Part II of the AwayWeGo RV Adventure begins!

But first an update. Over the past few months of driving an 18-wheeler around the country, I decided that having a motorhome, a Corvette, and my Malibu tow vehicle just sitting around in storage was too much. So I sold the Corvette and Malibu but kept the motorhome. I do need a place to return to to call home. A car I could rent for a couple of days when I do return home once a month.

Now just 10 days ago, I turned in my truck to the Werner terminal in Lakeland, FL to begin my 3 week vacation. Taking a day to dust off the cobwebs and making sure the motorhome is road worthy again, I headed out late on Friday night. After an exhausting day, I wasn't planning on getting very far but was too excited to just wait until morning to get started.

Why am I so excited? I'm going to Colorado!

I only drove about 120 miles the first night, stopping at a rest area along I75 in north Florida.

After a good nights sleep, I awoke Saturday and hit the road again. Turning west on I10 all the way to Lafayette, Louisiana where I jumped onto I49. Going north on I49 to Shreveport where I then turned west again onto I20 stopping at the next rest area. Saturdays drive took me another 840 miles closer.

Sunday was a long day with just over 1000 miles completed. What also made it seem like an even longer day was hitting some strong head winds in New Mexico. That made it feel like I was going up a steep hill for about a hundred miles! But I made it to Loveland, Colorado about midnight.

The next morning we started loading up the motorhome with her stuff. I think it took about 4 hours. No furniture was there. Just clothes, some kitchen items, and a few boxes of other items had to be carried out. She had done a pretty good job of thinning out her belongings, but we still ran out of room rather quickly. The RV's bedroom closets quickly filled, the basement storage was at capacity, and things began piling up on the bed, couch, table and eveywhere else. It became so funny, that I forgot to get a picture!

After we finally got loaded up, we started off down the highway. A short drive down I25 to South Denver, Littleton to be exact, to visit my friends. A short visit, but a good one though.

After leaving Denver, we drove south down I25 to a rest area just north of Pueblo before the sun set. While it was a fast drive getting to Colorado, we decided to take our time returning to Florida and drive only during daylight hours so we could enjoy the scenery.



Tuesday morning we woke up to our snow covered motorhome! We spent a few minutes outside around the rest area to enjoy the fresh snow cover before taking off again. We continued down I25 South into New Mexico. A short stop at the state line to find a Geocache, but it wasn't there. We found the magnet that WAS holding on, but no cache container. When we reached Raton, NM we turned east on US64, then onto US87. We camped that night near Dalhart, TX.

Wednesday after breakfast, we drove down into Dalhart and found Lake Rita Blanca State Park that had a few Geocaches placed there. So we parked the RV and went for a walk. It was a beautiful day, cool and clear skies. As we approached the lake, we noticed a some white snow ducks in the center and a few more coming in a for a landing. We continued on the hiking trail, stopping to find the caches along the way. By the time we reached the other side we noticed that there were now hundreds, maybe thousands of these ducks gathered in the center of the lake. We looked up and saw that there were still even more coming! They were so high up they looked like little white dots up in the sky. After enjoying the wonders of God's creation at this beautiful setting and taking a few photos, we continued on.



The walk around the lake took almost 4 hours and now we're hungry for lunch considering it was nearly two in the afternoon! We only made it about 140 miles that day to just southeast of Amarillo.

Thursday we tried to make up some time, but just had too much fun Geocaching! We stopped and found 10 of them along US287. After looping around Dallas, we stayed the night in a Walmart parking lot in Forney along US80.

OK, now it was Friday and we're STILL in Texas. We REALLY need to make up some time! So we hopped onto I80 eastbound and stayed off the byways for a while. We still managed to pickup 5 Geocaches that day and stopped at Vicksburg National Military Park along the Mississippi River. We managed to travel a little more than 400 miles for the day ending up at a Walmart parking lot in Magee, MS on US49.

On Saturday we continued south on US49 to US98 and into Mobile, Alabama. There we stop at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park and toured the battleship, submarine, and the various aircraft. That night we ended up in another Walmart parking lot in Destin, Florida.

Finally, yesterday we set out for our last leg of this trip. From Destin we went east to Santa Rosa Beach then north to pickup I10 for a quicker return. Once we got east of Tallahassee, we got back off the Interstate and turned south onto US19 and then onto US27. We enjoyed the smaller byways and quaint towns. After quick stop by my mothers home in Umatilla that evening, we finally made it back to setup camp at Clarcona Horsemans Park.

One week and just shy of 4000 miles later, we can finally take a break!

See Ya,
Mark