Shake Down Cruise to Mississippi, Oct. 2011

1357 miles, 182.9 gallons of fuel, 29 hours of driving, average 7.4 gallons per mile, average speed: 46.8 MPH

What a great trip!  So good to be back on the road again...........even though we had to work while we were gone.  Love our new RV, "Moose" and our rescued English Cocker,  Maddie, did so well.  She loved the parks, the day trips and especially meeting new people.  I hope you get a chance to look at the pictures and please visit the Lucky Dog Rescue link below.  What a truly amazing woman she is!

Well, we took off from Jacksonville and went to Lucky Dog Rescue in Meridian to walk dogs for a day & volunteer to help wherever we could - and then to Tupelo, MS to see where Elvis was born on our maiden voyage or shake down cruise as we called it.  We also spent some time in downtown Historic Meridian, MS... went to the oldest restaurant in Mississippi,  Weidman's.  It was pretty good! 



Overall, I'm very impressed with the Foretravel RV!  It drives better than our Phaeton did because it has a lower center of gravity, a bigger engine and the coach itself is not as tall as the newer RV's.  Once parked, the set up is easy with just one huge slide to slide out in lieu of 3 or 4 and air suspension is used instead of jacks.  It was an enjoyable experience!

Moose - Our New to Us Motorhome (Coach)

Kathy here:  just to clarify, we haven't sat around for a year doing NOTHING!  (see Steve's comments below).  We have been volunteering at our Humane Society, and our "at home part-time" business has become almost full time.  At least we're able to work from home or the motorhome... all we need is a phone and computer :)

After selling our Phaeton last year Kathy and I have discussed many a night how much we missed "being on the road."  Our cocktail hour on the back yard patio ( we call it our "round table sessions") revolved around the question, "What can we do now?"  

To the left was our RV trip log in 2008/2009 when we were full-timers.  After sitting around and doing nothing for over a year, an opportunity presented itself to us!  One of my RV friends ( George and his wife Sandy) decided they were going to sell their "coach" which was a 2000 Foretravel M-4010 U320.  It's affectionately known as "Moose" because the paint striping on the front of the RV kinda looks like a "M."

I've been following George's blog for 3 years and I know how well he took care of Moose, so I emailed him and we started talking about buying something we could "part time" in.  Since they were currently in Maine and we were in Jacksonville, I had no idea if the floor plan would accommodate us because our Tiffin had 4 slides and the Foretravel had one - in the living room and no slides in the bedroom.  
We got word that there was a RV exactly like Moose for sale in Tampa, so we took a little road trip to Tampa to look at it.  We absolutely LOVED it!

Moose has had $31,294 in upgrades accomplished since 2008 so even though he's a 2000, he's practically brand new!  

We intend to enjoy Moose on a part time basis (we already full timed it for 2 years and want to keep a place to come home to) and will be chasing that 70F weather whenever we can.  
Our current plans are:

• Head up to New England or the Great Lakes area in July - August 2012 to escape the FL summer heat which we just can't tolerate anymore.
• Head down to the FL keys maybe in Jan/Feb if it gets too cold in Jacksonville!
• Take trips to TN & SC in the fall and spring to visit our kids.
• Take trips to Meridian, MS where Kathy AND STEVE! will volunteer to help a wonderful person take care of dogs that need help.
• And pretty much just take off and do whatever we want when we want!

Life is grand and we're very lucky to be able to enjoy ourselves while we can :)

Gatlinburg TN April 2011

What a week up in the mountains!  First of all, I have to say this before I forget.  When we finally got settled in our cabin, we did some reviews on restaurants for the week.  Steve searched for "Number 1" restaurant.........................and guess what popped up?  McDonald's earned 5 STARS!!!!!  We haven't been yet; hope we don't need reservations!!!