Happy Thanksgiving!

I found this on a little magnetic plaque in a truck stop and bought it. I thought it was a good thing to pass along on the day of giving thanks. The coupon at the end of the post is from a freebie coupon book we picked up while in Florida. Click it to see the large version, print it out and USE it!

Remember What is Most Important....

It's not having everything go right,
it's facing whatever goes wrong.
It's not being without fear,
it's having the determination
to go on in spite of it.
Remember that every day ends
and brings a new tomorrow
full of exciting new things.
Love what you do,
do the best you can,
and always remember
how much you are loved.

** Vickie M. Worsham

Till next time - keep on rollin',
Donna & Stu

Never a dull moment...

After we got our tires done on Monday, we headed a little further up the road for the night. We stayed in a former KOA, Atlanta South RV Park, and got parked just before the rain really hit. That left us with a very short day yesterday which meant no rush to get on the road, which meant we could avoid the worst of the Atlanta traffic. Factor in this being Thanksgiving week and the traffic was really light.

We arrived at the Cartersville KOA about 12:45 and the office was closed for lunch. We picked up our map and headed to our site. Hmmmm...looked a little short but we planned on unhooking the truck anyway (bit cool for doing much riding). Got the rig settled, up on a couple of leveling blocks and realized it was in backwards. Okay, time to turn around....

Got the rig settled but in position this way it ended up on three leveling blocks and still too far off level for more than a one night stay. We both agreed that this was not the best site for us. Since we had spent 45 minutes going through all this, we jumped on the bike (which had to be unloaded before getting settled due to ramp height) and headed to the office.

We checked out some of the sites up front and found several open that would work well for us...longer and much more level. Both the workamper and the campoground host were in the office and helped us choose another site, a little more expensive since it offered cable (which we didn't need) but that was okay since we had shortened our stay from 7 to 6 nights due to our delays.

We got parked, quickly leveled and set up...phew! It was now 2:30 and we were ready for lunch and a nap. Around 5:00 we headed to my daughter's for dinner and the initial meet & greet for Stu and them. The grandkids (3 of them ages 7 to almost 3) were excited to see me and a little shy around Stu (for maybe 10 minutes...LOL!). We had fun, played Candyland and Sorry and had a DELICIOUS homecooked dinner. They were experimenting with some new recipes and it was all good!

Around 10pm we headed back to the campground and watched the final 90 minute episode of The Shield. Watched a little more TV, disconnected the water (low was forecast for under freezing), got out the extra covers and headed to bed.

Slept in a little (so what else is new), Stu up first (again, what else is new) and when I woke he gave me the news.....THE FRONT TIRE THAT WE REPLACED WAS FLAT! Can't catch a break. We figure the valve stem either wasn't seated properly or not replaced and it needed to be changed. So we'll air up the tire and head to the Camping World close to the kids house and get it fixed. Then we run errands and hope it holds up overnight.

What a couple of days.....LOL!

Till next time - keep on rollin',
Donna & Stu

It's Always Something

Well folks, no pretty pictures today. Flat tires are not very picturesque. Got up this morning and started to get the rig ready to go and discovered the left front tire on the truck was flat. Well, almost flat. I got out the air hose etc. and used the truck air system to fill the tire up to 75 PSI and we hit the road, intent on making our next destination of Cartersville, GA while nursing the tire during rest stops. We spotted a Camping World a few miles up the road and decided to pull in, do some shopping and maybe get the tire repaired. They don't do repairs on that big of a tire, but they sell them. Surprise there! I was going to replace the tires soon, just was going to wait until January when we will be in Mission and had plenty of time and a little extra cash. The tires were the original tires delivered with the truck (2000) with 80,000 miles on them. So replacing them was not totally unexpected, just didn't plan on it today.

4 hours later and $3,000+ bucks later we were on the road. A little short of our original plans but that's what RVing is all about. Whoa, I didn't realize truck tires could be so expensive, but when you look at the service I got out of the first set, it all works out. Life's too short for cheap beer and bad tires.

Until next time, keep rolling...we are!
Stu & Donna

Where are we now?

Since I have had to post two weeks worth of blogs in the last two days, many are confused as to where we are. You can always see our latest location, designated by the little motorcycle rider on our travel map (shown at end of blog). There is always a link for the travel map on the right hand column of our blog.

Anyway, we are currently in Lakeland Florida at the Lakeland Carefree RV Resort and have been here for a couple of days catching up on chores and doing some more relaxing. We spent 2 days in the Clearwater/Largo area trying to get some service work done. Looks like our living room slide awning has to be completely replaced....which means ordered....which means another appointment somewhere, sometime to get it installed.

From here we head north to Woodstock, GA where we'll have Thanksgiving with my youngest daughter and her family. We plan to spend a week there and I'll be going through my 16 totes, trying to get rid of most things and Stu will be working on a honey-do list for her. LOL!

A couple days ago we took the motorcycle over to Vero Beach from here in Lakeland. My brothers both live over there and we had mail sent there that came in after we moved from Port St Lucie up to the Orlando area (before Cancun). I called my brother and asked if it would be a problem picking up the mail on the bike. He said there were three small packages and one large. We had ordered sliding shelves for inside the kitchen cabinets.

The morning was cool so we took our time heading out. We got to Vero about 2:30 and started the process of figuring out how to get all these racks loaded onto the bike for the trip back to the RV.

These pics will prove that it can be done! LOL...yeah, I know, it's a TRIKE not a TRUCK.



Till next time - keep on rollin',
Donna & Stu

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A day visiting Isla Mujeres

As a premier member at Royal Solaris, one day offers two tour options. We had to choose between visiting Chichen Itza or choosing one of several option on the island of Isla Mujeres. We choose to visit Isla Mujeres and swim with the dolphins. (Note: full photo set on SmugMug)

The trip out to the island was pretty and I snapped a couple of shots from the boat. The ride was great, super staff and once again free beverages of all types.



Our arrival at the island let us walk past the dolphin & shark areas, giving us a little preview of what was to come. No, we didn't plan to swim with the sharks..LOL! We met with the instructor/guide for our group and then went over to get our life vests. You can tell from the photo that mine is a bit on the large size...and I expected it to rise to my ears when in the water. LOL!



We learned a lot about dolphins in general and got to meet "our" dolphin, DaVinci. We each got to pet him several times, top and bottom. We got to kiss him, have him kiss us and dance with him. We weren't allowed to take pictures but we did buy two of the ones they took. If we had brought kids the video at $29 would have been well worth the price. It was nicely done!




We then went on to enjoy a delicious buffet included in our tour before finding out that we could get a ride into the market area. The other option would have been to rent a golf cart for $15 and done a riding tour of the entire island. I wanted to experience the market area so we opted for that this time. The Dolphin Discovery resort area is quite nice...many people come for the day to swim, sun & participate in the various activities.



The ride to the market was on the same boat that brought us to the island. We were given our departure deadline and we all headed off. Most were doing the golf cart tour, we opted to walk. There were a lot of shops, few tourists and plenty of hawking, trying to get us to buy. Our first stop was Senor Frog's store, a few pics and two t-shirts purchased.




We then walked a bit....noticing the main means of transportation was scooters, closely followed by golf carts. A truck went by and I had to snap a shot, showing that not all words translate the same. LOL! We came across some fishermen repairing their nets and we sat for a bit, enjoying the breeze from the beach.



We'd seen enough of the general market area and wandered towards the other side of the island in search of the handmade goods market. Here we started to see some of the devastation from hurricanes past as well as a view of how the locals lived and the impact (and contrast) that tourism brings.



We made it back to the boat for the ride back to Dolphin Discovery to pick up all the others. On the ride back to Royal Solaris the kids seemed to still have energy while the parents were sagging a bit. LOL! But some Tequila Shooters & Slammers seemed to pick up their spirits. (Note: while I did try a lot of new foods, I still opted out of trying some tequila. Next trip....maybe....LOL!) All in all, it was an amazing day, one neither of us will soon forget.

Till next time - keep on rollin',
Donna & Stu

Shopping in Cancun

In some ways shopping in Cancun isn't all that different than the US. We hit the local Wal-Mart early on and picked up a few needed things. Right across from it was a Sam's Club. On the way there, we went by local bus, I saw many US chains from McDonalds to Applebees to Bubba Gump Shrimp and a lot more. That's not to say there aren't a lot of non-US restaurants & stores but I was surprised by the US presence.

Anyway, we took the bus to a mall to visit the local Harley dealer. I took a few photos of the mall and the Harley dealer. We found a Senor Frog's store and HAD to visit there as well. LOL!



The final blog will be our day trip to Isla Mujeres where we swam with the dolphins and then toured the market area.

Till next time - keep on rollin',
Donna & Stu