Little by Little...Piece by Piece...

Little by Little...Piece by Piece...

Now that we have the taste for camping...we find ourselves excited about what the future holds. We are looking forward to planning a get-away in December for James' Birthday.

In the meantime we are continuing to work on our "rig".

Our newest (and most exciting) purchase -- is a truck topper w/ a ladder rack so that we can carry the kayaks with us and have some covered storage in the bed of the truck.  We went to Cap World in Sanford and ordered an ARE topper w/ Yakima racks. We ordered one with a tool box and pet screen in case we need to "store" Ace and Isis (our Fur-Kids) in the bed area while we run an errand or set-up camp.
They installed it for us this past Saturday ( 11/9/13).

BEFORE

AFTER

We are looking forward to putting it to good use and hope to get the Yakima BowDown Racks that we ordered from Amazon very soon.

On Monday, 11/11/13 (Veteran's Day) we hitched up and headed to Independence RV to bring in the Casita for the warranty issues that needed to be addressed.  It was really nice to see it all together with the topper!!  It looked SWEET!!! Hopefully she'll be ready soon so we can continue planning our December trip.

The next trip will likely be in state so that we can continue to gain experience and familiarity... we are looking into Wekiva Falls Campground in Sorrento...or possibly one in the Ocala area. It would be nice to camp someplace that we can have water access with the kayaks so that we can try everything out.

The Cedar Key Trip

We’ve hit the ground running since coming back from Cedar Key.  It’s been a busy week with work and school, but when I come home and see our beautiful trailer parked in the yard…I can’t help but smile and daydream about our future travels.

It was a wonderful first trip and a great learning experience.

We really learned a lot about the trailer, hooking up, packing up, backing it into a space, hitching the truck, connecting everything and emptying and flushing tanks, etc. etc. We came back with a list of items to research, purchase and some warranty issues that need to be addressed – mainly, the Air Conditioning!  A few days into the trip the unit could not keep up. We made the best of it by running a fan and going to town during the hottest parts of the day, but we are definitely going to have it fixed soon!  We took it in stride, though. We know these first few trips are going to be all about learning.

Low Key Hideaway was the perfect place to make this trip.  We had an amazing time.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Pat and Cindy Bonish are wonderful people and have been a great source of inspiration.  This trip gave us the opportunity to get to know them better and talk to them. They made us feel like family.  Here is one of my favorite pictures from this trip – our trailer next to theirs—the one that they used to travel the country full-time for four years. It’s neat to think about all of the amazing places they’ve had the opportunity to call “home” because of that trailer.

Cedar Key never disappoints.  We had the chance to experience some amazing sunsets and wildlife, and the most beautiful starry night sky I have ever seen.  You know it’s a good vacation when daily(sometimes more than once a day) we found ourselves telling each other how blessed we felt to be there.  Nature has a way of really reminding us that life does not need to be as complicated as we make it sometimes.

Here are some photos from the trip:

Now to plan the next adventure!  Likely we will plan our next trip for December.
Feel free to leave suggestions of  Florida campgrounds if you’d like !

The Journey Begins...

The Journey Begins...

After years of dreaming the time has come to start "doing".

On August 29th, James and I took delivery of our new home on wheels -- a 2013 Winnebago Sunnybrook Raven 250KS Travel Trailer from Independence RV in Winter Garden, Florida. After lots of shopping and research we decided that this was the right trailer for us.  We really like the floor plan, decor, and the quality of the Winnebago Travel Trailers.

Independence RV was terrific to deal with -- they made the buying process easy and really took their time to help us get familiar with the trailer.  Chris Crawford, their customer relations coordinator was great.  He helped us with the Reese weight distributing hitch and James said that it towed very nicely behind the Tundra.

For the past few weeks we've been ordering some supplies and planning for our first trip!

We will be headed to Low Key Hideaway in Cedar Key, FL for the maiden voyage.  Pat and Cindy Bonish have been an inspiration and we've spent quite some time reading and enjoying their blogs on everymilesamemory.com.  They traveled around the country full-timing for years in a 25 ft travel trailer. I can't think of a better place to break in our new trailer-- and get lots of useful tips from experienced RVers!

The next few days we'll be taking care of the final preparations-- before "Casita de Everett" hits the road for our first adventure!