Colorful drives

The past few days have been relaxing. We drove over to Cherokee, NC Tuesday. The drive over was beautiful. Wednesday we took it easy as the weather turned rainy. Thursday we drove over to Gatlinburg. As we drove through the Great Smoky Mtn. Park, the traffic slowed then stopped as there were 3 bears up in the trees along the side of the road. The bear in the photo below decided to climb down out of that tree and boy did alot of the folks start to scramble for their cars. :-)

After wandering around Gatlinburg we headed back to the campground as the temperatures were dropping fast. But before we left, we got a picture of us with some of the autumn decorations that are all over up here. They really go all out for the autumn season! Oh and by the way, 2 more bear cubs along the side of the road on the way back! Unfortunately, they ran into the woods before we could get their photo. Bear count so far: 10!

Cades Cove

Today was a beautiful day! Highs around 78, no humidity, a light breeze and barely a cloud in the sky. We packed a picnic lunch and headed to Cades Cove in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Cades Cove is a one way 11 mile road around and through an old mountain settlement. It's known for its wildlife and natural beauty. And this time of year for its fall colors.
We did not expect to see much wildlife as we went in the early afternoon when the animals are usually not visible. Boy did we get a surprise. Here are some photos of what we saw. A momma bear and baby cubs, a big black bear, some deer just off the road, and wild turkeys.

Tomorrow is supposed to be another beautiful day and we have heard that the fall colors are near peak up by Cherokee, NC. So we are heading that way tomorrow. Until then......here's a photo of the natural beauty of Cades Cove.

From Chaos to Calm

Our travel days to our destination of Townsend, Tennessee were pretty much uneventful. With one exception...Atlanta on Friday night at rush hour. Why do they call it rush hour? It took us over 2 hours to get around Atlanta. Here is the view from our front window going through Atlanta.

We stopped at a KOA north of Atlanta and got the last spot available. Boy did we luck out! And last night the temperature got down to 45 degrees! Brrrr...thats cold for us Florida folks. :-)
Today (Saturday) we are now settled into our campground for the week. Here are a couple views from our site.
We are on the edge of the property with a farm on one side. We are in a valley, so there is no cell phone service, but we can go about a mile into town and have cell coverage.

No plans yet for tomorrow. We are just relaxing and enjoying our time off. :-)

More later.

Introducing....Vroom and Vue!

A picture of Vroom with Vue.
Vroom is a 2007 Itasca Ellipse and Vue is our Saturn Vue.

Some firsts..........

Our first trip in the new motorhome was to Ft. Wilderness at Disney World. We love going there and have been several times. Living close by makes it easy to go during the off-season when the rates are lower and the campground less crowded. No major problems during the weekend, just some minor things that we are able to fix ourselves.

Now Richard and the motorhome are in Georgia at an Army base for 2 weeks of Army Reserves. This is the first longer distance trip in the motorhome.

Also, I'm glad to report that I am not the first to put a scratch on the new RV. Richard gets those honors. :-)

Life on Wheels...in review

The Life on Wheels conference was great. We recommend it to anyone who is considering the fulltime RVing lifestyle. Since we had been doing a lot of research on the topic, we knew alot of what was taught in some of the classes, but it was re-affirming to know we were on the right track with our thoughts. The fire safety class was awesome. And we met a great couple Bob and Betty who are already living the RV lifestyle.

After the conference its was back to the real world and to our JOBS. Only about one more year until we plan to move on to our new lifestyle. We seem to continually talk about, research and plan our future as we get closer to our anticipated "on the road" date.

Tomorrow we take the new motorhome (affectionately named "VROOM" by Richard) out for its first camping trip. All our possessions from the old motorhome were thrown into the new one, as we had only about an hour or so to get it in there on the day we purchased it; and thats as far as we have gotten. So we will be spending the weekend organizing it all into VROOM.

Pictures of VROOM and VUE are coming soon!

Heading to the L.O.W. Conference

Tomorrow morning we fly to Pennsylvania to attend the Life On Wheels Conference. We are looking forward to learning all we can about the fulltime RVing lifestyle. From campground memberships, to RV maintenance, to working on the road...this conference seems to have a class for everyone.

There will hopefully be time to finish setting up this blog the way we want it and doing a few posts about the conference, the people we meet, and what we learning.

We have a feeling that once we get back we are going to be even more ready to hit the road. And going back to our JOBS on Monday is going to be tough! But on the bright side....less than one more year until we plan to hit the road!

The Blogging begins......

This is the beginning of what is hopefully a great adventure. Our dreams of RVing around this great country are starting to become a reality. We want to share our adventure with others.

I (Lynn) will be the main blogger, and I am a novice at blogging. So I'm learning by doing.

More to come.