Living Our Dream

Merry Christmas!

We pray that the reality of Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ, fills you with joy and peace. How easy it is for the frantic activity of the season to obscure the true meaning of Christmas. Satan uses preoccupation, religious ritual, idolatry, over-familiarity and a myriad of other trappings to distract us. May we all make time to step away from the distractions and come to know Jesus or know Him in a deeper way this holiday season that we might abound in hope.

Wishing you the blessings of Christmas to you and yours.

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Eighth Anniversary

Berlin, OH - July 10, 2014

We started our eighth year of full-time travel at a repair garage southeast of Cleveland. We had to have the throttle body actuator on the engine of the motor home replaced when the motor home unexpectedly went into reduced power mode on I-77 after leaving Amish Country in Berlin, OH last summer.

After a one-day delay to get the motor home repaired, we hit the road for a tour of New York and New England. Except for a few business trips for Paul, neither one of us had been to New England before.

The first stop on our year 8 summer travels was a visit to Niagara Falls. Paul hadn't been there since he was a kid, and Margery had never been there.

From Niagara Falls, we traveled to New England. We went through the Green Mountains of Vermont and the White Mountains of New Hampshire, then we dipped down to visit Lowell, MA and the area to the north of Boston.

From Boston, we headed north again to Bar Harbor, ME. By far, the Bar Harbor area and Acadia National Park were the highlight of our summer. We loved the rocky Maine coast and the way it changed appearance depending on the time of day and the level of the tide.

After reluctantly leaving Bar Harbor, we headed south with stops in Topsham, Maine; Old Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts; Newport, Rhode Island; Cape Cod, Massachusetts; and Mystic Seaport, Connecticut.

Some of the things we saw in year 8

New England was the last major U.S. geographic area we had to visit. With the addition of the 6 New England states plus New York, we have explored 46 of the 48 contiguous states since we started in 2006. Depending on the hurricane season, we're hoping to visit the last two, New Jersey and Delaware, on our way south this fall. We are not planning to go to Alaska with the motor home, but we may take a cruise there someday. We obviously won't be going to Hawaii with the motor home; and because of the great distance and expense, we won't be probably be going there without it either.

America is an absolutely beautiful country with a wide variety of landscapes, flora and fauna that are breathtakingly exquisite and delightful. The uniqueness of each area is fascinating and beautiful in its own right. You never know what you'll find around the next bend in the road. We are so grateful for the opportunity to travel, see, hear, and learn of God's creation.

After touring New England, we spent a couple of weeks in Pittsburgh for visits with family and friends and for our annual doctor appointments. From there, we made our way south for a month in Lower Alabama before heading to our snowbird roost at Blueberry Hill RV Park in Bushnell, FL.

Year 8 travel route

We traveled about 4,300 miles in year 8 - not nearly as far as the 15,200 miles we went in our first year, but more than the 2,600 miles we went in year 7. In our eighth year, we made 29 stops with an average length of stay of about 12½ days per stop. In year 7, which was a slow-down year, we made 25 stops for an average of about two weeks at each stop. Even though we went a longer distance in year 8, our travel style was still somewhat leisurely.

During our stay in Florida, we decided to take advantage of a special offer by the owners of the RV park and commit to two years at the "6 & 6" rate in exchange for having pavement and landscaping added to our site and for getting a storage shed. The "6 & 6" rate means we can use the site for up to 6 months a year and store our RV on the site for the other 6 months. Even though we probably won't stay for the full 6 months most years and we definitely won't be storing our RV on the site, the price for "6 & 6" is only a little higher than what we would pay for staying 5 months at the regular rate. We usually stay 4 months, but we plan to increase the length of future stays to around 5 months. We decided the small increase in cost was worth it for the convenience of having pavement and so Paul could do a little gardening and also have a shed where he could keep a small workbench and some tools.

Blueberry Hill site before

Blueberry Hill site after

We left Florida late this spring and stopped in Alabama. Our stay there was shorter than usual because of the fact we hung around Florida much longer than usual in order to see our paving and landscape get completed. We then headed north with stops in Memphis, Nashville and Crossville, Tennessee. From Crossville, we ended up back in Ohio's Amish Country again.

Even with our 9th year promising to be an even more leisurely travel year than year 7 or year 8, and with our commitment to the "6 & 6" rate at Blueberry Hill and the resulting likelihood we will stay in Florida longer than before, we're still not ready to give up RVing in the foreseeable future. We plan to keep rollin' down the road.

Seventh Anniversary

Berlin, OH - July 10, 2013

As has been our custom, we would like to pause on the anniversary of the start of our full-timing adventure to reflect on the past year to remember where we have been and think about where we are headed.

It's hard to believe we have been homeless for 7 years. Well, we're not exactly homeless. We do have our 37' Tiffin Allegro Bay motor home to live in. Our motor home has served us well taking us a total of over 61,500 miles in those 7 years.

This past year, we took it easy in our travels, and we covered a distance of only about 2,600 miles in the motor home. We made only 25 stops in year 7 for an average stay of about two weeks per stop. That compares to about 6,600 miles in year 6 with 34 stops and a whopping 15,200 miles with 79 stops our first year! The average stay our first year was only 4.6 nights per stop. As you can see, we are slowing down and staying three times longer at each stop on average. However, we do have a little more ambitious travel plan going to New England in the upcoming months, but we'll be nowhere near the 15,200 miles we went in year one.

In year 7, we concluded our tour of several southern states with stops in Tennessee and Kentucky before drifting north into Ohio where we spent a month in Amish Country before heading to Pittsburgh in late September for visits with family and friends and for our annual doctor and dentist appointments. After that, we spent another 10 days in Amish Country then meandered back south to stay about a month in Summerdale, AL. From Summerdale, it was on to our snowbird roost at Blueberry Hill RV Park in Bushnell, FL for 4 months. When we left Florida this past spring, we spent another month in Summerdale on our way to New Orleans. We then headed north with stops in Little Rock and Nashville before returning to Amish Country in Berlin, OH several weeks ago. We are really enjoying the slower pace compared to the frantic one we set our first year.

Some of the things we saw in year 7

Our route for year 7

Changes in year 7 include a new car and a new smartphone. We love our new Equinox. It is a lot more comfortable than our old Saturn Vue, and it has a lot of improved features. Our favorite is the power liftgate. We are slowly getting up to speed with the smartphone and are learning to use its many features. One of our favorites is being able to use voice to dictate text messages and also to dictate search terms for internet browsing. The phone doesn't always get every word right; but even with having to make corrections, it is a whole lot easier and faster than typing. We also like being able to use Bluetooth to send photos to our computer (and vice versa).

Although we occasionally think about settling down, we have no plans to do so in the near future. Even though Margery would like to be able to quilt (some do it in an RV, but it takes a lot of space so everything usually has to be put away at the end of the day), and Paul would love to have a small garden and a workshop, we still enjoy seeing and learning about new things. Not only that, but we don't know where we would settle if we did if we did decide to buy a house, so we'll just keep rolling on for now.

Miscellaneous Musings

Bushnell, FL - Events of Tuesday, February 19 to Wednesday, February 20, 2013

We had several errands to run in the vicinity of The Villages, so we headed there on Tuesday. One of the stops we wanted to make was at a mobile home community called Water Oak, which is located on the same side of The Villages as Home Depot, Kohl's, Sam's Club, PetSmart and OakWood Grill. We have driven past Water Oak dozens and dozens of times because we go to that part of The Villages frequently.

Since Water Oak is owned by the same parent company that now owns Blueberry Hill (Sun Communities), and since we're very pleased by the way Blueberry Hill is being run and by all the improvements, we decided it would be a good time to check out Water Oak after we finished our other errands for future reference.

As we said in our last post, we sometimes have a desire to put down roots when we stop in one of our favorite locations for an extended period of time. However, we have several other favorite places that we're not willing to give up yet, and we still enjoy seeing new places as well. Even though we have no plans to give up full-timing in the near future, we were always curious about Water Oak, and we thought it would be a good idea to get some information so we would know if Water Oak or something like it could be a possibility when we decide to slow down our travels someday.

We met with the sales manager who told us all about the history of Water Oak and about their facilities and activities. We are pleased to report there was absolutely no high-pressure sales pitch.

Water Oak was started in the 1980s, so some of the mobile homes there are older. Pre-owned homes are available; but Water Oak still has vacant lots, and they are still installing new units.

After chatting with the sales manager, we walked over to view several models of new mobile homes on display. Mobile homes have come a long, long way in the past 10 years or so. In fact, they don't even like to call them mobile homes anymore - they are manufactured homes. Manufactured homes have begun to come very close in appearance to site-built homes. Outside, they have vinyl siding and asphalt shingle roofs. They have good insulation, and most of the newer ones have dual-pane windows even in Florida. Inside, newer mobile homes have drywall throughout, and many have 9-foot ceilings and features like tray ceilings in the living area.

The models on display were attractively staged and very comfortable looking. They ranged in size from a little less than 1000 sq ft to over 1500 sq ft. The models featured open floor plans, which helps optimize the usage of living space.

Typical living room

Even the smaller units with smaller kitchens usually have lots of cabinets for storage and ample counter space thanks to an island or peninsula. The kitchen in the next photo was in one of the larger models and was huge.

Margery checking out the kitchen storage space

We learned that manufactured homes have advantages and disadvantages. The primary advantage is you can get a very nice home at a very reasonable price. The disadvantage is manufactured housing depreciates over time. A site-built home, if properly maintained, will normally go up in value over time (except for the recent bursting of the housing bubble).

We also learned that even though Water Oak was nice, we didn't feel it would suit us. It is very large (1100 to 1200 homes), and there is much shade in the older areas (we like sun, especially in winter). The lots in the older sections are fairly large, but the mobile homes in those areas, although well maintained, look very dated. The lots in the areas where the new manufactured homes are being placed are small. It's not that we want a huge lot that we would have to mow and care for, but we don't want our neighbors house right outside our windows. Paul would also like to do a little gardening.

The other downside to Water Oak is, even though you own your home, you rent the lot. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the rent at Water Oak seemed high to us. That's probably because part of the rent helps pay for all the amenities like two swimming pools, an 18-hole golf course, shuffleboard courts, pickle ball courts, tennis courts, two clubhouses, a softball field, bocce ball courts, etc. There are also lots of activities like card clubs, craft classes, exercise classes, dance lessons, pot luck dinners and pancake breakfasts. Amenities and activities are nice to have, but they're not really that important to us.

As we said, we aren't planning to quit full-timing any time soon, but we are happy we were able to gather some information. We will tuck it away in the backs of our minds for sometime in the future.

It was mid afternoon when we finished up at Water Oak, and we were starved. Since we Water Oak is close to OakWood Grill, we stopped at OakWood for lupper on the way back to the motor home.

OakWood Grill

OakWood has delicious smoked meats and barbecued ribs. Since they have a special price on a full rack of baby backs all day Sundays through Wednesdays ($12.99 vs. the regular price of $15.99), and since it was Tuesday, we both had the baby back ribs.

Margery and her baby back ribs

We love the ribs at OakWood. They are fall-off-the-bone tender. The barbecue sauce is thick and sweet with a hint of tartness.

Wednesday was Freeway's last intermediate training class. He has come a long way in 6 weeks. We had slacked off on much of his training from puppy class last year, so our first couple of classes this year were a little frustrating. However, perseverance has paid off, and things began falling back into place by the third class, especially after we found a secret weapon to assist with training - Cheetos. After 6 weeks, Freeway is a star pupil.

We started the class off with a few minutes of play time for the dogs.

Melanie handing out treats during play time

Then Melanie, the instructor, started a review of what we learned. The one thing we and all the other dog owners in the class were having the most difficulty with was getting the dogs to come when called. We practiced a bit in class out in one of the aisles of the PetSmart Store. We all still have work to do with the "come" command.

We also worked on sit-stay in class. Freeway is pretty good with that command, but adding distractions like other dogs, people, a favorite dog toy or an unfamiliar environment can derail everything, so we need to continue working on that, too. Getting Freeway to obey basic commands like come and sit-stay no matter what else is going on around him is our goal.

After class, we made a few other quick stops in The Villages. The sun in Florida can be very hot, even in winter, so one of us stayed in the car with Freeway with the windows open. After our errands, we made our way back to the motor home.

Now that Freeway's training classes are over, we were hoping to be able to plan more sightseeing. However, Paul unexpectedly got a new project on Wednesday evening. We'll tell you all about it in our next post.

Valentine's Day

Bushnell, FL - Events of Thursday, February 14, 2013

It has been five years since Margery had partial knee replacement surgery, and she has had a much easier time walking ever since. She had to use a mobility scooter the first two years of our full-timing, and she missed out on a lot of hikes and sightseeing. After the surgery, we had to go back and revisit some of the places we had been to so she could experience first hand the sights that she previously couldn't walk or ride her scooter to.

Margery has gone back for X-rays and checkups at one or two year intervals since the surgery; and this year, it was time for another checkup. We deliberately scheduled the visit to the doctor on Valentine's Day because his office in near the Bahama Breeze in Tampa, and it would give us a perfect excuse to stop at Bahama Breeze after the doctor for a Valentine's Day lupper.

Margery was in and out of the doctor's office fairly quickly. Her knees are doing so well she doesn't have to go back for another checkup for five years. We were originally told that partial knee replacements generally last 10-12 years. Failure is due to further deterioration of the knee or a failure in the prosthetic. We were delighted to hear that there are no signs of further deterioration in Margery's knees whatsoever since the surgery, so we're looking forward to many more years of good mobility.

We planned the time of the doctor's appointment so we could arrive at Bahama Breeze between lunch and dinner so we could avoid the Valentine's Day crunch. Therefore, it wasn't very crowded when we arrived about 3:30.

Bahama Breeze

Even though it was a rainy, dreary day, the hibiscus along the parking really stood out.

Hibiscus

We decided to have several appetizers for our lupper, but we had a difficult time choosing which ones we wanted to have. We ended up with a Bimini Pretzel, an order of Firecracker Shrimp, a small order of onion rings and a lobster and shrimp quesadilla. The pretzel was served with coarse-ground mustard and with cheese sauce. The onion rings had a mango dipping sauce, and the Firecracker Shrimp come with red pepper dipping sauce. Salsa and sour cream are served with the quesadilla.

Bimini Pretzel, onion rings, Firecracker Shrimp and lobster and shrimp quesadilla

Paul digs into the Firecracker Shrimp

We have had the Firecracker Shrimp and onion rings at Bahama Breeze before, and they were as delicious as we remembered them. This was our first time for the pretzel and quesadilla, and we were a little disappointed. We thought the pretzel was a little too dense, dry and crumbly. We like soft pretzels to be a little softer and a little more chewy. The quesadilla was okay, and there was enough lobster and shrimp on it; but everything was all bunched near the middle with nothing at the outer edges of the tortilla. We also thought it could have used more cheese.

We couldn't get out of Bahama Breeze without our favorite dessert - a Chocolate Island. A Chocolate Island is a mound of chocolate mousse atop a fudge brownie served with chocolate sauce and vanilla anglaise. The whole thing is topped with whipped cream and toasted, sliced almonds.

Chocolate Island

The Chocolate Island was good, but not as great as other ones we have had. The whipped cream was a little soft and much of it had slid off the top by the time the dessert reached our table. There weren't as many almonds and there also wasn't as nearly much chocolate sauce and vanilla anglaise as we have gotten in the past. They also usually drizzle the chocolate and vanilla sauces in a more decorative pattern, which doesn't make it taste any better, but makes it look nicer. After all, we eat first with our eyes.

Even though there were some disappointments with our meal, there were also some good parts, and it was still a nice "date." We had good face time talking about how we're feeling about our current lifestyle. Although we both get a hankering to "settle in" when we're in one of our favorite locations for a time, we still don't want to give up staying in all our other favorite places. Therefore, it doesn't look like we'll be putting down roots any time soon. ;-)

With our bellies full, we headed back to the motor home. It was the start of rush hour, and rush hour traffic in and around Tampa is always a pain. The rain didn't help either.

We had to stop in the Blueberry Hill office on our way to our site to pick up a package because Paul had ordered Valentine flowers for Margery from proflowers.com.

Margery arranging her Valentine's flowers

Freeway liked the flowers, too.

Freeway liked Margery's roses

Proflowers.com does a very nice job with their flowers. They provide a good alternative to a local florist if you don't know where a local florist is located or if you need flowers delivered out of town. The flowers themselves are very nice, and they are very well packaged to avoid damage. The prices aren't too bad because there are always promotions, specials and discounts. Paul got 15% off the flowers and a free vase. Shipping adds to the cost, but it compares favorably to florist delivery charges. However, there is an added premium to have the flowers delivered on Valentine's Day. Since they are delivered by UPS, the flowers don't arrive until late in the day. If Paul goes with proflowers.com next year, he is thinking about having them delivered on February 13th. That way, not only can he save a few bucks, but Margery will be able to enjoy them all day on Valentine's Day. The only downside to proflowers.com is your e-mail address is required to place an order; and once you place an order, you will get zillions of promotional e-mails from them throughout the year. Of course, we could unsubscribe from their mailing list or tell our e-mail server to blacklist them as spam, but then Paul would miss out on all those promotions next year! LOL

Paul has had the tradition of giving Lora a pink rose on Valentine's Day ever since she was 6 years old. Continuing that tradition was a challenge when we went full-time because there is no florist near where they live, and none of the florists who are a little farther away want to travel the extra distance on such a busy day to make the delivery. Last year, J. Michael graciously offered to pick up a rose for Lora at a florist near where he works. Paul took advantage of J. Michael's offer again this year, and called the florist a few weeks ago to place his order. When we got back to the motor home after stopping at Bahama Breeze, Lora had e-mailed us a picture.

Lora and her Valentine rose

We settled in for an evening of relaxing and watching TV to end our great Valentine's Day. We don't know what we'll find to do in the upcoming days, but we'll let you know all about whatever it is in our next post.