Our 2015 Year in Review…

Well since it is after the first of the year I guess a loud Happy New Year is in order! We had a great year (well except for the impact the stock market had on our savings – sigh).This past year was loaded with adventures as well as interactions with old and new friends. We started the year in San Diego, California and ended it in Bonita Springs, Florida.

In between we traveled through 14 states as well as a small excursion into our nation's capitol, Washington D.C. After spending the first four days of 2016 in California we spent the next 63 in Arizona. In Arizona we got to attend Superbowl Festivities and made our first stay in Quartzite! Once winter passed we spend some time in New Mexico visiting friends before heading on into Texas, our former home state.

We spent one fewer day in Texas than we did in Arizona making them two of three states we stayed at least two months in. The latter is the state we are in now, Florida. We like to linger in Texas in the springtime as the wildflowers are abundant and colorful at that time of year. It is also special to us since Texas is where our grandkids are and they are indeed a must see each and every time we venture back through Texas.

After getting our fill of Texas Bar B Que and good old Tex-Mex food we entered into another of our favorite culinary states, Louisiana. We spent just shy of a month in Louisiana and most of that time was spent at Betty’s RV Park – one of our most favorite parks to stay. After enjoying good friends, great food and fantastic Cajun music we moved further east passing through Mississippi and Alabama.

As sometimes happens we altered our travel plans due to weather up north and moved on into Tennessee where we stayed at friends from Betty’s RV Park in Central Tennessee. Their hospitality was wonderful and we visited several of the distillers in Tennessee and later in Kentucky. Focusing on Tennessee and Kentucky over the next four weeks we enjoyed touring many of the small and larger friendly towns in those states. 

From there we moved on into Virginia to spend some time visiting some of the historical sites of early America. However, friends of ours asked us to house sit their home in the Shenandoah Valley so we spent nearly four weeks there where we really enjoyed just sitting in that very special and scenic valley. In Virginia we reconnected with two old friends from Texas, Bland, first ,and then Larry.  We became fast friends with Larry's new wife and had an awesoe time with them in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.One of the reasons we love this lifestyle is the ability to see friends along the way ....

When in North Carolina we always stay for a month to visit our daughter and our favorite North Carolina haunts. After our month was up the weather once again pushed us south instead of north so we started our slow meander down to Florida. We stopped at many of our favorite eastern spots such as Jekyll Island, Savannah and Flagler Beach. We also spent some time visiting Sharon’s cousin and his wife in Vero Beach Florida. Our travel year ended back at Bonita Beach Florida – our favorite south Florida winter destination. While wintering here I wrote my first Ebook - Budgeting for Full Time RV’er It was fun to write and I have happily received very favorable feedback from those who have purchased it.

We covered 5,358 miles and stayed in fourteen states at 54 different places. The 5,358 miles is by far the least we have traveled but that was mostly dictated by weather – mostly rainy areas. Although we didn’t visit any new states in our RV we did spend some wonderful time in Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia which are states we had previously only just passed through.

So here we are in 2016 and now need to start making our plans for the New Year. Where should we go? What will we do? How long will we stay? Who will we see? The beauty of all these questions is that they are currently unknown and awaiting discovery this upcoming year on the Road of Retirement…