From the Lily Pad

Well, now that Stu and I are together we have decided to start a new blog together and leave our current blogs as history. I have already copied some of my later blog entries to the new blog and shortly will be posting an update of the last week or so.

Soooooo, change your bookmarks, adjust your blog readers to 2 Taking a 5th and join in our adventures as we travel the country!

Keep on rollin’,
Froggi/Donna

Things are a bit hectic here but I know everyone is wondering what’s up so here’s the short version.

• Drove from White Sulfur Springs, MT to Colorado Springs, CO with only one teensy little defugalty. Hadn’t towed in a while (almost 2 months) and forgot to turn off the key at night. Ended up in northern CO with a dead battery in the car. Got that taken care of at the Longmont Camping World where I stopped to get tire covers.
• Spent a quiet night in the campground, got gas, argued with the bottle of Sta-bil that didn’t want to transfer to the gas tank, moved the RV to the storage lot.
• Unloaded the rest of the stuff out of the RV into daughter’s car, stored my bicycle in the RV, then got the winterization done.
• Went to visit some old friends who stored my rifel & handgun and took possession of the spare set of keys (in case I need something shipped to me) and had a great lunch at a local Chinese restaurant (best Chinese food in years).
• Went to the airport to pick up the rental car (daughter took possession of my old car), found out their lot was off-site, finally got the car, headed to the hotel for a rest before dinner.
• Nice dinner with some other friends, almost closed the restaurant while we chatted (daughter & grandson there as well), headed back to the hotel to find about 30 kids in the lobby registering.
• Woke up realizing that 1) I had forgotten some food in the pantry and 2) the generator never got serviced. Called the RV folks to get the generator done and headed back to the storage lot. Had hoped to meet some friends in Colorado Springs but by the time this was all done it was too close to time to turn in the rental car (2pm deadline).
• Plane took off for Chicago on time, not full so I got to move to an empty seat with no one beside me. Flight attendant gave me the wrong gate, fortunately I checked the monitor. Walked - LONG walk - to the next concourse.
• Half hour late out of Chicago to Baltimore (BWI) and full…cramped flying but finished reading my book. Arrived close to on time, met Stu in the baggage claim.
• Since then it has been a whirlwind of sorting my stuff into his stuff, finding spots for everything, mailing another box of stuff back to my daughter, tossing a few things topped with meeting a TON of family & friends. Been eating out WAY too much. Tonight? Out to meet more friends for dinner….LOL!
• Tomorrow we load everything up and head to Gettysburg. We’ll be meeting up with other retired firefighter friends for a weekend of fun as well as a lunch with some of my motorcycle friends on Sunday. Monday we move to a different park in Gettysburg and relax a bit before heading to Highland NY to meet with my late husband’s youngest daughter & her family (Micki, Eric & the kids - Matthew, Abbi, Zoe & Luke). After that we’ll wander somewhere in eastern PA till the 24th when we get the RV serviced in Pottstown, PA.
• Back to Stevensville where we have another motorcycle friend lunch in Prince Frederick on the 27th, will attend the Renaissance Faire on the 28th (something I’ve never done but always wanted to), do the Red Hats ride in honor of Fallen Firefighters on 10/4 and somewhere in the middle of all that have a homemade pizza night for the family (Stu makes it from scratch….).

I will blog when I can but for a while things will stay pretty hectic…as you can see! Having an absolute blast….LIFE IS GOOD!

Till next time - keep on rollin’,
Froggi/Donna

Just a quick travel note….I left White Sulfur Springs at 3:30 pm on Tuesday afternoon. I spent Tuesday night at the Old West RV Park in Reed Point as planned. I got an early start (for me) and hit the road at 7:45 am.

Traffic was light, skies clear for most of the day, comfortable temperatures and I made good time. I ended up in Wheatland, WY for the night at Mountain View RV Park (after my GPS lied to me…LOL!).

This put me about 80 miles ahead of my planned stop for the night so I can sleep in a little tomorrow. I’ll stop at Camping World in Longmont, CO to pick up tire cover for the rig. Then will meet with my daughter at the Park and Ride north of Denver and close to her house. We’ll load up the car with refrig/pantry/cleaning goods and take them to her house. She’ll take me back to the RV and I will head to Colorado Springs. She’ll arrive later in the day after picking up my grandson from his 4H meeting.

Friday and Saturday will be FULL-FULL-FULL days so I doubt I will be posting again before Monday (at the earliest). I don’t arrive in Baltimore until almost midnight on Saturday. In the meantime, just know that I’m having FUN-FUN-FUN!!!

Till next time - keep on rollin’,
Froggi/Donna