Fun in St. Augustine and Orange Park

Henry Flagler Hotel

Friday we went to St. Augustine for the day and had a good time. It's an old city - oldest in the U.S. - and there are many wonderful sights to see. It's on the water and there was a great ocean breeze al day. Mr. Flagler certainly spent his money well on that city. We rode the trolley around and had a good overview of the whole place. We even spent some time in jail!

Saturday we were fortunate to meet in person one of Tom's Excel Forum friends and his wife, Chris and Debra. We had a fun afternoon and were treated to a grand tour of their Excel. For fellow Excel owners, you know that was special. Their rig is very nice and Chris has added several unique features to it. They were gracious hosts and the afternoon sped by! We look forward to meeting on the road for more adventures in the future.

Jacksonville, FL

More beautiful weather today on our trip to Jacksonville. Now we're in a park that surrounds a lake - Flamingo Lake RV Park. We haven't seen any flamingoes yet though. Here's just one picture from the beautiful MaClay State Park Gardens where we spent a few hours yesterday. What a peaceful, lovely place! It had the same feel for us as the Grotto in Portland, OR, does. Tomorrow we'll be off to explore the area around here. St. Augstine is one of our destinations.

Tallahasse Auto Museum

'69 Don Yenko Prepared Camaro

We've made it to Florida! We're in Tallahassee for a couple of days. Tom is going to the antique auto museum today. Here's our schedule as far as we have it:
March 24 to March 27 - Tallahassee
March 27 to March 31 - Jacksonville
March 31 to April 3 - Kissimmee

We haven't decided where we'll go after the 3rd, but will probably head north into Georgia. It's gorgeous here.

First Post

Well, we've been on the road almost 3 years now and guess it's about time we start a blog! Nothing too fancy or complicated, just something so our friends and loved ones can follow along, that way when we talk, you won't have to ask "where are you now?" Ha!

Donna will do most of the entry as she is so good at it, and expresses herself so much better than I do. Listed below, Donna will give you a quick overview of the past 3 years in a nut shell to catch you up. It is chronicled by year and is short and sweet. Enjoy!

2007

Jack, Wilma, Donna and Tom going for a hot air balloon ride!

We started the year in Casa Grande, AZ, at the Palm Creek RV Park. We loved it there and stayed until April 1. We had friends we'd met the previous winter in Texas who came and stayed for seveal weeks at the park. We had plenty of happy hours and fun activities together.

In February, we took our very first hot air balloon ride. What a thrill. I (Donna) thought I'd be very afraid but I wasn't at all. It was so exciting - especially the landing. We can't wait to do it again!

In April we started traveling east and, unfortunately, toward the end of April, we had an accident just west of Nashville, TN. It did quite a bit of cosmetic damage to the 5th wheel, but we traveled to Elkhart, IN, and had it repaired. It looks great. While we were there we had disk brakes put on the 5th wheel. We feel much safer in the mountains now. We also did a lot of sight seeing in the Elkhart area. We saw a few RV factories (none as good as Excel, of course) and explored the countryside around there. It was very enlightening. We learned a lot about the Amish community.

In May we spent a couple of weeks with Donna's sister in Michigan and then went on to the northeastern states in June. What a beautiful area that is. Seeing Gettysburg, PA, was moving. When we saw that area, it was hard to believe that so many Americans died there during the Civil War. It was so peaceful when we saw it.

In early July, we went to Ontario, Canada, and visited our friends there. They showed us a wonderful time and we hated to leave them, but Donna's oldest daughter, Beth, and family were moving from Maui to California and asked us to come out and help them get settled. We gladly went. It was a long trip but well worth it to spend 5 weeks with our little granddaughter, Julia.

After Labor Day we headed to Portland, OR, and spent 5 weeks with Donna's youngest daughter, Sarah, before heading east again. In October, we had an appointment in Smith Center, KS, to have some work done on the rig before we headed south for the winter.

We spent November and December in San Antonio, TX and Tom was thrilled being in his home town again. We were able to see his brother and sister and he spent time with several of his old friends. The time flew by. Speaking of flying, Donna flew out to California for two weeks with Julia between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was a very eventful year for us and made us love our lifestyle even more.

2006

Alcatraz, San Fransciso, CA

Our first winter in the 5th wheel, we spent from December, 2005, to April 1 , 2006, in Donna, TX, at Victoria Palms RV Resort. What a great place to be! We did water aerobics, took Spanish classes, met many new friends, toured parts of Mexico and just had fun.

April 1, we left Donna, TX, and headed to Port Aransus for 10 days. We always thought it would be fun to stay by the ocean, but we decided it is too hard on the rig. Everything was covered with salt spray by the time we left. We stayed for as long as we did because they had the sand sculpture contest over one of the weekends. It was really awesome to see the talent of those artists. I don't know if I could creat something that great only to have the ocean wash it away in a few days.

We headed to Houston, TX, with the plan of being there for a few days to visit friends and family, but we ended up being there for 3 1/2 weeks. Tom developed cellulitis in his left elbow and had to have pretty intensive IV drug treatments. Donna didn't know she was going to be a nurse in this deal! We were grateful to be in a place where there was excellent medical care and Tom was all taken care of by the end of May.

After leaving Houston, we headed over to San Antonio and then Austin to visit Tom's brother and sister. Then we headed north to Kansas City. Donna had a reunion in Normal, IL, and Tom was going to stay in Kansas City while she went to her reunion. We still have many friends there, so we stayed a couple of weeks and visited as many as we could. It was great spending time with them.

We left Kansas City and headed for Smith Center, KS, for the Excel family reunion. It was unbelievable seeing over 800 Excels all in one place. We saw old friends and made many new friends while we were there. Excel sure knows how to show their customers a good time.

In June, we were in southern Colorado to spend 10 days with Donna's daughter and family. Her ex-husband and his family joined us and the 10 of us had a great 10 days together visiting Mesa Verde National Park, The Great Sand Dunes National Park and the Royal Gorge. Spending time with our little granddaughter was the best!

After leaving Colorado and the family, we started working our way to Portland, OR, where Donna's youngest daughter lives. We planned to stay a month but decided to stay for 3 months! We had a great time and saw many beautiful sights. If you haven't spent time in Oregon, please consider it as a place to go. It's just such a great place to be. While we were there, we took a "vacation from our vacation" and went on an Alaskan cruise the first part of September. We left out of Seattle, WA, so we were able to just drive up there. We had a great time and Alaska is definitely a place to see. It was all so incredible it's hard to describe. If you have a chance to go, do it. You'll never regret it.

October arrived and we started heading for our winter destination in Palm Creek, AZ. We decided to drive down the coast of Oregon and California after taking a detour to Crater Lake near Prospect, OR. That was a trip worth taking. The lake was formed from a huge volcanic eruption many hundreds of years ago. It's so clear and very deep (about 1,000 feet). There are no rivers going in our out of it and no one can boat, swim or otherwise do anything to contaminate the lake.

Traveling down the coast of California through the redwoods was just an experience worth having. I love the west coast and any time I can be there is a thrill for me. A person feels pretty small standing under those redwoods. We spent some time in the San Francisco area visiting friends. One of the highlights of all time for Donna was going to Alcatraz Island. After working in corrections for a number of years, it was a thrill to see such a historical place. We took our time traveling and sightseeing as much as possible on the way.

We arrived in Palm Creek RV Park, Casa Grande, AZ, on December 1 and ended 2006 there. We stayed until April 1 of 2007, but that's another story.

2005 - The beginning of our journey!

Crazy Horse Monument - Rapid City, SD

June 1, 2005 - we left Kansas City to start our new life on the road. We had lived in our 5th wheel for a month so we felt like we were at home in it by the time we hit the road. The first day, Donna got very nauseated from the bouncing of the rig. After a few days, she got used to it though.

We headed west and south. We were going to go to San Antonio, TX, to get our Texas licenses and register our truck and 5th wheel as we were new Escapee members and needed to get all legal. We also wanted to take a few things to Tom's brother and get our "official things" taken care of. It was very hot in San Antonio, so Donna spent most of the time in the air conditioning in the rig. It was a good test to see if it worked well. It did.

After leaving Texas, we worked our way up to Michigan. It was quite an eye opener traveling along seeing that RV parks were not what we expected. We thought we needed a pool and hot tub whenever we stopped and found there were a lot of places who didn't have them.

We arrived in Michigan and stayed for two weeks visiting Donna's family. Right after the 4th of July, we left and went to Traverse City, MI, and stayed at the nicest park we'd been in yet. It was called Traverse Bay RV Resort. Great place!

We continued north to go across the straits to the Upper Pennisula of Michigan. It was pretty primitive, but beautiful country there. We headed west along the coast down into Wisconsin then across to Minnesota. We landed in Rapid City, SD, and stayed there for a couple of weeks. We loved traveling through the Black Hills, going to Mount Rushmore, and seeing many of the attractions in the area. We had to leave after two weeks because the Sturgis motorcycle rally was starting and everything was totally booked.

We talked it over and decided it was time to try and stay someplace for a month to see what it would be like. We chose Ft. Collins, CO. We had a great time there going to the Rocky Mountain National Park, meeting some great friends (more Excel friends) and exploring the area around Ft. Collins.

The day after Labor Day, we headed out to slowly work our way to Texas. We had decided it was time to fly to Maui for a couple of weeks to visit Beth and her family. We couldn't wait any longer to see our granddaughter, Julia. She was going to be a year old and we wanted to be there. We drove down through New Mexico, and into west Texas. We took our time and did some visiting with friends and sightseeing on the way.

When we were in Dallas, we left the rig at an RV park and flew out to Maui. We had a wonderful time with the kids. The weather was great, Julia was so much fun and the time went too fast.

After arriving back in Dallas, we stayed a few days before heading south to San Antonio to spend a month. Before we arrived, Donna's mother became seriously ill so Donna flew to Michigan for three weeks to help her out. While she was gone, Tom took the rig from Austin to San Antonio by himself. He learned that it's a much bigger job making that move alone so it made him appreciate his traveling partner much more.

In the middle of November, Donna returned from Michigan and after a couple more weeks in San Antonio, we headed to Donna, TX, for our winter destination, Victoria Palms RV Resort. What a great park. We really enjoyed ourselves there. We covered a lot of territory in the six months we'd been on the road and we were glad to stop for a little while and make even more friends and have even more fun!