Thanksgiving in an RV

Our first Thanksgiving in Betty was a huge success! We're camped at the Gulf Coast RV Park in Beaumont Texas. Terry prepared a feast of 11 dishes with no problems. He cooked the turkey in our convection microware/oven and the side dishes in the propane oven. It's handy to have double ovens during the holidays!

Getting ready to stuff the turkey.

Lord of the Rings and a fire in the fireplace.

The only thing missing was our families. While we missed everyone, we are thankful that we can travel around the USA to visit our far-flung children and grand children.

Our smallest turkey ever (only 10 pounds) -- ready to carve.

The table is set. Time to eat!

- Amanda in Beaumont, TX

Paper Towel Advice!

We brought our favorite paper towel holder from home and mounted it in Betty. It is made out of wood and it matches the cabinets. To change a roll of paper towels, we have to unscrew one of the wood ends, replace the roll and screw the wood end piece back on. This takes longer than just popping the roll off, but we don't do it often so it's OK.

The only problem we have is it sometimes unrolls while traveling. I thought it would be fun to ask the Facebook Group "Full-Time RVers" for advice. Two days ago I posted this: "Silly question: How do you keep your paper towels from unrolling while traveling?"

Surprisingly, 163 people offered advice!

Some of my favorites:

• Tie a ribbon, shoe string, whatever around it while driving.
• We put a rubber band around it.
• Turn your roll around wherre its from top instead of bottom same with TP doent unroll as eaisly
• Little piece of scotch tape .
• Cut the ends off of a two liter soda bottle. Slit down one side and wrap the plastic sleeve around paper towels. 
• Viva dies not roll...our RV experience.
• Stand up countertop holder....no problem.
• Chip clip
• Mine are on a roll just like that and never had that problem. Lucky me! But Dick just said that's cause I buy the cheap ones, and they are not soft. LOL!
• Squeeze the roll so that the cardboard cylinder inside is not round. We do that with tp also . Works great
• I tuck the a sheet in the end and it stops it from rolling
• Rubber bungee cord. 
• Get a cat. he'll roll that right up for you
• Put them in the cabinet 
• A Velcro strap - this Velcro sticks to itself and it is Great! 
• I use a soft hair scrunchie. slides over roll when traveling and slides over to use roll. color matches kitchen

 And my very favorite:

• super glue

Who knew so many people who be interested in paper towels?!
 
We are going to try the 'tie a ribbon around it' solution. 

  
 - Amanda in Livingston, LA (Just outside New Orleans)
  

The Real Florida

I've traveled to Florida for vacations my entire life. The beaches, Miami, Walt Disney World, the Everglades, various cruise departure cities, etc. But, I never saw the "real Florida" until now.

We stayed in the Swanee River State Park in the Florida panhandle. I loved the wild things we saw growing during our short walk around the park.

    This looks surreal to me.

- Amanda posting from Livingston, LA.

All the little girls....

... want to come with us. As we drive around the country visiting our family, we've started to notice a trend. Every one of our grand daughters and great nieces (who are old enough to talk) has very seriously asked to come with us when we leave their town. The girls are 3 to 10 years old.

At first, I just thought it was just a sweet granddaughter who was reluctant to say Good Bye to us. But, it's happened 6 times now. So, there is more to it. We have several theories:

• They see our fifth wheel as a real-life play house
• They want to experience the joy of an adventure on the open road
• They like the idea of a permanent vacation with no school

When we asked the girls why they want to go with us, we get a response along the lines of "Because! Please, please, please can I go?"  One granddaughter burst into tears when her Mother said 'No'.

The boys haven't asked to go. I wonder why?

What do you think?

- Amanda at Suwannee River State Park in northern Florida

How do you move your chairs?

After we told ten-year-old Jade that the sides of our RV move in and out, she asked us how we move our chairs. I explained that the chairs move with the side of the RV, but I'm not sure she understood. So, I made a video!

An RV "slide" is a small room with 3 walls. The entire "slide" (floor, ceiling and three walls) moves in and out with the push of a button (and some pretty powerful hydraulics). It is kind of amazing.

This is Betty with her "door-side slide" in. As you can see, the kitchen table is right up against the center island. Behind the table are our two recliners (e.g. the chairs Jade asked about).

This is Betty with the same slide half-way out. Notice that the wall, and the two recliners, are in front of the couch.

Here is my video of the slide moving out. It's a bit shaky because I was holding my phone with one hand and the slide button with the other.

- Amanda in beautiful Savannah, GA

Difficulties with GPS, Pull Throughs and Soap

Yesterday was quite a day. Terry does an excellent job of researching campgrounds, making our reservations and planning our route. We are very, very careful to never put ourselves in danger by driving under low bridges, or getting into a place where we can't turn around. However, after driving for 5 hours yesterday, our GPS gleefully told us that we had arrived at our destination, but Don Carter State Park (Gainesville, GA) was nowhere in sight. Yikes!  We were on a narrow 2 lane road near Lake Lanier with no place to stop or turn around. We continued to drive for miles -- passing under a barely high-enough bridge (which wasn't on our planned itinerary) before finding a place to safely stop. When we did, we discovered that our GPS had taken us to 5000 Browns Bridge Road instead of 5000 N. Browing Bridge Road. What?! Apparently, when Terry input our destination yesterday, the GPS helpfully offered the wrong address and Terry selected it without noticing the slight difference in the road name.

So, we drove another hour and finally reached Don Carter State Park. Don Carter is a brand new state park on Lake Lanier and it's beautiful. We selected a nice, paved pull through site with a view of the lake. The pull-though site we chose had a slight curve. Getting Betty perfectly positioned on the site took us another hour because the paved area was narrow and Betty's wheels went off the blacktop on the left side. Once off the blacktop, they sunk into the soft earth and driving forward and back created a ditch -- with a tree stump at one end.The campground host (a professional truck driver with 35 years of experience) helped direct Terry so that we did get out of the 'ditch'.

I headed inside to put out the slides and the first thing I discovered was that the hand soap dispenser in our kitchen hadn't been stowed properly (my fault!). During our drive, it bounced off the counter, landed on the carpet and soaked the carpet with soap. Cleaning that up took nearly another hour. Lesson Learned. "Stow soap dispenser" is now on our Exit Checklist.

Our day ended on a high note when sister Cheryl and Jeff stopped by and picked us up for dinner. We had a delicious dinner at a nearby Mexican restaurant, and then went back to Cheryl and Jeff's where brother Steve Thompson joined us. Steve was driving from New Orleans to Wilmington, NC and planned his stop so he could see us!

 - Amanda (Gainesville, GA)

We have been asked several times about where we have been so is our route since we left in early August .... we did stay in Betty for the month of July at Riverside campground in Montgomery PA.

   

this map will change some as we progress south from Savannah, GA