NOVA

NOVA - or Northern Virginia, is where my sister and her husband Greg live - the next stop on this crazy tour.  We arrived at Bull Run Regional Park March 10th.  It is a huge, beautiful park about 25 minutes from my sister's home.  It is set well off the road and has some interesting amenities - including a skeet shooting range.  And yes, they shoot from 9am to 6pm almost non-stop and yes, you can hear it.  But, it is such a nice park that we didn't mind.

We got the 5th wheel parked and leveled after a bit and began our adventure here.  On Friday we drove to the Washington DC LDS Temple, where we were married 40 years ago this June.  It was a pleasant and somewhat nostalgic day...

On Friday afternoon, after returning from the temple, we went for a hike/walk on a portion of the 17 mile trail that is part of the park.  It is a well defined, mostly dirt, but with some boardwalk, trail that follows Bull Run and Cub Run - the names of the two rivers that lend their names to the area. Anyone who knows me knows that "hike" is not my favorite word - so I offer photographic evidence that I actually did make this 3.5 mile hike "Into the Woods" and "Out of the Woods" and "Home before dark!"

One of the marvels of this trail includes huge trees that are undercut by the water.  We took several pictures, but this one was especially amazing.  To me, this was Nature's Art - truly amazing - as this tree clings to the banks in it's likely, futile attempt to not be swept away...

And last but not least - a little video of the stream as it flowed... just peaceful and pretty...

Moving On...

We left Florida March 2nd and drove to the Chattanooga, Tennessee area where Derrick's niece, Brittiny lives with her family.  We had a really fun visit with Brit, her three older children, Bonnie (Brit's mom and our fun sister-in-law) and Brit and Cory's baby, Abbey.  Abbey took a shine to Uncle Derrick - we think it's cause he's a little like Grandpa Gregg :-)

After a quick visit with Brit, we headed up to Christiansburg, VA, to visit Derrick's brother, Gregg and their parents.  Gram and Gramps are 90+ now, but are doing really well.  We enjoyed several days there.  Greg and Derrick worked on projects together, we spent time with Gram and Gramps and enjoyed the lovely Virginia weather.  Gram and Gramps even got to come into the new RV and see our living-space-on-the-road.  Gryffindor  was very fond of Gram (I think the feeling was mutual :-) )

A Dining Experience...

Before departing Florida, we had the privilege of meeting up with two sets of friends - Carol and Donny Welch in Zephyrhills and Derrick's cousin, Valerie Richards in Tampa.  Sadly, we didn't get pictures of our day with Carol and Donny, but we did get a couple with Valerie, her daughter Courtney and Courtney's boyfriend, Cliff.  We were treated to a "dining experience" at Bern's Steakhouse in Tampa.  And what an experience it was! A huge dinner, kitchen tour and a trip to the Dessert Room.  Amazing.

Orlando, The Princess and Big Rig Changes

We arrived in Orlando, happy to be in a place that was warm and where, we hoped, we could finally get the heat fixed.  Derrick made an appointment for the closest AquaHot dealer (the name of the type of heater we had in the motorhome) and we settled in.  However, it wasn't long before we noticed some other crazy issues popping up.  Water refused to stay in toilet, there was a wet spot in the bedroom that we had no explanation for (not related to cats... just recurring wetness.).
One. Thing. After. Another.  We talked.  We prayed. We researched. We finally decided.

It was time to cut our losses and look at a different rig.  We knew that we wanted to go on a mission where we could use our RV. That had always been the plan.  But it was becoming more evident every day that this rig would not stand the rigors of that endeavor.  In it's day, the Baroness was a very high end motorhome.  We had the original sticker to prove it.  But that was in 2004 and this is 2016.

After much discussion and research we concluded we wanted to switch to a fifth wheel and a truck. Long story short, we found the perfect fifth wheel and truck in record time.  We located a 2016 Heartland Bighorn 35' Fifth wheel and an amazing 2014 Ford F350 truck.  We got fair trades for both the other vehicles, too.  We secured a hitch, got it installed and by Thursday the 25th, we had a new rig. LaMesa RV in Sanford, FL, and Gibson Truck World, also in Sanford, were super great to work with.

I have to admit, there were moments of nostalgia as we packed up the motorhome.  There were moments of panic and angst as we worried that the new unit would be too small.

Packing up, we realized we had WAY too much stuff.  Why on earth were we carrying it all around? We ended up sending 4 boxes back home and took another load or two of things to Goodwill. Even with that much purging, we still have a lot of "stuff".  Moving it all from one rig to the other was daunting.

In between looking, trading and packing, I did a 5K, a 10K and a Half Marathon at Disney World. While we were in California, I was able to get a last minute entry into the Disney Princess Glass Slipper Challenge.  The 5K was a fun little jaunt through Epcot.  The 10K was a fun run also through Epcot with a few other streets added.  The Half Marathon was another story.   It was crowded beyond comprehension.  I was back too far and in too deep.  Crowd Claustrophobia is a very real malady for me and this race was, in a word, a nightmare with 20,000 or so runners.  I am glad I did it - got it out of my system - but I most likely won't do it again.

Again, to be continued...

And on to Pensacola...

We left Houston relatively unscathed and headed to Pensacola, Florida.  The plan was to stop there to break up the long trip to Orlando and to maybe spend a couple of days on the beach.  Yeah. The RV gods were laughing...

We made it to the Pensacola RV park just before closing.  This was great because the spot we had required backing in and the owner was there to assist with that.  I stink at backing up and it makes me nervous just to watch it.

It was colder in Pensacola than we had hoped - only in the 50's.  That's warm in Utah, but not really warm enough even for US to enjoy the beach.  But, we figured we would make the best of it.  So, we got parked, opened the slideouts and prepared to get ready for the night.  Turned on the heat.  No heat.  WHAT??? Again??? What about the WEEK we just spent in San Antonio? What in the world is it now??  We simply couldn't believe it.

Fortunately, it wasn't as cold in Pensacola as it had been in El Paso, so the night wasn't as uncomfortable.  But, by now, we had had it.  This had to be some kind of mean joke.  But we still had to get through the night, so we went to Walmart and bought a little electric heater and were at least warm through the night, even if we were really discouraged.

Given this new wrinkle, we decided that between the wretched heating problem and how cold it was in Pensacola, there wasn't much point in staying there.  So we contacted the Orlando KOA we had reservations at to see if we could come a day or two early.  Turns out it wasn't a problem, so we pulled out of Pensacola on Monday, February 15th and headed for Orlando.

Along the drive through Mississippi and Louisiana, we crossed a lot of bridges, saw bayous and battleships, went past signs for the towns of Daphne, Cecelia, Carol and Niceville.  I even took a video of when I THOUGHT we were crossing the Mississippi.  Turns out it was Lake Charles.
My bad.

San Antonio to Livingston, TX

We FINALLY left San Antonio and headed to Livingston, TX - just north of Houston.  We had reservations at the Escapees RV Park.  Now, before you jump to the conclusion this is a place for escaped prisoners, let me explain.  It's an RV club full time RVers that also has a mail forwarding service.  Before we left Utah, we had our mail forward to there and so we wanted to stop and pick it up.

Little did we know, that this place is IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE!!  We couldn't believe it. We left San Antonio sufficiently late enough that it was dark when we got off the freeway.  Then we had miles to drive on these dark roads through who-knows-where Texas.  We finally got there and, with the help of a local resident, managed to find our spot.  We got settled for the night, glad our heat finally worked.

We got our mail the next morning and then headed for the Houston Temple.  On our previous trip to Texas in 2014, this temple was closed for some renovation.  This time, however, it was open and we enjoyed our day there.

El Paso and San Antonio

Saturday, February 6th.  El Paso, TX.

We awoke freezing, but determined to get this situation fixed and get on with our vacation.  There was an IHOP close by and we went there for a warm breakfast.  Happy for the chance to unthaw. After breakfast, Derrick drove the motorhome and I drove the Jeep to the tire place.  While they were working on the tires, we started making phone calls to see where we could get the heat fixed.

Quick explanation.  This particular motorhome had a very specialized heat/hot water system in place. It worked well when it worked, but when it doesn't it's awful.  And it is very hard to find someone that can fix it.  You can only go to authorized service places.  No one else knows how to deal with them.  Hence our problem.

We finally located a dealer in San Antonio - 7 hours away.  If we could get there, he could look at it that day.  But, it was 10am by the time we got done and there was a one hour time change from Mountain Time to Central Time, so we knew there was no way we could get there in time.

Now what?

We made an appointment for Monday morning and then started looking at hotel options.  Since we are Marriott people, we called the Courtyard closest to the repair place.  They could take pets, but she referred me to the Residence Inn.  Bless them.  They were so accommodating.  They gave us a room that was upstairs and fairly quiet.  Gryffindor is NOT a fan of hotels.  He spends a lot of time staring nervously at the door thinking someone is going to com in and get him!  Silly boy.  He acclimated pretty well to this situation, though. Even took to walking on the window ledge and checking out the birds!

It turns out the problem with the heat was a wire that got cut by the slide out.  An easy fix.  Great. There were a few other little issues we decided to have them look at.  One of the "little issues" needed a part. No, they didn't have it.  Yes, they could get it in a couple of days.  Okay. Long, sad story short, we hung around San Antonio for almost a week.  Granted, San Antonio isn't a bad place to get stuck, and we were warm and the kitties were not traumatized.  It's just that the clock was ticking on our vacation and the room price per night was not part of our plan.

We did get to go to the San Antonio Temple and the San Antonio Riverwalk.

To be continued... again...