Summerdale, AL - Filling in the Map

Today is our last day in Alabama for tomorrow we head on to Florida. I’ve never been to Florida but Gary was stationed there in the Navy. Actually, he was stationed out on Key West but, without a car and in training all day, he had little time to explore and check things out. So we count this as the first time either of us has really been to Florida. We’ve had a map in our RV with all the states we’ve been to dutifully and lovingly stuck onto the US outline but, since it had suction cups, we could only put this up in the RV. What use is that? I know where I’ve been (mostly) but it’s such a conversation starter when your map in on the outside of your RV and people stop by and look. Several days ago, we bought a map that we can put on the outside of our RV and today I put it up - finally. However, I’ll have to admit - I cheated. I put Florida on it, even though we have not stayed one night in Florida. We have had several adventures there so are half way to the criteria, which is to stay at least 2 nights and have several adventures: museums, touring, walking the beach, ice cream, whatever. No, I’m not using the 3rd criteria - this is a family blog and there are limits to what I can say. However, from Monday night, 1/5 - to Wednesday, 3/18, we will be in Florida and can fulfill the 2 nights criterion. So, even though I’ve put the Florida sticker on early, I think I’m safe in doing so.

We do have some glaring omissions from our map: Idaho and North Dakota. We had planned to stop in each of them and had places to visit and adventure for last spring but when I called the resort in ID, they were all booked for the July 4th weekend. Was I surprised? Should I have called earlier than May? Well, yeah. Of course. So, instead of camping and visiting Couer d’Alene for the weekend, we found ourselves in a dry camping spot in eastern Montana. North Dakota was postponed when we decided to get back to Iowa early from the Tetons and head straight for the Des Moines area. We’ll hit them next time through.

Meanwhile I washed the windshield so we can see out of it and Gary hosed down all the basement doors since they had lots of sand on them. After all the rain we’ve had here in Alabama, we had lots of sand on our RV basement doors. I then wiped down them all down and we look almost clean and shiny. Ready to rock and roll down the road.

Gary did some routine maintenance and then pulled in our utilities, all but the electricity. We’d like to get on the road earlier and this helps.