RV Maiden Voyage

Meet Dora, our new motorhome, in which we plan to explore much of this country, with our dogs, Charlie and Alice in tow. The name Dora was chosen in honor of Thandi, our sweet departed black lab, who’s independent nature had us finding her in various places as she explored the great outdoors, with or without permission…mostly without.

Brief overview: Dennis is retiring at the end of the year so we decided it would be a great adventure to buy an RV and drive around the country with the dogs, maybe for a month or a few months at a time. We will play that by ear. We decided we would never buy a Class A motorhome (they look like a bus and we figured we’d never be able to drive one), and would only buy one close to home in Maine. So we ended up buying a Class A in Florida!! So here we are, currently in Florida, preparing to head back up to Maine so that we can finish out the year with Den’s work and our other scheduled events, and then load up with the dogs, sometime in January, and head straight back south before heading out west.

We are very happy to be sharing this new beginning with special friends who live down here in Palm Coast. There has been some extended celebrating, joking, wonderful meals and a lot of wise cracks. We are blessed by this chosen family with whom we have many, many wonderful memories.

Yesterday we went to pick up Dora in The Villages. We were grateful for blue skies and warm temperatures. After a couple of hours of unpacking into the rig and doing a thorough and lengthy walk through with instructions from the former owner, we finally hit the road. We were pleased that we would be driving on open Florida roads under sunny skies. I was apprehensive but excited to do the driving on the maiden voyage. 

The way the drive went was way different than anticipated. It went just fine and getting used to the rig wasn’t too difficult, however, it is a large vehicle and we ended up driving in heavy traffic, through long construction zones, stopping for a gas fill up at a small gas station in a town surrounded by more construction, having to make a U-turn (!), and finally reaching the camping site in the dark. So, baptism by fire would be an apt description of our maiden voyage.

Wayne, Rochele, Les and Carol arrived within minutes of us and we popped the cork on the champagne to celebrate a safe arrival and the beginning of many adventures to come.

After a delicious dinner out, Den and I collapsed into an exhausted sleep as the waves crashed on the beach. No need for any white noise machines here.

This morning we had a beautiful sunrise over a neighboring motorhome and I made our first cups of coffee. If I’d been up earlier I would have seen it rise over the water.

It’s another warm and sunny day. Shorts and t-shirts again today. Tomorrow will be different as we begin our journey north and into the cold. The current plan is to spend a night each in South Carolina, North Carolina, Maryland, and then 2 nights in New Jersey with family before the final leg has us arrive in Maine on Sunday.

Onward!