Phoenix, AZ

Dates of stay: Jan 24 - 26, 2022

Campground: Casa Grande RV Resort

Sad to leave Tucson as we loved our time there and 4 days wasn’t enough! That said, Phoenix was a fun stop as we got to see a lot of friends and family. Arrived at the RV park - we are easily 10-15 years younger than everyone else camped here! It is actually a bit difficult to find an RV park in and around the Phoenix area that is under 55 AND takes kids. But this place did. Very nice - great hot tub and pool and very friendly. They had a small market one morning selling Native American themed jewelry and fresh lemons - a huge bag for a buck!

During our time here, we had the Megan Gehrke family (her, husband and 3 boys) over for tacos at the RV. I made a big pitcher of really good lemonade with those lemons! They moved from Farmington, MN about a year ago and so it was fun to be able to swing through and see them. I was also able to visit my friend Nancy for the first time in real life. We met each other through Refine, a Christian women’s networking group, and she lives in Wisconsin. Funny thing is is that just a couple of weeks ago, she posted on Facebook that she was at an RV resort in Phoenix for the winter - just so happened she was about 15 minutes from where we were staying! So I made the trek over and we had so much fun chatting.

Finally, we spent the majority of time visiting Charlie and Rita Healy, Tom’s uncle and aunt, as they winter in the Phoenix area. We hung out at their place and had the chance to visit an amazing museum - the Zelma Basha Salmeri Gallery - which has one of the world’s largest private collection of contemporary Western American and American Indian art in the world. This one was a favorite:

We departed Phoenix the next day for Sedona, and had an extremely close call with a pilot car trailing a wide load - they pulled out RIGHT in front of us at a high speed. Thankfully, Tom is so adept at maneuvering this rig - crisis averted thankfully!

Gulf Shores, AL

Campsite: Gulf Shores State Park

Dates of stay: Nov. 19 - Dec. 2

Every time we leave a place we love, it seems to replaced with another great find. Gulf Shores State Park, Alabama, is hands-down, the best state park we’ve stayed in so far. We were told ahead of time that we were lucky to find a spot here, and once we got here, we see why. We booked quite a few weeks in advance, and secured two weeks at site 117. We were right off the main road, and central to many of the activities going on. 

Tom planned our drive from Carrabelle to Gulf Shores along the coast, so it was an extremely scenic drive as compared to the interstate route. Lots of water, bridges, marinas, and also lingering damage from Hurricane Michael interspersed with lots of new construction. It’s baffling to us, because it all has the potential to get completely destroyed with the next horrible storm, yet the beauty of the area and ties to the community are the reasons people stay, I’m certain.

Gulf Shores is located about 15 minutes from the border of Florida, and we passed through “Flora-bama” a tacky, touristy, picture-taking opportunity area (that we’d return to in a few days for oysters). When we arrived to the Gulf Shores area, we started to encounter lots of high rises and beach front properties along with the restaurants and shops that seemed built for tourists. And then all of a sudden, nothing but pristine sandy beaches, sand dunes, and scrub. There is a massive area - about 6,000 acres of preserved state park property. After the Deep Horizon oil spill, the state was given $70+ million to restore the area. The state park itself boats a Nature Center, beach Pavilion, Learning Center, restaurant, cottages, a beautiful swimming pool, tennis courts, amphitheater, a pier, Shelby Lake, a parkour course, playgrounds, miles of paved biking trails, a butterfly garden, bouldering area and more miles of boardwalk throughout the park. The campground has 500+ sites, that are very well maintained and spaced out well. There’s even a little commuter bus that goes around the park in case you need transportation to the different areas.

One of the things that we really appreciated was the daily programming by the Nature and Learning Centers. We were able to cover Life science for two weeks here! We took classes on snakes of the area, constellations, skates and rays, and beach creatures (class on the beach where we learned about all the different shells and the creatures that live in them). One day we took a guided nature walk with one of the naturalists, and learned a lot about the plants and trees in the park, although failed to see any wildlife even though there are supposed to be gators and snakes in these parts. 

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We arrived here on a Friday, and as Fridays are pizza nights, we found a place called Papa Rocco’s. We did takeout, and had a little time to kill before our pizza was ready for pick-up but there was a musician setting up for that evening and we learned he was one of the singers from The Platters - the artists behind my parents’ song (Only You). I introduced myself and said we’d be back the next night, as he was also playing on Saturday. When we returned with Owen the following night, he recognized us and upon request, we asked him to play the song so we could FaceTime my parents which they got a kick out of. 

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A few days later, my parents joined us and Owen gladly packed up his belongings so he could spend the next week with them! They’  rented an AirBnB right on the beach, so it was nice to spread out and have a real kitchen to cook in over Thanksgiving. Most of the meal we picked up from the market, but Tom grilled up ribs and we also did shrimp that we had picked up in Carrabelle. So it was a bit of a mashup meal, but Tom still did the traditional baking of the pies - pumpkin and apple this year. 

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We spent the next few days enjoying all that the park had to offer, riding bikes, walking the beach, and picking up shells - lots of shells. Mom, Owen and I had art class one day which involved using the various shells to make angel ornaments for our respective trees. We found a couple of fun places to eat, including The Ruby Slipper (originally started in New Orleans), Flora-bama for chargrilled oysters and oysters on the half shell, Doc’s Seafood (the original “local” one), and we checked out the onsite park restaurant - Woodside - which had excellent food and live music. 

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Tom, Owen and my dad spent a day at the Naval Museum in Pensacola, as well as a day at the USS Alabama in Mobile. I was a little museum’d out on this front so took the opportunity to spend some time with my mom. We checked out the shops and restaurants at the Wharf and did a little Christmas shopping, and also spent more time at the beach.

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Sad to say goodbye, we spent the next few days enjoying the sunsets from the pier and the beach, finishing up a few trails that we hadn’t yet biked, kayaking, and catching the holiday laser show at the wharf.

We could easily spend a couple 2-3 months here and might have to figure out how long term camping works at this park!

Sarasota/Bradenton, FL

More visits!

• Spent a great couple of days with John and Carol Freund, at their beautiful canal side home. Also finally had my first lobster roll here, which was so notable I had to mention it.

• Also had the opportunity to visit my friend Kimberly, who had moved from MN to Sarasota.

• Stayed at the Lake Manatee State Park, and basically slept there but otherwise, busy visiting.

Naples, FL

Stayed at: Collier Seminole State Park

Dates of stay: Oct 23 - 26, 2021

Drove all the way from the Florida Keys (actually, I drove the rig out of the Keys!) and we traveled the Tamiami highway through the Everglades to our next stop - that was really interesting. On the way, we stopped at a National Historic Park stop, and learned that they had just done a Burmese Python hunt (they are invasive) and captured 900 of them - eeekkkk!!!! Also saw a big gator hanging out in the waters here.

Quick stop through Naples to see Tom’s Aunt Joyce and her friend John, and we also saw Ericka and Bill Nelson in Cape Coral.

Didn’t spend too much time at our campsite here, but there was some very interesting history about the origins of Collier, who had financed the last stretch of Tamiami Hwy - on the condition they would name a county after him. He didn’t get a county, but he did get a state park - and the highway was finished.

We did do an airboat ride back in the Everglades, which was really cool! And of course, Owen took a great video to document it all.

Jacksonville and St. Augustine, FL

We had a fun time in Jacksonville, FL. We got to see family and we also went south to St. Augustine. I made a great youtube video of Jacksonville and St. Augustine, if you want to watch it click here. We also went to the St. Augustine alligator farm and we got to see them feed the alligators. In St. Augustine we also went to the St. Augustine lighthouse.