Breakfast!

It is the little things in life that make me so happy, especially if it involves food! This morning I used our stove for the first time and made bacon and egg sandwiches! They were delicious. I am so thrilled to have the same comforts of home in our traveling RV. Everything worked perfectly and now I know I can cook more and more! Yeah!

We had dinner last night at Bonefish Grille in Longwood, Florida with our dear friends, Gary and Kay. What a wonderful night we had. It is such a blessing to share time, food and fellowship with them. We hope to hook up with them again in Maine!

We were busy this morning with taking Abram over to the dump station (the park doesn't have sewer lines at the individual sites...a fact we didn't know until we got here), so after three days of water usage, our tanks were full. It was relatively easy and we completed the entire process in under 30 minutes; that includes unplugging Abram, driving over to the station, dumping, bringing Abram back and hooking back up. Piece of cake really.

Today will be a relaxing day of canoeing and hiking. Honestly, it is just too darn hot in the middle of Florida during the summer to do too much more than that. James and I are looking forward to being at higher altitudes next week in Santa Fe and Colorado...that is where we will do a lot of hiking!

Apart from the Golden Orb Spiders (yuk!!), we don't have any visitors around; the park is pretty empty and quiet. Tonight we plan on cooking steak over the fire pit in our cast iron skillet! Yummmmmy! I can't wait! Maybe enjoy a glass of red wine and enjoy our last evening at Lake Griffin State Park!

Prayers today for my niece, Brooke, who underwent surgery this morning. We pray she has a speedy recovery and doesn't experience a lot of pain! God Bless you all!!

Starting to Relax

Happy Tuesday Morning Everyone! Wow! Amazing what a nice relaxing evening, followed by 9 hours of sleep can do. The power situation was minor and the maintenance guy fixed the problem in 15 minutes (just needed a new breaker). We had dinner at Bob Evans (I love Bob Evans) and then came back to the RV and watched "Anna and the King." We have both seen it before, but enjoy it very much. This time, though, we were both struck by an amazing quote at the end of the movie by King Chulalongkorn: "It is always surprising how small a part of life is taken up by meaningful moments. Most often they are over before they start although they cast a light on the future and make the person who originated them unforgettable." We decided we really want to make the most of this adventure and have a LARGE part of our lives taken up by meaningful moments. This was one of them.

Surprisingly, the RV bed is very comfortable and we both slept very well, as did Peanut! We woke this morning, grabbed our coffee and Bibles and heading outside to enjoy the sounds of nature. It is amazing what you can hear when it is so silent. Before taking this trip and over the past three years of planning/dreaming about it, we always thought about how wonderful it would be to read God's word while sitting in His amazing creation and listening to His symphony of birds, crickets and other wild life...and it is even better than we imagined. What a blessing this is.

Today, we are heading into Mount Dora and then having dinner with two very special friends of ours that live in the Orlando area. I'm excited to see them and spend time catching up and just sharing good space together. We hope that everyone has a very wonderful and blessed day today! We love you all!

It is rather comical...

I sat down this evening to give our update for the day, however, just as I did, the power went out. We reset the outdoor breakers, power back on...we were all happy, then a few moments later, no power. So, now I'm sitting inside our dark, and getting warmer, RV, waiting for someone to come and explain what the problem is. We will probably have to move to another location, which is somewhat a pain in the butt, but I would rather do that than sweat all night!

I will write until I have to stop. We are in Lake Griffin State Park...it is very charming and small. Big beautiful Oak trees with Spanish Moss hanging down and a lovely canal heading out to Lake Griffin. We set up in record time and even have the awning out with our Zero Gravity chairs in front of the fire pit. It has been nothing but relaxing...that is until the power thing.

We will drive to Mount Dora tomorrow to walk around, grab a bite and window shop. For those who live in Florida, Mount Dora is worth the drive, no matter where you live. It is such a beautiful little town and right on a lake. It is dog friendly so Peanut will be joining us. A Peanut update...he feels right at home. Running around and playing with Louie like nothing has happened!

Well, I think I hear James and the maintenance guy outside, so I'm going to go find out what is going on. RVin' sure has it's challenges!! God Bless!

It's official!

Today officially begins our journey! We had an amazing time yesterday and the worst part of the day was saying goodbye to our parents...my Mom cried, which broke my heart. I will miss her and Ted, as well as Dawn and Hesketh, James' parents. Charles and Dawn provided an awesome dinner of pork chops (my personal favorite), rice, watermelon and James' parents brought potatoes and coleslaw (Dawn makes wonderful coleslaw)!

We got a lot done on the RV; found the leak and fixed it. Cleaned our fresh water tank and I cleaned the inside the RV...we are ready to roll! Peanut is adapting to the RV and I believe he is even liking it, though he won't admit it.

We will head out around 10:00am with our first stop being Lake Griffin State Park, just outside Mount Dora, Florida. We will be there for three nights! We are both looking forward to setting out the chairs under the awning, relaxing, maybe do some hiking and just being in one place for more than one night! Yeah!!

Thank you everyone for your continued prayers and best wishes! We love you all and look forward to sharing with you the amazing stuff we see along the way! God Bless!

First night...first morning.

After taking Peanut out for his walk at 6:45 this morning, James asks, "We are in Redneckville, aren't we?" "Yep," I replied. Now before anyone gets offended, I recite the words of our great Redneck Leader, Jeff Foxworthy, "You aren't allowed to make fun of rednecks unless you are one...well, I are one!" And we IS in Redneckville. I feel strangely at home. Hahahahaha!

The last 36 hours were tough, but we managed to get the house packed, loaded into the truck, delivered to our storage, clean the house and load up the RV without too much incident or damage, unless you count the aching backs, painful knees and pounding headache! Then we hit the road officially at 7:00pm making our way to our first stop, Kozy Kamper RV Park in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. We made it here around 9:30pm and had to go hunting for our spot and then back Abram (oh, that's the name of our RV), into what seemed to be a way too narrow spot, over huge tree roots, without a lot of light. BUT WE DID IT! We are at a slight angle, but hey, we don't care, we just wanted to rest and relax.

We are now sitting inside enjoying our coffee and watching Peanut as he nervously walks around trying to figure out what in the world we have done to him! Poor guy didn't sleep at all yesterday and I believe he did not move last night and slept better than James and I. Oh, to be a dog.

We head out tomorrow after a night of visiting with family at James' brother's house, Charles, as he hosts a little going away BBQ for us! So, stay tuned for more...

The Lord gives...and He takes away.

A couple of posts ago I was excited to announce that we had found a renter for the house we rent while we are on the road...and what a relief it was that we didn't have to pack every piece of furniture and move to storage; however, today, about 12 hours before we were meant to hit the road, we were informed that the renters are NOT renting after all.

So a mad dash to secure storage, moving truck, movers and packing ensued for what seemed like forever, but six hours later, we are looking pretty good. We know this is from God's hand; James and I both had uneasy feelings about the entire situation, but didn't want to listen! God, in His sovereign and wonderful ways, made us listen to our guts ("God lives in your gut...listen to your gut," a quote from my Grandma).

We are working hard to stay on schedule and hit the road tomorrow, with our first stop in Ft. Lauderdale...please pray that God provides us calm spirits and complete faith that it will all get done...in His time.

This weekend...

Hello! We are staying at Kozy Korner RV Park in Ft. Lauderdale this weekend to see family and friends before hitting the road. I can't help myself, but I love the name. One thing I will say is that every single RV park I have called to make reservations, I have met with the friendliest and sweetest people I could possibly imagine. I think we are going to meet some incredible folks along the way!

Getting closer!

Well, it is Wednesday evening and we only have 2-3 more days in the Keys. We had dinner tonight with two of our oldest Keys Friends (not age wise, just the length of time we have known them) and it was an amazing night. Thank you, Dave and Marilyn for your love, prayers and friendship.

We are very thankful and give praise to God for bringing us, OUT OF THE BLUE, renters for our rented house while we are gone. This saves us from having to put all our furniture and personal belongings into storage, so this has eased my stress level for packing to almost, and I stress ALMOST, to a very minimum. God does work in fabulous ways!

I made reservations as a wonderful Cafe in New Orleans for a Jazz Sunday Brunch on the 4th of July! We can't wait! What a fun way to spend 4th of July...starting off with a great Jazz brunch, followed by a walk through New Orleans and then finishing up watching fire works! Yeah!

That's all for now! Thank you all for following and for your prayers!

Calendar

Hello! I added our calendar to the blog today (at the very bottom of the page) so at anytime you can see exactly where we are! If you click on a particular day, you will see notes on what we will be doing. Hope to finalize it within a couple of days.

Remember, if you see a destination you want to come visit, let us know! We would love to share this experience with all our friends and family. So, if there is a place and time you like on our calendar, COME ON OUT!

8 Days and counting...

Today packing began! Yeah! Actually, it isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. We are also visiting with a lot of friends saying our "see ya later's!" No good-byes in these conversations. We know we will see everyone again! But, we sure will miss them all.

I hope to keep up with this blog and add photos as we visit some amazing places across the country, but I'm not the most dedicated person when it comes to writing...maybe I can talk James into updating for us! He is the writer in the family.

Just to give a brief overview of our travels, we will begin on Saturday, June 26 and stop in the Miami area spending most of the dinner hours with our dear friends, Mike and Deidre Neal, celebrating the Baby Shower for their daughter, Jess, who is due in October! Sunday we will be in the Ft. Lauderdale area saying our "so long for now's" to our family members. Then Monday, June 28 we officially HIT THE ROAD!

Stopping twice in Florida, our first big stop after that will be in New Orleans, a city I have never seen. It will be bittersweet...we will be spending 4th of July there, so I am very excited about that, but fear seeing the devastation of the oil spill. Where my photos tend to focus on God's beautiful creation, the photos taken there will, unfortunately, focus on man's greed and desire for bigger and better.

Next, we make two quick, overnight stops in Texas on our way to Santa Fe, NM. We will be staying at a wonderful little RV park on the old Route 66. Should be amazing!

Our next stop will be outside Dolores, CO...a beautiful small town between Durango and Telluride. It is truly an amazingly beautiful place! We drove through there one day when we were out west two years ago and we both agreed that we needed to come back for an extended stay. The quaint RV Park we will be staying in has us on a river lot...so, it will be beautiful. We will be there for 8 nights! Also, we are hooking up with RV friends from Islamorada, so it will be a mini reunion and TONS of fun!

From there, we hit Lake Tahoe/Carson City for a few days; head south to Death Valley and Sequoia National Park and then spend about 9-10 days in Southern California visiting friends. We are both excited to head to Napa Valley after that, with a quick stop in Big Sur, to spend 4 days in the wonderful California Wine Country. Might not leave after that stop.

We will take the Pacific Coast Highway up through California, on to Oregon to see Crater Lake and then further north to Washington...specifically Olympic National Park, where we plan to camp out for a week or so. We hope to grab some coffee in Seattle, as well as a Sunday Church service at Mark Driscoll's church, before heading east to Missoula, Montana to play in the Rocky Mountains for a bit!.

We will be at Glacier National Park the first part of September, which we have been told is the best time of year to be there! We will be there for over a week...ahhhh....we have BOTH been dreaming of this trip!

The only thing we have planned and scheduled after that is Maine in October, so for the 15-16 days after we leave Glacier until we are due in Maine, we have NO IDEA where we are going to be! We aren't sure if we will head north through Canada or stay in the US. I guess we will figure it out when we get there.

After Maine we will drive down the east coast and catch some more glorious sites, stopping in Washington, DC for a visit to our Nation's Capital and then catch the Blue Ridge Parkway into North Carolina.

So, that is it in a nutshell. Stay posted for more updates and photos! We thank everyone for their prayers, support, encouragement and love!!!