RV On The Road Yet?

2022 was way better than 2021 was for us, but still had some scares, which we would have probably had even not with our full-time RV lifestyle. Hurricanes, cancer & tires, oh my! Despite an occasional worry, we still are enjoying this whirlwind ride around the sun! As you read this, you may notice a pattern. Almost all of these locations are places Melinda wants to go. She did relent on the Biggest Ball of Twine in Kansas because it was so far out of the way, but I was willing to go there. What can I say? I wear the pants in the family, but she has control of the belt, suspenders, underwear, socks, and shoes. Bareass naked is not a good look for someone my age.

Vegas Hawaiian Aye! Arizona New Mexico Amarillo by morning Oklahoma City Getting out of Dodge Des Moines Wisconsin

Michigan Ohio West Virginia Kentucky Tennessee Mississippi Alabama Florida Posse Whipped Summary

Vegas

We spent November 2021 till March 2022 in Las Vegas. I heavily recommend it. Melinda was still limited from her foot surgery, so I worked on various books and worked a little security for the RV park between sessions at the poker table.

Hawaiian Aye!

In February, we traveled to Hawaii to celebrate our 25th anniversary (which Melinda convinced me we should do two years early!). The trip was  one of those once-in-a-lifetime things (mostly because that’s how often you can afford it!) We whale watched, toured both Maui and Oahu, did the beaches, submerged in Breathable Observation Bubbles (B.O.B.), rented a convertible Mustang to zip around in, and just chilled out. We did Duke’s on Sunday (thank you Jimmy Buffet). All in all, it was great fun.

While we were in Hawaii, we had dropped the RV off at a place to have the furniture reupholstered so it was like new when we came back. Between the Hawaiian trip, our annual RV/trailer/motorcycle insurance, and the upholstery, February was an extraordinarily expensive month.

Arizona

In March we headed south from Las Vegas toward Arizona. We stayed in Mesa for a few weeks but visited our friends Cheryl & Marshall. We all traveled down to Tombstone and Melinda got to shoot the…breeze with some dressed-up cowboys. I rode over to Tucson and met a real cowboy, Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire Mysteries, which inspired the TV show, Longmire. He was a very down-to-earth guy. I was extremely impressed.

On a really bad note, Maggie suddenly became very ill. Melinda and I made the decision together, but she had to fly out for work and I had to take Maggie to the vet for her last trip. She had congestive heart failure on a scale of 6 out of 6. The vet said she would never get any better and she was suffering.  I may play a badass on TV, but I will admit I cried like a baby when I looked at her little sad eyes.

New Mexico

We drove the RV from Tucson to Carlsbad. (Full-Time RV Lifestyle Tip #20,197: Do not do this without a FULL tank of gas. There are NO diesel stations between the two. You would think El Paso would, but NOOOOO!) Carlsbad Caverns were gigantic and well worth the trip there. But other than a couple of fun restaurants, there wasn’t much else.

Amarillo by morning, out: as quick as possible

I am making these short paragraphs because there is not much at these locations. This goes double for Amarillo. If it wasn’t for the Cadillac Ranch, this wouldn’t even be a wide spot on the road. Maybe a couple of hundred years ago this was a big cow town, but now it’s a “hard pass.” There was a fun place to eat at called the Big Texan Steak Ranch.

Oklahoma City

Melinda had to travel some for work, but we got to visit with my niece, Lisa, and her family in Oklahoma City. I played a little poker while I was there, but the wind was so intense that it was hard to keep the bike on the highway. It was the first poker I had played since march in Vegas and I was glad to see I hadn’t lost my touch.

Getting Out of Dodge

As a big fan of Gunsmoke, we had to go to Dodge City, Kansas. Who cares the show was mostly filmed in the back lots in California, Dodge City has some real western history. We stayed at the Gunsmoke RV park. After touring the few tourist traps they have and taking pictures by every western hero statue, it was pretty much over.  We ate dinner at Casey’s Cowtown Club, which we were told by several people, was the best steak in town. The owner came over and checked on us. Always a good sign.

Des Moines, Iowa

After a few days in Dodge City, we drove to Kansas City, MO for an overnight and then to Des Moines. Nationwide’s training center is in Des Moines and Melinda scheduled some meetings there. While she did business at Nationwide, I worked my part-time job at the Prairie Meadows Casino. She probably made more money, but I had more fun.

Wisconsin

We left Des Moines and stayed near lake Michigan, just south of Green Bay for a week or two. Melinda visited the aeronautical museum in Osh Kosh and I visited the Oneida Casino in Green Bay. It was cold and rainy during our trip, but we made the best of it. The first RV issue of the year was one of the tires on the trailer was flat and needed to be replaced. Thank God for tire insurance.

Michigan

We drove north and around Lake Michigan across the Upper Peninsula and visited Mackinaw Island. This was a big deal on Melinda’s bucket list. This was something she remembered fondly from her childhood and was determined to recapture that. From there we drove south to the Michigan border just north of Southbend, IN at Bear Cave RV. We explored the tiny cave they have there that had been used for various purposes over the centuries. It was a cute campground out in the middle of nowhere is Buchanan, MI. As another Thousand Trails campground, it was free to us.

The idea here was to get close to Elkhart, In, where they manufacture 80% of all the RVs in the country. My thinking was: people bought a bunch of RVs during Covid to avoid planes and hotels, but by now they would be sick of them and we could upgrade for next to nothing. I was wrong. There are a lot of manufacturers there, but next to no dealers. The one major dealer that was there said that pre-owned RVs are still being sold as fast as they come in. We decided that since we had already customized the interior of ours to suit our work needs, we will just keep this one till the wheels fall off. That being decided, I had the shocks replaced, the RV completely serviced, and a steering stabilizer installed. It was pretty expensive and aggravating that the Freightliner dealer couldn’t deliver as they said, but it drove much better afterward.

Ohio

This was a good trip to Ohio. I rarely say that. But this one was so painful that even Melinda admits I don’t have to go back. That makes it a good trip. It wasn’t my last one. My last one will be in an urn aimed at the Mound Hill Cemetary because she already has a plot for us there. I was born in Ohio and ironically, will be buried there, but in between…  As soon as I can figure out how to jump this RV from New York state over Ohio to Kentucky…well, let’s just say if I go REAL fast…

It started out with her emotionally blackmailing me to go a day early so she could go to the Seville Memorial Day parade. She had already made arrangements for us to park in the Seville Baptist Church parking lot and within minutes, we were getting visitors and texts about being in town. I won’t go into the details of sitting in various locations to get the best spot for the Seville parade, but it WAS my last one, so I’ve got that going for me. Then we tried to get something to eat to find that every fast food joint, restaurant and hot dog stand closed at 8 p.m. on Sunday in Seville and for about 20 miles in every direction. Cue vein pulsing in the side of my head.

The next day we moved the RV to the PierLon Campground halfway between Lodi and Medina. It was owned by a family that we went to school with. I had camped there ALOT as a kid 50 years ago and even took swimming lessons in that lake. Her college friends, Koke and Karen, camped next to us for a week or so as well as her sister, Martha, and her family. I spent quite a bit of time playing poker at Jack in Cleveland.

It was during this time that Melinda had her surgery for breast cancer. It was in and out in one day and she had to go back for some precautionary radiation the following week. We had known about it for several months and worked with her doctors at the Cleveland Clinic to make sure she came through it 100%.

As I look back at this blog article, I find it ironic that my largest text is about Ohio. Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?

West Virginia

I was ecstatic about getting into West Virginia and I am almost sure no one has ever said that before. Wait. I cannot be the first person to leave Ohio. We stayed at the Mardis Gras Casino in Charleston and rode the bike over to visit my mom’s family in Booger Hole, West Virginia. No, I am not making that up. We had a great visit and I got to play SOME poker at Mardis Gras, but they were open for very limited hours, so you had to catch it just on the right day. If you are counting, this stop was one of the very few that was mine. I guess she figures every ten or so locations, I get to pick one.

Kentucky

I got to pick this one as well. We stayed for a week in northern Kentucky (Elizabethtown). I wanted to do some research for the book I was writing about a small-town sheriff in Kentucky. I rode to the town of Taylorsville, checked out the town, and talked to the sheriff’s office. It was there we had our second and third mechanical issues of the year. Seems that when Goodyear replaced the tire on the trailer the year before, they put on a tire an inch and a half too big and the trailer had now started to sag toward rubbing on it. By sheer coincidence, I noticed that the front tire of the RV had a defect in it. Two extremely expensive tires (out of pocket this time) later and we were on our way. You do not want to know how hard it is to get a tire changed on an RV.

We didn’t go far for the next stop. Forty miles south of there is Mammoth Caves. I wasn’t overly impressed with them. I guess Carlsbad spoiled me. But the underground riverboat tour of Cave City was cool.

Tennessee

We spent a week east of Nashville, Tennessee. We had such a good time the last time we were in Nashville, we were afraid to go back to avoid it spoiling our memories of it.

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DATE: July 10 – July 17, 2022 1 WEEK
RV PARK: Nashville East/Lebanon KOA
THOUSAND TRAILS: N $407/wk pull thru
ADVENTURES:
CITY: Lebanon, TN (East of Nashville)
RETURN: maybe

Mississippi

Leaving Nashville, we spent a month in Tunica, Mississippi. We stayed at the Hollywood Casio Rv park, but I played cards at the Horseshoe. Melinda got to play Mariel’s piano at the Hollywood Cafe and we went to Ground Zero, the blues club owned by Morgan Freeman. The place looked like the worst kind of dive from the outside (okay, and on the inside as well), but the music was great, the food was good and the prices were some of the best we had seen in a long time.

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DATE: July 17 – Aug 14, 2022 1 MONTH
RV PARK: Hollywood Casino, Tunica, MS
THOUSAND TRAILS: N $664/27 days ($24.60/nt) pull thru
ADVENTURES: Played poker at Hard Rock, good, Melinda played Muriel’s piano, Hollywood Cafe lunch, Ground Zero
CITY: Robinsonville, MS
RETURN: maybe, allowed us to stay attached, nice parking lot, clean,

Alabama

After a month in Tunica, we headed to Cullman, Alabama for a week. Cullman is just outside Birmingham. This was a stop specifically for Melinda to visit her Alabama agents.

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DATE: Aug 14 – Aug 21, 2022 1 WEEK
RV PARK: Cullman Campground
THOUSAND TRAILS: N 253.50/wk pull thru
ADVENTURES: Melinda work
CITY: Navarre, FL (near Pensacola in panhandle)
RETURN: maybe, allowed us to stay attached

NOTE: Got cabinet fixed, plus AC checked (?)

Florida

We hit Florida in late August and early September. We spent a couple of weeks in the panhandle. Our “domicile” address is Crestview, FL, but we have never really been there, so we stayed in Navarre, FL. I rode my bike up to Crestview just to see the address on our driver’s licenses and the lot my niece and her husband bought to build a home on. We also got to spend some time with my motorcycle buddy, Danny Barbour. He is working a contract in Pensacola, just a few miles from where we were staying.

From the panhandle, we headed to Citra, FL (just north of Ocala) toward Grand Lake RV Resort. I played quite a bit of poker at the Gainesville Poker Room next door through most of September. This was where we adopted Baby Gizmo. Melinda picked him up on her way back from a visit with her friends in Georgia in Lake City. It had been 6  months since we had to put Maggie to sleep and Melinda needed a dog to spoil. Lord knows I wasn’t getting spoiled. Grand Lakes was our original RV park and had tennis courts, a golf course, a lake, a pool, and is generally a great RV resort. We were supposed to stay there for two months.

What a Mother!

Mother Nature had a different idea. Hurricane Ian’s projected path actually crossed the intersection we were sitting at. So, after some quick phone calls to find a park southeast of the cone (we were headed toward the Keys for the winter and southeast should put us below the storm) we finally found a park in Vero Beach (actually Sebastian, FL) where we could stay for a month. Grand Lake was happy to let us go and refund our month’s stay as concerned as they were for their guest’s safety. The day before the storm was supposed to hit, we packed up and hightailed it toward Vero. We got caught in some heavy rain around Daytona, but arrived safe and sound and began enjoying a new town. Then damned if Hurricane Ian didn’t turn southeast and head right toward us!

Okay, we got the southern edge of it, but except for some rain, it was no real issue for us. Melinda had to travel some for work and flew to North Carolina.

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DATE: Sep 28 – Oct 28, 2022 1 MONTH
RV PARK: Vero Beach Kamp
THOUSAND TRAILS: N $730/mon + $120 storage (= total $850) + elect storage for trailer, backin,
ADVENTURES: Melinda traveled
CITY: Sebastien, FL near Vero, FL
RETURN: Nothing special, went to escape Hurricane Ian

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DATE: Aug 28 – Sep 28, 2022 1 MONTH
RV PARK: Grand Lakes Golf & RV Resort
THOUSAND TRAILS: N $750/mon+ elect pull thru
ADVENTURES: Got Gizmo, Melinda visited Doug & Carol in GA,
CITY: Citra, FL near Ocala, FL
RETURN: Nothing special, went to escape Hurricane Ian

NOTE: Got Gizmo, Feb & Mar sold out, left after 1 month because Hurricane Ian was coming

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DATE: Aug 21 – Aug 28, 2022 1 WEEK
RV PARK: Emerald Beach RV Park
THOUSAND TRAILS: N $600/mon pull thru
ADVENTURES: Dinner & Cigar with Danno, visited Crestview,
CITY: Navarre, FL (near Pensacola in panhandle)
RETURN: maybe, expensive

Then Hurricane Nicole hit Sebastian, FL. Right where we were at. I am starting to feel a bit targeted. It wasn’t all that bad. Gizmo and I sat out the storm. It was a little bit of rain and wind, but not much. I was up late working and watching the news. The local news channels were so desperate for something to report they actually showed an orange traffic cone blowing down the street.

Melinda came home and after a month, we headed for the Florida Keys. She had never been here before so it was a new experience for her. We were not here long before the RV park we had our reservations for in Fort Myers (we made weeks after Ian) for January, called to let us know that they are canceling us because the entire west coast was pretty much wiped out. In fact, after calling around, we found that almost ALL RV parks in Florida were booked up for January. The West Coast was closed and the East Coast was having a helluva time handling the overflow. We ended up booking a second month in the Keys. It was expensive as hell, but if you have to be stranded, the Florida Keys is as good a place as any.

Posse Whipped

I got my first novel published this year: Posse Whipped. It’s the story of a Kentucky sheriff trying to protect his family & town. I did the research this year while we were in Kentucky. I had been working on the thing for a couple of years and the info I found out this summer gave help me make it even more authentic. It’s available at Left Hand Publishers or Amazon. It is now out in hardcover. This makes the third book I have published as well as a bunch of short stories in various anthologies. I’ll let you know when they start paying the rent.

Full-Time RV Lifestyle Summary

2022 was a pretty good year for full-time RV living with the exception of a few minor mechanical issues and the loss of Maggie. The health scare Melinda had was horrifying, but thankfully fixable and she is all better now. We gained a Gizmo, experienced a lot of the country we hadn’t seen before, and still avoided snow. We started in Las Vegas and zigzagged our way to Florida, having full-time RV fun and adventures all along the way. Whatever else you can say about our lives, they are NOT boring.

 

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RVonTheRoadYet.com is a blog to keep our friends and family informed of our latest adventures or misadventures. We are NOT RV professionals, doctors, lawyers, or travel guides. We are a couple of people who have decided to embrace the full-time RV lifestyle of idiots and gypsies.