Ok so now we finally got the slide outs fixed and we are back living the high life. We went two weeks without the extra room and now we know we will never go without them again. It's unbelievable how much extra room you get with the extensions.
​Now on another note I know these people in Florida are horny little devils but they actually announce it on the roadway.

Paul How would you like to bag one of these for your roadkill trophy case? Actually they have alligator signs too! We could call you" Panther Paul".
Well we took off and headed for the everglades and alligators. We stayed at a casino about 50 miles from the everglades. We did good on our free play and it even bought us a buffet.   

We have not had a repair job in over a week. This is good. We traveled after the everglades all the way down to Key West. We could not find a campsite anywhere on the 127 mile Keys. So we turned around at Key West and headed back to the casino we stayed at Monday night. The water was beautiful and emerald in color but no room at the Inn. It was the first time we got frustrated at the lack of camping spots. But then again most people don't "wing it" like we do but that is the fun and exciting part of what we do.   

We left the Keys and the casino and headed to the Elks Club in Punta Gorda on the Gulf coast. We stayed for 10 dollars at the Elks and visited with George and Anna P. Drank, laughed and passed out!! Headed to Arcadia for two nights at an RV resort(free).
We have headed into hibernation in the Highland Hammock State Park. We have 3 days here to prepare our livers for the test...we meet up with Bill and Kathy soon and must be ready. Gotta go now I just finished my beer and I have to cook.


This was our site in Arcadia. We love it but were not ready for that just yet.
​Oh and we love all of you too!!  

Thank God we are always behind on the last minute packing. Karen goes into the basement to grab a pair of pants out of the drier literally 10 minutes before we are to launch and the basement is flooded and water is spraying out of the hot water tank. I thank God cause this could have been a huge problem had we left and it kept flooding for weeks. Ed's right we should buy a boat!
We clean up the water and I attached a hose to the tank and shove it into the sump pump crock. Call Matt and put in my order for a new hot water tank...sounds easy enough unless like a dummy you shove the hose in to far and jam the float on the pump. And yes you guessed it the basement flooded.
So thank God Gabe stopped over 5 days later to grab the mail and discovered our " Lake Muzic" in the basement.

 Remember this handy little tool from last years blog. Well we wake up the first morning in West Virginia and the Winnie is frozen and won't start.So Captain Joey crawls under the camper and does his best imitation of a grease monkey and gets old Winnie started. Ready to get the Hell out of this 12 degree weather and get to the South. Hold on ...we now realize it's probably not a good idea to put the slideouts on the camper out in 12 degree weather. After an hour of trying to heat up the camper and pushing on slideout we get it to retract.
On the road again. Our next destination  South Carolina and a State Park called Sesquicentennial SP. Weather is much better now probably 45 to 50 degrees.
We back into our site and try to extend the slideouts and yes you probably know where I'm going with this story. The motor for the hydraulics is fried. Best part is the slide went out 4 inches then died. I wonder what kind of a trade in on a boat I could get. We still feel very lucky though and the weather is getting nicer everyday.  

Guess where we are now!!! I noticed after spending a lot of time on the outside of the camper we had a severe issue with the tire that we purchased at Bud's Grocery. That story is in the archive blog from 2/28/15 "Some one help me I have a flat tire".
I do not like roadside assistance so after golfing at Baseline Golf club we headed straight to Baseline Auto Repair and Tire. So $205.78 later I trade in my Indy 500 slick for a nice 10 ply Firestone all terrain. So officially I have bought 9 tires in less than 12 months. And we still think we are the luckiest people in the world. 

Okay so this will be last "lucky" story of this blog. Some people might not think it was funny but we laughed like hell..LLH for short. Apparently you should never trust a guy smoking a cigar and drinking a beer to guide you into your site. As you can see in the picture a fist up in the air is not white power but it is the international sign for " you just backed into a tree moron"
Actually I think you are suppose to give the sign right before hitting the tree!
​But...we still think we are two of the luckiest people. We have all of you to come home to.  

 The only age we are chasing is 59 and a half. Can't wait to spend that 401k and go on on another trip! You know I'm kidding we have at least 4 weeks saved up! We keep trying to find places that are in the 70 degree range no humidity, only sunny,friendly people and free beer. I think Adam and Eve messed that up for us but we keep chasing it. 
So Zion was nice and very majestic. It should be majestic it took some 275 million years to get it to look that good. God works slow look how long He has taken on building me and I don't think He's done with me just yet. We wanted to go to Bryce Canyon after Zion but it was snowing and in the low 20's at night. So we chased 70's and headed for Nevada and Lake Mead. We stayed in two different spots on Lake Mead. The inside temperature of the camper shot up to 97 Fahrenheit in the afternoon but the nights were cool and the price was right(5.00 per night). It was sad at the lake they are running out of water and the first marina we stayed at was actually closed. The criminal part of our world had destroyed all of the resort and restaurant.
Well obviously the only thing the princess hates more than cold weather is scorching hot weather. So we are off again chasing 70.
   Click on the picture below to watch the slide show.
  

 We head back toward Utah. The weather should be just perfect. So check out the tunnel we decided to go through to get to our next spot. The place was called Red Cliff Canyon. Temperature 75 degrees( were getting better). We hiked for a couple of hours(okay maybe like an hour) and took a bunch of pictures. Left in the morning and headed toward Green River State Park. They have a golf course inside the Park. Perfect we didn't even have to move the Minnie we drove the cart back and grabbed the clubs. We lost a bunch of golf balls now we are going to Wal Mart to get more. 
We leave Green River and head toward Arches National Park. Another very scenic National Park. We did some serious hiking and stayed at a camp ground called Dead Horse. The movie Thelma and Louise was filmed at this park. We could only stay one night then moved to a spot 3 miles away called Horse Thief campground. No hookups so we are on our own for water and electric. It snowed and once again we need to look for 70!   

 Now these are some of my favorite signs. This means we are done trying to be hikers. I will leave you with a picture of a snake that we encountered on one of our "hikes" try to blow up the picture it was quite scary. 

Look in the middle of this picture and you can see the yellow and black stripes on the snake. We were walking right there on that path. I threw some small rocks at the snake and realized why I was cut from the baseball team. Finally I annoyed the snake enough and he slithered away. It was at least 8 foot long well maybe 2 feet. 
Another reason why this hiking stuff is way over rated and obviously dangerous to your health.

Well it's time to chase the 70 degree weather in north east Ohio. We cheated winter this year and it will be extremely hard to spend winter again in the North. But with friends and family like you our readers I'm sure we'll make it. Don't be surprised though if you see a 27 foot Minnie Winnie driving off into the night headed for the warm breeze and campfires we call our road home.Until we write and travel again stay warm or cool but always stay HAPPY.  

 Once again I am sorry this blog is so late. I had a sunburn so bad I couldn't even write. Yes I said that out loud!!!
So if every day was perfect and nothing went wrong. You woke up in the morning and someone handed you a cup of java and a nice hot towel. Then that same person suggested you look at your investments on the stock market and giggled as you realized they had doubled overnight then...I would have nothing to write about.Yes! we all need some drama and damn I need material to write about. You the reader need comedy not how great we have it traveling the us of A.
So I think the geico is trying to say "what the F*%@k how many flats can two people endure on a trip". The technical answer for that would be 6. Two front tires and 4 rear tires. I now am the proud owner of 6 brand new tires! Thank God there is only 1 transmission and I think only 1 engine, I'll ask the princess.
One help full road trip suggestion: when driving through certain parts of New Mexico( obviously not in my brother Jim's neighborhood) bring your own receipt book, seems that Cheech and Chong never heard of this receipt idea! Oh and another thing we are masters at the roadside assistance program. So if you need some tips or tires? We got em!      

 We traveled across 5 states in less than 48 hours which is very unusual for us. I try to only drive 250 to 300 miles before refueling my liver. I'm not sure what the states were but Karen will fill you in on that. 
As you can see in the picture money is running low so we are eating whatever I can hunt or run over( with my new tires).
So please.. for less than .65 cents a day you can feed two world travelers
so send your donation to Iamjustkidding.com.
We arrived in Albuquerque NM on Holy Thursday and spent the Easter weekend with my brother Jim his wife Lisa and daughter Jill.We had a great time and they were very hospitable. We were introduced to some different types of tequila and a whole different climate.  
I felt real holy those couple of days so we visited some real holy places in Santa Fe. Actually there is no Santa in Santa Fe just the Santa I brought.
Kidding aside this Cathedral and Shrine were very.. let's just say holy.
No lightning or flames shot out when we went in so I think we are still Okay. 

 We leave New Mexico and head toward Arizona. It is a little too cold in Utah so we are going to hang out in Arizona for a couple days. We find a great State park, Lyman  Lake SP. It was windy but we had a great time.
We stayed two days cooked a bunch of food took a mountain hike then headed for Utah.
We stayed at an Elk's club on Friday. We toured the Glen Canyon on Saturday. What an amazing State this is. 
We felt brave so we drove to Lone Rock beach and stayed on Lake Powell. The coast line on this lake is longer than the whole west coast shoreline. It is a huge Lake.
We were very lucky and landed in our camping spot without any hitches.
A family from down under with 4 children under the age of 12 weren't so lucky. They were not only from down under but were now down under the sand to the axle. I guess the short cut that Crocodile Dundee tried didn't work.
Through the great efforts of their fellow campers we were able to pull this poor guy out and save the day for the kids! It's nice to see that we as humans do care and genuinely want to help our fellow campers. I will leave you with one last slide show knowing that it does not do justice to this beautiful place. My next blog will be in Zion National Park. So till then keep smiling and know that we will run out of money soon and will be home to be with you!!!    

Hi kids sorry this blog is so late. This has been a party state. I usually blog when it's raining and it doesn't seem to rain here. I guess you don't want to here about that! 
I call this the "toll" state for 2 reasons. It definitely takes a toll on you and at every corner there is a toll booth. In the picture you can see me mailing a check to the state of Florida for the 12 cents. I was short on one of their glorious bridges.I called the Florida DOT the day after the incident and yes the fine Floridian gentleman I talked to indicated that yes! I needed to mail in the 12 cents or face a 100.00 dollar fine. I felt like telling him the story about Alice's restaurant (Arlo Guthrie). So now I'm into this toll for a check and a 45 cent stamp. So the next day we make a wrong turn which forces us to get off and ...yes pay a 50 cent toll. So if that's not bad enough the princess tosses two quarters like Shaquille O'neal trying to make a foul shot and completely misses the basket. So we dip into our life savings for two more quarters so we can get back on the other side to pay 50 cents more to get back on this thing they call a FREEWAY! No wonder Florida has no state tax they are rich from all the snowbirds tossing quarters.  

 I found a great way to fool the park rangers. If you are at a park that does not permit partaking in adult beverage consumption. Simply create a corn Koozie like the one in this picture. When you are approached by the ranger explain to him that you are drinking a can of corn. It's so easy you could call it "A can of corn".

 

   Santa missed the party bus and when we got back from the wedding he was waiting for us at the door. He was not a happy camper! Bill and Kathleen flew off to Ireland and Jomama and crew drove to a RV resort in Arcadia,Fla. This place was great and gave us two free nights,full hookups,a box of cookies and free head covers for all of our golf clubs. Well maybe not the head covers.
We left Arcadia and headed to visit some friends in North Port, Fla.
Our hosts were very hospitable and took us in like we were one of their family. We learned all kinds of new things and new words like 
Vodeo-do, sucka-wucka, huffa-puffa. We learned that viagra has an expiration date. But you can just take two instead. We learned that at a certain age people like to talk about sex more than actually having sex.
All kidding aside we had a great time and look forward to partying with George,Anna P,Jeff and Linda this summer! 

Well while everyone at home had Jack frost nipping at their nose Santa was roasting his chestnuts off. His clothes are glued on and so the swim suit was definitely not fitting. In the picture above you can see what happened to Jomama when he stayed in the sun too long!
Thanks Barb Kessler for the chestnuts idea!  

 In the south they like to blacken all kinds of food. Blackened sea bass,salmon,crayfish,blue fish,catfish. You name it they can blacken it. So for a little different taste one night I showed them my blackened Bratwurst. Grill kinda got away from me that night! 

See if you can find the alligator in this picture. We were on the tee-box at a TPC golf course in Tampa and I decided to look over in the lily pads. I finally saw my gator! Hint ...he is on the edge getting ready to eat me when suddenly he noticed my legs lost his appetite and went under the water.
Well we are finally out of Florida and heading to New Mexico. I will leave you with another slide show. So remember when the going gets tough take two pills instead of one. We are in Texas now and I think we are going to see George Bush tomorrow.   

 We arrived in Pinellas County, Fla on Saturday March 7. Ten days should be more than enough time to warm up the liver for what should be a great St. Patrick's day wedding. After 3 days I'm convinced we have found our soul-mate drinking buddies(just kidding). We are staying in Fort DeSoto park. Way to many rules...no alcohol,no more than 6 people on site at any time,no fires,curfew at 10 all visitors must leave. We followed almost all the rules. Guess which one we broke? Of course we broke the one about " visitors have to leave by 10". See what happened was 7 of us tried to put out the fire with beer and it took us till 10:05 pm to get that damn fire out.
    

 Getting here was fun. Especially all the trips to Wal-Mart. We go to that place more on the road then when we are at home. I of course needed more golf balls. I forgot my trimmer so I look like grizzly Adams buy a trimmer. Princess forgot the trip was going to Florida and needs to dump the flannel pajamas. But most important of all was I needed to pick up a small blind spot mirror for the passenger side. At least that's what the cop who I ran off the road said I needed. Yes I actually went to move to right lane did not see him at all. He flew into berm then flew back out and pulled my sorry ass over. He was as scared as me and Karen. Nice guy though must have liked my selection of music and just scolded me and told me to go to Walmart. I think they got bigger fish to fry down here. Lesson learned...always have Frank Sinatra on radio and know where your local Walmart is.      

 Funny story..oh really. After 3 weeks it's time to do laundry. Bill drops us off in the hood assures us that we will be safe and don't worry to much about the let's say lack of whites in the area. This place took credit cards for payment. We loaded up 6 front loaders and started to do the dirty. 
There was actually a restaurant down the street called POFOLKS.
Here's where it gets funny we get done and Karen gives the laundry Mama her American Express. Apparently if you have an American Express card in this neighborhood you are RICH and when it gets approved fast you are VERY RICH. At least that's what Mama told us. As you can see in the picture we kind of ran out of the hood before we were dry.

 So we wake up Monday and I go online to pay some bills. One of the bills due was a life insurance policy. So I pay the premium and we go on with our day. Obviously the benefactor on the policy is my beloved princess. Now this is where it gets a little interesting. Suddenly our plans for the day are to go to the ocean(not sure which one) and FISH! All of my readers probably know that even the word " fish" sends me into a panic search for Benadryl. 
No worries readers..she doesn't know how to dump the tanks in the camper.So I'm safe for now.
Jomama's Irish blessing 
So..may your cup be full of cheer and we never fear the day when we won't be here...enjoy today!
Watch the slide show!

So I'll get into the "flat tire" story in a little bit.
We left Mike Roess state park on Friday morning 2/20 and headed to Green Cove Springs which is somewhere in Florida I think. I am only the driver we could be in Georgia or in the Bermuda triangle for all I know. We found the golf course but drove around the city to kill some time. We found St. Augustine where the fountain of youth is but couldn't find it. I think the social security system tore it down we are all  living to long.
So we crawl into the half grass half asphalt parking lot and tuck our Minnie into the back and out of the way hoping we are not intruding to much on the golfers that may arrive early on Saturday morning to golf.
We used our generator that night. Turned it off to sleep and used the propane for heat.
Wake up Saturday with a 12:00 noon T-Time and set out to check the course. Now with all respect to cow pastures one could say that even the cows would starve on the buffet that was our fairways. Did we care..hell no we golfed liked we were cows. Here comes the best part. When we got done whaling away at the little white balls to the tune of about 120's, John the cart cleaner slash maintenance man told us to pull Minnie over to the side where we could hook up to the water and electric free. So yes there is a free lunch out there if you look hard enough.
We stayed Saturday and Sunday. We even took Santa out after the help went home. Did a little putting and road a few tractors and grass cutters.     

One of the nicer holes it actually had a tree on it and yes that is where my ball decided to play hide and seek with me. Still no alligator sightings!

  He thinks holding the flag earns him dinner or free beverage.
I should tell him to learn how to change a flat tire!

   So here is where the fun starts. We leave the fine people at River Bend Golf Links and start out on our next adventure. We are headed for Ocala National Forest. I assume we are still in Florida even though I have not seen one frigging alligator.
I gas up the Minnie and head down the highway whistling " on the road again" by Willie Nelson and BAM...no not the Emmeril cooking Bam but my rear tire shreds. It looked like the top of my head all shiny and little bits of silver showing. Thank God Karen jumped out and changed it...just making sure your still reading. I still had air in it sort of like my head so I drove about 3 miles and found a sign that read Cooper Tires. The problem was this place only did trucks like big trucks like Paul and Ed Trucks. The nice man inside gave us the phone number to Bud's Grocery inc and said they change tires too. So now I am really feeling quite relaxed knowing that Bud the "Grocery guy" is going to put me back on the road and if I need some potatoes he could bring them out in the mobile mechanic truck also.
Kevin "the Bud Guy" was very nice and changed that tire right there on the road rim and all. I asked him if he started out as a grocery bagger in the store or as a cart guy. He said no he was just the mechanic. So I told him I was just the cook but we both need Bud's Grocery to do our jobs. He just kept on working and didn't say to much.   

This is Kevin's Grocery/tire changer truck. If you look closely on the back it said IN HOME delivery and road service. What a nice guy though even gave me a free calender.
Funny part to this story is when I got out to check the "flat tire" I actually went over to Karen's window and did my best imitation of the Geico flat tire commercial. She laughed and it seemed to take the severity of the moment away and we solved our dilemma thanks to Bud and Kevin "the mechanic".    

So now we finished our journey to Ocala National Forest and found a great spot at Fore lake campground. Clean showers nice large bathrooms. The spots are huge and full of trees and palms. We are staying here for the next 6 days and just unwinding from all the breakdowns. Only 12 bucks a night and if I was 62 it would be 6 bucks but let's not push that one. I will leave you with some pics of the site. So until you read again have a laugh on me I'm buying  

      I felt compelled to start writing. I had mixed emotions about sharing all the fun stuff and nice weather we are experiencing. But I know David Cundy and Gabe are probably getting worried. Are they safe? Did a bear eat Joe? Did they run out of beer? These are very ordinary concerns. First off let me say we feel terrible about the negative temps you are experiencing. So I will not dwell on the 36 holes of golf we played or the sunburn that Karen(princess) got.
We got off to a very scary start. I came home from work Sunday and we decided to pack and try to out run storm Octavia. We packed it all up went outside and Minnie did not want to start. I jumped old Minnie with the van but decided to leave on Monday instead.
Monday morning we woke up to -4 degrees but I guess I don't have to remind most of my readers about that. I jumped the Minnie again and went up to Firestone and and bought a new battery. Well we jumped on the road and tried to get ahead of the storm. That plan went okay till we drove right into the eye of the storm. Trucks and cars all over the road and ditches. We did good but realized after several slow downs we needed to stop get a room and drink some of the beer. I convinced Karen we had to much weight and needed to consume some of the cargo.
 

  We stopped in Princeton WV, and that is probably the closest we will ever be able to say we went to Princeton. We had some food compliments of Mama Primozz and a nice comfortable bed at the Hampton Inn.  
Glad to be safe we got a good night sleep and got ready to take on Octavia(little bitch) the next morning.
Bad news fans... went out to warm up the Minnie and it wouldn't start. I was parked in a foot of snow and the plow trucks kinda buried me. So a very nice gentleman out for morning walk and cigarette(oxymoron) suggested I beat on the starter and I told him we haven't even golfed yet. Then the maintenence guy for the hotel came out and helped us beat on the starter. What does someone who cooks for a living use to beat on the starter...of course a meat tenderizer. After 1 hr of tenderizing the starter I decided to pray instead... and the son of bitch started. I grabbed the princess and took off down I-77. We drove for 400 miles never shutting Minnie off. Stayed at a Camping World in the parking lot just in case it wouldn't start in the morning.
Good news kids it started and we took off and drove to a campground so I could get the Minnie ready for camping. In the RV world we call it " summerizing the cabin". I am really trying to stay away from that summer word in fear that you might stop reading and destroy your computers.
So this takes us to Wednesday 2/18 and we are at Mike Roess Gold head State Park. So far all the plumbing is working and that is a good thing for reasons I won't get into! Building a fire tonight because we are cold ....oh sorry about that.
On our way now to River Bend Golf Links to use our membership in the golf-RV club. We'll see how this works? Maybe there is a free lunch out there. Well probably enough updates for now. I 'll let you know how the free camping in the parking lot turns out. So until we read again keeps the heaters on the beer cold and the laughter flowing!

See Barb Cats love me!!! I am so pet friendly!

17 days before we leave and I just realized Santa needs a tux for the big weddings .I obviously have been left home alone again. He will probably out dress me those days again. I took two pictures one with white sleeves showing and one plain black coat. Please vote should Santa show sleeve or no sleeve? You can vote by using the comments feature on this blog. There is actually 2 big weddings coming up Joe Lombardo and Jen February 14 and Kathy and Bill March 17.
I am not to sure about the red slacks or red hat. I was thinking maybe having him wear the green slacks and green hat considering the wedding date is March 17. I think Santa could pass as a leprechaun if I pull this one off. He can stay with the red pants for the Valentines day wedding(probably will have to stay in the van for that one). 
Getting back to leaving... I need this snow to melt. We have gone on trips in the spring and summer but never in the winter. 
Oh Karen (princess) has a great idea. I pull the camper in the driveway turn on the heater then she goes in the camper and I bring everything out to the camper and she organizes the inside of the cab. Somewhere in this scenario I think I am going to get a work out. Still will be a lot of fun. That's what we do  " have fun"  so I can live with it.