Three Years Full Timing, A Review - New Orleans, LA…

Today is March 3rd and it was this day three years ago we left our home of over 30 years to hit the road in our first ever owned RV. We sold everything we owned with the exception of the few items our kids claimed and whatever we could fit into our RV. We hadn’t even sold our house yet as we drove off to the east without a care in the world…It does seem a little crazy when you think about it...
Our first year found us traveling all along the eastern USA where followed our daughter's last year of college fastpitch softball. After softball and her graduation we ended up seeing every state on the eastern shore and spent our first winter down in Florida exploring the Keys enjoying all of Florida’s grandeur. Yes we had a wonderful first year!
Our second year was our western tour as we went out and explored every coastal western state from the Wineries of Washington State to the beauty of Oregon and the diversity that California had to offer. Winter took us to Arizona and Texas. By the end of our second year we had visited over half of the USA.
This past year was different in that we didn’t visit states along the ocean during the spring and summer. Funny that we started out our third year in the same place we started our first one as we were in our original home town of College Station, Texas. We may have moved from there but we still love to visit it and see our old friends as we move east to west or west to east across our great country.
From Texas we headed east where we stayed at Betty’s RV Park,a real treat and a place we plan to revisit very soon. A short visit in the Big Easy (where we are now) and then we went to the Camp Freightliner class in Gaffney, SC. The class was fantastic and reinforced much of what we had learned yet it also offered us some new valuable tips and insights.
We stayed a month during spring in North Carolina a state we have grown to enjoy and where we are also able to visit our daughter who resides there. As spring gripped control of the weather we headed north and visited with a great friend we met during our first year on the road where I once again stopped by to help him hay his farm in Virginia.
From Virginia we made our way north to our first stop in Canada where we checked off a bucket list item for us, Niagara Falls. We visited with more friends from the road in Toronto, Canada and then headed west into Michigan where we visited with Sharon’s cousin and his wife.
This began what we call our Great Lakes tour  where we wanted to dip our toes in each of the Great Lakes. We had many memorable highlights on this trip but Wisconsin stood out as the real star as we really enjoyed our stays in Ashland, Green Bay and Madison. Next we cut through the nation's mid section and visited more RV friends in Illinois as well as some old softball friends in Indiana. The highlight here was visiting small Midwestern towns and one of our friends graciously taking us for a flight in is airplane.
Finally we ended up wintering in the same location (but a different park) as we did the first year in Bonita Springs Florida. After a few months wintering where it was much warmer than most of the rest of the USA we made our way back north along the Emerald Coast of Florida and eventually to where we are now, in New Orleans.
The beautiful sights as well as the fun we have had visiting the many new and old friends along the way makes us glad in retrospect that we dared to shed our things to trade them in for these priceless experiences the past three years.
The facts… 6820.8 miles across 17 states and one Canadian Province. Another very successful year. I will post a follow up blog to this one with more financial details.