4/23 - Spent most of the day cleaning the motorhome, inside and out. Walked around the resort, used internet, TV, visited. 

4/24 - Could get spoiled having all the water and electricity you need, Wifi, TV. Just like life used to be before we went on the road. Unless you're at a campground with full hookups, you have to conserve everything. 

Had the rally registration and meet & greet supper. I'd say about half of the people are still in the process of researching the idea of fulltiming. We were one of the newest. The farthest came from Costa Rica, 2 couples. 

4/21 - Lampasas TX.  I think almost every town in Texas (at least every other one) has a Walmart. This Walmart even sells fabric in their store. Haven't seen that for a while. We tried geocaching but had issues with the GPS, so spent some time going through the book and trying to reset things. It's a lot drier the more south we go. Must be in the area that was in the drought last year. We see more cattle (even got a picture of the longhorns), goats, sheep. There a lot of butterflies. We've seen more Dairy Queens. Mustang and VW bugs are popular. There's Dollar stores in every town. Many people down south smoke.  We noticed that in Arkansas already. Another Texas thing seems to be a gate entrance to their land/home - whether it be a regular gate to something fancy like brick/stones.

4/22 - Decided to go on to Kerrville since we're this close and we were able to get a reservation at the rally price. Passed a lot of motorhomes going the opposite direction, hmmm. Getting more hilly, but still dry. Passed some wineries on the way, might have to go back to them this week. Got to Buckhorn Lake Resort and registered, set up. Howard from RV-Dreams came over to invite us to their camper to visit with others. We got on the internet and had supper, then went over for a while to meet people.

You can see that I was taking pictures with a lot of bugs on the windshield.

4/19 - Spent the morning at Fort Smith doing some touristy things. Went to Miss Laura's Social Club, to the Fort Smith National Historic Site and to the history museum. I didn't use my camera, so will have to download pictures once Curt gets his off his new camera. Then went to Oklahoma, which didn't have the best roads in the world, then on to Texas.

4/20 - Last night we stayed at East Fork Campground, a Corps of Engineers campground, near Wylie, TX. I don't think we would go back again. It was $30 for water and electric, which did both work, but the park is getting rundown. Only a little bit by the parking pads were mowed. They told us when we checked in that the bathrooms in the shower area didn't work. The pool area looked like it hasn't been used for quite a while.When we left this morning and used their dump site, it was pretty muddy there.  I thought Corps of Engineers sites were better kept up. Oh, that was the first campground we've seen that has spike strips when leaving the campground!

We spent the morning today cleaning up the motorhome, putting clothes, etc. away. Actually got rid of the bags of clothes and could use the shower. After that we called some Apple stores to see if we could get an Ipad. Left the campground and got to the store, spent over an hour there trying to get everything set up and e-mail verification, which we never did get. If not by tomorrow, we'll have to call their main center and see if we get it fixed.

On our way from Wylie to Frisco, we saw some beautiful houses, and then across the street were some we weren't sure if people actually even lived there any more. Some places with horses, goats or sheep in their front yard. We've noticed a lot of places where they build an area where the houses all look the same; same set up, color, shingles, etc.  Kind of boring.

Got out of the Dallas/Ft. Worth area finally. That is not a trip we'd want to take too often with a motorhome. We couldn't figure out how to change our GPS to stay off the toll roads, so I was on the computer with the map trying to get around what the GPS said. Needless to say, we only got off track twice. We were so glad to get out of there!.

Staying at Cleburn tonight.

4/1

Went to Walmart to find some sunflower seeds this morning before we left. It evidently is more of a Midwest  thing, as it was hard to find. They do have a lot of jerky all over the store though.

As we were driving, some things we noticed:
A lot of people on the side of the road picking up garbage.
Dead possum on the road.
Lots of bridges.
Lots of trees. No wonder when people come to North Dakota, one of the first things they notice is lack of trees. I don't think we've found a state with as few of them as North Dakota so far.
Good highway on I-35.
Sonic food drive-ins. Didn't know anyone had drive-in's in any more.
Drive-up at a liquor store. Boy, that's been long gone too.

We're at Fort Smith in Arkansas tonight. We didn't make it in time for the visitor center, so maybe tomorrow morning we'll see what the history is of the town. We did get a geocache though. TV works. Tethering the phone to the computer works. Nice cool breeze tonight. It was up to 80 today, had to dig out the shorts and tank tops (and I do mean dig.)

We left Cottage Grove Monday around 11:30 after our granddaughter left for the bus for preschool. It snowed in the morning(!), but it was warm enough that it melted as it hit the ground. We took I-35 south; it was cold and windy. It must have rained quite a bit in Iowa as lots of places had water in the fields. It is so green! We stopped at Walmart in Osceola, IA.  Elevation 1129, 5:25 PM. Tethered the Droid to the computer for internet; kind of hit and miss tonight.

Tuesday, 4/17, when we woke up there was a semi parked directly in front of us. Guess that's what happens when you leave enough room in front of you in the parking lot. We stopped at the rest area outside of Osceola where there was free internet and did some searching on the internet for map routes and geocaches. More hills as we're going south and lots of trees. We've noticed more patrolmen in Missiouri also. Took 71 south out of Kansas City to head to Joplin. Wow, some crazy drivers! 73 degrees in Kansas City at 3:00. Warm and sunny today. We stopped at Walmart parking lot in Joplin, MO. Drove around Joplin to look at last year's tornado damage. Lots of new houses, but still a lot of damage. I can't imagine what the town has gone through. Tethered the phone again so we could get internet.

I've got pictures to add in here, but can't do it with our internet connection tonight, will have to try later.

But we're safe, weather is cooperating, and we're on the road!

The third picture is the visitor's center coming in to Iowa. The last three pictures are in Joplin, MO.

Well, it's official. Friday, the 13th of April, we left our house of 17 years, and home town of many more years. We now are full time RVers. I don't know if it's actually hit us yet; we're basically just on vacation right now (but with a lot more "stuff" in the motorhome!)  We've got certain places to be for a while, so maybe after that time, with no particular place in mind to go to, it might hit me that we're not going back. We will be back to visit family and that will probably be weird not being at our house.

I wasn't able to post anything on Friday when we left. We stopped in Fargo (300 miles) and stopped in a motel parking lot. We've stayed there many times when we've been in Fargo, and usually able to use internet; but this time we couldn't get on internet, so we decided to start cleaning up and putting things away. About 10:30 (at night) someone knocked on our door (oh-oh). The motel security guard asked if we had a permit to park there; we didn't, he said we would have to go ask at the front desk. We decided that since we didn't have internet access anyway, that we would just go to Sam's/Walmart as we wanted to get something from there anyway. So, our first night of full timing - was at Sam's.

The last two weeks have been very busy with selling, giving away, garbaging, whatever. So much stuff, so many decisions, too little time. We should have stayed in the motorhome for a few days to see what actually fit before we left, but we wanted to be able to make it to the rally in Texas and leave ourselves some extra time just in case. Now we have bags of clothes and boxes of other stuff to take care of. So, I suppose, every night we'll be going through things until it's done. But the house is empty, it's clean, and it is sold. (Final paperwork not signed yet though, no money in the bank.)

This weekend we're spending time with family in Fargo and Cottage Grove; may be a while before we see them again. Monday we'll start heading south to Texas. Today we had to go shopping for a new GPS. For some reason ours decided to go Garmin heaven (or hell) before we left. So, today we got a new Garmin nuvi 3490LMT. It's not the one Curt wanted (he wanted the newest one that isn't in the stores yet), but as long as it works. We looked for a new Ipad also. The few stores we stopped at, or called, didn't even have them available.

The weather has been nice so far. It rained last night and a thunder storm and rain so far today. I don't really like the forecast for the states we'll be going through. Hopefully the weather radio we have works and more hopefully the weather will be nice and we won't have to use it!

Three rooms painted this past weekend, a load to the garbage, a load to House of Manna, a few more things sold. Just might make it yet. Registered for the rally in Texas. Got a new address today, so will have to update paperwork for that.