RV travels around the USA
We are officially, finally, off on our annual snowbird pilgrimage to the warm south. I’m writing this post from our RV park from Savannah, Georgia, an overnight stop on the way. I did have a few unexpected snags with the RV this year. Just to make things interesting, I guess.
Every year we load the RV for a fall foliage trip to our local state park. It is the perfect time of year for warm days, cool nights, brilliant colors, hiking, and ham radio! I make a campfire each night to keep warm by as we watch the sunset. State parks are some of the best camping places to enjoy the great outdoors. More on this 5-day adventure to Claytor Lake State Park…
We had the extreme good fortune to be able to ride this special train excursion on a beautiful and warm Sunday. Our ride was planned about four months ago when the Roanoke Transportation Museum announced the fall rides over six weekends. The website was launched two months later and then we were finally able to logon to the on-line queue to buy tickets. Waiting something like an hour for our time to click on the buy button. We got our five tickets! And not just regular tickets, but we splurged on the dome seat tickets! I was looking forward to this time with family and a reminder of train rides from years ago!
It has been a crazy long break since my last blog post! That last one was a wrap up of the Italy trip. Two months ago! I had not intended to take a long break, but it has been a good but busy summer, with many projects and activities. We have been quite occupied with home ownership projects, family, hobbies, and life in general. In this update, I will look back on a quick recap of the Summer of ’23 and then what’s ahead!
We left our Florida winter location on March 30th for our slow travel back to our home in the Virginia mountains. The drive is about 750 miles and while driving in the truck/trailer combination, I prefer to break the trip up into four segments, averaging 188 miles per moving day. That way we can be relocated and set up by 2pm and can go exploring.
The Thanksgiving holiday is one of my favorites. Time with family and a healthy amount of great meals. It also is a time to reflect on what we have to be thankful for. From our freedoms living in this great country to our many blessings to our beliefs. It was a full house as our son and daughter-in-law from DC came to visit along with our local son and daughter as well. It was a great time!
On a quiet Saturday afternoon, we took the short drive up to the city of Roanoke, Virginia to take in the new special art exhibit on display. The Taubman museum (LINK) has been operating for years and has many permanent displays as well as the occasional temporary exhibit. The reason for our visit was the new temporary exhibit called The Titian to Monet. This is a group of European master’s paintings that is being shown for a few weeks.
One of our favorite Saturday lunch places in our area is the town of Floyd Virginia. Specifically, the old Floyd Country Store, a local musical landmark. They host an Americana music lunch each Saturday from 12 noon to whenever. A couple of Saturday’s ago we took the scenic half hour drive south to this quirky little town…
We are now well into the fall season and the morning temperatures are sliding down below the freezing point. Although the day time temps are still decent and now into the low to mid 60’s. This is the first time that I have posted in four weeks and even though there are some activities to discuss, today’s blog is more of a potpourri diary of my thoughts. Kind of scary. It has been a very nice quiet and relaxing month. So here is a quick recap of our last month.
I have not mentioned very much of this hobby as late since we’ve had some other activities to cover. So, today I will share with you another pastime that I have enjoyed. I try to spend some time each week painting a landscape, an old building, or a still life. It is very relaxing and rewarding. And if it does not turn out well it is very easy to just paint over!