Here we are

It is October the 1st!

Many of us talk about how fast time goes by.

I remember, as a child, thinking that time passed so slowly.  This was definitely true if I was waiting on something special like a holiday, birthday or vacation.

As I got a little older, many of those special days just started running into all the typical days and time took on a life of its own.

 Most of us acknowledge and enjoy the less than typical days but we just have so much routine to deal with.  Routine is good.  It is comfortable.  We spend a good bit of our time in routine and, if we are lucky, we get to throw in a bit of special to make things interesting.

Rob and I have settled into a different kind of routine.  It is such a special routine.  We have spent the last five months moving about and exploring this great country.

For many years, we conjured the idea of getting a big motor home and traveling around the US.  We knew, for most of those conjuring years, that we would just have to wait.  Rob had a career in the US Army, we had two school aged children and many other responsibilities that came with being adults.

 We kept our idea on the back burner and continued with our lives.  Rob kept soldiering, I kept things in order and our children kept growing.  We lived, as a whole, well and happy.  We became officianados of RV shows.  We visited dozens of them over the years.  We learned the lingo and knew the difference between a Class A, B, C, fifth wheel or travel trailer.  We studied the ins and outs of each and did our homework before deciding on a Class A motor home.

Once we decided we wanted a Class A motor home, we then went through the paces of picking a manufacturer and model.  We also needed to decide the best way to tow a car.  Should we have a tow dolly or a tow bar?  A dolly gave us more choices of tow vehicles since two wheels would be off the ground but a two bar was easier.  Tow bars allow cars to be towed with all four wheels on the ground.  Not all cars could be towed with all four wheels down so that was also a factor.

After much study, we decided on a 2016 Tiffin Allegro 36LA and a 2013 Honda CRV.  Tiffin has a great reputation and the Honda CRV seemed a favorite tow vehicle among the motor home community.  We named the RV Lewis and the Honda Clark.

MY BLOG COVER PAGE AND ONE OF OUR FAVORITE PLACES SO FAR....SLEEPING BEAR DUNES NATIONAL PARK, MICHIGAN.

Rob and I made the decision to buy the motor home, get the car prepped for towing and then find a place to nest for a few months.  Winter was approaching and we thought that heading out as new full timers in the cold months might make it harder to get to know our new home.  I will have to say that this decision was pure gold.  We spent November through May sitting in one of two places.  We had many learning experiences that were much easier to figure out since we were near familiar places.

By mid May, we were ready to head out.  We'd made several long range plans and dotted short term possibilities throughout.  We wanted to hike, bike, swim. climb, meet, learn, help, rest and take our time getting to know our country.

We have been to West Virginia, Virginia, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Canada, Illinois, Indiana, New New Jersey, and New York.  We have seen everything from the Mississippi Headwaters to the huge sand dunes of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park.  We have watched the US Open and Ryder Cup golf tournaments and we attended a Packers game at Lambeau Field.  We have worked the PGA Championship at Baltrusol and Habitat for Humanity in Baraboo, Wisconsin.  We have hiked miles and miles with our two dogs Penny Lane and Annie Belle in tow.  Penny Lane has had a swim in four of the five Great Lakes.  We have visited the obscure and the well known.  It has been fabulous.

I can tell you, time has flown.  Our last solid plan for the summer was to attend the Packers game followed by attending the Ryder Cup.  When we started in May, these dates seemed quite a ways off but today is October 1st and we attended our last session of the Ryder cup yesterday.

Here we are.

So many great days in this thing we call life.