Busy Week

A journal of our full-time travel around the USA in our motorhome.

Last Tuesday we drove down to Patrick Air Force Base, located between Satellite Beach and Cocoa Beach, Florida for an appointment for Julie to get a new military ID card. Everyone is now required to wear a facemask throughout DoD due to COVID-19 while on base, and they were wearing facemasks at Patrick. We checked in at the pass & ID office and were told to wait in our car until they called us on the phone.

We also stopped by the Patrick commissary to pick up some groceries and I was surprised to see lots of paper towels and toilet paper. 

My sister Marcia and brother-in-law Mike arrived in their motorhome on Tuesday afternoon at Willow Lakes to stay for six nights, on their way home to Virginia.

Wednesday morning we drove up to Latitude Margaritaville Daytona Beach to show Mike and Marcia around. We stopped for lunch across the street from the Beach Club at the Absolutely Cheezee. We enjoyed some awesome grilled cheese sandwiches to-go.

Julie and I drove back to Latitude Margaritaville Daytona Beach on Thursday morning for a 9:30AM appointment to meet with an interior designer. We spent most of the day picking out the cabinets, countertops, flooring, plumbing fixtures, etc. for our new house.

We had done a lot of research on all the options and associated prices. Based upon the interior designer’s suggestions, we made a few changes and are really happy with our choices.  Here’s a picture of samples of our cabinets, quartz countertops, tile floor that looks like wood flooring, kitchen backsplash that looks like tear drops, shower tile, the Listello trim on the shower walls, and the pebble tile for the master bath shower floor.

Mike and Marcia also had an appointment on Thursday morning at Latitude Margaritaville to meet with a salesman to look through the model homes. They’re thinking about downsizing and buying a home here too.

Friday was Julie’s birthday. Earlier in the week, my sister Janet scheduled a Zoom video conference on Julie’s birthday to catch up with family and friends. It was our first-time using Zoom and we enjoyed seeing and talking with everyone: my three sisters, Janet (and Nancy), Cathy (and daughter Brittany), and Marcia (and Mike). Also dialing in were Julie’s sister Cindy & Terry and our friends Vince & Lisa and Kris & Jan.

Marcia has been busy here sewing us a few more facemasks. We really appreciate these masks since they’re so very hard to find. 

We plan to continue to maintain “social distancing” and hunker down in our motorhome until early-August.

Stay healthy and be safe out there!

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Hunkered Down

A journal of our full-time travel around the USA in our motorhome.




We’ve been hunkered down in our motorhome at Willow Lakes RV & Golf Resort for two-weeks today. It’s located on the north edge of Titusville, Florida which is near the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral.

Although our days are normally uneventful now, we’ve tried to take nice, long walks every day. The first week we were here we visited friends Ron and Kathy who live here in the park. It was fun catching up with them.

On Friday that first week, we decided to get out and drove up to Daytona Beach to see how the construction was coming along on the Latitude Margaritaville Beach Club. It is for residents of the Latitude Margaritaville community to use and was supposed to open this summer, but now it’s doubtful. It’s on the Atlantic Ocean, about 10-miles northeast of the community.

Easter Sunday, our friend Leesa, stopped by to say hello. We got to know Leesa when we were stationed in England back in 1986-1988. She and her husband Bernie just bought a home up the coast between here and Daytona Beach. This’ll be the fourth time we’ve lived near Leesa (England, Germany, Colorado and now Florida).

We stopped by to see Leesa and their new home this past Wednesday. While there, Leesa made hand sanitizer for us, since we can’t find any to buy.

We had an appointment at Latitude Margaritaville last Friday to look again at the model homes. It’s about a 40-mile drive from here straight up I-95. We wanted to take a closer look at the Coconut model to see where our AC outlets were installed outside and in the garage. 

We have an appointment in the design center this coming Thursday to pick out our cabinets, countertops, flooring, plumbing fixtures, interior paint colors, etc.

Today we drove up to Daytona Beach to go see our lot # 916 for the first time. Our salesman suggested going to look at it on a Saturday or Sunday because during the week it’s a really busy construction zone. The street in front of our lot is finally paved and utilities are installed. The small lake behind our house is starting to fill up. Construction on our new home is slated to begin in June.

We plan to continue to maintain “social distancing” and hunker down in our motorhome until early-August.

Stay healthy and be safe out there!

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Sea to Shining Sea

A journal of our full-time travel around the USA in our motorhome.



We left Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California a week ago last Thursday, March 26^th, and headed east on our 2,500-mile trip to Florida: Oceanside-Yuma-Benson-Las Cruces-Fort Stockton-Kerrville-Beaumont-Biloxi-Tallahassee-Titusville. There wasn’t much traffic on I-10 as many states along our route had enacted “shelter-in-place” guidelines. We only stopped for diesel fuel. The Buc-ee’s in Alabama had the least expensive diesel fuel we’d seen along our route.

After we left, we decided to accelerate our trip from 14-days down to an 11-day trip as it seemed the coronavirus pandemic was getting worse along our route. We were very concerned that Florida was going to close its borders.

Florida did set up COVID-19 “check-points” on eastbound I-10 and southbound I-95 on March 30th. We crossed the Florida state-line on Saturday and went through the checkpoint. They only asked one question: “Have you stayed the night in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut or Louisiana in the past two-weeks?” We answer “No”, and they told us to have a nice day. Luckily there was no traffic backup and the whole check took less than a minute.

We overnighted in Tallahassee last Saturday and drove to the 55-plus RV resort near Titusville, FL on Sunday where we’d arranged for a space to park with the owner of the particular RV lot. We’ll continue to maintain “social distancing”, hunker down and “shelter-in-place” in our motorhome until early-August.

Last week, after talking with my sisters Janet and Marcia and their spouses, we’ve all collectively decided to cancel our planned road trip to Alaska next summer. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the border to Canada is closed. If we could cross, we’d have a 14-day quarantine. Also, Alaska currently has a 14-day quarantine. Alaska also currently forbids travel between any of its towns and cities. We all spent a lot of effort planning and making reservations for this 2 ½-month road trip. Now we’re all busy cancelling our reservations.  

Stay healthy and be safe out there!

Steve & Julie Cornelius