R U an RV Mutant too?

[Moonrover]

Inverse of "snowbird" is "hotbirds". Those who are tired of getting feathers roasted, and travel to cooler temps. Looking for chilly evenings around the campfire? Go UP in elevation. There are cool places in the Appalachians right now. Days can still get warm, but not as hot as Texas.

Now to address the full-timers dream of hunting for a potential fixed location for the last phase of retirement ... it is like a snipe hunt .... if you try too hard to locate it ... it never will be fond. Gotta let it "find" you. Just ramble around slowly enough so the location will grab you.

Maybe I can use the analogy of Canadian geese. Years ago when I was growing up, I would watch the yearly trek of flocks of "V" shaped formations flying and honking south in mid-fall, and north in early spring. Then sometime in the last few years the lead goose got smart and figured it out. Now his feathered followers roost all year somewhere between north and south. Around here they have selected the artificial ponds of big corporate office parks. No hunters are shooting them out of the sky, and stray dogs are captured by the local animal wardens. The ponds have beautiful fountains for bathing and feather preening.

How did the geese find their nirvana? They landed to overnight where the water looked good, the territory felt safe, and the food tasted great. The head goose retired from his leadership position in the "V". Now he and his flock nip tender grass from pond banks, and poop all over the sidewalks in front of corporate offices. They never leave.

[flaggship1]

Welcome back Herb and Barb! You have clearly maintained better health than I have. I'm pretty sure chasing two grands is grand - but it would put me in a rehab facility. When my daughter was young the combo tour of Disneyland, San Diego Zoo and Catalina Island required a second vacation for recovery. Well done!

Ok. So our travel planning began with our New Mexico preference - say ABQ as start to see friends. That is 650 miles and then ramble north adding more stops and miles and a longer trip home. Then unexpectedly, week before last one of our ABQ friends spent a few days with us. So we looked for options. Lake Catherine or the Hill Country? Both are right at 300 miles from home. Toss up.

Annie has had Catherines Landing on her radar for a while and we have spent time in Marble Falls and Inks Lake in the B Van days. The Bounder is a little big for the places we stayed so we looked around and found Sunset Point on Lake LBJ and had marked Kerrville and Guadalupe River Resort and some other on the river spots there. Both look like a good place to spend a week or so. Also some "wine country" around Fredricksberg. All were looking good until the heat came back strong.

Both places have pools and lake or river - and one has an outdoor saloon. Yesterday I thought - man do I want to float all day in a river, lake or pool to stay cool? Do I want to put it off another two weeks? Drive farther? Take my chances on it cooling down? Decisions. Decisions. I have the maps out!

Again - welcome back you two. You sure aren't wasting any daylight with that new Motorhome.
RVM2
Steve and Annie

[flaggship1]

Originally Posted by Alan24601

Lots of Floridians here at Rivers Bend in Iron Mountain Mich. for the summer, beautiful park and really nice people.

We really do want to get up that way. A friend from Phoenix rode his Harley up there a few weeks ago - still there. He's from that area. I ran the MapQuest and it is 1,200 miles from here. At our pace we would use 1/2 our vacation days getting there. Folks around here like to say DFW is centrally located. My reply is always - why yes it is. 1,200 miles from everywhere I want to be.

Thanks for the reinforcement on the area. Some of the lake pictures my friend has sent are off the charts beautiful. And he sent a picture of bass his friend caught that is definitely in the Texas league for bass.
RVM2

[flaggship1]

Confession time mutants. My bank was looking out for me yesterday. They found my $233.33 fuel bill to be unusual activity. The shame. They have no idea how much it hurt to hear that. Anyone else have a confession on a Sunday morning. Floors open!
RVM2

[HerbnBarb]

Originally Posted by huntnski

Herb, when was you in Hot Springs, AR. (My neck of this Universe)? Always love to hear compliments on our area of the world, but let me warn you, we too can have that Texas size heat and even worse the humidity. One must choose their time to visit, or sweat to regret it.

Huntnski we were there in June on our way home from Kentucky when we picked up our new to us "Baby" and we loved it. That place is awesome! Very reasonably priced for the amenities and Lake Catherine is great. We also frequent Queen Wilhomena State Park and lodge every year in the fall for Thanksgiving. Love the lodge on the second highest point in Ar. In the fall for the changing of the colors.

Steve thanks for the welcome home. You are correct. We have put about 5K miles on "Baby" in the last 90 days including the trip home from picking her up. No more of that planned for the rest of this year.....just local area short trips toFredricksburg and of course back to Ar. For Thanksgiving. Can't wait until all ties to Ft. Worth are cut and we can finally slow down the pace and be truly free to roam!

We are already planning the 2014 itenarary to include south to north east coast and west coast trips.

[PTJeep]

Originally Posted by flaggship1

26 years with same company just last week - will retire fairly well with 27 this time next year or there abouts. I will not look back that's for sure - but the exchange of flesh for money has been mostly fair. My last year or so will be like all the rest. No skates allowed. But I hear ya.

Hey Steve,

Dont sweat it to much, I spent 30 yrs with one company and then opened my own business and ran it for 10 yrs with 5 yrs in conjunction with the first position, and then my DW retired a year ago in July, so I closed up shop and we found our coach. We have a couple we are really close to that have been FT for 7 years now and they were our inspiration to begin this lifestyle. and now the unwind is pretty much all the time, except when we have to push to make a required stop dictated by family in a particular location, once we are past that we will take one day at a time until we decide where we should go next.

Right now being in central AZ I think we are going to stay for at least two months and just see what there is to see, and there is almost an unlimited amount to see, especially since we are in the Sedona Red Rock area. I am not sure we will ever find a place to light for the last phase of our journey, I want to be a vagabond for as long as possible, but someday who knows we may find a place to settle.

Having lived in MI for most of my life, and now, relocating in address only to SD the whole continental US is an option only to be explored. There are so many places I havent seen yet almost to many to number including but not limited to the NW, the SE and NE and the whole of both coasts, Im thinking a jazz fest in New Orleans is on the bucket list as well, and a month or so in the northern Georgia wine country as well, the number of choices is overwhelming at times.

For now home is in Camp Verde, AZ.

Cheers !!!

[HerbnBarb]

Originally Posted by Moonrover

Inverse of "snowbird" is "hotbirds". Those who are tired of getting feathers roasted, and travel to cooler temps. Looking for chilly evenings around the campfire? Go UP in elevation. There are cool places in the Appalachians right now. Days can still get warm, but not as hot as Texas.

Now to address the full-timers dream of hunting for a potential fixed location for the last phase of retirement ... it is like a snipe hunt .... if you try too hard to locate it ... it never will be fond. Gotta let it "find" you. Just ramble around slowly enough so the location will grab you.

Maybe I can use the analogy of Canadian geese. Years ago when I was growing up, I would watch the yearly trek of flocks of "V" shaped formations flying and honking south in mid-fall, and north in early spring. Then sometime in the last few years the lead goose got smart and figured it out. Now his feathered followers roost all year somewhere between north and south. Around here they have selected the artificial ponds of big corporate office parks. No hunters are shooting them out of the sky, and stray dogs are captured by the local animal wardens. The ponds have beautiful fountains for bathing and feather preening.

How did the geese find their nirvana? They landed to overnight where the water looked good, the territory felt safe, and the food tasted great. The head goose retired from his leadership position in the "V". Now he and his flock nip tender grass from pond banks, and poop all over the sidewalks in front of corporate offices. They never leave.

Moon rover we have always had a gypsy spirit anyway so I doubt that we would ever stay in one place more than a month or two. There is too much I want to see and experience to stay any longer. I expect we will be roaming as long as our health will allow us to. Whenever we reach that point (and I'm hopeful we have the option to make that decision) then we will return home to be close to the kids and spend the rest of our lives remembering the places we've been and the friends we made along the way.

[JudyH]

Originally Posted by flaggship1

Confession time mutants. My bank was looking out for me yesterday. They found my $233.33 fuel bill to be unusual activity. The shame. They have no idea how much it hurt to hear that. Anyone else have a confession on a Sunday morning. Floors open!
RVM2

One time we went on vacation with our very first 5er, and decided to use the credit card instead of travellers checks....this was back in the early 90's. And half way through our trip the credit card co. closed our account due to unusual activity. When we got home there were several messages from cc co. wanting us to verify the charges. DUH. Fortunately the gas stations just swiped the card the old way, and had us sign the carbon. Of course now days they wouldn't even know what a carbon was! We had no idea it had been stopped until we got home, just thought the strip on the card was messed up.

[Toyduck]

Originally Posted by Dunner

There's also Sunset Crater just outside of Flagstaff. The earth belched with multiple exit wounds. I used to take my turbo VW sand rail and Suzuki 250R quad there and race up the hills and drive the hundreds of trails. I know you guys like pictures, so I'm taking my chance that you will like these dirty ones.

Nice place to go when it's 110°+ In Phx.



This is one place you don't want your brakes to fail on the way down. Even with them locked up, you still slide down the hill and those trees don't move. One weekend, a guy came down it with snow skis. Didn't fall down till the very bottom.



~900 lb hill shooter. The lower frame rails needed a re-paint after every trip.



2.2L making 25 lbs boost on a custom blend of 100LL gas. Guestimated HP - 350. It pulled the front wheels off the ground when I shifted into 4th gear going up Jeep Hill.


Stinky... pulling 33' of Skyline Nomad.

I do like the photos! I haven't driven or ridden in a rail since the mid 70's when two friends and I were into desert racing and the Mint 400. That is a nice looking piece of equipment! We never had a turbo back then, we did mount a Corvair 6cl with 3 2 barrel carbs. It was a handful.

We missed Sunset Crater, on our way back from the Hatch Chili Festival I was tired so we stopped at a CG at the Meteor Crater, liked the park enough to stay 2 additional days. Don't know how we missed Sunset Crater, will have to stop and check it out next time we go through the area.

[Toyduck]

Originally Posted by flaggship1

So here is a ponder for mutants who still have day jobs (or retired and remember).... Long ago when we first started traveling (the old Airstream B Van) - i was sitting at the campfire - and all of a sudden I felt the stress leave me. This was day three of not moving - Colter Bay. I found that to be the case time and again. About 3 days of camping and the spring unwinds.

Any other mutants have a 3 day unwind? Some other "let down reflex time" - or notice this? I also notice it when not traveling - a 3 day weekend seems at least twice as good as 2 days!

RVM2 - still pondering.
Steve and Annie

Since I have retired, I'm unwound..

Unfortunately until I can talk the DW into retiring.. she still needs at least 5 days..

[Dunner]

The visitor center and area around it are very nice and informative. The cinder flows are well preserved.

My first rail was a 1385 single port with a 2bbl. Didn't even know about the dunes, but I did flat tow it to Rockey Point a couple of times.

[flaggship1]

Originally Posted by Toyduck

Since I have retired, I'm unwound..

Unfortunately until I can talk the DW into retiring.. she still needs at least 5 days..

Hey Duck!! 5 day reset. I thought I had it bad. LoL.

So... Hatch Chile Festival eh.. Always wanted to go. I hear the town grows exponentially for that. Saw a special on the Food Network for the event a few years ago. A local guy won the hot chile eating contest. I love me some hatch chiles but could not compete. We laid in some of this years crop in the freezer this month. We got hot and mild but this batch the hot were more medium. Needed to go back for the extra hot but didn't make it. I go through a painstaking packaging process for freezing and still have some scorchers from last year - no ice or signs of freezer burn.

Going to order some dry Hatch Red and try my hand a volcanic Hatch red enchilada sauce soon. Nothing like those New Mexico red chile enchiladas with a fried egg on top.

RVM2

[Sky_Boss]

Had a busy 4 days mutating from and Illinois resident into a South Dakota resident. LOL

Friday Sandee and I got our SD driver's license and started the paperwork to register our MH and CRV in SD. All in prep for mutating into unemployed people.

Also mutating into a one home family! Finally got an offer on our S&B. It is a cash deal so we should be free of S&B headaches in about 3 weeks.

Steve my friend...I wish a $233 gas bill would have raised my bank's concerns for me. LOL I had 2 $300+ fill ups in 4 days! AHHH....bit I confess...it was all good!

[flaggship1]

^^^ Don - WoW - 2 big events in 4 days!! Congratulations to you both. What about Thor and Gunny - didn't they have to change residency too?

Glad ya sailed smoothly - and fingers crossed on the house. I think we talked Thursday and there wasn't anything on the table. I am as excited for you guys as I am jealous! The brass ring is there for the taking. Great job!

As for fuel - I'm with you. It's an expense we love to hate!
RVM2 - you know the rest... Lol.