I have told you why we are going and who is going and today I want to tell you where we are going.
When we started planning this trip last Fall, our goals were to see as much of the West as possible, so we started looking at destinations. Soon we realized it is a really huge area and we only have so much time and of course , so much money. So we decided to try to find hub areas and to park there for a week at a time and take the tow cars and explore.
This was great reasoning and now that the gas prices are climbing ever skyward, it makes more sense than ever to stick to it. So here is our itinerary.
Tallahassee Fl. ; Mobile, Al.; Vicksburg, Ms.; Little Rock, Ark.; Branson, Mo.; our first hub and we will be there five days to enjoy the shows and the area.
Oklahoma City, Ok.; Amarillo, Tx.; and then to Albuquerque, N.M.; our second hub and here we will stay a week and try to see Santa Fe and all the many things in this region.
Durango , Co for a week and we will do the cliff dewellings at Mesa Verde and the Silverton train ride;
Gallop, N.M.: Williams, Az. for a week and we will do Sedona and the Grand Canyon.
Las Vegas, Nv. for a week and then we will head north to Utah and the great national parks , Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Arches for another week.
Salt Lake City, Ut. and then to the Tetons for a week and on to Yellowstone for a week.
Cody, Wy. and then to Rapid City, S.D. and stay there a week to see Mt. Rushmore, Custer State Park, Deadwood,and then on to the Badlands and Mitchell, S.D.
We then start to break up as a group and some will go to Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and
New York and begin visits with family and friends. We will all come back at various times in August and September to the Florida heat.
Ambitious, yes. I also know when we have so much to see and do, we will not want to leave an area, but to try to accomplish this schedule, we will have to make the most of each day and this great opportunity and stick to it , so that we can get it all in the 80 days we have alloted for this adventure.
Hundreds of pictures will be taken and many emails will be sent and I hope you will read my blog, for I will try to post often. If we can share this experience with you and you can see through our eyes the wonder of the West, it will be an even greater trip for us.
Only a week to go. We leave Sunday , May 4th at 9 a.m. Come on along with us. There is plenty of room around the campfire for you.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Excitement is in the air.
We meet at the clubhouse for functions and we can talk of nothing else but our big trip. We get together at each other's houses and the conversation is all about gas mileage, things to see on the trek, campgrounds, etc.
Only three weeks from tomorrow and we leave. Can it be? My lists are growing longer and I have a list of my lists. The budget keeps coming up and it keeps getting larger as the gas prices continue to rise and we keep adding Must Sees to our wish lists.
We met this week to discuss menus and we plan to eat our evening meals together when in camp and that will help with our budget. Helen (Martha Stewart) and Mary have some great meals planned and all are quick and easy to prepare.
We are all on our own for breakfast and lunch each day and days we are touring we will probably eat lunch out for our main meal. We have all sorts of cooking
equipment and plenty of paper plates to keep the work load down and lots of crockpots and grills for simple preparation of tasty meals for seven people.
We have come up with a driving plan of sorts. Every day we will have a new leader and he or she will be responsible for the map, getting us their together and safely.
We will have a drivers meeting each night and go over the next days' trip.
We will have a line of sight plan in which the second RV will have the first in sight and the third RV will have the second in sight. Commuication will be with walkie talkies and cell phones and should there be any trouble we can be in contact immediately with the other rigs.
We each will have a AAA trip tik so we will all be on the same page and the driving days should be smooth and safe. We plan to leave between 9 and 9:30am each morning and stop by 3pm each afternoon. Our schedule calls for no more than 300 miles a day and we have campground reservations at most of the stops and will fill in the others as we travel, so there should be few surprises of arriving and not having a place to park.
Now, that is in a perfect world and we know we will not be living in one, but we are trying to start out with a plan and hopefully the traffic jams, detours, breakdowns , and over sleeping will be minimal.
Our lady drivers, Helen and Joan, have been practicing daily in the parking lot of an empty super market. They are also now driving their motorhome with their new tow car attached, trying to get used to the feeling of pulling something behind them.
We have had the carpets cleaned. the oil changed and the tires checked in the rigs and they are spruced up and ready to receive all the mountians of clothes and other "can't leave behind stuff" we will be taking with us.
Excitement in the air and so is panic. Anticipation, fear of the unknown, joy, giddy laughter, and apprehension are there as well. Certainly regret that we might only have this one Western adventure but total determination to enjoy each day and each moonlit campfire to the fullest and to build a memory which will take us into the uncertain "golden years" which lie ahead.
As my father always told me, "old age ain't for sissies, darling",so I am sure he is very proud looking down on me preparing for the adventure of my lifetime as we prepare to go into the West.
We meet at the clubhouse for functions and we can talk of nothing else but our big trip. We get together at each other's houses and the conversation is all about gas mileage, things to see on the trek, campgrounds, etc.
Only three weeks from tomorrow and we leave. Can it be? My lists are growing longer and I have a list of my lists. The budget keeps coming up and it keeps getting larger as the gas prices continue to rise and we keep adding Must Sees to our wish lists.
We met this week to discuss menus and we plan to eat our evening meals together when in camp and that will help with our budget. Helen (Martha Stewart) and Mary have some great meals planned and all are quick and easy to prepare.
We are all on our own for breakfast and lunch each day and days we are touring we will probably eat lunch out for our main meal. We have all sorts of cooking
equipment and plenty of paper plates to keep the work load down and lots of crockpots and grills for simple preparation of tasty meals for seven people.
We have come up with a driving plan of sorts. Every day we will have a new leader and he or she will be responsible for the map, getting us their together and safely.
We will have a drivers meeting each night and go over the next days' trip.
We will have a line of sight plan in which the second RV will have the first in sight and the third RV will have the second in sight. Commuication will be with walkie talkies and cell phones and should there be any trouble we can be in contact immediately with the other rigs.
We each will have a AAA trip tik so we will all be on the same page and the driving days should be smooth and safe. We plan to leave between 9 and 9:30am each morning and stop by 3pm each afternoon. Our schedule calls for no more than 300 miles a day and we have campground reservations at most of the stops and will fill in the others as we travel, so there should be few surprises of arriving and not having a place to park.
Now, that is in a perfect world and we know we will not be living in one, but we are trying to start out with a plan and hopefully the traffic jams, detours, breakdowns , and over sleeping will be minimal.
Our lady drivers, Helen and Joan, have been practicing daily in the parking lot of an empty super market. They are also now driving their motorhome with their new tow car attached, trying to get used to the feeling of pulling something behind them.
We have had the carpets cleaned. the oil changed and the tires checked in the rigs and they are spruced up and ready to receive all the mountians of clothes and other "can't leave behind stuff" we will be taking with us.
Excitement in the air and so is panic. Anticipation, fear of the unknown, joy, giddy laughter, and apprehension are there as well. Certainly regret that we might only have this one Western adventure but total determination to enjoy each day and each moonlit campfire to the fullest and to build a memory which will take us into the uncertain "golden years" which lie ahead.
As my father always told me, "old age ain't for sissies, darling",so I am sure he is very proud looking down on me preparing for the adventure of my lifetime as we prepare to go into the West.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Meet the Happy Campers
Only 32 days until we leave and the past month has been very busy for all of us. We went to Lazy Days Rally Park in Tampa for a wonderful weekend of camping with eighteen members of our Happy Campers Club and enjoyed a Taste of Tampa.
A tour of Ybor City and many fun days and nights with the club and many other RV'ers from all over the country was organized by Lazy Days, which is the largest RV dealer in the nation and which was held at their own campground adjacent to their huge faciity.
Seven of our lady Happy Campers took the co pilot driving course and found themselves behind the wheel of a 36 foot, $300,000 diesel pusher motor home. They took a two hour class and then had an opportunity to drive the RV around the campground with their instructor at their side.
I can't imagine what courage it took to do that. I was, as you guessed, not one of the seven but now they can take over on the road should something happen to their spouses while driving.
We also had three members of our group buy new RV's from Lazy Days and picked them up while there.
Two of the group going out West bought new motorhomes from Lazy Days and all the owners took the course, so our rigs will be new and ready for our big adventure.
Who is going?
I don't think I have said who our Westward Ho adventurers are, so here goes.
One couple, Mary and Ken, from New York are old campers from way back. They have a new 36 foot, class A and have traveled the Eastern coast many times, but have never been as far West as we are planning to explore. They have five children and many grandchildren and Mary is an excellent cook and organizer.
The second rig is driven by Helen , a widow and new RV owner, having only started camping during the last year, first with a tent, then with a new 21 ft. class C, and now with a 31 ft. class C. She decided she loved camping and moved up quickly.
She is quite a free spirit. The type of woman who never meets a problem, always an opportunity. She is brave and determined and will be the spark we all need to get over that next mountain.
We call her Martha Stewart, because she can produce a full dinner for 10 people, from
a couple of cans and a loaf of bread. She already has menus planned for us all and teams to cook them. We will eat well during the three months we are on the road with Martha, I mean Helen.
Then there are Helen's passengers, Tom and Joan, who will traveling with her and doing some of the driving for her. They are veteran campers having owned many rigs, but who have been out of it for a few years. But the call of the road is strong and they are ready to go on this new adventure.
We have a 36 ft. class A and have been RVing since 2000 and this is our third rig, a 2004 Pace Arrow and a beauty.
So those are our Happy Campers and we are getting more excited with each passing day.
A tour of Ybor City and many fun days and nights with the club and many other RV'ers from all over the country was organized by Lazy Days, which is the largest RV dealer in the nation and which was held at their own campground adjacent to their huge faciity.
Seven of our lady Happy Campers took the co pilot driving course and found themselves behind the wheel of a 36 foot, $300,000 diesel pusher motor home. They took a two hour class and then had an opportunity to drive the RV around the campground with their instructor at their side.
I can't imagine what courage it took to do that. I was, as you guessed, not one of the seven but now they can take over on the road should something happen to their spouses while driving.
We also had three members of our group buy new RV's from Lazy Days and picked them up while there.
Two of the group going out West bought new motorhomes from Lazy Days and all the owners took the course, so our rigs will be new and ready for our big adventure.
Who is going?
I don't think I have said who our Westward Ho adventurers are, so here goes.
One couple, Mary and Ken, from New York are old campers from way back. They have a new 36 foot, class A and have traveled the Eastern coast many times, but have never been as far West as we are planning to explore. They have five children and many grandchildren and Mary is an excellent cook and organizer.
The second rig is driven by Helen , a widow and new RV owner, having only started camping during the last year, first with a tent, then with a new 21 ft. class C, and now with a 31 ft. class C. She decided she loved camping and moved up quickly.
She is quite a free spirit. The type of woman who never meets a problem, always an opportunity. She is brave and determined and will be the spark we all need to get over that next mountain.
We call her Martha Stewart, because she can produce a full dinner for 10 people, from
a couple of cans and a loaf of bread. She already has menus planned for us all and teams to cook them. We will eat well during the three months we are on the road with Martha, I mean Helen.
Then there are Helen's passengers, Tom and Joan, who will traveling with her and doing some of the driving for her. They are veteran campers having owned many rigs, but who have been out of it for a few years. But the call of the road is strong and they are ready to go on this new adventure.
We have a 36 ft. class A and have been RVing since 2000 and this is our third rig, a 2004 Pace Arrow and a beauty.
So those are our Happy Campers and we are getting more excited with each passing day.
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