the repair done there but found Omaha to be a great city. We took a
day trip to Lincoln and added the last of the three skyscraper
capitols to our list. We visited the Durham Museum in the old Union
Station, took in a College World Series game, visited a park service
Lewis and Clark site but failed to meet Warren Buffet. We did have
our closest encounter with bad weather since being on the road with a
tornado that missed the RV park by only a couple miles. We had heavy
rain and wind but escaped any damage.
Our next stop was Des Moines where we
added the Iowa state capitol to our list and went to a nice arts
festival in the city. We met up with JC and Gloria, RV friend we met
at Betty's, and they took us to a couple great local restaurants.
Down the road we toured the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and
National Historical Site in West Branch. It was then a two day drive
to Indianapolis with a quick stop at Lasso E RV where they replaced
the bad slide roller in less than an hour and had us back on the
road. In Indiana we toured the capitol, state library and Indy
Raceway Museum.
Next was a short stop in Louisville
where we checked out the Louisville Slugger factory and the Mohammad
Ali Center. In Nashville we added the last of nine capitols we toured
this year to our list. We toured the Parthenon and did some honky
tonkin on Broadway. We got to have lunch with Charles and Sandy and
Ray and Wendy, four more people we met at Betty's. We then spent a
week at the Escapees RV Park in Heiskell where we gave Opus a good
inside and outside cleaning. We also toured the Oak Ridge Manhattan
Project National Historic Site. We moved to Concord, NC and spent two
weeks with my brother Rick and sister-in-law Denise. We had a fun
time playing with all Rick's toys on Lake Norman. Nanc's sister
Michelle and brother-in-law Keith joined us for a weekend getaway.
Our friends Dylan, Samantha, Tim, Mary, Pedro and Samantha all spent
time with us while we were there.
We then spent two months in WashPA for
our annual doctor and dentist appointments. We are happy to report
that they all went well and we are good for another year. Of course
while there, we helped keep many of our favorite local restaurants in
business and had a great time with more local friends and family than
we can list here. We especially like the weekly teacher's lunch bunch
where we get to see so many friends. Always high on the list is
John's wonderful homemade wood-fired pizza. Our RV friends Dan and
Merlene stopped for a one day visit and we took them to hear the Dan
Baker Group. We got to play euchre with the old card club three times
and attended wedding celebrations of our niece Morgan and her husband
Matt and my cousin Michael and his wife Amanda. We went to the lake
with Mike and Sherri and I got to do some fishing, something I always
look forward to when we are there. We also got a new recliner for
Opus and did a couple small RV jobs. On a down note Nanc had a little
hitch in her giddy up and could not run the Great Race. Even though
we travel all over the country we always look forward to our time in
WashPA.
On October 1st we started
south with the first stop in Maryland to see Michelle and Keith.
While there we went into DC to see the new Martin Luther King
Memorial and spent some time in Old Town Alexandria. We moved to
Hatteras Island for a week of sun, fun and fishing. Tom, Georgie and
Milo were there on vacation for most of our stay so we had a great
time with them. We left Hatteras and did four days in a row of one
night stops on our way to Ocala for our annual RV service
appointment. We did get to have dinner with George and Nan in
Jacksonville one of those evenings. When the service was done we
headed south to Naples for a month. Our goal this year in Florida was
to check out places to put down some roots and after checking out the
West coast we decided we want to be on the Atlantic Coast. While in
Naples we flew to Punta Cana for a two week vacation at Secrets Royal
Palms. We were very disappointed that Rick and Denise were not able
to join us as they had planned because of health issues with her
father. We had to have a problem with the AC and a water leak
repaired while in Naples and were very happy with the service tech
Daniel of Land and Sea Cooling.
We then headed to Jensen Beach on the
East coast for a month. We really like the area and did some looking
at possible places to settle. The prices are more reasonable here and
it offers many things we have on our checklist, including warm winter
weather, access to the ocean and many great local restaurants. The
day we arrived we had dinner with RVers John and Sharon who we last
saw in Tucson. Jean Paul and Celine came down from Orange City for
lunch another day and we had a great time getting caught up with
them. We are looking forward to seeing the four of them again this
spring at Betty's. We were only 30 miles from Jupiter so on three
Sundays we went to the Jupiter Jazz Society jam session with Mary
Lou. She and her friend Pat drove up to have lunch with us one
afternoon. The biggest thing we did while here was having new carpet
installed in Opus. We have been looking to have this done for over a
year and we finally found someone who would install it in an RV at a
reasonable price. Our last move of 2017 was only 25 miles to Jonathon
Dickinson State Park where we spent the holidays with Mary Lou. We
have stayed here every year since we went on the road and wintered in
Florida. We went to a couple music venues and dined at several of our
favorite local restaurants. Mary Lou had us for Christmas dinner
along with her neighbors Jack and Mervat who live on the same street
as my brother in Pittsburgh. We will ring in the new year with Mary
Lou and Pat.
2017 was a great year exploring many
new sights across the land and seeing many friends and family
members. We got a few wear and tear issues taken care of on Opus,
just like we had to do when we lived in a stix and brix. We have
begun to think about planting roots and feel that the Atlantic Coast
area around Stuart and Jensen Beach, Florida would be a good place.
For 2018 our plan is to spend January
at the Elks Lodge in the Keys. We will then sprint to Louisiana for
Mardi Gras and a two month stay at Betty's RV Park. In the spring we
want to explore Texas Hill Country and then add the Arkansas and
Missouri capitols to our list. At the end of May we will be working
at the Escapade in Sedalia, Missouri. If we get an appointment we
will head to Spartan Chassis in Michigan for service before going to
New England to add more capitols to our list. In July we have
reservations for the Escapees New York City Hudson Valley Hop. We
will then go back to WashPA for a three month stay. We are staying
longer because Nanc wants to go to her 50 year class reunion. We hope
to have an extended stay on Hatteras before slowly heading south to
Florida for the second year in a row. Of course, these plans are not
written in stone and always subject to change.
2 comments:
Wow, wow, wow what fun packed year you have had. Excited to see you at Betty's in Feb.
Nice synopsis! Safe travels.
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