6th YEAR SUMMARY

Friday, October 16 – Today we are celebrating the end of our 6^th year of traveling. Even though we now have a summer base in Ohio, we continue to travel seven to eight months a year.

Wine tasting…Dave, Kelly, Paul, Marsha, Katie, Rod

Last winter, we returned to the desert Southwest. We love that area and wish it wasn't so dang far across Texas to get there. :-) We love the outdoors and there are just so many activities to enjoy in that area.

How can you beat Palm Springs in the winter. It almost wants to make us take up golf :-) We had some pretty fantastic hikes in the mountains surrounding the area, but one of our favorite areas was down the road in Borrego Springs. What an amazing area and hiking in those slot canyons was terrific!

Marshall South Hike.

Slot Canyon.

  Granite Mountain Hike.

As a matter of fact, one of our favorite campgrounds this year was the Stagecoach Trails RV Park & Ranch in Borrego Springs. Camped out in the mountains with the place nearly to ourselves! Priceless!

Some additional favorite stops we shared together were our hikes around Tucson, especially the Saguaro National Park and the Holbert Trail in the South Mountains. Marsha enjoyed searching for crested Saguaro cacti and ended up pretty successful.

Holbert Trail.

Living in the shadows of the Superstition Mountains is pretty amazing. There sure is “gold in them thar hills.”

Superstition Mountains.

And of course, what would spring be in Phoenix without spring training baseball. We sure enjoyed our visit to the Cleveland Indians practice session, and the several games at the stadium. And as an extra bonus, we attended the Indians opening game series against the Astros in Houston on our way east with our daughter, Carrie.

Astros game.

We did enjoy a mid-summer trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for the month of July. Some of our favorite memories in the U.P. are Picture Rock, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, collecting Petosky stones at Whitefish Point, the Soo Locks in Saulte Ste. Marie, Mackinac Island visiting Paul's old fishing hangouts and the Ford Museum and truck plant tour. We had such a great time, we definitely plan on continuing those mid-summer trips in the future.

Picture Rock.

Paul and his Petosky stone.

Soo Locks.

Mackinac Island

Paul’s Memory Lane Tour. One of his favorite bars, Bumpas’.

We finished our 6^th year of travels with a 6-week whirlwind tour of Florida. We wanted to see Florida before the prices increased when the Snowbirds arrived. We ventured down the entire Florida Atlantic Coast to Key West and are currently in Ft. Myers, FL, on the Gulf coast. St. Augustine, the Keys, and Fort Myers were some of our favorite campsites. And how can we forget the Everglades and those amazing mosquitos...ha ha!

Ponce De Leon Hotel, St. Augustine.

Our first kayak trip.

Hobe Sound Beach.

Florida Keys Elks.

Key West.

Everglades.

Below is a little statistical comparison of our six years. It appears that the 6^th year was a little bit of a trend buster! We were pretty busy and moving around quite a bit!

6^th YEAR STATISTICS:

Starting Date: 10/17/14
Starting Location: Mission, TX
Ending Location: Alva, FL (Fort Myers, FL)

	YEAR 1	YEAR 2	YEAR 3	YEAR 4	YEAR 5	YEAR 6
Different Cities Overnight	54	34	40	27	18	37
Longest Length of Stay	79	69	70	138	172	85
Location of Longest Stay	Livingston, TX	Mission, TX	Canton, OH	Canton, OH	Canton, OH	Canton, OH
Average Length of Stay	7	11	9	14	20	5
Number of States Visited	20	11	16	15	10	12
Number of Days in Home State of TX	166	195	127	153	199	104
Average Campground Cost	$12.80	$12.25	$15.33	$13.52	$14.21	$18.15
Gallons Diesel Fuel Used	1,678	974	1,038	687	705	1,508
Highest Price for Diesel Fuel	$3.22	$4.05	$4.60	$4.16	$4.03	$3.38
Lowest Price for Diesel Fuel	$2.54	$2.83	$3.57	$3.46	$3.26	$2.08
Average Price/Gallon	$2.84	$3.63	$3.92	$3.82	$3.65	$2.71
Average Miles/Gallon	7.36 motorhome	7.21 motorhome	7.31 motorhome	11.54 fifth-wheel	11.50 fifth-wheel	10.36 fifth-wheel
Motorhome Miles Driven	12,357	7,428	8,641	NA	NA	NA
Car Miles Driven	22,186	15,631	18,496	NA	NA	NA
Truck Miles Driven	NA	NA	NA	18,777	14,287	19,153

It was another great year of seeing God’s great country, meeting up with old friends and making new ones.

Ingrid, Al, Pam, Marsha, Paul, John.

Harry.

Quartzsite.

Looking forward to Year Seven.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

J.N. “DING” DARLING NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE

Tuesday, October 13 – We ventured out to Sanibel Island this morning. Sanibel is located just across the bridge from Fort Myers, Florida.

Long bridge.

We chose Bowman's Beach, known as a sea shell collectors dream world, to look for a couple unique shells. Our first surprise was the $3 per hour charge for parking. Granted, along with the parking were nice restrooms, outdoor showers and changing rooms, but we couldn't get our arms around paying $12 - $15 for collecting a few shells and laying on the beach.

We paid for an hour and a half, since we came this far, but were surprised with the lack of shells. We talked to another couple from Delaware that were staying down the beach at the Holiday Inn, and they stated there were many more shells and sand dollars on the beach at their hotel. We really weren't hoping to collect 100's of shells, we were more interested and seeing them. With that in mind, we gave up on the shells and moved on to the Wildlife Refuge down the road.

Lots of small shells.

Beauty on the sand.

J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge is also located on the barrier island of Sanibel in the Gulf of Mexico. The refuge is part of the largest undeveloped mangrove ecosystem in the United States. It is world famous for its spectacular migratory bird populations.

There are three trails that can be accessed for wildlife viewing. We chose the Indigo Trail. A 4-mile round trip trail that is a gravel trail where one often can spot wildlife such as alligators, heron, pelicans, osprey, warblers, ibis and other migratory songbirds.

This trail begins with a boardwalk.

The best months for viewing are late October through April. We are still a bit too early in the season to see most of the wildlife. We enjoyed the hike but unfortunately, it was too early to see many migratory birds and too warm for alligators to lay on shore sunning themselves.

Can you see that big guy trying to hide from the camera?

Did you see the raccoon in the above photo?

We then decided to use our America the Beautiful pass and drive the 4-mile, one-way road that leads through the heart of the mangrove forest. This is the most popular way most visitors view the refuge. Nearly 800,000 visitors pay the $5 fee (free with the senior pass) to drive the paved Wildlife Trail annually. If you prefer, there is a guided tram available or you can rent a bicycle instead of driving your car.

What an amazing root system the Banyan trees have.

Beautiful scenery on the ride.

We didn't have any better viewing luck on the driving trail. There were more people in the refuge than wildlife, at least what we were able to see. :-)

As we headed back to the COE campground, we stopped at Sun Harvest Citrus. This retail store sells and ships Florida citrus fruit anywhere in North America. We thought this would make a nice gift for one of our Ohio neighbors that mows our grass while we are gone.

They sell and ship boxed Florida oranges, grapefruit, tangerines, and other citrus ranging from about $35 to well over $100 which includes the cost of shipping. They also have free tasting of orange juice, grapefruit juice, and several mixed citrus drinks. Delicious!

That was enough for the day, so we headed back to the campground to relax at our site along the river for the remaining part of the day. Besides our daily visit from three manatees, we have some other visitors……

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!

W.P. FRANKLIN COE CAMPGROUND…ALVA, FL

Monday, October 12 – We moved over to the Gulf Coast of Florida this morning, stopping at the W.P. Franklin Campground in Alva, FL, which is just outside of Fort Myers.

The driveway to the campground is lovely.

The campground is almost completely surrounded by the Caloosahatchee River with just a narrow stretch of land connecting it to the shore. This is a Corp of Engineering park with 50 amp electric and water. The streets and campsites are concrete with nice spacing between the sites. We have a nice patio, fire ring, grill and covered picnic table. There is also a dump station available. They accept the America the Beautiful discount card so with half off we are only paying $15 per night. :-)

Looking right.

Looking left.

Looking at the dam from our picnic table.

There are actually two camping areas. We are right on the water in Site #22 and feel this section has better spacing between the sites and is less crowded. We have one of two pull-thru sites. There are three pull-thru sites in the other loop, but they are not water front sites. So we recommend Site #22-30 if available. We talked to a neighbor and he said it is nearly impossible to get a site here in the winter.

There are even boat dockage sites. 50 amp electric is available.

There is a boat ramp here, and it is very busy. People are boating, fishing for Mullet and Tilapia, kayaking, etc.

After getting set-up, we headed back into town to get groceries and to fuel the truck at $2.23/gallon. Upon returning to the CG, Marsha had some laundry to do so Paul relaxed along the shore. He had Bella, our cat, to keep him company and another friend stopped by to say hello......a Manatee!

How neat is that. He was enjoying lunch of lily pads. A fellow stopped by and said it is unusual for them to be here. We are up river of the lock and dam, and they usually are out closer to the Gulf.

We will be here for five days so stop back and see what adventures we find.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y’all back real soon. Have a great day!