Visiting Indiana and Experiencing Thousand Trails

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Visiting Indiana and Experiencing Thousand Trails

Tim and I decided to join Thousand Trails in January, 2020 mainly for a discount on a seasonal site for January through March, 2021. The annual camping pass membership cost us $499 plus tax and with it we got a $500 discount on our 2021 seasonal reservation. If you aren’t familiar with Thousand Trails, it is a membership organization for campgrounds where you can camp for specific periods of time with your membership with no additional cost. There are levels of memberships with different purchase prices and rules. It is almost like buying into a time share.

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First Time Experiencing Harvest Host

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First Time Experiencing Harvest Host

Last August, Tim and I were making decisions on what organizations to join to help us save on camping fees. One that we chose was Harvest Hosts. This membership program provides a list of wineries, breweries, farms, and museums across the country that allow members to park overnight for free on their property. All they ask is that you support the host’s business with a purchase during your stay. I didn’t think supporting wineries and breweries would be difficult for us.

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Home Sweet Home

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Home Sweet Home

For the past two months, Tim and I have been back home in Pittsburgh and now it is time to pack up the RV to get on the road again. It is hard to believe that this is our last week in the “Burgh”. Where did the time go? These past 2 months have really flown by. We were very busy while we were here, mainly filling our time getting in our annual doctor appointments, dentist, eye doctor, etc. and visiting our family and friends. With this new normal, we weren’t able to go out and enjoy our hometown as much as we would have liked, so we didn’t visit restaurants, bars, theaters, or museums. We had to find other ways to enjoy our favorite city.

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On the road again

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On the road again

We finally left Florida after 5 months on Memorial Day in a downpour. I couldn’t believe our luck. The rain that morning started lightly and turned into heavy blowing rain that just didn’t stop. For 5 months in Florida, we had very little rain and only one all day rain so we did not expect that when we were leaving. Good thing we had packed our outdoor chairs and mat the night before so that stuff didn’t get wet. We still had to be outside to dump the tanks and disconnect our water, electric and sewer; then bring in the slides and hook up. By the time we finished hooking up, we were soaked so we climbed over the bed to the closet to find dry clothes to change before traveling. What a mess! I had planned to get a picture of us pulling out but didn’t bother in the rain.

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Enjoying life in Zephyrhills

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Enjoying life in Zephyrhills

Like everyone else, Tim and I have been following the news closely and monitoring the Corona virus situation and recommendations. We have decided for now to stay put where we are in Zephyrhills, FL. We were already booked to be here through April and even though many others are leaving early, we felt it was better to stay. Since the RV is our home, we can easily stock up on enough food for the next month and implement social distancing here. If we decided to leave, we would be on the road with many others and probably have more close exposures while traveling back north.

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Visiting Family and Friends

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Visiting Family and Friends

Over the past few weeks, Tim and I had the opportunity to visit with quite a few friends and family here in Florida. Between a little travel and joining many of the activities here at the RV Resort, we have been pretty busy. Time has just flown by and we are just about finished with our second month in Florida. So hard to believe It is almost March. I am glad that we decided to stay through April; we will need it to see and do everything we wanted to do here.

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First Christmas on the Road

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First Christmas on the Road

We left Alabama on December 14, 2019 and headed to Florida, our winter destination for our first year in the RV. For the holidays, we decided to stay near my Aunt and Uncle who live in Inverness. It is nice to have family to visit for the holidays since we are far from home. We selected a campground closer to the coast in Homosassa, FL so we could be near the Springs for easy manatee viewing when we weren’t visiting family. Since it was over a 6 hour drive from Gulf Shores to Homosassa, we decided to stay a few nights in Tallahassee to break up the trip. We have discovered that we do not like driving more than 3-4 hours at a time on travel days so this was a perfect distance for us.

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Beach Time

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Beach Time

After 2 months on the road, we finally made it far enough south to get to a beach and what a beach it is, soft white sand, bright blue water and gentle waves flowing into miles of shoreline. It is definitely an unexpected paradise especially in December, off season and almost empty of people. I say unexpected because I never realized that Alabama had beach resorts and such a beautiful shoreline. We only booked 12 nights here and if I had known how wonderful it would be, I would have planned a longer stay.

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Vacation Mode

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Vacation Mode

Are we in vacation mode too much?  Tim says that I am and need to change what we are doing while traveling or we will spend our money too fast. I don’t really think that I am on vacation. For me, this is our new lifestyle and we now have the opportunity to see new things daily.  We started this journey to be able to explore and see our wonderful country. Hence our name, Exploring Tomorrow’s. 

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Great Place for a Fall Visit

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Great Place for a Fall Visit

We are so glad that we decided to spend 2 weeks in Pigeon Forge, TN. The extra time here has allowed us plenty of time to explore The Great Smoky Mountains National Park as well as the surrounding area. The best part is that we don’t have to rush to see everything in a few days as well as be able to stay indoors on the cooler rainy days. The temperatures have been very variable with frost on one morning and sunshine and warmth on another.

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Exploring our first national park

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Exploring our first national park

Our next stop brought us to Pigeon Forge, TN to visit The Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We are staying 2 weeks in this area with plans to drive through the park well as do some hiking. I am very glad that we decided to drive up the mountain to Clingman’s Dome on our first full day. It was a beautiful warm sunny day for driving through the mountain roads to see the views and the fall colors.

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To Plan or Not to Plan

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To Plan or Not to Plan

Campgrounds in Pennsylvania typically close mid to late October and most are not busy after the middle of the month. So we thought traveling from mid October through November would be easy to find places to stay. Wrong! I had to call multiple campgrounds to find one with availability at our first stop in Kentucky. My assumption was that it was because it was early October and later in the month it would be easier to find places to stay. Wrong again!

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Visiting the Kentucky Bourbon Trail

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Visiting the Kentucky Bourbon Trail

After our delay in PA for repairs, we were finally on the road for our adventure. We headed directly for Kentucky so we could have some time with our daughter, Kim, while she was on vacation. We got to Frankfurt, Kentucky on our second day around lunchtime, which gave us time to get set up and still meet Kim to start touring the area. Our goal was to spend a week touring the Bourbon Trail and Frankfort, Kentucky’s state capital.

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Patience, patience, patience

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Patience, patience, patience

I heard that flexibility and patience are key to this lifestyle. Over the past few weeks, Tim and I definitely had a lesson in these skills. About a month ago, we had issues with our slide rooms; they would come in but not go back out. We also had an issue with the black tank; opening and closing it was difficult. Then the pull on the black tank broke totally. Tim was trying to lubricate it and the pull handle came completely off. Repairs were needed before we could leave.

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Enjoying Western Pennsylvania

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Enjoying Western Pennsylvania

Over the past two months, we were busy working at the campground getting the RV ready to be our home and organizing our stuff for storage at our daughter’s house. In between that and me working during the week, we found some time to have fun and enjoy the Pennsylvania countryside. I thought I would share some of our favorites places with you today.

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