It's been a while since we have posted a blog so I thought I would post an update on what we've been up to... As you know, we sold Annie2 and bought Annie3 so we could full-time for the next two years.
We sold our condo in Lake Ozark and bought a piece of property in St. Augustine, which we plan to build on in late 2022, assuming building prices go back to normal.
Our travels have been a lot of fun and we opted to re-do our West Coast trip we had planned for 2020 but was canceled due to COVID. After leaving Missouri, we headed west through Texas and down to New Mexico. New Mexico wasn't a state we had thought much about but were pleasantly surprised by how cool it is to visit. People were friendly, we found a lot of unique places to eat and visit, and now we hope to go back for a longer stay so we can see more of the state.
Next up was Arizona, which we both love and had a lot of fun meeting up with the King's and exploring Mesa for a few weeks. Kris and I headed to FL for a few days to go visit the beach and see the new property Keith & I bought in St. Augustine. The guys decided to use that time to get in several rounds of golf.
After saying goodbye to the King's, we headed to Lake Havasu to take Keith's mom's ashes, and our dogs Nicky and Reagan to be scattered there. Our wifi signal was so bad at our first location, we had to move closer to town. The new campground was nice but it was sad to leave our space in Parker that had the most amazing lake view. Working remotely is great but in this instance, it was a bummer.
We headed to Palm Springs for a few weeks, where we spent way more money than normal as we ate at so many great restaurants and drank a lot of wine in Temecula. We discovered the most amazing hamburger we've ever eaten at The Heyday. Try it, you will love it! A few days before we left we met us with friend Jamie and Matt from Seattle who had just moved to the area. We had a great time with them and regret we didn't meet up sooner!
We headed to Vegas with the plan to be there for 3 weeks. Keith had a small Coast Guard reunion with several of his old shipmates. His son was also in town for training so we were able to visit with him, our daughter-in-law, and our youngest granddaughter. After 5 days we decided it was way too hot there and we opted to leave early. The heat was wreaking havoc on the RV and the dogs were really uncomfortable.
Since we loved Temecula so much, we opted to head back there in hopes of finding cooler temperatures. We stayed at a great campground in Hemet that I would happily go back to again. Since we were closer to Palm Springs, we were able to have a fun night in Temecula with Jamie and Matt. We got a lot of time in at Temecula, which made that side trip a great excuse to try some more wineries.
Rather than tell you about every stop we made in California I will just say we covered the state and tried so much wine, explored a lot of new and exciting areas, and met a few new people along the way. We absolutely loved California and hope to go back to spend even more time there. We opted to skip LA as we've been there more than enough times in life, and chose to explore areas we hadn't really been to. I was able to visit Catalina Island with my friend Kris, we spent a day in San Fran on a bus tour and then spent a lot of time in Napa/Calistoga area. We had hoped to go to Lake Tahoe but all of the campgrounds were FULL. Next time!!
We drove through Oregon and spent a week in Ocean Shores. We visited Astoria (we are HUGE Goonies fans) and drove around the area every day trying to find a new place to eat or explore. Cannon Beach is an area I'd love to stay in for a week longer.
After Oregon we drove up to Oak Harbor, WA to visit our family. We have had an amazing time catching up with some old Seattle friends and visiting with Kids/grandkids. After this stop, we start our trip East, with a week stop in Eastern WA wine country, of course!
2021 has been great and we can't wait to see how it ends. We still have a lot of great stops on our route! As you can see by the image above (taken from our RV Trip Wizard app), our trip appears to end in Ohio. It will be for about a month so we can go visit our home in Mexico, but then we will come back and head south to Florida for the winter.