Lazydays

Settled in to Lazydays resort.  This place has everything.  Pool, Jacuzzi, plenty of room between sites, restaurant, lounge full hookups with cable, free coffee and newspaper and my favorite amenity, my own personal grapefruit tree outside my door.  I pick a fresh one every day!!

Sahuarita, AZ

Woke up very early today (truck stop and highway noise is better than an alarm clock). That worked out well for an early start on the road. Eagle mission number 2 accomplished. Missed the Pats game but we arrived in Tucson at 5:00 local time!!

 Hours of being road numb were so worth it just to see these two and get my super big Cassidy hug!!!

Pecos, TX

We made it to the Arlington Elks in time for Chicken fried steak and chicken fried chicken night.  Good parking spot and electrical hook up, 5 bucks!  We were so rung out from the road and the night before that we crashed right after dinner.  Got an early start in the morning and drove about 450 miles today.  We stopped at an ugly BBQ shack in Merkel where I had the best brisket I ever tasted (smoky and fell off your fork tender!!)  Made it as far as Pecos, restocked supplies at Wal-mart and are spending the night at a Flying J truck stop.  We’ll see how close to Tucson we can get tomorrow.

Gas prices have been pretty steady since we left.  2.96 to 3.34.

Shreveport, LA

We both woke up with serious Shreveport hangovers. They know how to party here!

They taught us the Texas 2-step but I sure don't remember it now. We drank their signature drink, Yager and local root beer. It wasn't Karaoke night but they cranked it on anyway. They gave us everything but a key to the city as souvenirs. That’s why we got a very late start in the morning so we'll only make it as far as Dallas today. 

 

Bessemer, AL

Well this has to be the friendliest lodge we've seen yet. The ER (Bubba) greeted us at the door and personally introduced me to everyone in the place. Made us feel like celebrities, Massachusetts, Dang your a long way from home! The lodge has electrical and water hook ups, wi-fi and I can get 11 hd tv channels with my antenna. Gonna try to stop back here on our way home (hopefully on a Friday night, that's when they cook some great dinners). 

Due to a camera malfunction, all the pics came out blurred but here's one of me and Bubba,

Johnson City, TN

Johnson City Elks is 20 miles off the main highway in a downtown area with a train that came through 3 times last night (very loud whistle). I still got a good nights sleep, didn't even need to turn the heat on ! Although there were no hook ups, it's great to have a safe and welcoming spot to spend the night. We got into town early enough to find a place to refill our propane tank and wine supply. Everyone we've met has been super friendly, makes the trip so much more fun.

Lexington, VA

The ride down 81 thru the mountains was beautiful, Great vistas and lots of cattle.

We had an ambitious agenda for yesterday, over 500 miles but we wimped out at 300. Lexington, VA has a large truck stop with a campground in back. We stayed here will full hook-ups for 35.00. We filled the water tanks this morning and took nice hot showers (aah!). Today we'll only drive 200 miles to Johnson City, TN.

Ephrata, PA

Well it took longer than I thought to squeeze  everything in  my house into the RV so we left on Sunday.  This post would have been made sooner but we lost the modem yesterday.  Almost bought another one today but it turned up in the seat cushion!  So far it seems to work great, Sprint has a good signal everywhere we've been.

The ride to PA went smoothly except for the GPS bringing us on a parkway with low bridges. The RV needs 10' 6” to clear, I got a little concerned when we passed one that was 10' 9” then we went under one that said 10' 3”!! Luckily the center was higher than the end near the curb. That freaked me out so I pushed the detour button and got off that road, could have been a bad end to day 1.

So that's where they keep them!

The Elks here is in Amish country (didn't see any horse drawn carts but on advise from the locals we stopped at a country store for homemade soup and jelly!). They call themselves the lodge in the woods. They had a couple of spots with 30 amp electrical hook ups, no charge, just leave a donation if you like.

    

 

Almost Ready

The Rv has been given a clean bill of health and we addressed the 2 major issues we had last year.  We got a mobile modem for better on road internet connections and we purchased a 150cc scooter for better mobility once we get to where we are going.  The route to Tucson is mapped out, everything is on track for a Saturday takeoff! First stop Ephrata, PA, its in Amish country but they have electricity at the Elks there.

This should be fun, just got it registered and inspected today!  Its a 150cc Motofino, the finest Italian scooter that's made in China???

Stats

Just some fun facts about the trip.

We racked up 3993.6 miles all together during this trip.
It took 351 Gallons of gasoline.  That means the Eagle averaged 11.37 mpg including a couple of nights that we ran the generator instead of plugging in. Not too bad.

We drove thru 11 states and Washington DC and slept in all of them except CT, DE and MD, yeah we sleep around a lot!

The blog received over 2000 page views to date averaging 75 hits per day.  The most views, 175 hits, came on 2/7/11 with the Fort Lauderdale post .
Of course most of the hits came from the USA but some came from other countries:
7 from Canada
6 from Ireland
1 from Aruba
1 from Germany
and 1 from Iran.  I'm pretty sure we don't know anyone in Iran.

Eagle 1, over and out!

The Eagle Has Landed

The Eagle is back in the nest!  We pulled into the driveway about 3:30.  Shoveled some snow to get into the house and began the unpacking. 
Snow sucks but it is good to be home.  Thanks everyone for following our journey, it was fun to have you all there with us!!

                                                            Almost there!

                                                !!!!!!!HOME AGAIN!!!!!!

Marlton, NJ

Stayed at the Marlton Elks for what should be our last night on the road. Its a cute little Elks in a converted house with plenty of parking, electric, water and a dump station for Rvers. We opted to skip their spaghetti supper and eat our last dinner at a grill with live music down the street. We'll see how the road (and weather)treats us today.

Charleston/Myrtle Beach/Richmond

Drove thru Georgia and into Charleston, nice looking city but we had no reason to stop so we just drove thru town and on to Myrtle beach. Got to the KOA by 6:30, it started to rain so we settled in and had pork chops with onion cream sauce for dinner. Still raining in the morning so we packed up, drove by the beach on the way out of town. We drove all day and landed at the Richmond Elks around 6:30. Stir fry for supper. Its turkey shoot night here, not sure what that is but they are shooting real guns outside! 

 Myrtle Beach, Like to come back here on a nice weekend.

Here's a cool plate Sandi saw in Charleston

Richmond Elks has their own shooting range out back.  Turkey shoot was a target shoot for meat and cash!  How cool is that!

Everyone got into the picture to say goodbye to us.  I think they are saying we're #1.

Chili in St. Augustine

Pulled into St. Augustine this afternoon.  It was a little chilly so Sandi made a pot of chili.  It was great with fresh avocado on the side.

We're spending the night at a Flying J truck stop.  It has gas, separate rv parking and a dump station.  It will do for the night, tomorrow we're booked at the KOA campground in Myrtle Beach.

Flash Back

Found my old Goomba AG living down here under the witness protection program, going by the code name Honey Bear.

                                    We had a BBQ and home cooking fit for a king. 

We were going to travel off today but Andy hi-jacked us on his boat and we were glad he did. Went to a very secluded beach where Sandi filled up the boat with shells. We did a little fishing and I caught my first Florida fish. It wasn't up to the 15” limit but I would of ate it. Just as well, Giovanna had home made spaghetti and meatballs ready for us when we got back and we ate outside again. If we keep eating like this, we'll need a shoehorn to get back into the RV!  

  

                                                Pelican right off Andy's deck

                                              Tarpon Springs Sponge dock.

                             Using your belly as a bar, see I'm still learning stuff from Andy!

Friends and Family

Two more days of eat, drink, go to the beach and be merry. I would be real easy to get used to this

Met up with Britt at the Marriott

Carole let us use her car for the weekend but Sandi liked riding that electric scooter. 

Got to hang out with Cookie and Angelo in Largo.  You can find a lot of people here who got kicked out of Gloucester.

The Four Amigos, That's Bruce on the phone with us, he never looked so good!

Oh, by the way, the Queen of Spades is back!!  Some of you have seen this before.

Largo

Met up with Bobby at the Bayou club for my ritual Landing Corona. Pulled into his house for some wine with Carol. The weather here is in the high 70's this whole week so we'll hang around for the weekend. 

Met up with Bobby at Chili's for supper....

Hey, WAKE UP!!!

He was just kidding.  We partied pretty late, for old people.  I think it was about 9:00 when we all crashed and burned. hahaha!