Search Results for AT (326)

Hard Goodbye in K-town!

Ashley Longnecker / October 27, 2015

We got to Knoxville a day early. After our 17 mile ride in Abingdon we decided to head on to K-town so that Jon could have a full day of work Tuesday. Jon’s brother and sister knew that we were coming early but his parents had no idea. I planned a family cookout at the campground and we were able to get Dan and Cheryll there without them knowing what was going on...until they pulled into the campground!

We had a nice dinner and got to catch up with family that night. It was good to see everyone and we were able to tell Dan and Cheryll that we were actually staying in K-town for a whole month! 

By the way, we choose to stay at Volunteer Park Family Campground due to thier cheap monthly rate.

Now, why a whole month? Good question. We had a lot of things to do!

Lets start with decluttering our trailer. Turns out, we didn’t need as many things as we thought. I didn’t think we loaded our new house on wheels with anything extra but...turns out you don’t really know what you need until you are on the road. We had several empty drawers/cabinets after a couple runs to storage and Goodwill. It was a good feeling for awhile. They got filled with other things that will be more useful on the road.

We traded out our huge zero gravity chairs for bag style chairs in order to free up some space in the basement. I was able to get rid of a few more things in the basement so that we could store our bike trailer in there. 

We had a goal to get rid of the bike rack on the back of the RV since it’s not supposed to be back there anyway. In order to take the rack off of the back, we needed to get Jett a bigger bike with 20” tires so that we could rack his bike on top of the truck with ours and Adali’s bike. We also sold Ada’s Strider bike since she picked up riding two wheels in no time. Now her bike can be stored in the basement as well instead of the back of the RV. For now, the bike rack is in our storage unit until we figure out if we will need it again or not.

My parents! My parents were able to come down from Indiana and brought my sister and her 3 boys too! It was SO great to see them. Even though it rained the whole time they were here, the kids were still able to play outside since our neighbor had left and his lot has a large cover over the lot. My nephews brought their skateboards and showed off some of their new tricks. They also brought their guitars and it was so nice for Jonathan to have people to jam with. Can you believe that we had 12 people in our house at one time and no one got angry?!?! It was so awesome to have a house full of people I love. I am so thankful that they were all able to get down here for a weekend. 

One more thing that we wanted to accomplish is getting our kids Passports. We opted for the books on the off chance that we will get the opportunity to fly to another country. We know that we will be visiting Mexico and Canada in the next year, but that will be via land, not air. We hope that we will be able to have the Passports in hand by December.

Jon had a conference for mid October and I was lucky enough to get to go and tag along. We were in San Antonio from Wednesday until Sunday. Yes, this is all our luggage :) We have learned how to pack light! 

Lynchburg Redeems Virginia for Us

Jonathan Longnecker / October 19, 2015

After our quick stay near Richmond, VA we drove down to the Thousand Trails park near Lynchburg. And when I say near Lynchburg I actually mean like 30 minutes away. Nestled back about 5 miles off the main road in Rustburg, VA the park was very much off the beaten path. Beautiful drive, though!

We got there right before Labor Day weekend and barely found a spot to fit our monster rig. It was packed. After squeezing into the spot and starting to get setup we noticed that the polarity was inversed on the 30 amp plug. Thankfully our surge protector caught it and wouldn't let us turn the power on. I found the maintenance guy and he was able to fix it for us - which was a huge relief because it would have been a pain to move.

The next day or so were pretty crazy there, but as soon as the holiday was over nearly everyone left. After that is was really quiet and relaxing. 

Thank Goodness for Yoga Pants!

Ashley Longnecker / September 15, 2015

After our AMAZING time getting lost in NYC, we HAD to make our way to the nearest RV shop that could get us in. I mentioned a couple posts back that we talked to Southern RV and the owner's son managed to squeeze us in on Friday so we could get an idea of what's causing the water to collect in the underbelly.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am SURE that we would have been able to look under there ourselves and find out what was wrong but since we don't have the tools to fix it or order parts for replacement, we just figured we would let them look at it and save us the trouble. After all, it's still under warranty.

We were about 6 hours from Southern RV in Richmond, VA so we had a quick overnight in Maryland at a nice resort. Pricy, but some good views.

A Whirlwind Tour of NYC

Jonathan Longnecker / September 12, 2015

I'm sorry, every time I say "New York City" I say it in that super redneck voice from those salsa commercials back when I was a kid. That's just how I hear it. Way to go marketing.

When we started talking about this travel thing, one of the first places the kids said they wanted to go was NYC. Why? Because Ninja Turtles! No, seriously. That was the main reason

Thousand Trails: Sturbridge, Massachusetts

Ashley Longnecker / September 09, 2015

When we left beautiful Acadia (sniff, sniff) we had a long drive to get to Sturbridge, MA so we decided to overnight about half-way. Just so happens that there was a Cabela's about at our half-way mark. I was so excited because I had heard of people overnighting at Cabelas and how great it is. Well, I don't know what all the hype is about. We went in, looked around and collectively said, 'Ok, now where is REI??' 

We are just not into hunting, and we are not big fishermen so... yeah, send us to REI anyday and we could spend HOURS in that amazing store. Just don't make us go to Cabela's or Gander Mountain or Bass Pro Shoppe.

However, it was a free overnight so we tried our best not to complain about how HOT it was (no hook ups and no generator) and we tried not to complain that everything in walking distance was already closed. We tried, we really did. :)

Morning came and we were so ready to get out of there and on our way to Sturbridge. At least we knew we would have air conditioning when we got there. So, on we go and we finally make it there...and as soon as we get to the gate to register, we see what we like to refer to as 'the RV Sandwich'. SO MANY rigs and they are litterally right next to each other. I should have got a picture (I will at our next one). Luckily, we didn't have to be in the sandwich lane and we got a sweet spot up on a hill with no one next to us and the kids had a sweet area to hang hammocks and play.