Recap of 2011 TWO YEARS AS FULL TIME RV'ERS

(Avon Park, FL)  Hi 82 Lo 68 -- What a year it’s been!  We towed Tumbleweed a total of 6,730 miles in 2011. We started the year at Little Charlie Creek RV Park in Wauchula, FL. The highlight of the year was our trip to Canada during the summer. It was a wonderful experience. We left Florida in April and headed for North Carolina, where we spent several weeks with family and friends. On the way we stopped in Charleston, SC and did some sightseeing. After our stay in NC we started our trip north to Canada. We stopped in Richmond, VA to spend some time with Mike and Terri. They were in the process of selling their house so they can hit the road full time. They were kind enough to show us the sights of Richmond. Then we stopped in Maryland to see Jim’s aunt and uncle, and made our way up through Pennsylvania and New York. It was nice to see Dom and Ellen in Buffalo for a few days. They showed us around and took us to the Anchor Bar, home of the original Buffalo Wings; In mid-June we crossed the border into Canada. I stressed about the border crossing for weeks prior to this, but it ended up being no problem at all.  We spent two weeks with our dear friends Sandra and Gordon in Smiths Falls, Ontario, and then we spent another week traveling across Ontario to our re-entry point back into the U.S. at Sault Ste. Marie, MI. We found out that fuel costs were much higher in Canada  than in the U.S., as high as $5.05 a gallon (and even higher for diesel). There was a 13% tax on just about everything except groceries. The campgrounds were nice, but much more rustic than we’re used to. At one park in Mattawa, ON we didn’t have any satellite, no local TV, and wi-fi only at a picnic table in front of the office. That was a long four days!  J

After we re-entered the U.S. we spent a week at Sault Ste. Marie and enjoyed watching the big lakes cargo ships and tankers go through the Soo Locks. We even got to take a boat tour through the locks, one of the highlights of the summer. We then lesurely traveled back down through the upper peninsula of Michigan, into Wisconsin (where we spent a wonderful week with Karen and Steve), over to Minnesota (to see our old friends Linda and Chuck), then through Iowa, and into Illinois to spend time with our two sons, their wives, and all our grandkids. What a wonderful few weeks that was!


It was then on back to NC in October, where we had to take care of moving my mom into an assisted care facility. That was a trying month for us, but we got everything done. As you know if you've been following our blog, we've since moved mom to Missouri to live with my sister and her husband. She's currently doing well. We then went to spend a week with Jim's family in Beaufort, NC, and then made our way back here to Florida for the winter.

During our travels we learned that we still don’t care for state parks. They usually have too many trees for our liking. Jim is very good at finding nice parks along our route without going over four to five hours a day in travel. We stay one day in between traveling to avoid back-to-back travel days. Most of the parks we stayed at this year had at least water and electric, and most had sewer too.

We stayed at our first Corps of Engineer (COE) Park in Iowa, which was very nice. (It was the only park that had electric only. We had to live on our fresh water tank for a week, which was no problem.) We stayed at a couple of casinos, and several military famcamps. Our campground fees averaged $25 a night or less. The highest was in Canada at $40-45 a night. Our favorite park is still Pelican's Roost at the Mayport Naval Station near Jacksonville, FL

We still sometimes like making reservations, but more and more we’re trying to get used to just calling a day or so ahead to see if sites are available. We haven’t had the courage to just wing it yet by not calling ahead. If there’s things that interest us in the area we’re in, we’ll stay a day or two more to check them out. Jim likes to visit Presidential Libraries and Museums.

Some of our traveling habits: We gas up before every trip so we don’t have to worry about finding a suitable gas/diesel station on the way. We take a snack and water in our vehicles with us, which usually is enough to hold us over during our normal four hour trip. We always make one rest stop, either at a rest area or in a suitable place on the side of the road.

We love meeting people along the way and we always try local foods or dishes. The Beef on Weck in Buffalo, NY, and the Amish noodles in Pennsylvania and Indiana, and Pasties in Wisconsin are just a few of the new foods we tried (and liked). Culver’s is our favorite fast food restaurant. We just wish they would expand their chain outside the midwest.

We’re often asked why I follow behind Jim in my car when we’re traveling. Jim will address that in tomorrow’s blog, along with give a financial breakdown of how much the second car costs us.

Remember to check the right side of the blog for parks we’ve been to. Thanks for following along this year. We appreciate every one of you so much! It’s sometimes a struggle to post every day like we do, but knowing we have loyal readers makes it all worthwhile. We don’t have an agenda yet for next summer, but we have all winter to think about that. 

We’ll leave you with a list of places we saw and things we did from April through September:

               Niagara Falls, Canada; Anchor Bar in Buffalo (home of the original Buffalo Wings); Three U.S. Presidents’ graves; Camp David, MD (the front gate anyway); NSA Headquarters in Ft. Meade, MD (very Top Secret place); Ottawa, Canada’s capital city; The Big Nickel in Sudbury, ON (it’s a Canadian thing); the Soo Locks; the Field of Dreams movie site in Dyersville, IA; Buddy Holly’s crash site memorial in Clear Lake, IA; House on the Rock in Wisconsin; Fort Sumter, SC; Patriot’s Point in Charleston; All five Great Lakes (one of my bucket list items); Lambeau Field in Green Bay, WI; Wisconsin Dells; Mall of America in St. Paul, MN; Winnebago Factory in Iowa; Spam Museum (wowee!); Hoover Presidential Library;  U.S. Grant’s Home in Galena, IL; Old Joliet Prison (as visitors, not inmates); Chicago Bears NFL game; St. Louis Cardinals baseball game; several minor league baseball games; St. Louis Arch; one of the sites of the Lincoln Douglas debates in IL; Museum of Edgar Allen Poe.

What a life!