Anita and Sterling are the parents of Howard Payne. A little background... Howard and his wife Linda have been full time RV'ers since 2005, and they run the website RV-Dreams, a site dedicated to the education of new full timers. They also administer the chat room that I'm on every night. Back in 2008 they had their annual rally at Branson, MO. This was back when we were first deciding to become full timers, so we attended to gain as much knowledge as we could about the RV lifestyle. Howard and Linda were such an inspiration to us at the time! Our original plan was to be on the road in 2012, but Linda sat down with and asked us, "What are you waiting for?" We didn't really have an answer, so we moved our timetable up and got on the road at the end of 2009. We met Anita and Sterling at that rally, and again at the 2010 RV-Dreams Rally in Myrtle Beach, SC.
When we got here we thought it would be nice to pay them a visit, hoping they'd remember us. Linda put us in touch with them, and they welcomed us with open arms today. We talked mostly about our travels, and Howard and Linda's travels, and they even shared some stories about Howard growing up. In fact, we may get in trouble with Howard, but when Anita showed us this picture of 7-year old Howard, we just had to share it with all of our readers who know Howard. (Anita didn't think Howard would mind.)
Isn't he adorable? :) Howard's cousins Samantha and Brandy dropped by while we were there. Samantha comes into the RV-Dreams chat room quite often, so it was really nice to meet her in person, and Brandy is a student at Louisville University. They're both very sweet.
Anita, Brandy, Samatha, and Sterling
Anita and Sterling have a nice vegetable garden in their backyard that they're very proud of. They were nice enough to give us some green onions and lettuce. It brought back memories of my garden days growing up in Indiana.
Thank you to the whole family for a wonderful visit today. We’ll be sure to get in touch again when we’re in this area.
On the way home we stopped at a nearby Jiffy Lube to have the oil changed in my car. It was overdue. When that was done we hit the beginning of rush hour coming out of Louisville. I forgot just how bad rush hour can be. As retirees we try to avoid being on the road when people head home. The drivers in this city do seem to be nice and considerate though. Everyone seems to use their turn signals and are willing to let you in when you need to change lanes. Believe me, it's not that way in a lot of cities!
We had dinner and chilled the rest of the evening. The tents are going up for the weekend flea market next door. We’ll be checking that out tomorrow.
4 comments:
Very cool to see their home & garden. They are such wonderful people.
Great Folks... Nice that you got to stop by and say hello!!
Howard hasn't changed a bit;o))
It is so nice to hear about some of our fellow RVers getting together. We hope to do more of this down the road!
How nice you were able to visit with Anita and Sterling! Now that picture...it sure doesn't look like Howard to me! LOL
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