kWe were excited to get to Colorado Springs and set up camp at Mountaindale Cabins and RV Resort so we could catch up with friends, Tom & Melanie Golden of Tom Golden Travel. We met Tom & Melanie at the Grand Design National Rally last August in Elkhart, IN and immediately hit it off. I am sure the "little beers" had something to do with it! We then met back up with them later in the month for dinner and to help them celebrate their anniversary in Southern IN. We also met up again in Houston, TX in January for dinner. It amazing how paths cross with fellow travelers! BTW...if you ever need someone to help you plan a vacation, especially a cruise here or abroad, Tom is your man! Unlike some travel agents, Tom and Melanie actually actively cruise, are knowledgeable about the various tour companies and can help you determine which one is best for you, your likes and your budget. A European River Cruise may just be in our future! After successfully dodging some nasty thunderstorms in southern Colorado, we arrived at Mountaindale and were escorted to our beautiful FHU, pull thru site in the back side of the park next to the rather large "hill/mountain". The spot was beautiful and quiet, however, because we had the hill between us and the Colorado Springs cell towers, we had very hit or miss cell service, even with our cell booster. It was a good thing the park had good wifi so we could have online access. Because of the hilly area, several of the sites, like ours are terraced with a natural boulder look. A nicely kept park and they were continually doing some sort of landscaping or maintenance. In fact, when they moved a camper in the spot behind us, they came back with a bobcat and graded the site and road gravel. The first night we arrived, the Colorado Springs area had a freak late May snow storm and some areas north and west of the city got as much as 16 inches of snow overnight. We were lucky to only get a dusting but we took a drive into the city the next day to take in the beauty of the snow. We went for a drive thru North Cheyenne Canon Park to see the Helen Hunt Falls. We also made a stop at Fort Carson to visit their free 4th Infantry Division Museum at the visitor center. It was very well done and was interesting to talk with the soldiers there about the history of their unit. We spent quality time with Tom and Melanie as they were kind enough to offer their RV as the landing spot for us to watch the Milwaukee Bucks play in the NBA playoffs a couple nights, but alas, it was not in the cards for them to be in the championship game. We also took a day and ventured down to Canon City to the Royal Gorge Bridge. Unfortunately, Mother Nature made sure that we knew she was in charge and the day was windy and cold with spotty, light rain and temps in the 40's. However, we soldiered through and had a good time exploring the gorge. We were fortunate to get a gondola ride up and over the gorge before the windy conditions shut down the gondola. Our ticket also got us into the movie about the history of the gorge which was soo interesting and the big fire of 2013 where most all of the buildings and gondolas were destroyed, but the bridge was saved. Interestingly, they left some of the scorched trees in place near the bridge as a spooky reminder of the devastation and yet beauty left by the fire. Unfortunately the campground was booked for Memorial Day weekend and we had to say goodbye to Tom and Melanie and head northeast of Colorado Springs to Elizabeth, CO and an interesting little city park where most of the residents were there permanently. Our site was fine for a couple days but I would not pay $35 for that again. They did not have fire pits or sewer hook up, there is enough road noise to make it too loud to sit outside and enjoy yourselves and our neighbor looked to be a hoarder. I will spare you pictures of their delightful homestead. But, like I said, it was fine for a couple nights. While in Elizabeth, we visited Castlewood Canyon State Park for a wonderful day out hiking. The weather was beautiful and we got soo caught up in the hike that we forgot to take pictures! Here are a couple pictures of the rocky canyon and the original Lucas family homestead. Our last Colorado stop was the National Museum of WW II Aviation. We really did not know what to expect and thought it would be just a small museum with a couple of planes to walk thru and check out but it was soo much more! If you ever go, do take the docent led tours. The tour is 2 hours long and they have a wealth of information and demonstrations. It is absolutely worth the $12admission and $10 for military. They are undergoing a large expansion so that they can display even more planes, which they have stored in other areas. They also have air shows every other year and there is one this fall. Most of the planes there have a storied past and have been lovingly restored. They even have simulators and other military vehicles, which Rick could not resist sitting in. We had a great time listening to the history of the war from the docent and how these planes played a crucial part in it. We enjoyed our time in Colorado and look forward to exploring more of the western half of the state in the future, with perhaps, better weather! On to Kansas and Nebraska! SHOP AMAZON HERE
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Our time with family camping in Door County was short as the weather decided not to cooperate, but it was still great to see everyone and spend a little time at the campfire and playing games. After leaving Door County after a month and a half, we headed south to do a night of moochdocking at my Dad's, get some laundry done and visit with the boys and my mom quick before we needed to head south to Goshen, Indiana for our first RV rally. We got to Elkhart just at 4pm…um, Central time, ie. 5pm Eastern Elkhart time, which is too late to check in for the rally. We headed over to the Elkhart campground to spend the night. We weren’t alone though because there were several other Grand Design RV’s doing the same thing. We were planning on spending the night at our first boondocking site at a casino, however, with temps being well over 90, we would be running the generator all night long and it just didn’t make sense to burn through propane, when we could get closer to the rally site and have FHU pull-thru site with a Good Sam discount. We got a good nights sleep and were up early and over to the rally shortly after they opened at 10am to check in. The Elkhart County fairgrounds is a gem of a fairground in every way. It is huge, has beautiful grounds and can accommodate around 500 RV’s. There are numerous FHU sites with 50amp, numerous more 30amp with water and the ability to create many more temporary sites with 30amp and water. Being that we were coming in the second day for arrival, we were escorted to a temporary 30amp and water site. Holy RV campground! It was a bit overwhelming to see over 375 RV’s and over 800 people milling around. The Grand Design rally started Tuesday with a hilarious “presidential” entry by the CEO of Grand Design and wrapped up Friday with an arial shot of all the participants surrounded by Grand Design RV’s, followed by a concert at one of the stages. This rally far exceeded our expectations and the organizers really did a great job organizing the events, meals, seminars, excursions, creating an amazing swag bag and just plain herding cats, i.e. attendees! Every day started with a full breakfast and announcements and then the day wrapped up with a full meal and fun event such as line dancing, campfire stories, concert and S’Mores. We, however, did not take part in all of the evening events as we met many new friends that we just plain hung out with at our RV’s and got to know one another. It was a very casual environment, with more folks stopping by to say hey or pull up a chair and sit awhile. We signed up for the Amish Brown Bag excursion and spent the day touring Amish sites, with stops at a woodworking shop, buggy shop, quilt shop, E&S wholesale, bulk foods and a bakery. At each stop we received a gift for our brown bag. We scored Amish pretzels, popcorn, jam, and cinnamon rolls. We also attended an Amish Threshers dinner at an Amish families homestead. This was followed by a very interesting Q&A session with the owners on Amish life. Very interesting! One of the benefits of coming to the rally is having the ability to choose 3 things you would like to have fixed while at the rally. Being that our RV is relatively new, we choose a couple minor things that we could think of at the time, which was 4 months ago. Additionally, they added our bent hydraulic jack to our list that we damaged in Door County. When we arrived we checked in with service to ensure they had all of our requests, including the jack and to let them know we were there. Within 3 hours we had a knock on the door from the tech and he was ready to take care of our items. He did a great job fixing those items as well as checking out a couple other items we inquired about. He also let us know that he would check to make sure the tech who would be installing the jack knew we were there. He came by the following day to install the new jack right at our site. Strangely enough, the last day of the rally, I went to open the microwave and it sparked and went dead. Dead as a door nail. Rick went over to the service desk and because it was the last day of the rally, they were unable to get a new microwave to the rally, so they will ship s a new one to our next destination. While there, Rick also got a couple packages of LED light strips for the outside lighting. Did I mention that all of this was FREE?!?!?!?! We were one of almost 400 RV’s there and just about everyone submitted a list of repairs of varying degrees, from minor things to larger items like awnings, leaf springs, jacks, etc. All were taken care of and then some. I can’t even tell you how many techs were there from Grand Design and Lippert, a major supplier of RV parts. Grand Design has a company motto, “We strive for nothing less than customers for life.” I think they definitely have a few! In addition to Grand Design and Lippert booths, there were numerous other RV parts, supply and product vendors set up with booths and conducting seminars. We went to several seminars where we learned some new things and affirmed some things as well. We also visited the vendor booths (insert large amounts of dollars leaving the wallet here). First, we found a fellow RV’er selling sink cover storage racks for an Amish gentleman who makes them and stains them to match the RV wood décor. They were very well made, including backer braces and I am always playing move the sink cover, while doing dishes, so this was something that would help to organize the kitchen area and reduce the clutter. Next up was a extension pole and microfiber, double-sided mop heads for the wonderful Wash and Wax All I had bought Rick for Christmas. This stuff is amazing and allows you to wash and wax your rig in one step without water. Soo many RV parks today do not allow you to wash your rig with water in their park and with a Beacon wash running well over a hundred bucks a shot for truck and RV, this was a wise investment. Rick got to work on Sunday washing half of the RV. It works amazing and the mop heads clean up easily in the wash. We then came upon the sign vendor that creates any type of vinyl monogram of sayings or pictures to put on anything, including your RV. We had talked about getting something for the back of our rig and after seeing all of the other great things they were producing, we succumbed to ordering ours. It really turned out nice and we put that on Sunday as well while we were washing the RV. Watcha think? On Saturday morning we said goodbye to all of our newly made friends and as luck would have it, we will be visiting next week with one of the couples who are staying for a couple weeks, just 20 miles south of us when we get to our next workamping gig in Hanover, IN. We will meet up with another one of the couples when we get to our workcamping gig in Mesa, AZ next spring and will possibly be crossing paths with a couple others as we move to different areas and try to fit in some of the smaller Grand Design rallies held across the nation. Grand Design is definitely like family, everyone from GD staff, to techs, to fellow GD owners. An amazing experience! We stayed at the campground through the weekend to avoid the mass exodus of RV’s and enjoyed a couple quiet days taking in the horse show and racing events. We were able to get most of the RV washed, our new rally acquisitions installed things organized and stowed for our travels. During our time in the greater Elkhart area, we also had time to visit the RV Hall of Fame and Museum, some local eateries, the laundromat and of course Walmart. We also stopped at the Goshen Chamber of Commerce and picked up a CD driving tour of the area, including the Amish countryside. We split the CD’s up into two days and really enjoyed the wonderful things we learned about the area. We left the fairgrounds Monday morning and made our way south to Hardy Lake State Park. This location puts us close to our next workamping gig, which we will travel to on Tuesday. This park is quiet with most of the campers checking out to get back to the daily grind after the holiday weekend. The campground here, as well as the park, is very well kept, clean bath houses and we even scored a 60ft paved site with 50amp electric. Rick was able to get the rest of the RV washed in the shaded area of the site, which was good because the heat index was 100! A quiet dinner and a relaxing night of TV was in order, followed by a good night sleep so we are fresh for our next big adventure on Tuesday. SHOP AMAZON HERE
Have any Amazon shopping to do?? Do it from our Amazon link! We participate in the Amazon affiliate program and we appreciate you using our Amazon link above to make your Amazon purchases. It does not cost you anything additional and helps us to support our blog. You can even save our link as a favorite and use that whenever you need to make an Amazon purchase. Thank you!!! We left the Mill Creek campground around 9am on Thursday to beat the full heat of the day. The humidity was certainly in full force at over 70% for the last couple days so we packed up most of the outside items the night before. The drive up to the St Louis area was uneventful and we escaped most of the construction traffic on I-44. Our main objective for this leg of our trip was to visit with family in the STL area. Rick's sister and brother-in-law as well as 4 nieces and nephews and kids live there. We arrived at Dr Edmund A Babler Memorial State Park mid-afternoon and quickly set up as temps and humidity were also sweltering at 98 and 115 respectively! While the RV was cooling down, we went to take cold showers at the bath house. When we returned the RV was down into the mid 80"s and providing a little bit of relief. We decided to run out and get groceries for our family dinner we were having on Saturday and let the RV continue to cool down. We also drove through some of the park but that was cut short by a thunderstorm and tornado warning in the area. Lucky for us, it went a bit more east and we escaped any severe weather. Our stay here at Babler state park was surprisingly wonderful, despite the heat. First off, MO is one of the few states that do not charge an entrance fee as a good portion of their funding comes from the state sales tax. Secondly, the campground was very well kept and although we did not venture out on any trails, they had plenty, including a paved 2 mile path from the campground. They also have several day use areas throughout the park and operate a fantastic camp for disabled individuals as well as summer camps for the kids. Their visitor center is very nice, with several live and stuffed animals representative of the area. On Friday we decided to spend the day as tourists and also try to avoid the heat of a 100 degree day. Our decision was easy, we went to the Meramec Caverns where the temp is always in the low 60's. It felt strange to be donning sweatshirts to fight off the chill while on the surface, you tried to stay cool! We have visited a few caves in the past but this one was huge! The rooms were very large and there were underground streams throughout the cave. The tour ended in an amazing "theater"room where they had installed stadium seating to view the beautiful cave sculptures and a very well done light show tribute to America. You can see a video of the show here. Along the way the tour guide told you not only about the caves formations but the history of the cave which included being used as a hideout for Jesse James and his brother as well as a saltpeter factory that the Union soldiers used to make ammunition during the Civil War. It really is a must see if you are in the area. In addition to the cave tours, they have zip lines, panning for gold, river float trips and a campground. We will leave you with some pictures from our tour, although they really cannot do it justice. After our cave tour, we made our way back to the campground and got dressed up to go celebrate the closing of our house. After our cave tour, we received a text from our realtor that all had gone well at closing and all transfers were completed. That was probably the easiest closing we have ever had and we owe alot of that to our fantastic realtor, Peggy Wester! She was great to work with, explained all options and details thoroughly and kept me sane when strange things popped up from the buyers financing company out of state. I picked a nice restaurant on The Hill in STL. For those not familiar with STL, The Hill is the Little Italy of STL and has some amazing Italian restaurants and shops. I chose Charlie Gitto's, as I had dined here once before on a business trip with co-workers and really enjoyed the food and atmosphere. It looks like it would come straight out of The Sopranos and the food and service does not disappoint! I was however a bit nervous driving and finding parking in the area. It is difficult with a car, not to mention we were driving the big F350 dually with an 8ft bed! We actually ended up valet parking as it was complimentary and the middle age valet seemed confident he had space for it and could maneuver it. I would have thought twice if it was a younger kid with less driving experience, but we were in good hands and the truck came out unscathed. We started out with an amazingly fresh tomato and mozzarella salad and a bottle of wine the very savvy server recommended that would pair well with our dinners. Rick had the special of the night, which was scallops over an asparagus risotto. I had the veal saltimboca and both dinners were amazing! Since the server new we were celebrating a milestone in our new lifestyle, he brought us an amazing slice of a berry spongecake that topped off the night. I highly recommend this restaurant for anyone looking for a special place in STL to go. Sorry no pics of the food. It was soo good and I couldn't put the fork down long enough to snap a picture. When we got back to the campground, it had cooled off enough to go for a walk. It was a beautiful night and we walked some of the campground. There are some sites in one loop that are big rig friendly, but beware of low hanging trees. Except for one site that looked to have family over from another site, the campground was amazingly quiet. As we were walking, the park staff stopped to tell us about an open house they were having the following day at the visitor center which would include refreshments and a wild bird show. On Saturday, we decided to go up to the visitor center to check out the open house and bird show. We talked to staff about the park and other MO parks as well as workamping opportunities in the campgrounds. Their hosts receive a full hook up site and a generous laundry allowance for machines that are available to them at the park. We did take an application since we really liked how the state parks are kept up and the support the hosts receive. We then went in to find a seat for the wild bird show that was put on by the World Bird Sanctuary from STL. They brought several owls, hawks and the grand finale, a bald eagle. They walked around the room with each of them and you got to see them up close. It was such an interesting session and learned lots about these amazing creatures. They did fly an owl and a hawk in the room, which unnerved a couple women in the audience and that turned out to be quite funny for the rest of us. Saturday even the family came over and we had a great time catching up, showing them the RV and talking about what our life would now look like and all the things we had to consider, such as how would we get our mail and things. We had a great night catching up and eating some good food. Sunday was again going to be another hot day so we packed up early and then spent some time talking to a fellow Grand Design owner parked across from us about our rigs and camping experiences. They even commented on a great camping spot they just saw on one of the Grand Design FB pages that someone had posted and low and behold it was our picture from Mill Creek campground! What a small world! It is amazing that wherever you go, you find like minded campers who are friendly and willing to help out and offer tips on everything regarding camping. We look forward to crossing paths with them again! SHOP AMAZON HERE
We participate in the Amazon affiliate program and we appreciate you using our Amazon link above to make your Amazon purchases. It does not cost you anything additional and helps us to support our blog. You can even save our link as a favorite and use that whenever you need to make an Amazon purchase. Thank you!!! With soo much to look forward to this spring, it makes the winter months drag by!! This is especially true for Rick who is counting the days left for work!!! Since our maiden voyage with the new RV, we have been in preparation/transition mode for our full time RV journey. We took the RV back down to the dealership for them to winterize it and work on the "TO DO" list from our walk thru. We have been working with the dealership and Grand Design over the last couple months to ensure everything will be ready come April. We have also been making some purchases as well as selling things. We have been selling some items we no longer use on the FB Buy, Sell, Trade's and Ebay. We also hosted both our families Christmas parties this year and they identified the holiday items they wanted. I was like a notetaker, making sure I logged all the items. Once Christmas was over, we packaged everything up for each person. Happy to report I only have two bins of misc. items left for a rummage sale and/or Goodwill. It almost seems like there is more coming in than there is going out. Christmas this year was all about what we will need on the road. It was not as hard this year to think of what to get each other or what to put on lists for others. I will do a post for those items, with links, for those interested. We also sold our Outback camper, rather quickly. We posted it on Craig's List first as well as the local FB Buy, Sell, Trade's. We were selling it with most everything in it, so it was ready to go. We had a couple general inquiries and then we received a text from a couple on a Saturday that wanted to come look at it the following day. They came out Sunday and spent an hour or so with RIck, walking through it, asking questions about camping in general and asking about our upcoming transition. They then said they were going to think about it and call us, but did mention that they were very interested. Well, in less than 30 minutes they called back and wanted to take it. They came back with a deposit to put down and we arranged for them to come back in two weeks to help Rick winterize it so they understood how to do it. They are an older couple who had a pop up several years back when they camped with their kids and now they would like to take their grandchildren camping. They were sooo excited to get back into camping and really liked the camper since it had bunk beds. We have stored the camper for them since they did not have a place lined up and they will be picking it up in April. We even gave them all sorts of information on state campgrounds we have been to and the best sites at each. It is good to see the camper going to a family who is going to take good care of it and is excited to get back into camping. |
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