It's Been A While

It’s been a while since we’ve written a blog post. We were in one spot for 3 weeks in Gulf Shores, AL. They have a beautiful state park and its super quiet there. We have family that lives close by and wanted to spend Thanksgiving with them this year because we could. The state park is expensive compared to other parks that we have stayed at and they have a resort fee on top of the state tax that they have. Gulf State Park helps fund the rest of the parks in the state of Alabama!
 

After our 3 weeks there, we parked the RV at my uncle’s house and left it there to spend our week at our timeshare in North Carolina. We had a wonderful week there and got to play in the snow, go sledding and build snowmen. Matt and Sam joined us for the week as well. We had a lot of fun! On our way to NC we stopped in Montgomery overnight and stayed at a hotel, we probably won’t do that again. While the hotel was nice, we just find it too hard to pack now and not forget stuff, lol…  We also made a stop in Atlanta to pick up a smoked ham and turkey. I’ll post a pic of the turkey dinner below, but the ham got eaten before we got a picture! If you ever need a smoked ham or turkey for your holiday, I know just the guy to contact and pickup is in Atlanta.

When we got back to Gulf Shores we left the RV parked and stayed with my sister for a couple of nights to celebrate her birthday. We had wonderful meals and a nice celebration. Once we left there we stayed at Torreya State Park, which was decent, but not our style with dirt roads in and out of the park. They had really nice hiking trails and wonderful views, I really wish we could have done more there! The downside was the gas station, one that was 30 minutes away and kind of run down. One more stop at Paynes Prairie Reserve before we got to go home to Tampa.

One more stop at Paynes Prairie Reserve before we got to go home to Tampa. Paynes Prairie was really nice. We got site 40 and we were definitely lucky with that site! The roads were small for our rig, but manageable, however, we knew that backing in was going to be a challenge. With some luck we were across from the bathhouse! That means that we had the entire parking lot there to help us back in. Could we have done it without the parking lot? Of course, but it was so much easier this way. I really enjoyed this park and we will go back as long as site 40 is open. I think there was one other one that we could have fit in, but not with the parking lot to help us. The preserve itself is home to alligators, panthers, wild horses and other animals including a family of bison. You walk the old water dikes and you are in their home. I can’t wait to go back!

We arrived at Lazy Days in Tampa and this is our new home until January 11th. Kevin fixed the water pump here (that’s for another post), and he is also installing the solar with all new batteries. That will enable us to boondock and hopefully save some money on parks in the future. This will come in handy out west when we get to stay on BLM land for free! In the southeast we hope to use our Harvest Host and Boondockers Welcome memberships! Even if we only stay one place with each membership, we will have made up our money!