WE’RE ON OUR TRIAL RUN, PREPARING FOR SUMMER!

So…….OUR ENGINES ARE TUNED UP AND REVVING UP – SOON IT IS TIME TO HIT THE HAPPY TRAILS ONCE AGAIN…….AND YOU’RE INVITED TO JOIN US!

It’s true. Our plan of traveling up the East Coast starts in the morning of Thursday, July 1st! We’ll be gone for about 4 months and we’re hoping that you will be following our journey through my blog….remember, if you subscribe, you will receive notice every time I submit a new post.

To prepare for this summer’s trip, we decided to take a trial run, which we are on right now, staying a week near Siesta Key Beach, about two hours north of where we live in Naples. Moritz’s and we both suffered some RV issues during last summer’s journey and both rigs spent some time in the shop so we wanted to ensure that we were road worthy once again before beginning our 6,600+ mile itinerary.

As always, we’ve had a great time, including celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. Howie and I spent the day at Venice Beach, known for shark and Megalodon teeth of which we found none! But it was fun and relaxing and we enjoyed our time together. That evening, Marj and Larry joined us for dinner followed by dessert in their 5th wheel.

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A few days later, Marj and I found ourselves in a class at a local pottery studio, learning a one stroke painting technique. We’ll be ready to try this out when we get back to Naples where we enjoy spending (too much) time in our pottery studio. We were also able to participate in an hour long wheel throwing class. This was Marj’s first opportunity to try her hand at throwing a pot and she did a marvelous job, agree?

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And when we’re not in an art studio, you can usually find us floating somewhere in a pool!

One thing that always happens on our adventures is we always enjoy many wonderful meals together. Cooking has become a bit easier for Marj and me since Larry and Howie got their Blackstone griddles! Wow, those boys can cook! Tonight we stuffed ourselves with stir fry and it was SO good.

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After a Blackstone breakfast and church, Howie and I spent several hours at Siesta Key Beach. This beach has been voted top beach in the US and we now understand why. The beach is an unbelievaby fine white sand (AMAZING!!!) and is so wide, it felt like we hiked a mile to get close to the water. I can tell you, it was worth the effort – see for yourself! THIS BEACH IS A “MUST SEE”!!!! It’s in my top 5 favorite places in the USA!

Now, for my exciting news. Many of you commented that you enjoyed the photo contest conducted throughout our trip last summer. I plan to do another contest this summer but I plan to introduce a second contest as well. It will be entitled, “Winner, Winner, Made Up Dinner”. Once a week, Marj and I will be creating a new culinary delight with any luck. Two of the weeks will be dinner entrees and two weeks will be desserts. After eating our handiwork, we will rate the dish. Our challenge to you will be to make and try the recipes at home and vote whether they deserve a place in a cookbook or the slop bucket! At the end of the summer, we will have you vote for the very best (and maybe the very worst as well) and a prize will be awarded if you win! Of course, more details will be in my blog in the first week of July – hopefully, you will have as much fun and have as many laughs over this as Marj and I have already.

Tuesday Morning, we head back to Naples. We’re so glad to have taken this little trip to get ourselves organized and make lists before heading out again for the summer. We have an excellent itinerary taking in states of our great country!

So happy to have you all as travel partners and Happy Trails until we meet again!