FINALLY!!! On the Road!
After a year plus many months of planningp, preparing, and getting delayed by the CoVid 19 Pandemic, we set out on our maiden voyage May 7th, Our original plan was to leave on April 21st, to attend Laura’s niece’s wedding, but didn’t quite feel comfortable leaving our home base until after the lock down request was lifted in Colorado.
This first trip is to visit family in Grove, OK a resort town on the Lake of the Cherokees. Laura spent the last two years of high school and first two years of Junior College near there. Laura’s Dad, Brother & Sister n Law , Niece, Nephew and all their families live in the area. The rest of the family is in Colorado. Tony’s family is also in Colorado, Nevada, and Massachusetts, so we’ll eventually go to those states as well.
On our way to our destination, we stopped in the middle of Kansas at a state park. It was a very nice park by Lake Kanapolis, Kansas and was the perfect spot to split up our drive to Tulsa. Our desired plan is to drive no more than 4 hours, however since the entire trip is 12 hours ( by RV travel which is slower than car travel ) we had to drive a bit further. On this day, there was a lot of wind which slowed us down even further and it ended up being an 8 hour drive. We were ready for bed by that time!
The next day we continued our drive to Grove, Oklahoma and Grand Lake of the Cherokees. We pulled into the campground where Laura’s Dad lives full time in his RV, right on the lake! He has his 2 boats on his lot as well! He must have pulled strings because we got the best campsite in the campground… just feet from the lake! It was absolutely gorgeous!
We had a great time visiting all of Laura’s family members, and meeting new in-laws. We even had a belated Easter Egg hunt for all the kids because of CoVid 19, the family didn’t get all together before now.
The bad part of our week long stay is that it rained about 70% of the time… but we made good use of the 30% that was nice. We’d visit with family, or go on walks, or just relax and watched the sunset!
We then went to Tulsa, to a private campground park since our reservations at the Corps of Engineers park and the state park were cancelled due to the CoVid 19. This RV Park that we booked in a hurry up panic is really designed for long term stays for people staying about 6 months or more. We stayed a month, which a bit too long in one location, but we had lots of work to do on our properties there.
It is interesting how different this RV Park is verses a campground. We hardly saw anyone outside their RV, and when we did, it was only for them going to work or coming home. I am looking forward to meeting new people and learning of their adventures! We know that perhaps some of this was due to the Pandemic. We did talk to a few neighbors, and one of them recommended a great Italian restaurant in town that we went to on our last night to celebrate the completion of the Airbnb and our 20th year Anniversary! It’s hard to believe, we’ve been together over 20 years! It’s been very good to us.
One evening, there was a local real estate investment group that asked Tony to be the guest speaker. He gave a presentation on “10 tips for Fix & Flips”, and we even sold several of his books!
We decided to not bust our butt’s on the renovating of the properties, but rather take days off in the middle, or go on a morning or evening hikes and then maybe work on the properties in between. We did this because … well, we CAN! 😊
TO SMALL ALREADY! After less than 3 weeks living full time in our RV, we decided the travel trailer just was not going to work for us. The beds were too small, there was not enough storage, it felt really cramped inside for full time living. For a weekend, or an occasional week the travel trailer worked just fine, but for full time living, it just did not work for us. We made a list of desireables in a new 5th Wheel, and Laura was head strong on wanting a RV Manufactured by Grand Design. We found the perfect size and layout for us, and it was on a clearance sale as they were wanting to clear the 2020 models off the lot to make room for 2020.5 models ( mid year change ). Laura liked the colors of the 2020 over the 2020.5 anyway, we had to act fast, so we did! We purchased it on Friday, the dealer did the delivery prep, we sold the truck topper on the truck, and installed a 5 wheel hitch. We picked it up the following Monday. We were so excited to upgrade our adventure!!
One of the original parks that we were going to stay before CoVid cancelled our reservations, Keystone State Park had reopened, so we extended our stay in Tulsa , and booked there for our last week. We are so glad we did this as it allowed us to enjoy some more fun time to visit family, and go on hikes, and visit the sights of Tulsa.
We went to the Gathering Place, which is a large, FREE, inner city park with many odd structures for kids to play, and lots of various seating areas for socializing. It had been closed for most our time there, but one of the last days of our stay, we went to check it out. It make us feel like kids! It was fun, with many various structures and
We found several hiking trails, and our Dog, Ginger loved going on the hikes with us.
Of course, we can’t recommend a place for our Airbnb guest to visit without trying things out first ( that’s our story, we are sticking to it! ) so we HAD to go to the Tulsa Zoo also. It was terrific, and the weather on the day we went was cooler than the prior days, so the animals were all out and being active.
The campground at Keystone State Park was great. Our campsite was on the waterfront, and the park had many trails around that we took advantage of for morning and evening walks. It was great seeing people out and about and enjoying the water.
Now on the 44th day, we headed back to home base. We stayed at the same campground in the Middle of Kansas, at Kanopolis Lake State Park. We booked the site closest to the lake. Unfortunately, it stormed that evening. Everywhere we go, I want to take a picture “out our front door”, here’s the one at Kanopolis Lake Campsite #409.
Our first trip out was a huge success, working and full of adventure.
On Every Blog post, we are listing “Lessons Learned”, because although this is an adventure, there are always new things to learn.
LESSONS:
- Don’t worry if plans don’t go exactly as planned. The adventure, and maybe new ones will still be there!
- Take time to spend with family, they are more awesome than ever imagined
- Keep in touch with loved ones, no matter the distance, they still need you. We use Zoom.
- There are cool hiking trails WITHIN the city limits of Tulsa.
- Not all Zoo’s are the same.
- Rehabs take longer than anticipated ( OK, we knew this before, but it’s a good reminder )
- How quickly an RV can be confining in space.
- At end of 44th day, we are getting comfortable with RV Living.
Full Time RV Travel Adventure 