12Mar 2013 by Lboll

Short Visit Through South Carolina

Traveling

I do so love South Carolina! This is our third visit to this state and I hope we have many more ahead of us. Charleston was our first destination. Our third visit to this city and we could easily come back again. I jokingly asked Joe if we won the lottery if he would buy me a house in historic Charleston and as a true gentleman as Joe is he said “Of course!” We both love the history in Charleston and the beauty of the historic district. We spent two days exploring the city by touring bus, a ferry to take us to Fort Sumpter and just exploring the city for six hours on our own by walking the streets. Charleston has done everything possible to make the streets safe…

06Mar 2013 by Lboll

Nine Days in Georgia

Traveling

We know now we are definitely moving north. The weather has changed and we need to run our furnace or the space heater every day. Of course, we still don’t have the snow they have back in Minnesota so we can’t complain but it is just a little different from the 70’s and 80’s we enjoyed all winter in Florida. As we drove along the Georgia coast we went through marsh lands, large live oak tree groves with Spanish moss hanging from the branches, and many islands. Our first stop was in the Golden Isles, a group of five islands, St. Simons Island, Sea Island, Jekyll Island, Little St. Simons Island, and Brunswick. We stayed at a nice private campground called Coastal Georgia RV Resort. Nice place to stay and…

21Feb 2013 by Lboll

Saying Good-bye to Florida

Traveling

I forgot to mention in our last entry about our breakfast with our old neighbors from Minnesota. Clyde and Mary lived next to us in Jordan for many years. When we sold our house they started talking about buying a 5th wheel and working out of state while living in it (they are a few years younger than us). About three months after we left they had a 5th wheel in their driveway and have been working in North Dakota during the warmer months. They still have their home in MN but live almost full-time in their 5th wheel. They are spending the winter months in Texas but road their Harley to Florida for a week. We caught up with them the last day before they headed back to Texas…

13Feb 2013 by Lboll

The Beauty of Central Florida’s County Parks

Campgrounds, County Parks, Full-Time RVing

We are just wrapping up a five week stay in four of central Florida’s county parks. Each one was different in size and beauty. Each one was different in the people that were staying in them. The first one was in Palm Beach County, John Prince Park, Lake Worth. This was the largest of the four parks we stayed in. It was 700 acres with 300 campsites and miles of paved biking & walking paths which we enjoyed daily that went around lakes and past huge oak trees full of birds. The park was winter home to a couple of hundred snowbirds mostly French speaking Canadians. We were put in the part of the park where people came and went. First weekend we were there we were surrounded by families…

04Feb 2013 by Lboll

Our Dog Ivy

Traveling

Our hearts are breaking with the loss of our beloved dog, Ivy. She has been our constant companion for the past 15 ½ years. She had slowed down very little considering her age but these last two weeks we knew something was very wrong. One of the hard things of being on the road with an older dog is finding a competent veterinarian. After a bad experience with the first vet we took her to, we found a wonderful vet that told us that she was 99% sure that Ivy had a brain tumor. We took her home with a lot of sadness and decided to do the wait and see thing but before we left the vet’s office she gave us the “what’s better for Ivy and not us”…

15Jan 2013 by Lboll

Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park, Okeechobee, FL

State Parks

We just came out of a 10 day stay in no-where land. Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park is 40 miles from the nearest town and it truly sits in no-where land. This 54,000 acre preserve is very unique. Besides its vast size it is home to 12 birds that are classified as endangered such as the Grasshopper Sparrow but also so many other birds. It also is known for migrating butterflies and a premier location for stargazing. There are more than 100 miles of bicycling, hiking and horseback trails. But if you go out on a trail you have to be prepared for snakes, alligators and water that can be waist deep that covers the trail. Also during the winter months on weekends there is a ranger-led prairie buggy tour…

04Jan 2013 by Lboll No Comments

Corp of Engineer Park/People

Traveling

The difference between staying at a private resort and either a state park or if you are lucky enough to find a Corp of Engineer Park is the people. There are probably a lot of other differences that I could name like the sites are normally larger and spaced farther apart, they usually have fewer sites, and they don’t have all the amenities that snowbirds are looking for at the resorts but the one thing that always sticks out to us is the people. When you stay at a “snowbird” resort the people are in their clicks or groups that they have established over the years and they are there for at least the three winter months and are not very willing to welcome us transient RVers (people like us…

04Jan 2013 by Lboll No Comments

Christmas in Minnesota

Traveling

Brrrrrrr! Going from 80 degrees for weeks in Florida to the cold of Minnesota was a shock but we could easily put up with the cold weather being able to spend time with all of our kids and their spouses (they are our kids also) and of course little Cate. We left our 5th wheel and the truck at a RV resort in Fort Myers, Ivy, our dog, at a dog daycare in Naples and flew to Minneapolis a few days before Christmas. We rented a car which was a new experience for us. Of course the company we had rented from had the longest line at the airport so we had a long wait to get our car. We had requested a compact car and when we got to…

13Dec 2012 by Lboll

The Florida Keys

Traveling

We are on our final night of a two week stay on the Florida Keys. We count our blessings that we were able to make reservations for a few days each at three state parks in the Keys since they are very hard to get into. Each was unique in its own way. The whole two weeks the temperature was around 84 with only a few rain showers one day. Our first stop in the Keys was at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park in Key Largo. It is the first undersea park in the United States. It is THE place to go if you enjoy snorkeling or scuba diving. We didn’t try either. Someday when we don’t have our sweet old dog with us we will try the snorkeling. …

01Dec 2012 by Lboll

South Miami

Traveling

After two weeks we are getting ready to leave one of the most comfortable RV Parks that we have stayed at, Larry and Penny Thompson Memorial Park & Campground, in Miami. The sites were spacious and we were surrounded by avocado and live oak trees. I tried to get Joe to like avocados since you could pick them off the ground or from the trees. There are 240 sites sitting on 275 acres of preserved woodlands. There is also a nice paved 2.5 mile bike trail around a small lake. The CG was set up different than we have seen before. There were 11 pods with 20 sites in each pod. The pods are in a circle with an inner and outer circle. Because of this set-up the outer sites…