We always love arriving at the Grand Haven resort. It's a campground that's part of our membership, so we can stay up to 3 weeks for free. This year will be the first year that we're utilizing our park-hopper upgrade, so we'll see how that goes.

For my note, we stayed on site 226 this year, but we'd prefer 225 next time. We love NOT being under the trees. :-)

​A quick trip to Grand Haven is always fun, and even though it was still a little cold, we enjoyed the pier walk with new concrete!  :-)

A few photos of one of our favorite parks.. The resort is one of the oldest owned by Outdoor Adventures, and they purchased it from Yogi Bear parks. It has gorgeous trees, nicer spacious sites, and nice people. The amenities include a pool, putt putt, go carts, and a beautiful playground and activities.

Mark and dad went to Washington D.C. via the Amtrak train which took 13 hours each way. They definitely found out it was NOT ADA accessible enough to navigate where they wanted, but with Mark's help, they made it all work. It was a very treasured trip together. One of their main goals was the see the International Bible Museum.  They were able to see hundreds of scrolls and bibles, along with the historical record of its preservation.

Back on Mother's, I planted a Lily for mom. It finally bloomed this week!  :-)

During our stay at mom & dads, Mark's sister Beth made us a beautiful doily for our table. What an awesome job and a LOT of work!

As we were hooking up the RV in preparation for travel day, mom & dad came out to visit and watch. To them, it's amazing how far (and big) campers have gotten, but it was awesome for us to share all the information they wanted to know. We're starting to feel like pros at this! I was also very lucky to get this pretty awesome picture of them.

This was one of the best travel days yet. Neither of us got very much sleep though, so we were looking forward to taking a quick break at a rest area. Pica was tired too, as you can see her snoozing in her bicycle basket.  At the rest area, the bedroom slide is in, so the foot of the bed is right against the dresser. Pica LOVES that spot because she can look out and stay on patrol. We had a beautiful cool breeze with very little traffic at the rest area, so it was quiet!  Needless to say, it was a VERY good nap.  :-)

OMG! I cannot express enough how much we enjoy our bi-annual camping trips with Katie, Tony and the kids, and this was no exception. We all decided to meet up at the Mammoth Cave to give the kids a new caving experience.  The weather was super awesome (actually a little too warm), but the kids had their usual water time outside, and we all grilled, ate, and just got caught up on life. 

The cave tour was the "Domes and Dripstones" tour. A 2-hour long moderate level tour that took us through a mile of cave.  We enjoyed watching the kids see everything for the first time!

This is the 3rd cave we visited this year, and even though Mammoth is the largest, we still vote for Carlsbad as the prettiest.  :-)

​Thank you Katie & Tony for taking the time to come out and spend the night & day with us!

During our stay, on one of our trips to the garbage, we were stopped by a couple that wanted to talk about dogs.. This is pretty normal. What's not normal, was during that visit, another couple tapped us on the shoulder and told us that they had met us earlier this winter!  Where? At Palatki Heritage Site! It was within our first week there, and we had really connected with them about camping and full-time RV living.  We met up several more times during this stay, but how AWESOME to meet up with such a wonderful couple after touring half the country and five months later! I sure hope we get to visit with them more!  Thank you so much Mark & Debbie for stopping to say HI!   You definitely made our day!  :-). 
* Check out Mark & Debbie's website HERE!

Stay Details:  Mammoth Cave Campground - Mammoth Cave, Kentucky.  A dry-camping campground that has water available around each loop, and a dump station. It is a mere 10-minute walk from the Mammoth Cave visitor center which is where all tours depart. We chose site 82, which was a pull-through spot right next to the restrooms. It also gave us a very large site to house the clam tent, and 2 sleeping tents.  
The campground itself has a lot of trees, so be prepared to have very little sun, or have a generator. We needed to use our generator twice each day even though we have 1000 watts of solar. Generator hours are 8am-8pm, and the campground is VERY quiet after that. Sites are large, restrooms are clean, and cell service is minimal, but we both had enough to upload these pictures.  :-)

We have been wanting to stay here for a while. At the last minute though, we decided to reserve an electric site instead of depending on an open spot at a dispersed campground. Mostly because we're larger.  We're glad we did, as it got pretty cold at night, so we were able to use our fireplace to keep warm instead of propane.

The site at Energy Lake Campground was awesome!  Site 7 gave us a 100 degree view of the lake. Site #9 would be best if you're interested. It's for larger rigs, and provides a GREAT view of the lake at the top of the hill. 

We visited the Nature Center Zoo during our stay, and their animals were all found on the peninsula and are being rehabilitated or are injured and cannot be released.

Stay Details: Energy Lake Campground - North/east side on Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky. There are a LOT of areas on the peninsula that are dispersed camping, but only 3 campgrounds that are more modern with electric and water. This being one of them.
Out site was #7, but if we stay here again we will reserve #9. All on this loop have beautiful views of the lake, and the campground has spacious, well cared for sites.

Such a beautiful day, we needed to take an excursion to Hot Springs to see what all the Hoopla was about. Come to find out, there are hot springs leaking out of the ground everywhere around this little city, and people have made it a place of spas, relaxation and FREE water!

The photos below show the old spa houses there were used by some pretty famous people. Also took a trip up the tower to take in the beautiful views of the area.

Mark hasn't seen his cousin Eric for quite some time, but a little birdie told us they were traveling south-west, so after a few messages back n forth, here we are!  What a totally awesome visit with our cousins and new friends for life! Shared a few meals together and a nice day out at Tombstone taking the mine tour and seeing the sites.

May the Lord Bless their journey west, and may we meet up again MANY times in the future!  Love you Eric & Michelle!

Took a trip to Tucson for the local sites. Pima was first on our list. It's always cool to see the planes that once protected our country, but also sad that we need so many.

We also drove by the Airplane Bone Yard, then made a quick stop at the San Xavier del Bay Mission.

Stay Details for this week:  Butterfield RV Resort & Observatory (Benson, AZ).  This resort has about 200 very close spots. We decided to stay here because of the cold front that went through. It has great amenities, and is a beautiful resort with a close-knit bunch of elderly folk that winter here. The swimming pool is heated, there's a large club house, a wood shop, pickle ball court, daily activities, and of course an observatory that houses a 16" Meade mirrored telescope. It is across the road from the post office, they do accept mail, and the resort is just a walk away from Safeway and many local restaurants.  The resort is $45/night, and is cheaper if you stay for the week (which we did), or month or year. They also have Good Sam and Passport America discounts.

We're tying up loose ends here in Sedona, and wanted to hike one final place before we left. This place close to us, called Robber's Roost, used to be thought of as a hideout for robbers waiting to make their next move. However, that may be just a myth, because this has a gorgeous high-top view.  Even though I didn't think I'd make it all the way up, we took it slow and I accomplished something I didn't think I'd be able to do!  Once finally at the top, we were treated with a rare lake.

The roost itself was pretty awesome. Large room, overlooking the valley, with a protective wall in the front and a fire pit. The hole in the wall used as a window was spectacular, but the last section of the path getting there was narrow and scary.  Good tennis shoes or hiking shoes definitely help.  :-)

Before entering our last day of work, us and the other on-site hosts made dinners and we shared them in the visitor center. It was a great time hosting at Palatki, and we made great friends with the other hosts. We will be sad to leave, but are also excited about getting back on the road.  We have some more big plans this year, and are excited to see where the Lord takes us. :-)

This holiday was FULL of surprises for us!

1st.. After being at Palatki for 8 weeks, we finally had a beautiful rain and snow storm, which intensifies the beauty in the area. However, this also means the roads getting to our location are extremely muddy and mostly impassable, so Palatki has to close. This raised some tense moments, as we had planned on spending our days off with Maria and her family, and did not expect a storm.

However, Maria drove the 28-hrs strait to arrive, and because the roads were not as bad as the day before, she braved the mud and 4 miles of back road to meet us at Palatki.  We had a quick dinner, gave them a tour of our site, then opened gifts.  It was a spectacular evening, but we had to send them to their hotel before dark.

The next 2 days were magical. We spent time in a neighboring hotel with them, and toured Sedona, Jerome, Montezuma Castle & Tuzigoot.  We treated her for a birthday dinner out at the Haunted Hamburger in Jerome. I can't believe Maria is 40 already!! WoW!  We celebrated with a cake in the hotel, then spent the evening swimming.  We saw them off Tuesday, as we took a quick drive to Phoenix and browsed some shops.

Below are some photos of this Christmas and Birthday week.

Photo descriptions:

1st Photo is Mark and Bob beginning a tour. This was a big group, so they divided and conquered.. :-)

2nd - 4th photos are the walk up and in the Grotto Rock Art area. Water in the Grotto area is rare, and when it's there, a small pebble dropped into the water creates a beautiful ripple effect. See the video below. We believe the native people used to do this while smoking their pipes.

5th - 7th photos are during a walk up to the old brother's homestead and garage. In video, Mark explains what is found on the floors.

8th photo was after a rain on our drive home. The beautiful sun reflected on the mountains just so that it looks like lemons! These photos are NOT doctored.

9th photo is on an evening walk to check the trail camera. You can see the pueblo at the bottom left of the photo.

10th photo is our view of the night sky on a 3/4 moon night.