We were supposed to take off in June to do a 3-month Western tour to Glacier National Park, Mt. Rushmore, Badlands, Yellowstone National Park, Deadwood, Sturgis, Custer Sate Park, Big Horn, Grand Teton, etc. BUT…
But fuel costs were climbing higher and higher and our 6000-mile trip was approaching the $1 a mile cost, my knee was not recovering as fast as we would like it to and then Yellowstone flooded. So, I guess through Devine intervention, we were meant to stay home on the houseboat on Lake Lanier, GA.
Prior to my total knee replacement, I had bone on bone and arthritis in my knees for many years. It had gotten to the point that I could not bend it more than 90 degrees and could not walk very far without pain. I lived with cortisone and gel shots for about 7 years and I was told it would be very difficult to get it past a 90-degree bend after the surgery. Well, they were right and I’m sure you have seen the videos and the torture device that Dave built for me. It is slowly helping me as I am a little over 100 degrees now. Honestly, if someone where to ask me, “How long should I wait before hitting the RV road after knee surgery?”, I’d say “At least 10 weeks”. But everyone is different. We were going to leave only 4 weeks after surgery, and that just wasn’t going to happen.
CANCELLATIONS
I felt badly because I had to cancel 26 reservations I had made for the out West trip of which 3 campgrounds were going to be around Yellowstone. But then the fuel costs kept going up and then Yellowstone flooded. So, I didn’t feel so badly after all.
We generally stay on the houseboat only a couple months a year and the rest is spent traveling in the RV. After just a few weeks on the houseboat, we usually start to get antsy and want to get on the road again. Don’t get me wrong, we love our houseboat, but we love traveling even more. One thing though, with the renovations that we did to the houseboat, we feel very comfortable on the houseboat and don’t get tired of it like we used to.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
We have managed to go out to the islands for some get away boondocking trips and that has helped our “gotta get on the road and travel” feeling. Our houseboat “dock family” has made things nice too as we have get-togethers quite often. The interesting thing is several of the other houseboaters have RVs too. So, we are going to take a trip or two with them. One will be to Panama City Beach, FL at the end of the month. (See our calendar on the “Find Us” page).
UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN
One of the best things about RVing is meeting people. We met Dave and Dawn through our YouTube channel and they stopped by our houseboat to visit and even brought me dinner after my surgery because they were in the area. We met Alex and Jeanne through our YouTube channel as well and finally met in Quartzsite a couple years ago. We have kept in touch and being only a state away in South Carolina, they will be coming to Georgia with their fifth wheel and we are going to camp out on Lake Lanier at Old Federal Campground together in August. Making friends like this is awesome.
Quartzsite:
So now that we have been on the houseboat for so many months, we have been planning a trip to Florida for the winter. We went to Quartzsite the last couple of years, but decided to stay closer to home for now (fuel costs and uncertainty of the economy) and visit Florida and the Keys. Our plans are to go along the gulf side, down to the Keys, then back up the Atlantic coast side, stop in Savannah and work our way back home to the houseboat. We aren’t sure where we will go this Spring, or we may wait and try to do the whole out West trip again next summer. I guess that is one thing that is nice about RVing; it is definitely fluid. But we are very happy and blessed to have a houseboat to come back to whenever we want.
TROUBLE IN PARADISE
I have been trying to make reservations in Florida for many months now. As you probably know, we love USACE (United States Army Corp of Engineers) campgrounds and there are some in Florida. However, I have had little luck being able to reserve sites that we can fit into even 6 months in advance. We also have Thousand Trails membership, but they are even hard to get into in the winter when we only have a 60-day advance reservation membership and others have 90 to 120. We have already paid the big bucks to stay at a campground in Marathon Key, but the campgrounds on the way there and back, are getting tricky to reserve. Even the private expensive ones are booked a year in advance. I like to plan our trips out as far as possible, but with a 60-day Thousand Trails advanced reservation program, I’m not sure if we will be able to find anything. I’m still trying to figure this 3-month winter road trip out, so keep your fingers crossed for us. Who knows, we may end up at Quartzsite again.
Thanks for stopping by and checking out our Blog. Hope to see you out there one day soon.
