Merry Christmas to all.......from our hearts to yours.

Snow didn’t stay away. G-r-r-r. Sent this photo to our friends in Georgia and they sent one back of the lush vegetation down there. Double Gr-r-r. Can’t wait to get back there.

Had a nice Christmas dinner with some of Joyce’s relatives. Great time and well within the spirit of the Season.

We have finished the planning for our next trip. We will be underway again on the 16th of this month. We’ll visit our friends in Savannah for a day and then pick up the 5th wheel on the 18th. We plan on staying at an RV park in Lake City, Florida for two days. This park is about two hours from King’s Bay and will give us time to re-outfit the trailer for the following weeks. It will also give us the opportunity to meet with an old Army buddy. In fact, he was my TAC Officer in Signal OCS way back in 1967. Hope those plans work out.

On the 20th, we will make a short drive to Pensacola where we will stay until January 10th. After that we will put the trailer back into storage and go back to Maryland. We have, over the past many years, always spent Christmas in a different place. The past two years it was in New Hampshire and New York, respectively. This year, the Gulf Coast. The park is right on the beach. We hope to do a lot of bike riding, fishing and exploring (too cool for swimming).

We had wanted to go out to Texas to spend the Holidays with my brother, but due to a lot of circumstances, this is all we can do this year.

Hope everyone is in the Holiday spirit, wherever you are.

Not much happening at the moment. We are both doing some reading and craft stuff. Started a diet hoping to trim down a bit. Trying to get some more things done for the house. Planning for our next trip.

We had a quiet Thanksgiving at home. We usually are not home for Thanksgiving and it seemed rather strange. We roasted a small turkey breast and had some veggies with it. Very nice. Hope everyone out there enjoyed theirs.

Starting to get rather cold now. This is the weather we do not like. Hope the snow stays away.

After 50 days on the road, we packed up our trailer on Nov 17th and put it in storage at King's Bay Submarine Base. It being on the base and in an almost perpetually mild climate, we feel comfortable leaving it there. We unhitched the 5th wheel, prepared it for storage and were on the road by 1 PM. The traffic was light and we made good time up I-95. Such good time we decided not to stop and continued straight through to Maryland. We arrived home around 11:30 PM. It was one of the best trips we have had, up or down I-95, yet. No incidents or even heavy traffic.

We came home to mild weather. Thank goodness for that. The leaves on the trees had not completely fallen yet, but there is no shortage of them on the ground. We had hoped last spring not to have to rake leaves here again, but such is life.

We had not been home a day before our feet started to itch and so we started planning another trip. This RV stuff is getting in our blood.

Days 41-50
On Nov 9th we said our good-byes to the folks at the Ft. Stewart RV Park and headed the 90 miles south to the King’s Bay Submarine Base. This base is where the Atlantic missile submarine fleet calls home. So…you know with all what they carry and, obviously, what is stored on this base, the security is very tight. More than very tight.

We really enjoyed our stay here. The base is large and there are many bike paths throughout. We did a lot of riding and feel more comfortable on them now. The park is located on a small lake close to the Intercoastal Waterway and is home to many migrating birds. They, too, have their gators and crocs.

We took several day trips. One was to Fernandina Beach, Florida. Fernandina Beach is a city on Amelia Island, just NE of Jacksonville. Florida. The area was first inhabited by the Timucuan tribe. Known as the "Isle of 8 Flags", it had the following flags flown over it since 1562: France, Spain, Great Britain, Spain (again), the Patriots of Amelia Island, the Green Cross of Florida, Mexico, the Confederate States of America, and the United States. It is the only municipality in the United States that has flown eight different national flags. It is a quaint town and even in the “off” season, it is bustling with tourists.

Another trip was to Saint Augustine, Florida. St Augustine lies on the coast SE of Jacksonville, Florida. It is the oldest continuously occupied European-established city, and the oldest port, in the continental United States. It was founded by the Spanish in 1565 and served, initially, as a coastal defense fort for the Spanish Fleets. There was plenty to see and plenty to do there. This was a trip well worth re-taking. We just could not see everything we wanted to see in one day.

After staying here for 9 days we are scheduled to depart for Maryland on Nov 17th. Not looking forward to it.

Days 31-40

We decided to leave Maryland earlier and arrived back in Savannah at our trailer around 11 PM. An uneventful trip, thank goodness. We rested the next day and did little. We are still disappointed with the wasted trip to Maryland over a prospective buyer that failed to qualify after we were told they had. Next time we will contact their bank personally. Lesson learned.

Over the next week and a half, we just tried to enjoy the area and the people we had met at the Ft. Stewart RV Park. Did some fishing, we toured Savannah (that never gets old), took a tour bus to some outlet stores on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and just putzed around. It has been so hard to “learn” how to relax after a lifetime of hurry-hurry. We surely are not looking forward to returning to the craziness of the Baltimore/Washington area.

The campground hosts made our stay particularly pleasant. Besides doing an excellent job at keeping the place running very efficiently, they were a hoot to be with. We totally enjoyed their company and hope we will be able to stay in contact with them.

We took several short jaunts on our bikes and found we were more out-of-shape than we had thought. That is definitely something we need to work on. I see more bike riding in the future.

We hope to spend more time here on the future journeys. Our stay here comes to an end on Nov 9^th when we relocate to King’s Bay Submarine Base RV Park in Saint Mary’s, Georgia.

P.S. We did not get any Trick-or-Treaters. I guess the parents do not want their small kids wandering around the swamps of Ft. Stewart at night. Too many alligators and other strange creatures.

Days 27-30:

Back in Maryland. Hate it. No more to say. We are leaving tonight (before midnight) for Savannah. We will beat the DC traffic this way. We can rest in Savannah.

…continued

Days 22-26:

Emerald Isle, NC is one of several small beach communities on a barrier island named Bogue Banks. It is situated in such a manner that the sun rises and sets over the ocean. This makes for great photo opportunities two times a day.

Ben and I enjoy researching our family's heritage and together we often make great discoveries. This visit was no different. We found several lines in Georgia previously unknown. All these are pieces of a bigger puzzle that is slowly coming together.

Joyce and I relaxed the entire time and were sad to have to leave. Thanks, Ben, for such an enjoyable visit. Even though it rained several days, the entire time (5 days) was like a month in a spa. Close to total relaxation.

We are leaving tomorrow for a couple of days in Maryland. This short trip will be to replenish our medications, cut some grass, and pay the monthly bills. We decided to extend our stay in Savannah and then move on to King’s Bay for a week or so. We’ll leave our trailer there and head back to Maryland on Nov 17^th (plans always subject to change).

…continued

Day 15-22:

Ft. Stewart Campground is located in the center of the fort near a small lake. The entirety of Ft. Stewart is only 20-30 feet above sea level and has many low-lying areas that are covered by water (swamps). This is not unlike the surrounding areas of Savannah. This is the reason they call this area the “Low Country”.

Our first day here was warm and humid. Hmmm..in other words, normal temperatures. Just that they have stayed around a bit longer than normal. The fort engineers were “bush hogging” some of the land near the campsite and this caused a lot of insects to be disturbed. Especially…the mosquito. We are used to taking the normal precautions for the pest, but this time it was awful. The second you went outside, you were covered with swarms of them. Needless to say, we and the other campers spent most of our time in our rigs. No problem. A/C made it comfortable and we needed to kick back anyway. This gave us the excuse to do just that.

We ventured out a few times to see some sights and even took a trip to King’s Bay Naval Submarine Base. King's Bay is in St.Mary’s, GA which is about 40 miles north of Jacksonville, FL. While there, we found a place to store out 5^th wheel instead of towing it back to Maryland and winterizing it. If we had done that, we would not be able to use it until the spring. Also, the cost of the storage was cut by two-thirds. Win-win situation all the way.

We are leaving today for Emerald Isle, NC to visit our cousin Ben at his place on the beach. Even more kick back time. Think we’ll extend our stay here.

…continued

Days 11-15:

We arrived at Lowe’s Motor Speedway around 1 PM and were guided to our camping spot right away. The campers were in a field that encircled the speedway. It was estimated that about 30,000 campers would be there for the week leading up to the race on Saturday night (13^th). All the camping areas are “dry” meaning there are not any hookups. Generators were allowed, but they must be shut off between 11 PM and 7 AM.

We were very impressed with the organization of the Speedway with regards to the camping. Each area had great security and medical oversight. Even though we were “dry”, the Speedway had contractors coming around to fill up fresh water tanks and to empty the waste tanks. All for a cost, of course, however, it was not excessive. Everyone had their divers flags flying and most were doing the “tailgating” thing. Grills were going all the time and beer was flowing at high volumes. One continuous party.

Even though the entire time was a party/circus atmosphere, almost everybody conducted themselves in the most appropriate manner. We did not see a single display of drunkenness or arrogance. Everyone was greatly considerate of his or her neighbors. It was a tribute to the sport as well as the fans attending.

The vendors at this event were out in full force. Hundreds of stalls, tents, and trailers hawked their NASCAR items to the tens of thousands of fans each day from 10AM to 8 PM. No wonder this is the biggest money sport in the country. If one could not find a particular NASCAR item here, it did not exist.

Joyce’s favorite driver, Mark Martin, semi-retired last year so she wanted to find a driver to root for. After careful consideration, she chose Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Since visiting his race shop earlier in our trip, she was impressed with his efforts in this sport. Also, she believes he will have a better opportunity to show his racing skills with Rick Hendricks Racing in his new #88 car. He will now be a teammate of my favorite driver, Jeff Gordon (#24).

The race Saturday evening was filled with lots of excitement to include the pre-race pomp and circumstance. Jeff Gordon in the #24 car won the race even though he ran out of gas in the last lap. The whole experience was awesome and we look forward to doing it again at another racetrack. Our goal is to visit all of the tracks for a least one race. So far we have been to Dover Speedway in Dover, Delaware and now Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Next posting will be from Savannah where we are headed for now.

...continued

Joyce's new NASCAR driver, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. He will be driving (in the 2008 season) the Rick Hendricks Racing #88, the National Guard/Mountain Dew car.

Day 3-10 (the Petite Le Mans):

Finally…. a day to rest and relax a bit. This past week has been a blur. Very long days and very short nights. We just about exhausted ourselves. We departed North Carolina early on the 2^nd and arrived at the Ft. Yargo State Park campground just before noon. Trip went well without incident. Got set up and explored the park a bit. We knew we must be at the Road Atlanta track early so we hit the hay by 9 PM.

Road Atlanta is situated on GA Rt. 53 between Braselton and Gainesville. We were not expecting the geography of the track to be what it was. Most tracks are flat and, occasionally, some have small hills in the course. Road Atlanta is all hills with very few flat sections. This made it difficult for us to walk around for we were constantly going up and down these hills. After doing that several times we decided to stay put and watch the racing from the bed of our truck. That worked very well. Our own box seat.

Wednesday thru Friday was testing, practicing, and qualifying. Also, there were several races of different classes on Friday afternoon. The Petite Le Mans, itself, is a 10 hour/1,000 mile race, which ever comes first. It begins at 11:15 AM on Saturday and finishes at 9:15 PM that evening. The cars are in four classes: LMP1 (Le Mans Prototype Class 1), LMP2 (Le Mans Prototype Class 2), GT1 (Grand Touring Class 1), and GT2 (Grand Touring Class 2). Our Corvettes run in the GT1 class. For more information on these classes and the American Le Mans Series, go to www.americanlemans.com.

Our main interest was to watch the Corvettes racing in the GT1 class. We have been following this racing team since Chevrolet re-started its racing efforts with the Corvette about 8 years ago. Since then, they have dominated their class in almost every race.

Of particular interest was the pit or paddock area. This is where the teams set up their shops. It is a hustle-bustle area and there is so much to see. On Friday afternoon, the teams all set up tables and all the drivers were present for an autograph session. I did not find a picture or anything that I wanted to frame with the drivers autographs so I spent all afternoon Thursday taking pictures of the Corvettes as the made their practice runs. I was using my Canon Powershot 80 (4 mega-pixel) and was skeptical of the quality of the pictures taken at high speed. I used the high-speed continuous frame setting and I was very pleasantly surprised at the outcome. We took the final selections to Wal-Mart that evening and printed two 8x10 pictures of each of the Corvettes. There are two that race with the numbers 3 and 4, respectively. I matted the pictures and each of the drivers signed them on Friday. What a treasure.

On race day we arrived at the track very early so we could get the same parking spot that we were using for the three previous days. That meant getting up at 2:30 AM and getting to the track by 4 AM. We were successful in getting our spot. Perfect view of the straightaway leading into the chicane (turns 10a and 10b) and its exit under the Suzuki bridge to the finish line.

The race started on time and within just a few laps the Number 3 Corvette, driven by Jon Mangussen (Denmark) wrecked. At that point in time, he was in the lead of the GT1 Class. The damage was too severe to get back into the race. Mangussen was not hurt, but was taken to the hospital for observation. He left the track and hit a tire barrier at over 150 MPH. That left the Number 4 Corvette to take over the lead. And that is where it stayed to the finish.

We departed the track just as the race finished. This allowed us to beat the terrible back-ups that followed after the race. All in all, the 4 days at the track were very enjoyable. It was a new experience for us.

We left Ft. Yargo yesterday (8^th) morning and made the 2 hour trip to Ft. Gordon Recreation Facility with ease. We are using this time for some house cleaning, re-supply, and down time. Tomorrow morning we head back to Concord, NC and Lowe’s Motor Speedway for the NASCAR Bank of America 500 on Saturday night. Four days of tailgating with the race fans. This will be very interesting and physically draining. I will update as soon as I can since there will be no Internet access there.

Post Script: I want to congratulate my adopted son and close friend Hector De Valle on successfully gaining his professorship at the university he is teaching at in Puerto Rico. WAY TO GO, Hector!!!!!!!!!

….continued

Day 2:

It was very comfortable when we went to bed last night…around 74 degrees (F). And the racecars were still practicing at the track. What a lovely way to drift off. Did not check the weather, but I knew was not going to rain. HA!! But COLD!!!! We got up after hearing the coffee maker go off and we were freezing. Fifty-two degrees in the trailer. Fifty degrees outside. Closed all the windows…turned on the heat. Ahhh! Warmth.

We were up and out by a little past 8 AM and were on the trail of the NASCAR race shops. The first one we visited was the Hendricks Motorsports facility about two miles from our campground. What an operation. We spent the better part of two hours there (#24 is my fav). From there we came back to Lowe’s Speedway and took their tour of the whole facility. Tickets cost $5 and it was worth 4 times that. It even included a 90 MPH drive around the track. Such a deal!!!!

After a short snack for lunch at the trailer we headed for Mooresville, NC to visit several of the shops there. These included JR Motorsports (Dale Earnhardt, JR’s shop), Pit School (Jeff Hammond’s Pit Crew School), Gates Racing, Rousch-Fenway Racing, and DEI (the late Dale Earnhardt’s Shop). All-in-all the Hendricks, Dale Jr, and DEI was the best places to visit, although all the others had many sights to offer.

We arrived back home and cooked some burgers, drank a few cold beverages, tidied up the trailer and prepared for any early departure tomorrow morning. We head for Georgia where we will attend the Petite Le Mans at Road Atlanta near Gainesville, GA. Going to be staying at Ft. Yargo State Park for 6 nights and hopefully kick back a bit while going to the races each day (a 5 day event). This will be exciting. Corvette racing at its best.

…continued

Day 1:

September 30, 2007 (Happy Birthday Hurley)

I hate getting up early anymore. We wanted to get started early to beat the mayhem around D.C. so we set the alarm for 4:30 AM. Would you know it, we both woke up around 12:30 AM and it was hit-and-miss with sleep from there. We were up before the alarm sounded and were on the road at 5:40 AM. Four hours sleep does not work well when you are hauling 12,000 lb. of trailer in Sunday traffic. We took it slow, though (much to everyone’s chagrin) and made it to our first stopping point by 3:30 PM.

Concord, NC is the home of NASCAR racing. We’re staying at the Fleetwood RV Park right next to Lowe’s Motor Speedway. This is the home of most of the “big” racing teams in NASCAR. The park is humongous and can accommodate over three hundred RVs. Since this is a “non-event” weekend, we had a choice pull-through spot. Took all of 10 minutes to set up and pop a cool one after the ten-hour drive (one driver-me). Thank goodness the traffic was light. Regardless, we were exhausted.

After some snacks, we ate a light dinner….to the tune of several NASCAR teams testing their cars at the track. Ahhhhh! Music to our ears. Better than what was on the TV or radio.

Early to bed. Big touring day tomorrow. Got the coffee maker set for 7:00 AM. Let’s see if we can get up by then.

….continued

Well….Here it is…Fall and I have just now realized that I have not posted anything since early May. Jeeez…what a slouch I’ve turned out to be. Must be the retirement thing. HA!!! Not hardly. We have been so busy that I cannot believe it is the end of September already. So what have we been doing to be so busy? Funny you should ask.

The next day after retiring, I started into fixing up our house to get it ready for sale. Joyce had already been into this task for several months. Remember, we have to sell here before we can move to Savannah. I did not realize how much needed to get done just to make it “pretty from the curb”. It seemed like this task would never end. Unbelievable how things can wear down and one not notice it until one looks at it differently. The place was a wreck.

We started in and between trips to the dump (many trips) and cleaning, painting, replacing, fixing, etc., we found ourselves working 7 days a week, 12-14 hours a day. All of a sudden it hit us. Exhaustion that is. We stopped to re-evaluate. What do buyers do when they come to look at a house? We asked for some opinions and found we had already surpassed the point where we should have stopped. So we did.

We then began to take trips. Most were day or weekend trips until we realized that the housing market was so bad that no one was selling anything anywhere. So we expanded our trips. By July we had pretty well exhausted our fixing/cleaning uppings and our family reunion was coming up quick (19-21 July). We departed for it early in our fiver (short for 5^th wheel trailer) and plunked into an RV site in Durham, NC just a few miles from the reunion site. Our plan was to help our cousin, Ben, to finish the preparations for the reunion. Surprise…..He had finished almost everything. So…Ben and I went researching at the archives and Joyce and Jean went shopping. We both came home with great stuff. The reunion came and went and it turned out to be a huge success.

A few days after returning to Maryland, we picked up again and headed a short distance to the north to Gettysburg, PA. We have always liked it there and have spent many, many hours researching and enjoying the area. We spent quite a while in Granite Hill RV Park and Campground and started to wind down. But, time had come to pick up and get back, so we did.

The travel bug bit us again soon after we returned so we headed to southwest Virginia to visit our daughter (sans fiver). We had a ball and partied the whole time. Like to have killed us. I hate saying we are getting too old for this s****. But I guess we are …DARN!!!!

From there we took off to West Virginia and traveled around the mountains until we got tired of them. We never really got tired of the mountains, just driving. We still hadn’t recovered from our daughter’s parties. We headed home and crashed for 3 days.

We were able to find some things to do around here for a week or so until we got restless again. You see, when we are here we get stressed because things (house selling) are not going right. So to get unstressed, we leave. Sometimes for extended periods of time.

We packed up the truck, hitched up the fiver and plunked ourselves into a comfortable site at the Cherrystone RV Park and Family Campground. It is located at the end of the Delmarva Peninsula in Virginia on the Chesapeake Bay side. Right on the water. We spent many evenings watching the sun go down over the bay. But as life has it…that too had to come to an end.

So here we are. Reading ourselves for another trip already. This time we will be gone for close to a month and will be traveling to Concord, NC to visit many of the NASCAR Racing Teams facilities first. From there onto Gainesville, GA where we will attend the Petite Le Mans race at Road Atlanta. We’re going to get all the pictures and autographs we can of the Compuware Corvette drivers and teams.

Our next stop will be a few days of decompression at Ft Gordon’s campground on Lake Strom Thurmond. Will definitely get some fishing in there. Then back to Concord, NC where we will attend the Bank of America 500 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. That should be interesting for we will be “dry” camping (no hook-ups) and will be there for 5 days. Wow!!! Can we take 5 days of tailgating? We will see.

If we can make it, the next morning we will head for Ft. Stewart’s campground near Savannah. That is scheduled for a week’s stay. Got business and pleasure there. We hope to find a place to store the fiver for the winter. That way we do not have to winterize it and all we would have to do is drive to Savannah and hook up for trips in the south over the winter.

Finally, we head to Emerald Isle, NC for a few days stay with Cuzzin Ben. More fishing and decompression. From there…back to Maryland to plan for our next trip. Hopefully that will be within a week or two of getting back. Seems we have developed “itchy” feet.

I will do my best and keep the posts coming while on the road. Look for more frequent updates in the future. Tally Ho!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BREAKING NEWS!!!!!

We went to the RV storage lot this morning to do some prep work on the car trailer for the upcoming trips this month to Savannah. It took just a few minutes to realize that the two back lock hasps had been cut. We backed off and called the police right away. Once they arrived, we went inside and found that the thugs only took the Mustang's battery...nothing else. After looking around at the other trailers in the lot, we found that 6 more utility trailers had been broken into. There are probably two dozen RVs there, including ours, and they had not been touched. Almost every one has a battery unsecured on it, but no touchy did they do on them. They facility owners were devastated, but did not say anything other than, "Sorry!". Of course, every one of those places make sure they are not responsible for theft. It'll cost about $45 dollars to fix the hasps and replace the battery, but.....wish I had my shotgun and was there when they were. Grrrrrrrr

This is it. I am finished. Yesterday, after 40 years, 7 months and 21 days of continuous Federal government service, I hung up the spurs. Let the younglings do it.

Besides being our retirement day, it also was my birthday. My present to myself. J Joyce and I rented a stretch limo and did an Irish pub-crawl around Baltimore. What made it better was that we woke up the next morning without a hangover. What a wonderful way to celebrate. Today starts the rest of our new lives.

This past week we took the trailer on its "shakedown" cruise. We had to go back to Savannah for more business and decided to try out the trailer. It was great. No problems.

We left Saturday and stopped in Durham, NC for the first night. We wanted to find an RV park for our family reunion in July. Lucked out on the first place. We continued on to Savannah Sunday and stayed at the Ft. Stewart campground for the rest of the time in Georgia.

While there, we converted our cell phones to Savannah numbers, met with the architect and went over the house plans, transferred our Maryland driver's license to Georgia, registered to vote in Georgia, and transferred all of our vehicle registrations to Georgia. We also obtained a county permit to turn on the electricity and found a place to store our vehicles while we are on the road this summer.

We started back to Maryland Tuesday afternoon. After staying at the South of the Border campground Tuesday night, we headed out early Wednesday and made it back to Baltimore by 2:30 PM. Quick trip, but got lots done. Six more days until retirement day.

Wow! This is a big hummer. We picked up the trailer today and brought it back to Baltimore. It was easier to tow than I expected. Still need some practice though. Now we need to outfit it with the essentials.

We got on the road Tuesday night by 6:30 PM. After driving all night, we arrived at Berry Oaks in Savannah at 7:00 AM Wednesday morning. We needed to make a quick trip to accomplish some preliminary tasks.

While we were there we got a PO Box, found a Georgia licensed architect, made arrangements to have electricity put onto the lot, and met with a septic tank contractor as well as a water well contractor. These are the first things we must do to establish residency.

We were on the road back to Maryland Saturday morning and arrived home tired, but without incident. These trips will become more frequent as the time draws nearer to pick up and leave Maryland.

We love New York City. We try to travel there for a long weekend every year, usually between Thanksgiving and New Years. That time of the year is so festive with all the hubbub and Christmas decorations. This year we could not find the time so we decided to go after the beginning of the year.

We stayed at Fort Hamilton (http://www.hamilton.army.mil/) in Brooklyn. Fort Hamilton is a small Army post located directly under the Verrazano Narrows Bridge (http://www.mta.info/bandt/html/veraz.htm) on the Brooklyn side. It has easy access to the subway system and is very quiet compared to Manhattan. Plus, the lodging is one-quarter the cost of a hotel in Manhattan. We always like to walk through the city when not taking the subway. It was very cold the entire time and snow still covered the ground and sidewalks from a storm a few days earlier.

We took the subway everywhere we went. At $7.00 a day for unlimited rides, it is a great deal. And the subways are safe, no matter what you might hear. We walked through Central Park, down 5^th Avenue, through Little Italy, went into countless shops and stores, toured the Chelsea Market where the Food Network has its studios, strolled by the United Nations, and wondered at the pandemonium in Times Square.

We ate some street food, had authentic wood stove pizza, had dinner at a corner diner and ate a Nathan’s hot dog at Coney Island. New York City is the greatest city in the world. I know, I’ve seen most of them.

In our blog posting for April 30, 2006, we mentioned that we were looking for a trailer to pull with our pickup truck. This trailer will be where we live while traveling the country and where we will live until the house on Berry Oaks is being built. Last September at the Pennsylvania RV Show we found the model we wanted. The dealer made us a great offer and we asked him if that offer would hold until February. He said yes.

Today we took possession of the trailer and was given a demonstration on its operating characteristics. It is a 33-foot Keystone Copper Canyon Sprinter fifth wheel. It seems it will give us the living space we will need for the six months or so while the house is being built.

The dealer offered to store it for us until April when we could make arrangements to store it locally. They winterized it for us and we took away a huge package of paperwork and manuals to read over the rest of the winter. Hope spring comes early this year.