Almost ready to move a little east

Today we took down our UV screens, put the tow gear on the car, and got the outside of the rig ready to move. We will be going out to Wachula, FL to the Peace River Thousand Trails park for two weeks before we move up to the Tampa Fairgrounds for the Florida Supershow. This will be our third year at the show doing interviews and broadcasting from the fairgrounds. There will be over 1200 new RV's of every type open to walk through. We'll take a lot of pictures to post here. We hope to meet some of our blog readers and Podcast listeners there as well.
Tomorrow we will finish up our preparations by straightening up the inside and putting things away for travel. I guess you could say we have "Hitch Itch".

Techno/Geek Learning Rally redux

Here are a few more pictures from the Rally of a few weeks ago. Here are Phil and Tracy May aka Techno RV doing the kitchen thing they do so well.

Big heavy spaghetti pot

This was our equipment set-up for doing interviews.

Our show even made it into the class room!!

Merry Christmas

We wish all our family, friends, listeners of our podcast, and readers of our book a very merry Christmas. We believe Jesus is the reason for the season.

North Trail RV

We stopped by North Trail RV yesterday on the way to our chiropractor appointments. This is a large dealership in North Ft Meyers, FL and the country's largest Newmar dealer. We met a lot of the staff and were very favorably impressed with the operation. Within the next year, they expect to develop an adjacent 55 acre parcel and further expand to one of the largest dealerships in the country. We had a great time there.

Another week in paradise

Another week has flown by and we have been very busy, I'm not sure at what, but time seems to fly by and things don't seem to get done. Of course, this week with the shooting in Ct on Fri., the weekend was involved with watching the news. I'm so sorry for the lost of those children. Who could fathom someone bent on killing 6 & 7 year old kids. I sure don't understand, but I pray for peace over the sorrow that the family and friends are going thru.
We have gone to see our chiropractor Dr. Jim and he is straightening us out some more. He has all kinds of gadgets to work on us. It's not like it used to be, but it works better. He has this gun looking thing that works like a jackhammer on our spine and sets everything back in order. John and I have the same outage in the line up of our spine. I think it is the recliners we sit in, and so does Dr. Jim. He does this thing with seeing if all our electric nerves are lined up and working in proper order. It's amazing what he can do, and I am sure glad he does it so well.
Our son Steve is recovering from hernia surgery and we have been taking care of him. He can't lift anything over 5lbs and then he got this awful rash from a reaction to the plastic covering they put over you when they do the surgery. He's diabetic so he cannot take cortisone, so they had to give him a cream instead. It works but takes longer than the pill. It sure is nice to be able to help and yet have our own place to stay when visiting with family.
My brother has bought a Airstream and is getting ready to head out. I doubt is he will go full-time but they have camped for years and enjoy it a lot. It will be such fun to sit around a campfire with him and chat. He is one of the greatest storytellers I know. I always laugh so hard.  Some of my fondest memories are of Stu telling his stories with a flair unique to him.  He just has this special gift of gab. I'm so blessed to have him for a brother. He is one of 4, I was the youngest of the 5 of us and it was a wild time at our home but Stu always was the best story teller. Well, that's all for this week Take care and Go Camping.

Techno-Geek Rally

Well, it's Tues and we are home from the Techno/Geek Rally. It was such great fun and My mind which isn't to great anyway is full of ideas and now I just have to spend the week reviewing what I learned and put it into practice.
Yesterday we went to see our chiropractor in Ft. Myers Fl. We call him our voodoo Dr. has he has all these strange things he does to find out how our bodies are doing. You hold you arm out and he touches certain parts of your body and if the arm falls you are disconnected, so he then adjusts your back and everything is good again. I totally do not understand it, but it works. We are both feeling better but we will have to see him again several times. He follows us on travels and would love to take his business on the road, but it's all those licenses he would have to get for each state that would be the problem. So, he lives through us and all our adventures.
 Sat. we went to our church for a dinner theater thing they had. My son Steve paid for the tickets as a birthday present for me. It was great fun, they had a comedian who was so funny my cheeks hurt. He talked about being a 6'4' 340lb. missionary in Argentina dressed in an orange gorilla suit walking around this very small village trying to talk to the children. Great stuff. Of course you had to be there to hear the whole story. I sure wish I had a picture of that outfit to show.
Well, today I'm off to finish my Christmas shopping, actually I haven't started yet. Oh, well I will get it done and have that checked off my Christmas to do list.
I'll write more later in the week. Kathy


 

Good Morning Happy Campers

What a day for learning all about computers and my new I phone. We are at the Techno/Greeks on Tour Rally in Bushnell and about to start a full week of learning. As you can see I already found out all about blogging and posting on this site, so here we go. I hope to get better at doing this but time will tell. We also got to talk again with our good friends Nick and Terry Russell of the Gypsy Journal fame. They are so good to be with and of course we are meeting a lot of new friends. If you have not meet the Geeks or Techno folks we have a link on our web site. Check out what they have to offer and I will keep you posted as to what is happening. Love to all.

Meeting new friends

Yesterday we visited with Angel and Teressa Rodriguez. They have been listening to Living the RV Dream for a year now and have commented often. They were at Sun-n-Fun RV Resort in Sarasota for a rally put on by Giant Recreation World in Winter Garden, FL. There were about 500 rigs there just for this rally! That's a lot of happy customers. We met several of their very friendly sales staff at an area set aside for display of new rigs for sale. We looked at an interesting 40 Ft. Sport Coach diesel pusher, among other assorted rigs. We went out to lunch with Angel and Teressa at Don Pablo's Mexican restaurant. Great food and great company! They just bought a new gas rig and in 4 years, they can retire and hit the road for a few months at a time. We look forward to meeting up with them again.

Where did the humidity go?

Starting yesterday, we have had much lower humidity and somewhat lower temperatures. We remember from when we lived in this area that there is usually a time in Oct. when this happens. Again today we have crystal clear skies and cooler daytime temps. This morning, it was in the 50's. Awesome!

Next week will be more of the same doctor visits for both Kathy and me. We see the light at the end of the tunnel, however. After this week, I have a Cardiologist visit scheduled for Nov. and Kathy should be all done. Two weeks of these visits every 2 years is a small price to pay for the wonderful lifestyle we live.

Since the publishing of an article in MSN Money with an interview with Kathy about the full-time lifestyle, our podcast downloads have almost tripled! Visits to our website http://www.livingthervdream.com are up 400%. We're hoping this also translates to more sales of our book as well. All this is quite exciting as well as encouraging.

If you are interested in some of our earlier podcasts, I have posted lists of the main topics covered in each episode of Living the RV Dream from number 80 to number 180. These can be found in the LTRVD Store tab on our website. Click on the "Show Notes and Comments" link by each of volumes V thru IX. I'll be working on the rest, but I have to listen to each one first and that will take a while.

I'll close with a couple of comments from an earlier podcast:


You MIGHT be an RVer if. . .

. . . the Camping World Master Catalog arrives and you lock yourself in the bathroom for an hour with a cordless phone and your VISA card.

. . . when someone asks how many people can sleep in your RV, you and your spouse answer in unison, "JUST TWO!"

We move a little north

Yesterday we moved from the Royal Coachmen Encore park in Nokomis, FL about 26 miles north to the Winter Quarters Encore Park in Bradenton, FL. This is a beautiful park with a large lake in the middle of the park. We have a long pull-through site facing the lake. It's a great view out our windshield until someone occupies one of the three empty sites on the lake front.

 

This is the view from the street with the lake at my back. Very tropical. We will probably interview the park manager for our show. This park is split about 50/50 between park models and RV's.

This week and next will be full of doctor visits for both of us as we get checked out so we can continue to wander the country next year. Its time consuming but a necessary evil. We have had several inquiries about our Poodle/Bischon mix Charley. He's doing fine and is a great traveler. Here he is enjoying his "man-dog" cave.

We'll be here two weeks and then we go about 40 miles east to the Peace River Thousand Trails park in Wachula, FL for a three week stay. We'll bounce around Florida most of the winter. We're not too sure after that.

Historic Spanish Point

We visited Historic Spanish Point today. It is a small peninsula in Little Sarasota Bay. It had been previously settled by indigenous people but was abandoned 1000 years ago. The property was bought by the Webb family in 1867 and was named Spanish Point. They farmed the land for over 40 years before heiress Bertha Honore Palmer bought this parcell and almost one fourth of what is now Sarasota County. The property was donated to Sarasota County in 1980. The little chapel above was built as a memorial to an 18 year old tuberculosis patient named Mary who came here to recuperate but died 5 weeks later. It is "Mary's Chapel".

 

The view from the pier of the original Web  packing shed and dock.

 

 

 

This building is called "A window to the past" and is built over an archeological excavation of a shell "midden", or pile of shells built by the original inhabitants.

This is the view from a wood bridge  over to the boatworks and house of Frank Webb Guptill.

 

I couldn't help but see this colorful spider.

Kathy is in front of the Guptill boat works.

This is the beautifully restored Guptill home.

 

 

The Guptill kitchen.

 

 

We've got Weather!

We have had rain and/or thunderstorms every day since we got down here to Nokomis. They usually come at about 6PM and sometimes last 'till after midnite. The price we pay to be warm.

Yesterday I put together some PVC pieces and mounted my Wal-Mart weather gadget on our ladded so now I know all about the wind, humidity, dew-point, and all kinds of other stuff. This will also be the place I mount the Wilson Trucker antenna when we need to boost our cell signal. Maybe one more trip to Home Depot and I'll be ready.

I've also included some shots around our campsite of this tropical paradise.

 

 

 

A few big eagles and our 2 puppies

We saw this rig on the morning we were leaving the Elkhart Campground and I just had to have pictures of it. We left too soon to ask the owner about it.

 

 

 

Two years ago when we were in this area of Florida, we adopted these two poodle/bischon rescues. On the right below is Charley, who we have had with us  and his brother Boomer, who has been with our son Steve, a former US Airforce Refueling Specialist (Boomer). Boomer just got groomed and looks more like a poodle. Charlie had a less that stellar groom last time and now looks like the Tramp from the Disney cartoon "Lady and the Tramp".

 

 

This is the second time they have been together and they love to chase one another and rough house.

 

Settling in back in the Sarasota area

We have been here at the Royal Coachmen Encore park for a few days now. Today we started with doctor's appointments to be followed by a few more that will probably keep us in the area through the winter. Not such a bad problem to have.
Our oldest son Steve lives a few miles away and he has Boomer, the brother to our Charley. They came over last nite and the dogs had a ball playing with each other. I'll post pictures soon when both get groomed and look presentable.
Sales of "So, You Want To Be An RVer?", our eBook as well as the printed version are moving along at 3 to 4 per day. The print version would make a great Christmas gift to that wannabe RVer or even to an acquaintance or family member who doesn't understand what this lifestyle is all about. Check them both out on the Books page here. Although the titles are slightly different, the content is identical. We will have print versions starting tomorrow available for autographing. If you would like one, email us at johnandkathy@livingthervdream.com and we will figure out how to get it to you. The book is $14.95 and shipping will add around $6.00. We'll sell them for $20 autographed any way you ask.

Old/New friends

We have been posting Living the RV Dream for almost four years and one of our earliest listeners and email corespondents was Bob Jae. As with so many of our listeners, we had never met Bob and his wife Bonnie. When they made a facebook post about being near Weekie-Watchie Springs, I contacted him and we were able to get together last night at the Cracker Barrell off I-75. We had a great dinner and we talked for hours 'till after 10PM. Both Bob and I and Kathy and Bonnie had quite a lot in common. I hope to meet more of our listeners as the Winter goes by here in Florida.

Back in Florida

It has taken us two years and almost 8,000 miles, but we are back in the state where we started this full-time journey back in 2005. We are in the 3 Flags Mid-Atlantic park in Wildwood, FL. This is a very nice and well kept park with a front section with many 30A pull thru's and a rear section with 50A sites, most back-in. We're in the back with our rig backed up to a tree line. We get pretty good shade in the morning and we have a clear satellite shot for TV and a fast 3G phone signal. What more can you ask for.

The park isn't very full yet, but the manager assures me it will fill up fast in Dec/Jan. We'll be here a week and then move south to the Sarasota area for doctor's appointments to get us ready for the next year's travels. We'll be staying in two Equity Lifestyles (Encore) parks, one in Nokomis near Venice and the other in Bradenton just off I75 for the next month.

We are finally able to slow down and rest after 8 months of writing our book and then a whirlwind tour through western Virginia and Pennsylvania and then on to northern Indiana, the RV capital of the world. We both have writing projects in the works and that will be our priority after the new year. For now, we are just kicking back and resting and we are loving it.

Two days to go

We are at the Raccoon Valley Escapee park in Heiskell, TN. We will do 2 nights here so we could do our podcast this morning and leave tomorrow morning. We will do about 300 miles tomorrow to get to Macon, GA. Sunday we will do another 300 miles or so to reach the Mid-Atlantic Three Flags park near Ocala, FL. Being back in FL is almost like home as we lived here for 9 years before we started RVing. We are here both for the mild winter months, and to get our annual medical appointments taken care of.

We visit the Creation Museum

We came to this part of Indiana specifically to go to the Creation Museum we have heard so much about. Wow!! It was awesome. There were numerous exhibits as we walked along a timeline to prove the Biblical creation story as opposed to evolution. There was much scientific evidence to prove the flood as source of much of our geology. The shows in the planetarium totally blew us away! We will return to see even more of this place.

Newmar and Thor Motor Coach Plant Tours

We have left Elkhart and are in Sunman, IN at the Indian Lake Thousand Trails Park. Before we left, we did plant tours at Newmar and Thor Motor Coach. The Newmar plant is in Nappanee and Thor is in Elkhart. I can see why Newmar rigs command more money after seeing them being built. The walls and roofs are stick built on 16 inch centers like a house except the studs are aluminum I beams. Wiring is installed and inside walls are glued and screwed in place. Then lots and lots of batt insulation is put in place before the Fiberglas goes on the outside. Similar process in the roof structure. The chassis are placed on rolling air jacks and moved sideways through the plant. Three or four men move the rigs effortlessly across the plant from station to station. There was lots of attention paid to quality control as well. I believe they are as well built as any we have seen so far. There was an underfloor moving belt on which trash was swept constantly. Very impressive!

I wish I felt so strongly positive about the Thor plant. It was the dirtiest and most cluttered of the six plants we have toured. I saw cabinet frames installed in a rig with cracked wood frames where the screws were driven without drilling holes. I saw holding tanks with the old style thru wall sensors. That's all they use. Much of their work is sourced out to other shops including painting. That's a recipe for poor quality. I like their floor plans, but I will never have a Thor product.

We visit the RV Hall of Fame

Yesterday we visited the RV/MH Museum and Hall of Fame. The grounds are filled with new RV's of every type to be displayed at the Elkhart Open House for RV Dealers. Dealers from every state will come here Monday and Tuesday to look over the newest rigs the industry has built. Unfortunately, a dealer's pass is required and we do not have one. The museum was open.however and we had a great time looking at all the vintage rigs displayed inside. The lighting was not too good for photography but we did the best we could. Enjoy the pics!