WHERE HAVE WE BEEN FOR 2020, 2021, and 2022??

 Hello Everyone!  We are all finally getting back to post/current Covid life.  We lost some very good friends to Covid, which was devastating and were often worried over family and friends who contracted the virus.  It seems we are in the new normal, whatever that is, and we have both our boosters and looking forward to catching up with life.

What have wee been doing?  The winter of 2020, we traveled to the huge RV gathering in the Arizona desert and toured eastern California - and those last posts showed what a wonderful trip we had.  When we returned home in February, the first inklings of Covid began and we isolated for the rest of 2020 and through the middle of 2021.

By June 1, 2021, we had both of our vaccines and were planning on a wonderful trip through the Kentucky bourbon trail and on up north to see family and friends.  BUT, someone who will remain nameless, but not blameless, decided to try to change a marker light at the top of the RV by propping up a ladder against the back of the RV on our sloped driveway.  Yes, really.  Of course he fell on the cement and had an extremely bad compound leg facture (luckily it wasn't his head!).  After multiple surgeries and a lot of grief using a wheelchair for 6 months, he finally regained use of his leg.  During this time, we knew it was going to be a long time before we could get out RVing, so decided to sell the Winnebago (especially since the resale market for motorhomes was booming).

In early Fall 2021, the unnamed began feeling like he was really on the road to a good recovery, and he became interested in buying another RV and we found one advertised online in western Michigan.  I did the scariest financial thing I have ever done and bought it without a clear title (previous owner had a large loan) sight unseen.  Lots of facetiming and photos with the seller and a lot of faith resulted in my son, Frank, flying out to Michigan and driving the motorhome back to New Jersey (he had never driven one before, nor was he familiar with how all the systems worked).  He had a very long two-day drive home and delivered it to my brother in New Jersey who then winterized it for the 2021 frigid northeast winter weather for us until we were in a position to get up north and drive it back home.

A couple weeks before Christmas, our new Covid puppy, Beau, was barking like crazy, meaning someone was on our property.  What a Christmas present - Frank and grandson #1 (Johnathan) were in the driveway with the new RV - my first time seeing them since Covid and my first time seeing the new RV.  We had a wonderful visit, but unnamed was still not ready to travel and Covid was getting ugly yet again.

And here we are in June 2022 (June 1 is the "anniversary" of the Fall) and ready to start a new, but, shortened RV adventure.  The new RV is very similar to our old one, but much newer (2021).  It is on a Mercedes diesel chassis like the Winnebago, but the house part is made by Tiffin.  

We have a lot of learning to do as the systems are all electronic and more complicated for us.  We will be blogging this short trip from home through the North Carolina mountains up to Kentucky where we will be meeting up with good friends, Melinda and Joe (from Elmira, but now retired and living about 2 hours north of us in South Carolina). We leave tomorrow, Sunday, and taking a leisurely drive through the mountains meeting up near Lexington Kentucky where we will home base with day trips to the various bourbon distilleries in the area.

For the long-time readers of this blog, you may remember photos of a rock, and another rock, and yet another rock, or a cactus, and another cactus and yet another cactus.  Well, this may be primarily pictures of glasses, glasses and more glasses of bourbon.  You have been warned.

So, sorry for all the words and no scenic photos, but here are a couple of pics of the new RV.