Brief Trip to San Antonio

 

Our maiden voyage to San Antonio was a little stressful. We drove to Jacksonville, then turned left and followed I-10 west. We overnighted in Tallahassee, then stayed two nights at a nice state park in Alabama, just across the bay from Mobile. We saw a huge alligator one night after dinner and enjoyed a seafood lunch just down the road from the park the next day.

We had a short drive to Biloxi where we spent two nights at one of our usual stops, Cajun RV Park. Our last night there, we went across the street to a local place on the beach for dinner called The Reef. We both enjoyed seafood platters, with a great view of the gulf waters.

On Saturday, August 24^th, we were headed to Scott, Louisiana where we had reservations, but saw that Hurricane Ida was headed close-by on Sunday. We changed our plans to overnight in Scott and to keep driving all the way to Beaumont, Texas, over 300-miles.

It took us 13-hours to drive across Louisiana as people were evacuating to get out of the hurricane’s path and Interstate 10 was clogged. Julie used Google Maps on her phone to help us get off the Interstate and by-pass Baton Rouge on city streets, then take U.S. Highway 190 and other Louisiana highways west. We still had some bumper-to-bumper traffic, but eventually got to Texas.

We enjoyed our three days in San Antonio, especially with Julie’s 90-year-old mom and several dinners and a lunch out with her. One night after dinner we played Parcheesi with Julie’s mom. She loves to play and is quite good. We’ve played Parcheesi many times over the years and this was the first time ever that I won. I couldn’t believe it because usually Julie’s mom wins.

We left San Antonio last Thursday and headed back east on I-10. We saw many trucks and trailers with generators, fuel containers, cases of water, electrical equipment, etc. headed east to Louisiana, responding to Hurricane Ida damage.

We overnighted in Beaumont, TX and Scott, LA, but spent two nights in Biloxi at the Keesler AFB Family Campground. It was Labor Day weekend and the Gulf Coast was packed with tourists enjoying that last big summer-time adventure. We tried to go eat again at The Reef but it was packed in the middle of Sunday afternoon with 45-minute waits for tables.

We passed and went down the road to Patio 44. We had eaten dinner there a few years ago with friends and enjoyed the place. What a great decision that was on our part. There were fewer people there and the early dinner was great. Looking through the menu, I noticed their Manhattan cocktail used the same ingredients I use in my Manhattan: Rittenhouse straight rye whiskey, Dolin sweet vermouth, Angostura bitters and a cherry. I tried one and it tasted exactly like the ones I make at home.

After an overnight in Tallahassee on Labor Day, we got home yesterday. We enjoyed the trip but were glad to get back home again. It was our first time traveling since we moved in to our new home in October 2020. It just seemed different coming home to Daytona Beach.         

Stay safe out there and please get vaccinated!

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Maiden Voyage with Our Voyage

 

Spring and summer have flown by. We sold our 2016 Winnebago Tour motorhome in early-March to La Mesa RV. All along, we had plans to continue RVing. There are lots of nice state and county parks throughout Florida that we wanted to go back to and visit some new ones too.

We were researching getting a 25-30-foot-long bumper-tow travel trailer. We learned that most of those trailers weighed six to 10,000 pounds. Our 2015 Ford F-150 pickup was only rated to pull 5,000 pounds. In early-April, we traded the 2015 for a 2021 Ford F-150 with the max. tow package that could tow up to 13,000 pounds.

We continued our on-line research and narrowed our search down to about 6-8 travel trailers, but hadn’t actually seen any in-person yet. We decided to take a trip to the Tampa Bay Summer RV Show in early-June. On the way to Tampa, we stopped at a dealer outside of Orlando to take a look at one of the trailers we were interested in. It turned out that they had already sold that trailer, but we could order one for delivery in summer 2022. RV sales are high as families across the country were buying RVs to go on vacation. The RV manufacturers are now only making a couple of their most popular floor plans.

We saw lots of travel trailers at the RV show, but narrowed it down to the Winnebago Voyage. Lazy Days RV of Tampa sold the Voyage, but didn’t have the specific floor plan we were interested in. The Villages Lazy Days RV dealer did have the model we were interested in, and it was much closer for us to drive to. We purchased a 2021 Voyage 2831RB (rear bath) in mid-June. We absolutely love it. We’re thinking about naming it “Hurricane Evacuation Shelter” or “Key West Express”.          

We’re on our maiden voyage with our Voyage to San Antonio to visit Julie’s mom in assisted living. We haven’t seen her in person since last October due to Covid restrictions. We’re really looking forward to seeing her.

Stay safe out there!

Steve & Julie Cornelius

We Finally Sold Our Motorhome!

 

It’s been 4 short months since I last posted on our blog. We have pretty much got settled into our new home here at Latitude Margaritaville Daytona Beach. It’s been fun hanging pictures, putting up curtains, and assembling patio furniture.

We stayed hunkered down this fall and winter, but finally got our COVID-19 immunizations in early-January and early-February. My sisters Cathy, Marcia and brother-in-law Mike also got vaccinated the same time we did over in Bradenton, Florida. It was a mini-family reunion as we had lunch after our shots.  

We put our motorhome on the market the end of January after some minor repair work (our side view mirror cameras weren’t working). 

There weren’t any bites except the RV buyer from La Mesa RV in mid-February. After another three weeks of no bites, we finally negotiated a deal with the La Mesa buyer. We dropped it off at La Mesa RV Center in Sanford, Florida. It was bittersweet, as we’ll miss our home on the road, but we’re also glad to be out from under the stress of expensive maintenance and repairs. It’s been quite a transition for us (and our cat Shasta) to move from our “house on wheels” for 7 ½ years to this house and get settled in. We absolutely love it here and enjoy meeting and socializing with our 55+ year old neighbors and community members from all over the country.  

Stay safe out there!

Steve & Julie Cornelius

The Next Chapter

We celebrated Julie’s Mom’s 90^th birthday on Sunday, October 25^th. Although we couldn’t see her in person, we celebrated with her with a Zoom meeting. It included Mom (Grammy), all three daughters, all four grandchildren, and one great grandson. It was fun to see everyone in Taiwan, Columbia, Utah, Colorado, Texas, New York and Florida.

Last Friday, October 30^th, Julie and I finally closed on our new home in Latitude Margaritaville Daytona Beach. We purchased the new home last December. They began construction in June and finished the house in late-October. We began moving out of our motorhome and into this 55+ retirement community right after closing. It’s been quite a transition for us (and our cat Shasta) to move from our “house on wheels” for the past 7 ½ years to this house. We took delivery of some furniture last Friday and Saturday that we ordered last summer, so we would have a place to sit and a bed to sleep on.

On Sunday, November 1^st, we drove the motorhome from Titusville and parked next to the house to unload the rest of our stuff, mostly into the garage. Then we took the motorhome to a storage place to park it for the time being.  

We love it here in Latitude Margaritaville. It’s a very active community with nice amenities (fitness center, paradise pool, tennis and pickleball courts, on-site bar & grill, and a new beach club on the Atlantic). Latitude Margaritaville is currently adding more previously planned amenities, since they have sold 1,000 homes since they opened in 2018. They’re adding a lap pool to the fitness center, a small theater, a work and play activities center, and more tennis and pickleball courts.

Stay safe out there!

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Back to Florida

We left Las Vegas on Friday, October 2^nd and headed towards San Antonio. We connected with I-10 in Phoenix and passed through Tucson, New Mexico, and Texas. Interstate 10 is 880-miles long across Texas.

We stopped in Castroville, Texas and met up with Julie’s sister Cindy and brother-in-law Terry. We hadn’t seen them since last January in Oceanside, CA at Camp Pendleton. They also full-time in their RV and travel around.

We made an appointment to see Julie & Cindy’s mom at her assisted living facility in San Antonio. It was good visiting with Bobbie and she enjoyed seeing us too. We all wore masks, social distanced, and sat outside for our visit. We felt really bad for Bobbie because her facility has been on lock-down since March to prevent any COVID-19 infections. Residents cannot leave the facility nor visit other residents, and have to eat their meals alone in their room. The good news is that there haven’t been any cases of COVID at her facility.

We left Castroville on October 10^th, spent two nights in Biloxi on the way, and arrived back in Titusville, Florida last Wednesday. We’re here at the RV park until November 1^st, when we unload our motorhome and put it in storage.

Last Wednesday we drove up to Daytona Beach to check on our house and deliver some New Mexico roasted chili peppers to new Facebook friends at Latitude Margaritaville. Bob and Maria used to live in Albuquerque and Julie connected with Maria. We really enjoyed meeting and visiting with them in person.

Our new house is coming along nicely. When we left Florida on August 1^st, our house was pre-drywall. Now it’s nearly finished and ready to move in. We drove up today, while most of the workers were off, and we could look around. We do a walk-through with the builder next Thursday and close a week later on Thursday, October 29^th. We start moving in on Friday, October 30^th. We just can’t wait.    

Stay safe out there!

Steve & Julie Cornelius