May 7th, 2022

One of the many, many blessings of retirement is the time that it gives you to re-new old friendships.

Michell and I met when we were back door neighbors in Racine, Wisconsin. She quickly became my confidant, walking buddy and our families shared all the major holidays since neither of us had local family.

She is “Momma Michelle” to my two girls and to their good friend Jessica.

Nine years ago, Michelle and Lon retired to the Villages in central Florida and while I was working getting time to spend together was tough. My family also lives in Florida so trips down there were often consumed with family adventures.

When we were planning our time in Florida, a must was a couple of weeks nearby so we could plan some get togethers and even though I got mighty sick in the middle of our time there, we were able to get together three times.

We spent some time at her pool, at an executive golf course that is just my size (nothing over 100 yards and TWO holes you can shoot for, one the size of a small dinner plate – LOL).

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May 9th, 2022

Another adventure in moving yesterday. We are learning patience and how to help each other in an (sort of) emergency.

Lesson number one – follow the procedure. Do the fussy stuff the night before you are leaving even if you think you have PLENTY of time in the morning.

We didn’t do that this time.

The morning of our move, Tim dumped the tanks while I got the inside ready to go, then he decided to try out his new lug wrench. All the RV boys have one – 🙂 He was tightening up the tires on the rig and…..”SNAP – WHOOOOOSSSSHHHH” broke the TPMS monitor right off the rear right tire. And what’s connected to the TPMS monitor you might ask? The tiny little valve stem that is holding a tremendous amount of air pressure in our tire.

Tim was so mad at himself for the accident, but it was just an accident. I took the rest of the cap out of his shaking hands and got it on the tire and he got the chance to try out his other new toy, an air compressor!

Got the tire to pressure, but it was not holding air, so we made a call to Good Sam Roadside Assistance. If you are debating which roadside assistance to get – we can’t recommend Good Sam enough! They are calm and helpful and surprisingly fast.

They sent a tech out, he replaced our tire with our full-sized spare (always have a full sized spare) and we were on our way – slowly and carefully.

Tim is out getting the old tire repaired so we can have another full-sized spare and I’ll take the pup for a walk around our new campground.

Pics of the snapped valve stem, my improvised Mother’s Day Mimosa (I was not driving) and our beautiful drive to our new location in Kingsland, Georgia!

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March 17, 2022

Just starting to see peeks of spring on our way towards Nashville today.

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March 19th, 2022

It is day two in Nashville. the trees are starting to bloom here. There are tiny white blossoms everywhere. I’ll post a picture in case someone can tell me what these are. My guess is they will be magnificent in a week or so.

It was raining this morning, so we took the time to do some re-organizing now that we know how we will be using things. The knife blocks are gone, the knives fit quite nicely in a drawer and it is one less thing to store when we are on the move. We have re-arranged the bathroom to get the things we will use every day front and center and everything else is tucked back in the corners of the storage areas.

I have a challenge for all the women reading this. Guess how many bottles and tubes and jars of body lotions you have in your home. I purged when we moved out of the condo, again when we moved out of the apartment and I STILL have about 12 full lotion bottles. My guess is I started with 40 or 50.
I have goal to not buy lotion again for at least a year….

Last night we tried to find a restaurant with a patio that was dog friendly, and we did find some, but most were in downtown or quaint little areas of town and were absolutely not F350 friendly. We nearly got ourselves stuck in several parking lots and finally gave up.

But today after a quick trip to Home Depot (good thing they don’t sell lotion) we found a tiny little place called Grillshack Fries and Burgers and not only were they happy to have Reba join us for lunch, but there was plenty of space for the truck! Best of all the food was incredible. Hot juicy burgers with grilled onions and all the fixings including a spicy ketchup that I’d love to have a bottle of. The fries seemed to be hand cut and were crispy and delicious.

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March 21st, 2022

Today was our last day in Nashville.

We stayed at Two Rivers Campground which is very close to Grand Old Opry and the Opryland Hotel. If you are planning to do some sightseeing, I’d recommend this park or the KOA that is next door. The KOA looks to have a bit larger sites. The staff at the park are amazing. Very friendly and helpful. They have a tiny little dog park and Reba met some fun friends this morning.

The Two Rivers Dog Park that is a couple of miles from here was beautiful and filled with furry friends. Reba met a tiny little mini-Aussie and she stole her ball over and over and over.

We spent most of our days here getting better organized and resting. We were not yet comfortable leaving Reba in the RV for a long time, so we didn’t do any of the tours. We did leave her for a couple of hours to do dinner at the Cock of the Walk.

I was a bit worried when I saw the metal plates come out as we
sat down, I was having a flashback to a very unfortunate breakfast at the Paul Bunyon in the Dells…..however, the food at Cock of the Walk is INCREDIBLE if you love fried catfish – and I do! We also got a half bucket of greens and we have at least a full meal left over.

We got back and Tim got all our tanks flushed. I got to drop the black tank treatment into the toilet after he was done. I got the better end of the deal on this job.

Tomorrow off to Blue Ridge, GA. One of our very favorite places in the country so far! We will meet my brother and sister-in-law there on Sunday night for a much different dinner experience!

Tim’s Tip: “My Masters Degree in Environmental Engineering has made me completely qualified to drain our tanks. I warn you that valves marked from the factory as “black tank” might actually be a grey tank – and horrifyingly the valve marked “grey tank” might actually be a black tank. Clear elbows show it all!

Note our site number – I belive it was meant to be. 🙂

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March 29th, 2022

We spend the first week of our Florida stay at Lazy Days RV Park in Tampa. While they don’t sell Alliance 5th wheels, they do know how to run a pretty good park.

It is in urban setting and the sites are tight, but they have a clean, beautiful, caged (no bugs) pool, a cute little restaurant and bar and hot breakfast included each morning with your site! Because I don’t usually eat a large breakfast, it really became lunch for us!

Reba and I found a little neighborhood behind the resort to walk in and it is GORGEOUS back there! I hope developers never find it. Beautiful old trees, large lots and for the most part tiny, little homes that look like they have been there for decades. It’s literally a minute or two from the interstate, but you would never know it.

Right behind our spot was a pond area (probably a retention pond, but it was beautiful) that was screaming with frogs one night after the rain.

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March 31, 2022

Today we learned more than all the other days combined! We spent three hours with My RV School in Tampa.

http://myrvschool.com/

My RV School is a faith based, veteran owned, family business and we were lucky enough to have both the husband and wife come out to teach us the tricks!

They took us through how to back in to a camp spot with our 5th weel using only our mirrors and each other!

I mentioned that I had not yet driven the rig, so they had me do the first back in. We did four total practices.

If you are even considering buying a 5th wheel for vacation or for full-time living, I’d recommend hiring these guys to train you the DAY you get your rig. IF you have a friend who would let you borrow their truck and rig to take the class with BEFORE you buy yours – even better!

While we were very happy with the folks who sold us our Alliance 310, you pretty much get the keys, a hearty slap on the back and a “good luck!” Learning to drive it forward is not a huge deal, but backing it into a spot or getting out of a challenging situation is NOT easy.

They taught us so much in just three hours and we will have a checklist going forward that will make us so much more safe. We have blended the MyRV checklist with the one we found online from Changing Lanes, updated them for our rig and we do NOTHING without the checklist!

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March 2, 2022

I promised myself I’d start painting again once we got on the road and I did do a multiple day project for Emily’s upcoming wedding and popped it this little piece, which is now 3M stripped to a corner near my pantry, but that’s it so far.

As soon as I get caught up getting all the Facebook posts moved over to the blog, I’ll spend more time painting!

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April 19th, 2022

Meeting – eating – same if you are Reba.

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April 23rd, 2022

It’s been years since I have been able to get Tim in a Kayak, but he DID it! I see some more paddles in our future!

Yes, those are monkeys in the trees. They were introduced to the area by accident when they escaped from a film production in the area decades ago. We learned not to engage with them. They respond by throwing their poop at you!

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