We all are retired and over 60 years young. We own motorhomes and each of us have wanted to take a trip to our nation's glorius West. We live in a 55 plus community and are active in many endeavors, but travel is something which means so much to all of us. To see the wonders of the West has always been our dream, so we decided to do it.

Why we decided to do it this year with sky rocketing gas prices and falling stock portfolios, is a mystery, but at our ages we don't have the luxury of time. so we decided to just DO IT.

We all belong to an RV club called the " Happy Campers "and we go out each month with other members and enjoy their company and good times and we are blessed to be friends, so we decided, it is OUR time. It will be more comfortable to tour with a group and there is a safety and a comfort in traveling with friends.

We started planning the trip for two months, but as we talked and found more and more places to explore, the trip got longer and longer and is now up to 80 days and over 5000 miles.

We have the challenge of living in Florida, so it will take us quite a few days to get to the West,
so on the way we decided to take in some of the things we each want to see. We all agreed on
Branson, Missouri as our first long stay, so we will head there first and take in the shows.

We are now meeting to make reservations in the more popular places and right now we have Branson, Yellowstone, some of the national parks in Utah and Las Vegas made. We have identified campgrounds we think we would enjoy from the many directories we have and each of us has a note book filled with places we want to see , campgrounds, and maps. Lots of maps.

How did our fore fathers do it without all of this preparation. They just got in the wagons , hired some one who looked like John Wayne to be the trail master and off they went.