April 2- 3, 2015 Continuing North to Pennsylvania

April 2nd, we took our time and drove 20 miles to the Moose Lodge in Milford.  This Moose Lodge has a nice little camping area and a place to dump our tanks. After setting up and having a great lunch at the Lodge, we headed to Dover to do some errands and check out where we need to go tomorrow for our RV appointment.  After supper, we went back to the Lodge to meet up with Scott, who I had talked to a few times this week.  He took us on a tour of the Lodge – what a beautiful place.  What a great time!

Bella’s favorite place when we stop:

Stats for today:

Miles Traveled: 20 Miles

Routes Traveled:

Delaware: SR-23; US-9B: US-1; US-1B; Kirby Road; Beaver Dam Road

April 3rd, we were up early and on our way north to Mr. Tire Auto Center (formerly Carl King Tires) in Dover for a new tire and front end alignment.  We were finished by 11:00 A.M. so away we went – in the rain.

Over the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal:

Into Pennsylvania:

Thru Amish country:

Thru the Blue Mountains:

To our street:

We arrived home mid-afternoon, set up and began the process of opening up the house.  By late afternoon, many of our close friends came by – it was great to see everyone and get caught up.  After 564 days on the road, it is good to be home.

Stats for today:

Miles Traveled: 170 Miles

Routes Traveled:

Milford to Dover:

Delaware: Beaver Dam Road; SR-36; US-1; SR-10; US-13; Voshell Mill Road; US-13A

Dover to Home:

Delaware: US-13A; Voshell Mill Road; US-13; US-1; I-95; SR-141; SR-2; SR-41 (we took a wrong turn – )

Pennsylvania: SR-41; SR-10; I-176; US-422; SR-183; SR-901; US-209; Chestnut Street

I am writing this on Thursday, April 9th, 2015.  In the past week we have been busy opening the house, transferring things from the motorhome, fixing things that need to be fixed, and spending time with family and friends.  We moved into the house on Monday and Dusty just loved rolling around on the floor – HA:

We expect to be home most of the summer.  So unless we do some travel, I will not be blogging. .   However, when we go back on the road, I will be back to blogging.  For those of you who get the blog thru email or some type of feed, any blogs will come thru automatically.

Thank you all for following along. 

Have a great summer and enjoy today.

March 4 to March 9, 2015 Traveling Along

Since I last wrote we have stayed at four places and traveled 480 miles.  We have gone from day temperatures of 45 degrees to 85 degrees with night temperatures from 27 degrees to 55 degrees – What a change…

We continued our stay in Summerdale Alabama until Friday, mostly because of the weather front that was coming thru here and into northern Florida.  Thursday started out very cloudy at 70 degrees and by mid afternoon it was in the 40’s – Brrrr.  We awoke Friday to below freezing temperatures but beautiful sunny skies so we decided to head out.

The northern part of Florida has surprised me.  When Andy and I worked we took many vacations to the Florida Keys and Orlando area but we mostly saw sandy areas between big cities.

How refreshing it was to see all these farms and trees and grass – we have missed the greenery:

We made our way to Perry, Florida and stayed at their local Elks Lodge Campground.  Here we are – isn’t it beautiful:

The kitties enjoying the sun and the birds:

The lodge had 14 spaces with electric and water for $15.00.  They also had a dump station.  Given these surroundings, we decided to stay for two days and enjoy.  Our first night we had dinner in the lodge and found that it was a little different that most of the other lodges – not as friendly.  Oh well.  The second night we stopped in and met a father and son from upstate New Year and had a great time. (We must be a little homesick.)  We will keep this lodge on our list for a nice place to stay. 

On Sunday, we continued our trek south:

Check out this truck – WOW!:

Past a number of the horse farms in the Ocala area:

To our spot for the night:

Yes, that is Camping World.  We had an early appointment on Monday and they let us stay in their parking lot overnight.

On Monday, we were one of the first to get serviced.  So with our new tire we traveled another 37 miles to the Sumter Oaks Rainbow Escapee Park.  Here is our site:

Yes, we are that close to our neighbor. Yet, we do have a lot of yard.  The park has a number of different setups and is mostly reservation.  Since we did not make any reservations, this is where we are.  (Sure hope our neighbor didn’t make reservations.)

Bordering the park is the main road, farmland with cows, a donkey farm, and this lake/swamp.  I find these trees very interesting:

The weather is hot and humid but the nights do cool down.  In just a few days we have gone from using our furnace and heater to using the air conditioner.  We have also had two time changes – Friday into the eastern time zone and then Sunday into daylight savings time.  So we also getting use to that.

We were only going to stay one night but decided to stay here until Wednesday so stay tuned and enjoy today.

Our travel stats:

Summerdale, Alabama to Perry, Florida

Miles Traveled: 311 Miles

Routes Traveled:

Alabama: CR-28; CR-55; CR-32; CR-87; US-90

Florida: US-90; US-90A; I-10; US-19; Puckett Road

Perry, Florida to Summerfield, Florida

Miles Traveled: 132 Miles

Routes Traveled:

Florida: Puckett Road; US-19; US-27; US-441

Summerfield, Florida to Bushnell, Florida

Miles Traveled: 36 Miles

Routes Traveled:

Florida:  US-441; SE 147th Place; US-301; CR-673

 

April 8-9, 2013 – Windy, Stormy, and a Back Country Byway

On Monday we woke to calm skies but by 11 AM the winds picked up.  By noon, we pulled our slide in and it stayed that way until Tuesday morning.  So we just kept ourselves busy by updating the blog, planning our next couple weeks of travel, reading, and watching TV.  And the winds continued all thru the night.

I did receive a comment on my blog from DNPC “Damn Near Perfect Couple” - http://dnpc.blogspot.com/

Do you remember this picture from April 5th?

Well, here is what they are - “The white cone-shaped things you see are a "VORTAC" (Variable Omni-Range, Tactical Air Navigation) sites. They provide bearing/distance information for aircraft and form airway intersections or fixes. (I'm a retired air traffic controller).”  How cool is that .  Thanks so much DNPC.

This morning the wind had died down so I went for a haircut and to do laundry. (Yesterday I cut Andy’s hair so we are now both clipped – :-)).  After lunch we decided to go do something after our day inside yesterday.  We made a stop at the BLM office and picked up a map for the Quebradas Back Country Byway.  It is a 24 mile long dirt road and goes thru both public and private lands.  We were not sure how far we would get since we saw some dark clouds coming over the mountains but decided to chance it anyway.  And the scenery was SPECTACULAR!

We crossed the Rio Grande at Escondida:

  And started on the Byway:

Storms ahead, oh my:

 

 

 

 

That white stuff is hail melting.  We were very blessed to have missed the storm in this area.  When we saw the white, I had to get out to check it – almost thought it was snow – LOL:

 

Our greeter at the end of the trail:

And, yes, I did all the driving

We ended up on US380 and then headed to the Wildlife Refuge south of San Antonio.  Alas, the visitor center was closed.  We decided to use the bathrooms there and when we came out, our Tracker tire was flat – oh oh!  Andy used the compressor and added air.  We headed back to San Antonio, stopped at Buckhorn’s for dinner and then headed back.

The tire was still losing slowly so we put on our spare.  When we get to our next Wal-Mart, we will get it checked.

The weather has turned much colder – even had to put on the heater this evening.  We hope to head east tomorrow so stay tuned for our next adventure.

Enjoy today!