Whitney Lane RV Park

This is just an overnight stay, on our way to Jordan and Abby's from Sean's place.  This is a really nice park, though.  The address is Kensett, Arkansas, but it is really close to Searcy, Arkansas.  We talked quite a bit with the owner.  He asked where we were from, and when we said Michigan, he asked if we were near Alpena or Oscoda... Well, then I knew he knew the Hubbard Lake area.  Turns out he worked quite a bit at the former base in Oscoda, way back in the day.  He was really cute, and kept hanging around and talking while we were trying to get set up.

We nabbed a spot near the office, so we have great wifi service, and the sites were really well thought out, with electric and water and sewer hookups positioned so that each RV pulls in from opposite directions and shares a hookup set-up... That'll make sense to RV people.  And there are cement pads for picnic tables.  And the sites all have cement runners to park the RV on, so all sites are level.  And we are only a couple miles from Searcy, which has all the shopping you'd need, although we didn't even unhook the truck, since we didn't need to do any shopping, and it'll save us time in the morning. Oh, but no shower house/park bathroom here... Gotta travel with your own.

There are train tracks somewhere nearby, and we can hear a train go by occasionally... Actually, I didn't notice it till Brad pointed it out to me, and he said he'd already heard it 3 or 4 times... Must be from my time in Atchison.  

Paint, paint, paint!

We've been parked at Sean's new house for a little more than a week now, helping Kara and him get the new place painted before moving furniture in.  The guys (including Seth) and Kara are busy loading up the big furniture from the apartment in Florence today, to bring it here.  

This is a really cute house, and in a great location between two rivers, and less than a minute away from the boat ramp.  It was painted some really wild colors on the inside when Sean bought it, but it looks fantastic now!  If it had been painted like this when it was put on the market, it would have been snatched up immediately.

Some transformation pics:

Kara is stirring up the paint samples.

And trying them out on the wall.

The bedrooms were a variety of colors, and everyone got in on the job.

This room was a deep purple before.

And this room was a very bright blue... The picture doesn't show the brightness.

The rooms also had varying degrees of trim painted.  Some just around the doors, some with just one coat done... We've touched it all up.

The kitchen was a bright lime color.

Now nearly everything is a nice light gray shade.

The master bath was an interesting shade...

This is the one room that we didn't change the color... The hall bath.  It's a nice sea foam green.  We just touched up the trim paint, because the previous owners had just done one (pretty poor) coat on the trim and door.

Brad even found some leftover tile for the hall bathroom, and was able to fix up the previous job.

This shows the old carpet.  All the bedrooms had this.  The rest of the house has a nice wood laminate floor.

And this is the new carpet.  It's hard to tell, but the new carpet has several different colors mixed in.

It's been fun, but I'm about ready to hang up the paint rollers and brushes for awhile.  There's still a couple of things they want to do, but they are able to handle it now.

An awesome birthday!

Being on the road on special days can be challenging, but I had a really great birthday.  It started out with a phone call from my boy, and a birthday wish from his boy, sent by my awesome daughter-in-law.  The Bachelor boys, and their girls, treated me well.  A new purse:

It's good to have a future daughter-in-law who works for Kate Spade!

And a new tumbler with lid (perfect for the RV!) filled with all kinds of goodies, including a gift card.

And a red velvet cake, which we were too full to eat, after Brad and Seth took me out to eat at the Mexican restaurant.

We'll share it tomorrow at Thanksgiving dinner!

And the redneck did well too... New charms for my Pandora bracelet:

A 5th wheel camper...

A kayak:

And a tractor charm.

And this is mine and Seth's food at the Mexican restaurant... Oh my!

And I didn't pick up a paint brush once today... In fact, I didn't do much of anything, except take a nap.  A very good day!

I've gotten a couple of early presents, including another awesome purse from the in-laws, and the promise of other gifts from family when we see them in December, plus a multitude of wishes on Facebook today,  I'm very blessed!

I remember, growing up, we would hit the road on Thanksgiving weekend, bound for grandparents' houses in Oklahoma or Kansas, and thinking it was really awesome that everyone put on this fantastic meal of all my favorite things, and I got to see my grandparents, for my birthday (kind of like my niece, Kendall, who gets fireworks every year for her July 4th birthday).  It could seem like a downer for some people, I guess, but I've always felt lucky to have a holiday birthday, even if I ruined my parents' first attempt at hosting the family Thanksgiving dinner by arriving a little early!

Good-byes are hard...

Today we had to say good-bye to my old buddy Hank.  He's been trying to tell us for awhile that it was time, but it took my heart and my head awhile to catch up.  He's been my baby since the summer of 2002.  He's been with me in Kansas, to Missouri, back to Kansas, up to Michigan, and on vacations to Galveston, Panama City Beach, and the beginning of this grand adventure.  He's been a good pal.

In better days, back in Michigan.

A couple of mornings ago, when I was trying to convince him to eat (excuse my fancy attire and lovely hairdo... I was ready to paint!)

This morning.  He's saying, "It's time.  I've had a nice long life, but I'm tired."

Rest in peace, good buddy.

Joe Wheeler State Park, Rogersville, Alabama

We arrived here about 3:30 this afternoon.  We weren't originally planning to come all the way here today, but the park we wanted to stay at, a couple hours back, was full, so we decided to just come the whole way.  We are just about 5 minutes from Sean's new house, that he is closing on (fingers crossed!!) this afternoon, so we'll be able to jump right in and start helping with the painting right away!

Brad has been to this park many times before, because it's not far from where he used to live, but never in this part of the park, and never with a 5th wheel.  Let's just say, the roads in the park are "interesting" to navigate while pulling a long RV!  We had one campsite picked out that had a really great view of the river, but the paved site was very narrow and made quite a huge last step out of the trailer, and we noticed that that section was only 30 amp electric, so after getting the RV all nicely lined up in the site, we decided to move it.  We can still see the river where we are now, but we have to squint through the trees.  But we're pretty level, and no one will break an ankle going down the steps!  And we'll have full electric service without having to worry about using too many things at once.

You can **just** see the river through the trees.

*******************************************************************************

Congrats to Sean!!!!  He's just purchased his first house, nicely located about a half a minute from the boat ramp, in between where two rivers converge.  I'll have to get a picture from the outside tomorrow, but here's our celebratory dinner:

And Kara is carefully stirring all the paint samples:

And trying them out on the wall, where I painted a small patch of the primer.  If you notice the old paint color, you can see why they want to paint before moving in:

Taking care of business...

This morning we went into Crestview to pick up our mail, and establish our Florida residency.  Brad spent a couple of hours this morning gathering all the necessary documents... Passports, social security cards, bank and insurance statements that had been mailed to our address down here, our marriage license since my passport has Slava on it.  We could have used birth certificates, but then I would have had to have a complete paper trail showing how I got from Wyatt to Bachelor, and that's just too long of a trail!

So we went to the DMV, and took a number, and waited about 40 minutes to be called.  They had about 8 people working, and they were clicking right along, but there were just a lot of people.  And, as we found out, driver's licenses take a long time!  Brad and I both went to the same girl, and I did mine first... Everything went smoothly, and I even got a decent picture.  Then Brad got his taken care of, and they even print your license for you right there.

The gal told us to look over our licenses to be sure everything was correct, and I noticed that on my street name, it said South instead of North.  That was because one of our documents had the address wrong, and of course, that happened to be the one she got our address from.  So she had to reprint both licenses.  Then, we noticed Brad's had a 9 instead of a 6 on the zip code... Reprint for Brad again! It's a good thing she was really nice and friendly.  She was also able to take care of our voter registration for us, so we're going to be able to vote in the election this year!  Oh, and this was kind of neat... They ask for an emergency contact and enter it into the computer, so if anything happens to you, they can look up who to contact.  They also asked if we wanted to give an email so they can send you important info, but we declined.  She said it becomes public record, and I already get enough spam!

We really took care of everything we had come here to do, so we'll be hitting the road again in the morning, heading towards the Bachelor boys in Alabama.

We're going to need to add this to our list of places to come again.  We really didn't get to explore the area much, although Brad took his kayak out on the river a bit ago.  The campsites are all really large... Way more room than we've ever had at any other campsite.

The sand you see at the bottom of the pictures isn't another campsite.  It's a little creek bed that is dry right now.  So all that grassy area is our lot.

There's even a lot of room on the other side.

So when we come through again in the spring to take care of vehicle registration (we couldn't do that on this trip... There's some paperwork we have to send for) this will definitely be our spot!

We did look up the history of Crestview, where our mailbox is.  It is a town that sprung up along the railroad in Florida's panhandle.  It is the fastest growing city in Florida, and is home to nearby Elgin Field, a military base.  Its nickname used to be The Icebox of Florida, because it has the lowest average temperatures in the state, which is relative, because the average winter high is still 60 degrees.  It is now the Hub City, which everyone thought sounded better, and it is on major interstates/highways, a railroad line, and two rivers.

River's Edge RV Park, Holt, Florida

We arrived here a little after 11:00 this morning.  We only had about a 2 hour drive from Mexico Beach, and if we'd really been thinking, we probably should have taken another beach walk this morning before leaving, but we didn't think of it until we'd already been on the road about an hour.  We chose this place because it's very close to the town where our mailbox is, and we can pick up our mail and see about getting our driver's licenses changed to Florida, as well as our tags.

When we got here, the office was closed (it was the same at the park in Mexico Beach) but we had already made reservations and paid over the phone, so they had our paperwork all ready and hanging by the door, so we just had to check out the camp map to find our spot.

It's a nice quiet park with extra large lots.  Brad got the grill out right away, and we cooked up some brats for lunch, and then took a walk around the park with Hank and Budger.  

Here's the river part of River's Edge:

And then there's this random bridge frame:

We needed to run to the store in Crestview, so we decided to check out where our mailbox is... This is apparently our "home", or our mail's home, anyway.

Nice place... Our mail is living well!

Just as a side note, to remind me later... We get awesome wifi reception here.  Most campgrounds say they have free wifi, but at most of them, it depends how on how close you are to the clubhouse or office.

Last full Mexico Beach day

Success!!!  I found another sand dollar today!

And I even made it back to the RV with it all in one piece!  Also found this cool shell.  I'm trying not to pick up too many shells, but this one was pretty unique.

We also saw some people getting things set up for a beach wedding.  What a gorgeous day for it!

Mmm-mm-mmmm!  Lunch!

Today was bonus day!!!

Last sunsets from Mexico Beach... for now.  I have a feeling we'll be back.

We went to the clubhouse to listen to Art and Randy... They were soooo good!

Our selfie of the night

We leave here tomorrow, headed toward Crestview, where our official mailbox is.  We'll pick up our mail, and hopefully get our drivers licenses and tags switched to Florida.