Welcome back to the blog for another BIG trip! I've been hanging at Stone Mountain Park since I got back from the Florida circuit, checking in on family and meeting the CPA to take care of adult responsibilities, and finally catching an illness that I think Lynn left for me! First time I've been sick since retirement started, and you know that's a record for me! My plan is to get to Arizona and head north to Grand Canyon and western National Parks and circle back to home by September, maybe going the northern route and catch Michigan in the summer! Linda is starting the trip with me but flying home from Austin, TX (she now has the responsibility of new dog Maggie and has to figure out how to travel with/without the dog (if she brings her, she can't fly home with her, more complications!). So Lynn is dog sitting for this trip and we do appreciate that! Still taking on people for the trip, so let me know if you can join up for a part - Kennie, Kaitlin, Jen, and Karen are interested, but Austin, TX to Tuscon, AZ is available starting March 25 if anyone is free! This week has been crazy after Bud was in hospital, I got the illness so stayed away after getting him admitted, then spent the past week doing taxes and setting up my new iPhone and Hum (kind of like the Onstar service that calls in automatically if you are involved in an accident) which Verizon talked me into - a horrible experience at Verizon the first visit, I brought Hum home because she said it was introductory offer and would actually "lower my bill" only to find after downloading it that it does not work in RV's, then spent several hours returning it to Verizon on Sunday, only to have my car "booted" ($75 fee to unboot) because I "walked my dog off the premises" while waiting for Verizon to open - was not how I planned to spend my last day in Atlanta (wish I had made it to Scott's for his "Stella fix")! This morning I was up early to disconnect RV at Stone Mountain, drive the car to Linda's to pick her up, then back to Stone Mountain to get the RV, Linda drives me to Jen's house where I leave my car, I follow in RV to pick her up, and get the final send off from Jen and Phil - many thanks for keeping my car running while I'm gone! And, at 11:15 am we are leaving Atlanta with Sara (the dog) patiently waiting for action. First day's trip is to Dauphine Island, AL. Notes from the day: #1: leaving St Mtn Campground we saw what appeared to be a naked man driving a big rig - drivers please note that if you are shirtless or more, the site from an RV window is quite revealing down to the waist - Linda and I both thought we were seeing "Naked RV'ing", might be a new reality show coming to TV soon! Linda fit back into the navigator's seat quickly, but was called out for emergency duty in downtown Mobile when a horrible noise seemed to be coming from the door area - she scouted around until we figured out the flap under the door had broken loose (good job, Camping World on that repair!) I knew it was loosening again, but thought it had a few more miles on that repair! I had to pull onto the shoulder in downtown traffic to pull the flap all the way off (didn't want it to fly off and hit another car), and then merge back into traffic - mission accomplished! Then on the road to Dauphin Island - just a little place I learned about from an article on "best sunny small towns to cure the winter blues". We only stopped once for gas, then hurried on to get to the island before sunset, time change helping get us here a little earlier. We are at Dauphin Island Campground which is surrounded by land/trails leading to the beach and a bird sanctuary with great walking trails. We met a very nice couple from Michigan who vacation here every year and they showed us the trails to the beach, gave us a little info about the area, and were generally very welcoming and friendly. We split up as we wanted to head down the beach, but met up later when "Mr Michigan" rode his bike down to the beach area, worried that we would not find our way back in the dark! Very sweet since it was dark, but the walk was great - a huge, deep beach that was refurbished with new sand last year, lots of natural gas rigs out at sea, but water color is brown today - they say clearer water as you get farther away from Mobile Bay, but the beach is very wild looking, desolate on the edge of the bird sanctuary. Eventually we came to some houses, actually standing in the gulf - not sure that's a good investment, but would love to sit on their decks!! The campground is "natural", boundaries of each campsite are vague, lots of Spanish Moss roots to roll over, and no real outline for your fire ring, yet very friendly host, helpful, and only $41/nt so we're happy with day 1! And then a great salad with Lynn's supply of smoked salmon on an arugula, Farro, my new favorite salad! And for dessert, Bud's famous chocolate brownies!!! Can't get enough of those! Hope to be up early for sunrise (no that's not realistic!) or early (8am?) walk on the beach. Stay tuned!