The adults made a trip out to Howe, IN for a tour of the DRV Suites RV factory on Connie’s birthday. They spent about 2 hours looking through the factory, observing construction details and asking a bunch of technical questions (well, Neil had a bunch of them anyway) about stuff they want in their RV. Both of them were quite impressed with DRV’s products and the Elite Suites is on their short list.

After the tour of the factory they drove over to Captains Cabin Restaurant which is on Crooked Lake in Angola, Indiana for birthday dinner. They had great steaks and caramel cheesecake for desert. The only problem was that it was way (and we’re talking really really way here) out in the middle of nowhere…Neil was seriously worried that if anybody swept up the bread crumb trail he left behind they would never make it back to the hotel even with GPS. The place was pretty packed on a Friday night in the middle cold snowy weather in the middle of nowhere…so take my word for it and drop by if you’re ever in Northwest Indiana.

The other manufacturer on the short list is New Horizons which is located in Junction City, Kansas. They’re making a trip there early in the new year as part of a trek to LA for a performance of that Saint-Sëans Organ Symphony No. 3 they keep going places to listen to. New Horizons is a true custom build RV manufacturer building every unit to custom specifications. DRV is a production line but will do lots of customizations; because they are a series production line their prices are lower than New Horizons. Feature wise either is a very nice coach but Connie needs to decide which one she likes better after they take the second tour. Neil will be happy with either and will especially be happy if Connie is happy. While the features and construction of the New Horizon are slightly higher; he says that better is the enemy of good enough…and isn’t sure that the extra cost is really worth it since DRV can handle all of the modifications they want anyway (he’s not sure it isn’t worth it either…he’s just waiting on Connie to decide which she likes better).

While they’re on their trip to Kansas and LA they’re going to take a ride out to Palm Springs in California and check out a place called The Sands RV Resort where lots of RVers spend the winter in the warm weather.

In other news; Neil’s sister Mary Jane and her daughter Lauren came up on the Megabus for Thanksgiving and their human kids Bryan and Jen came up from Richmond as well for a gourmet dinner. There was antipasto to start followed by brined and roasted chicken, spaetzle with carmelized onions and Gruyère cheese (the French version of Swiss cheese but so much better than domestic Swiss Cheese), pumpkin casserole with maple and pecans, and the most outstanding desert. Bread pudding made out of Pepperidge Farm Cinnamon Raisin Bread, eggs, and cream with a brown sugar toffee sauce. It was stupendously good (well, at least the humans said it was…nobody offered me any). Neil and Connie got a list from both Bryan/Jen and Mary Jane on stuff they might like when they sell their house and move into the RV.

Here are a couple of pictures of the DRV model they’re considering; it’s the Elite Suites 38RSSB3. This model has the couch in the rear and the entertainment center on the left side towards the back with the bedroom in the front and a single side bath; it also includes an island in the kitchen and all the technical stuff that Neil insists on having. He took lots of pictures of the factory but I won’t bore you with posting all of them…if you’re interested let me know in the comments and I’ll add some more.

Elite Suites 38RSSB3

Kitchen and Living Room

The adults wanted me to post a wrapup from the RV trip and catch our readers up with what’s happened in the meantime.

Our RV trip finished up at Lake Anna and we returned home on Oct 25. After cleaning and turning the RV in early on the 26th the adults drove up to Johnstown to get Neil’s Mazda back from the body shop after the deer encounter. Other than being a long day of driving that was pretty straightforward.

After carefully evaluating the RV lifestyle; Connie decided that it is the life for her. Neil already thought it was so they’ve decided to start down the road toward 5ver ownership. They have about 4 models in mind so it’s just a matter of evaluating the features and desirability of each one along with prices and deciding which will best meet their needs. Of course; there’s the household clean/store/sell/winnowing down process to go through as well but they’re looking at as an early estate sale.

Connie started her new part time position at Northern Virginia Community College on Oct 31. She will be working mostly virtually and will be responsible for coordinating student assignments to the various laboratories, hospitals and clinics for the practical portion of their education. So far she’s really liking it; her boss is somebody she’s known for years so she’s certain to fit into the academic environment just fine. That leaves Neil to manage most of the aforementioned clean/store/etc part but that’s just the way it goes.

Here are a couple of shots from their last two campgrounds at Pocahontas and Lake Anna State Parks.

Great Blue HeronLake Anna Fall Foliage

Lake Anna Fall Foliage

Butterfly at Lake Anna

One of our viewers asked for a couple of shots of the RV we are using for this trip. The adults are thinking seriously about becoming full time RVers but decided that before they sold the house they would have a test trip. Since you can’t rent a 5th wheel like they will purchase they ended up getting the largest class C RV they could rent which turned to be a 30 footer while the permanent one will be 35 feet.

Anyway, here are a couple of interior photos of the rental unit. The shots were taken in the travel mode where everything is pretty much stored away. When parked there is a lot more stuff piled on the table, towels hanging up by the cockpit and other more lived in details. They are really liking the lifestyle based on this test trip…they have found several drawbacks but all of them have been due to the small size of the rental; the 5th wheel would not have any of the drawbacks they’ve found except for the hills on the bike ride that Connie didn’t like much. On the other hand there are lots of really good things like the sunset over the lake, hiking and biking, and naps in the afternoon.

Kitchen Area

Bedroom

Living room and cockpit

Dinette

The class C is kinda sparse for interior space even though it’s 30 feet. The 5th wheel we will actually buy is 35 feet but since it tows over the center of the bed of then pickup it is effectively 30 feet or the same length as the class C…but it has about 3 or 4 times the interior space and is arranged in a much more efficient layout.

In other news; we moved on from Buggs Island Lake and are at Pocahontas State Park in Richmond visiting their human kids. Tomorrow we move along to Lake Anna State Park until Tuesday when we head back home. All in all it’s been fun so far but Connie is looking forward to getting back home to sleep in her waterbed…the mattress in the RV is only slightly softer than a brick with a tea towel wrapped around it and she really hasn’t been sleeping too well.

Sorry about the lack of posting; but we had no intarwebs at the last two campgrounds we were at so I could not put anything up. I managed to put up a small one from the oyster festival but after that we were pretty much signal free until we got here to Occoneechee State Park. We have 5 bars of 3G there and after going across the lake to Clarksville for dinner found that the entire town has free WiFi.

Anyway; to catch up with our last week or so…after the Oyster Festival we spent two more days on Chintoteague and went down to the National Wildlife Refuge on Assoteague Island where the wild ponies live. Here are a few shots from there.

Great Blue Heron

Assoteague Lighthouse

Chincoteague Wild Ponies

Great White Heron and Snow Egret

Chincoteague Wild Pony

We then moved to Kiptokeke State Park which is at the southern end of the DelMarVa peninsula about 5 miles north of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. The big draw there was the hawk banding station and the beach/fishing pier. However, the no-seeums at the latter two were fierce and the adults didn’t spend much time down there. They did go over to the banding station and got the following hawk pictures of freshly banded birds ready for release.

Connie at Fishing Pier

Coopers Hawk

Sharp Shinned Hawk

Perigrine Falcon

Osprey

We then moved to Holiday Lake State Park over near Appomattox, VA…wonderful campground with brand new facilities but it was way, way off of the beaten path…Neil almost started spreading bread crumbs so they could find their way out. Highlights there were the very nice hike around the lake and the Apple Festival.

Holiday Lake Foliage

Turtle Track on Lakebed

Kara at the Apple Festival

Valley from Apple Festival

Apple Festival Band

After Mass in Appomattox we moved over to Occoneechee State Park near Clarksville, VA after stopping at the Farmville WalMart for some supplies. We have an absolutely stunning campsite looking over the lake.

Connie at Buggs Island Lake

Sunset over Buggs Island Lake -- Occonneechee State Park

We also went for a hike around the Old Plantation Trail and saw a Yellow Bellied Sapsucker pecking on a tree as well as another Great Blue Heron. He was fishin’ but didn’t catching anything and Neil got a shot right as it took off for another fishin’ hole.

Plantation House Ruins

Yellow Bellied Sapsucker

Plantation House Cemetery

Great Blue Heron in Flight

We’ll be leaving here tomorrow and going to Pocahontas State Park…that’s right near where their other kid Bryan lives. He doesn’t get to travel with us though but Connie wants to mooch lunch at his house. She says it’s only fair since she supported him until he graduated from Longwood University.

I guess I gotta train those adults better…they done went off on a trip to Youngstown, Ohio to listen to the Organ Symphony without me and Gunther. They headed out early Sunday morning Sep 17 and drove about 300 or so miles to get there. The concert was a rededication of the organ which just underwent a $2 million restoration (more than the entire auditorium cost originally back in the 1920’s) after not having been heard for almost 40 years. The concert was really nice from what they tell me (actually it was great Neil says)…of course I’m just takin’ their word for it since they ran off and left me and Gunther on the mantle. I guess I’ll have to cut them some slack since we haven’t been traveling with them in the past but they better not let it happen again.

After the concert they looked at the GPS and decided to take another road back instead of paying the Pennsylvania Turnpike toll. They were doing real good until right after they stopped for dinner at the Golden Arches. Shortly after they got back on the road which was US-422, a pretty busy and major highway with some divided sections and some two lane sections; a deer ran across the road in front of them. Neil managed to hit the brakes (at least got his foot on the pedal) before the impact. Luckily the now-deceased deer caught the edge of the hood and peeled it up over the windshield while catapulting himself over the car…otherwise he would have hit the windshield and probably ended up in the front seat with them. The impact wasn’t enough to trigger the airbags but considering that 10,000 people (according to the Googles) end up in the hospital every year due to deer/vehicle impacts I’m glad that the humans came through unscratched. Not so much for Neil’s Mazda as you can see…over $6100 to get fixed and who knows when it will be ready. You can fix cars a lot easier than humans though so I’m glad they came through OK.

After the crash Neil pulled over to the side of the road long enough to pull the hood back down then they limped about 1/2 mile to the Exxon station in Shelocta, PA. It’s a wide spot in the road on the east side of Pittsburgh right before you get to Indiana, PA. After making sure they were OK they called the insurance company who arranged a tow to Johnstown, PA (yeah, the flood Johnstown) and they got to a hotel there about 2330 for the night. Next morning they got a rental from Enterprise and got home without further incident. Neil got a call yesterday afternoon with the $6100 cost and the body shop will be fixing it as soon as they can I guess. It’s only the front end and the windshield which was actually hit by the hood and not the deer; but hitting a 200 pound deer at 50 miles an hour doesn’t do the sheet metal much good at all.

Whew . . .got back yesterday afternoon after a long drive back. After an early breakfast and packing Connie and Neil (after a final quick ride over to the Wright Brothers Memorial) went down to the beach for a couple of hours…getting back to the room just in time to shower, finish packing, and make the checkout time. After a quick stop for gas and to was about 20 pounds of salt and sand off of the car windows we headed out. Stopped for lunch up by Norfolk and then through the Hampton tunnel and back home. Sunday afternoon on I-95 North was typical…lots of cars but fortunately only a couple of slowdowns until we got off down by Woodbridge and took the back way home. Unpacked the car, went to Mass at St. Leo’s and then hunted some dinner since Neil didn’t feel like starting to cook at 7PM. Sushi place…closed on Sundays. KFC…permanently closed. Outback…open and they picked up a couple of Caesar Salads and some wings. Added a couple of beers and voila; dinner was served. Settled down in the recliners and watched the football game then off to bed. Up early this morning; Neil unpacked and paid some bills while Connie went out for a walk. He’ll go for a run when she gets back I suppose and then some home cooked chicken something or other for dinner. They’re looking forward to the RV show later in the week; going up to Hershey for a day to investigate some rigs for their hopefully fulltiming decision but are planning on not staying overnite as it’s only a 200 mile drive or so. Neil hopes to get the pictures from the wildlife refuge up in the next day or so; along with a new header photo panorama for the blog that he took while at the beach.

Hi folks, wanted to share this picture of me catchin’ some rays on Teddy Bear Day. In the morning we tried to go on a hike at the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. The humans drenched themselves with DEET but the skeeters thought it was an aphrodisiac or something becuz it sure didn’t repellent anything. So we went on a car tour of the refuge instead. They took many photos but don’t have the converter to get them off the camera (traveling with only iPads this time) so that post will come later. Then we went to the beach, drank beer, and ate dinner at their favorite dive Goombays. They were stuffed so no ice cream today (they coulda gave it to me!) so just watched Man Woman Wild on the TV and went to bed. I’ll post about the safari adventure as soon as I can…ya’ll stay outa trouble until then.