Our first Road Trip

Our first real road trip- a full 8 hour drive to Atlanta. We found a campgrounds just outside Atlanta (not the most charming site, but very conveniently located). We had dinner with Shelley and her new beau, Frankie, at a local sports bar. It was great to see Shell again and the time was just too short.

One night and on the road again for another full day drive. We made it through Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and southern Ohio. We had our first truck stop evening at the Pilot and had dinner at the “Awful Waffle”.. We passed by Bone Lick State Park which was just past Beaver Lick.

May 25 – 30, 2003 Charlotte, Michigan: The Spartan Rally
One more ½ day of driving and we made it to Charlotte, Michigan. Our first rally… We arrived a day early to find rows of motorhomes already parked and a line-up at the gates. Volunteers were handling the check-in and parking and it was a nightmare getting in. We finally got settled and immediately found a yellow pages to find the local ethnic restaurants. We headed to Lansing for our Mongolian Barbeque feast. We continued our evenings of ethnic foods all week- with Korean and Ethiopian. We never could convince Gerry and Sandy to try anything spicy- so we had one evening with them at a local hearty American food restaurant – topped off with a DQ blizzard!
The rally was great- the seminars, for the most part, were very informative. In between, we visited the vendor booths and bought all the latest miracle RV products. The Travel Supreme reps were there with two models for sale. We fell in love with the floor plan on one of their 2003 models and John tortured the sales rep to put together his best deal for us. We were seriously looking at it (well, quasi-seriously) and did some research on the TS. We met a couple with a Travel Supreme Select and they invited us in for a look-see. What a spectacular motorhome- 42” plasma screen TV, desk/vanity space in the bedroom, granite countertops, marble floors. It was stunning! John tortured Gerry with the idea that we might leave the "American Coach fold".

April Fools! - We're Homeowners Again!

April Fools Day and we are officially homeowners again. The closing was smooth and we moved into our new, fully furnished home. We literally moved in all of our stuff in a few hours and began to explore and enjoy our new home. Buying a furnished home was pretty strange. I don’t think that Terry and Gigi ever really lived in the house. The furnishings had no wear- the candles were still in their original wrappers and the artificial plant arrangements still had the inventory tags on them.

Mija gave us a bit of a scare with a recurrence of her mast cell tumor- this time on her leg. After doing tests to see if it had spread (it hadn’t), we opted for surgery to remove the tumor. It made for some stressful times and almost daily trips to the vet to check and change bandages.
Meanwhile, we continued our crazed lifestyle finding new projects to make the house ‘perfect’. We had contractors in for structured wiring and to built bookcases for the dining room and to add a door to the laundry room (to make it my office).

Mom and ED came on the 11th to spend the weekend. We had the chance to show them around the area, check out the neighborhood yard sale and take ED out for his 85th birthday.
We had a great anniversary dinner at a local Indian restaurant. Kate and Mike flew in for John’s birthday (and Jane’s graduation). We did an AM swamp boat tour and saw the Kennedy Space Center (with an obnoxious tour guide – “Yea”) and a great dinner in Cocoa.

With our house projects completed or at least under control, we were ready to pack up and get out of Florida. The heat and humidity were starting to kick in and it was definitely time to head north.