December Recap - Our First Month Fulltiming

I'm not going to use those cheesy cliches, like "Where did the time go?" or "Time flies when you're having fun!"  I'm thinking more along the lines of "Hang on for your life!"

At the beginning of December, we were spending our last night in Virginia at the Bull Run Regional Park Campground.  A bittersweet night, knowing that we wouldn't be returning any time soon, after many happy weekends and a few (rare) week long stays.  December 2 found me waiting impatiently for Marti to finish her last day of work.  After breaking camp, I drove over to the parking lot at her facility and waited for 2 pm, when she was supposed to leave, but the goodbyes to her great staff kept her until after 3 pm. 

Finally breaking away, we were off to New Jersey, with an overnight stop at the Harrisburg, PA Flying J.  I guess you can call that "Flocking", with a similar meaning like "Boondocking", "Wallydocking", aka Walmart, or "Moochdocking".

The next day we arrived at out son Corey's home in NJ and set up in his driveway, moochdocking.

That weekend was the 90th birthday party for my dad, a great time.

We finished the weekend visiting Corey and DIL Amanda and on Monday, 5 December, we headed West, destination: Astoria, OR.

We didn't get too far, the alternator failed and we detoured back to a Freightliner dealer in Harrisburg, PA for three days getting the offending part replaced and the billing sorted out.  8 December found us on our way once more with a little drizzle that we soon drove out of.  Out came the sun, which we enjoyed on almost the entire 3000+ miles trip.

Originally, we intended on heading to Sioux Falls, SD to register the Journey and Element toad, but we blew that off with the loss of time in Harrisburg.  Driving across the country, we saw some areas where it had snowed, but by the time we got there, the roads were clear and dry.  If we had not had the alternator breakdown, we would have been caught in much of that snowy weather.  A problem that turned into a blessing.

We ovenighted at some Walmarts and Flying Js, taking advantage of their generosity towards RVs, which enabled us to make good time and cover big driving distances most every day.  We enjoyed some pretty cold weather in some of the states, and were very glad that our furnace was working well.

We enjoyed the scenery, all kinds of variety from flat, farmlands,

to mountains and winding roads. 

 A couple of days in the Midwest, we fought headwinds (will I ever get a tailwind?) which cut our mpg quite a bit, but didn't affect the Journey too much.  Another plus of driving a big diesel pusher motor home.  On our previous motor home, a gas engined Winnebago Adventurer, winds were always a struggle.

The night before reaching our destination, we pulled in to a KOA and regrouped, reorganized and rested.  The campground was nice and clean, reasonably priced for a KOA and was just what we needed to catch our breath.  There were quite a few long term residents there, but all the RVs were late models in nice shape, no trash and junk stacked around the RVs like seen in many long term campgrounds.  Many of these RVs had put skirting down to help insulate them.

We arrived at our son, Ryan's house on 14 December and got set up in his driveway for some extended moochdocking.

And the best part, spending time with Taylor and Kierra.

We've had a whirlwind time, with Christmas,

Taylor's sixth birthday the day after Christmas,

and son Ryan's 30th (gasp, we're really getting old!) on 27 December.

Lastly, our DIL, Amber, who has been feeding us incredible meals found out she is going to have another girl this May, which will be our sixth grandchild (Corey and Amanda are expecting a girl in March) and our fourth granddaughter.  We're excited for them.

In a couple of days, our latest mail package should get here and then we're crossing over this bridge and heading out on Route 101 down the coast.  We're looking forward to our new year on the road and interesting adventures.  Quartzsite, here we come.  Stay tuned!

Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment.