October 2020.

The wait is over. Our house on Long Island finally sold. Our time spent in Raquette Lake during the pandemic was amazing. We did a lot of hiking and a lot of work on our new off grid place on Uncas Road. We wanted to stay for the most beautiful season in the Adirondack Mountains which is Fall. And then the last thing we were waiting for was our Absentee Ballot which arrived mid October. Greg then winterized both places and off we went with no destination in mind. about an hour into our trip we came across a Mama Bear and her two cubs crossing the road in Boonville. Thats always a treat as we did not see a bear all summer in Raquette.

We stopped at the cabin on our way out of New York to check on the mouse situation and thankfully there was not a mouse in sight. We made some improvement to our little Amish Cabin by hanging these creepy Amish Door Knockers. Also attempted to get our ATV up and running but no luck with that. We did find a HUGE mouse nest in the air filter and another in the air box so at least when we go back next time, we will have an idea on what needs to be done to get that ATV up and running again.

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From the cabin, we headed just a short drive to do some Casino Camping at Seneca Allegheny Resort and Casino. The place was empty. They took our temperature and questioned us about Covid and we had the whole place basically to ourselves. We lost a little bit of money and called it a night. The next morning we headed back inside for some breakfast and played a little more. Both of us made our money back from the night before and plus some!!!

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After breakfast we headed south towards some warmer weather. And we sure found it!! we stopped at the zippo museum where it was 75 degrees.

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Then we headed to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. For those that don’t know, I am obsessed with Bill Murray so it only seemed fitting that I should stop here and visit the setting for Ground Hogs Day. Greg, however, let me know that the movie was not filmed here, I still pretended that it was. lol

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From there we headed to our “backyard for the night” which was a cozy campground called Yellow Creek. They had great water pressure and nice hot showers. These things are super important when you are a Van Dweller. we cooked up some burgers and called it a night.

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The next morning we woke up to freezing rain and really miserable weather. we even checked the weather the night before and didn’t see this coming. It was not such a great time packing up the van for the drive. we didn’t cover the bikes because we didn’t think it was going to rain. Oh well. Rained most of the day as we drove into West Virginia. We got lucky and found a campground with a giant Pavilion to park beside. It was rainy and cold, but the pavilion made it enjoyable for cooking and hanging out. The weather was still cold and so we knew we needed to continue to head south to some warmer weather.

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Oct 25- (Sunday) drove South another 3.5 hours to Virginia to an almost empty State Park Campground called Sugar Hollow Park. They have a pretty extensive disc golf course here and also tons of bike trails….very difficult bike trails………ridiculously difficult bike trails!!!! Im pretty sure I won’t be able to walk tomorrow.

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The Sun doesn’t rise until 7:45 am here so we decided to go for a morning hike through the Pine Forest to that giant dam-shaped hill that we biked up yesterday.

The sky was absolutely amazing!!

Monday Oct 26- Drove another three hours. Thats our thing now. We just drive three hours a day. All our past driving was always 7 or 8 hours to get in as many spots as we could before we had to get back to work. Well now that we are retired, we don’t have to rush anything so we slowly get to wherever we feel like going. So, three hours into our trip with a pitstop at Bass Pro Shops, we arrived at a KOA campground. These campgrounds are a special treat for us. They are a little pricier than what we normally would spend, but they are usually super clean and have every amenity known to campers. This Chattanooga KOA did not disappoint. The WIFI here is super strong so I am going to upload the blog. A big storm is heading our way, I guess from the hurricane that’s in the gulf. Its going to rain for the next two days. We were going to head into the National Forest for a few days and boondocks, but with this storm coming, we changed our mind. Don’t want to be trapped on dirt, mountain roads with a chance of flash flooding nearby. So instead, we will stay at another public campground just to be safe.

I have a major fear of the van floating away with us inside of it, so anything to avoid that is what I will do.

This last video here is the beginning of our journey into retirement. So far, everything about it is what we expected it to be. Retirement is not the end of the road, its the beginning of the open highway.

Thats it for now. Will blog again in a week. (mostly for Greg and I to document and remember our travels.)