A Year in Review....

November 5, 2016

It's been a year since we started this Great American Adventure!  What a wild ride it's been so far!

I unexpectedly quit my job of 22 years with a 30 minute notice.  Our plan to RV full time got moved up about 3 years.

George put his business up for sale.

We bought our 40' 5th wheel toy hauler.  Sold everything we owned.  Sold our home of 20+ years & moved into our 5th wheel. 

 







We found a beautiful park to move the 5th wheel to, Timberlane RV Park & Resort http://timberlanervpark.com. 

We moved here November 1, 2015 and stayed until July 1, 2016.  George's business sold & closed in June 2016.



Daisy

While we were here the motor on our bedroom slide had to be replaced, the living room air conditioner had to be replaced,  we made some changes inside the rig


Before

...and one of our Golden Retrievers, Daisy, passed away.  This happened in February.   We thought, maybe it would be easier to travel with just 1 golden retriever, Tori, and our cat, Alley.


After

That lasted about a week!  Tori was depressed.  We were depressed.  We were a 2 dog family!  We started our search for another Golden.  Daisy was a rescue & was such a good girl we knew we only wanted another rescue.

We ended up with Annie...a goldendoodle!  She was not a rescue but an 8 week old puppy!  We were NOT prepared for a puppy!


We prepared to take our first road trip...July, August & September.  We wanted to be back in Florida October, November & December.

We spent the next 2 weeks getting the rig ready.  George made an appointment to have the brakes checked on the rig as well as getting 6 new tires.  We took it to A & A Trailer in Bradenton, http://www.aandatrailerhitch.com. 

They had the tires off & were checking the brakes.  The brakes were shot!
We not only had 6 new tires put on but we had to replace all 6 brakes!

While we were waiting for the brakes to come in our refrigerator stopped working.  We need a new refrigerator!

Finally...off to some of the western states!  Our 1st stop was St. Cloud, FL.  Our 2 boys & their families live here...5 minutes from each other.

Brent & Ashley (& Lyla) live on 5 acres east of St. Cloud. 

He put in 50 amp service so we could park at his place.  It's a 3 hour drive.  We going to stay 3 days...best laid plans!

While there our little Annie was playing outside with Tori, Zoe & Emma (Brent & Ashley's 2 Goldens).  She ran, full speed, into the L pin on our front leveling jack!



This is one expensive dog!  1 surgery & $1200 later...

 

Now...off to Colorado!

 

Ran out of fuel in Texas! 

 

July 15...made it to Cortez, CO! 

Had to take Annie to a vet in Durango.  She had an infection where she had been stitched up. 

Another surgery, 2-3 visits for the next couple of weeks & $2000 later...  Plus an extra week's stay...in Durango.

 

Found out our "gas tank" was leaking!  It supplies gas to the generator & also serves to fill the bikes if needed.  Patched it.

Made the best of this unexpected stay...rode the Million Dollar Highway to Silverton & Ouray, CO!

August 8...off to Cripple Creek, CO

August 16...off to Cheyenne, WY. 
WAIT!  Only made it to Colorado Springs.  The brakes on the truck were smoking!  BAD!  Had to get new brakes on the truck so we spent 3 days in Colorado Springs. 
Made the best of it.  Got to ride up Pike's Peak!

August 19...finally off to Cheyenne, WY.

August 26...on to Keystone, SD (Mt. Rushmore)  Took some fantastic rides...Sturgis & Deadwood, Custer State Park, Needles Highway & Iron Mountain Road!

September 5...headed to Morton, IL to see my best friend...Julie Cleveland!
(More on this & rest of our trip in separate blogs...soon I hope)  We had reservations at Carl Spindler State Park outside of Morton September 8-11. 

We decided to really take our time getting there.  Decided to stop in Waterloo, IA for a couple days.  Ready to head out on the 7th but...the bar that runs across the leveling jacks broke so we couldn't hook up!  Ended up there until September 9th waiting on the part then installing it!

September 9...another delay but finally got to Morton, IL around 7pm. 

Julie & Anthony

September 12...on to Pennsylvania to see our daughter & her family for a couple weeks.

She, Fid & the girls had just moved into their new log home a couple days before we got there...oh yeah!  Poor kids. 

They also had a 50 amp service so we hooked up there a few steps from their place.

September 26...off to Luray, VA...to see the Caverns!  Spent 2 days!  This is a must see!

 







September 30...made it back to Timberlane RV Park in Bradenton, FL.  Here until January 1, 2017 but will probably leave December 17 & head over to St. Cloud for an early Christmas with the boys & their families then on to....somewhere between there & Las Vegas, NV!  Meeting our friends, Ray & Jackie, January 22-26 for a well deserved "Vegas Fix"!

Thinking we may not come back to Florida until November for a couple of months.  October this year was SO hot!

Our Adventures in South Dakota....

August 26 - September 5, 2016

Left Cheyenne, WY and got to the Black Hills the same day.  We stayed in Keystone, SD (pop. 347) Pictures of Keystone, SD 2016 and camped at Holy Smoke RV Park.
Holy Smoke RV Park.
This was really a nice little park about 5 miles from Mt. Rushmore, National Park Service Mount Rushmore.  We took some really cool rides while we were here.

More Pictures of Mt. Rushmore, SD

We rode to Sturgis, SD (pop. 6,883) & Deadwood, SD (pop. 1,270).

Sturgis, Sturgis Website, was just a dinky little town.  Maybe 1 stop light at the most.  I think the biggest business there was the Harley dealership.  We were there the week after the rally (thank God!)  The population in this little 2 horse town grows to over 1/2 million people for this one week!  I don't even like a crowded elevator!  We've been to Bike Week in Daytona Beach, several times.  This is a much, much larger city (pop. 61,000) and they get around 1/2 million people for this!  There's a lot more room to put that many people!

Deadwood, Deadwood Website, on the other hand was an old, national historic landmark.  The cemetery, Mount Moriah Cemetery, is where Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, as well as other notable wild west outlaws are buried.
There's a museum, plenty of gaming halls & casino's, a gold mine and quite a few places to eat & shop. 
The HBO series, Deadwood, was based on this little town.  When talking to some of the local's, they said that HBO spent quite a bit of time there doing research on the true history as well as the original saloon where Wild Bill was shot.  The series buildings were modeled after the buildings in town.  Pretty cool.

We took a ride through Custer State Park, South Dakota Custer State Park.  Beautiful!  We came across a herd of about 200 wild bison.  We had to stop as they walked across the rode...coming very, very close to my bike.  I think I might have shit a little in my jeans.  I didn't move!  They just meandered by in no hurry at all!
Georgie took a ride the next day by himself (I didn't mind a little "alone time").  He called after being gone an hour or so and could hardly speak.  He had been almost trapped by 1000 or so bison!  He said one stopped right in front of his bike and just gave him the hairy eyeball!  He wasn't sure what to do.  It finally walked off but left him a little nervous.


 

 

Pictures of Custer State Park, SD 

We rode Needles Highway, Black Hills Needles Highway, part of the Peter Norbeck Scenic Byway, Highway 87.  This road was way too cool!  Only motorcycles or small cars could fit through some of the tunnels...like threading a needle.

More Needles Highway...

 

Also on our list of rides there was Iron Mountain Road (16A), http://www.allblackhills.com/scenic_drives/iron_mountain_road.php.  It was part of Custer State Park.

Finally...I will be updating this blog in the next week.

Well...there's a lot to talk about.  I have been very, very bad not updating this.  We didn't have very good internet connections (we will be looking into this in the next few months) plus we have just been going & doing non-stop.
Since we left Cheyenne, WY we have been to:
-South Dakota
-Illinois
-Pennsylvania
-Virginia
-Back to Florida for 3 months now.

Cheyenne, WY...a Quaint "Little" Town...

Friday, August 19 to August 26, 2016

Made it to Cheyenne, WY.  Only a 3 ½  hour drive from Colorado Springs.  We stayed at the “famous” Terry Bison Ranch for a week.  http://www.terrybisonranch.com

 

We saw Bison, Camels, Antelope & Deer.  They have a great Steakhouse there as well as Tombstone Café that serves breakfast and lunch.

Cheyenne (population 64,000) isn’t a big city.  It has a small town feel.  There is a historic downtown that’s pretty cool.

 

There’s an old Union Pacific train station that is now Accomplice Beer Company.  http://www.accomplicebeer.com

 

A lot of the original floors and walls are still there.  The Union Pacific train runs right behind here.  While we were there 5 trains passed.  3 of them stopped to change train engineers.

There is a state museum.  http://wyomuseum.state.wy.us

 

We spent a couple of hours there.  We didn’t realize there was so much history in Wyoming.  They found dinosaur bones.  A lot of them.  As well several Indian tribes, cowboys, etc.

We took Tori & Annie swimming at Lion’s Park  http://www.cheyenne.org/listing/lions-park/60

 

It was 59 degrees out.  (not sure of the water temperature)  I thought I was going to have to go in and get them.  We’d call them, they’d get close to shore, then out they’d go again!  They swam for about 45 minutes and loved it.

We went somewhere every day.  There was always somewhere to go and something different to see.