Summarizing our 2014 !

I was so lazy keeping our blog up to date this year and I vow to do a better job at keeping it more current, especially since we are now full-timers!

We decided to celebrate our upcoming December anniversary (our 25th) by taking a land/cruise tour of the Hawaiian Islands.  We did this in October, had a fabulous time and are now able to mark off our attendance in all 50 States!  Now it's time to start all over again.

We landed back in Florida in November, a little bathroom remodel for Joshua, a little shopping for a new Motorcoach and then we are off again!

For pictures and to follow us in 2015 please go to our new blog address:

www.Deane2015.blogspot.com

Enjoy and thanks for joining us! 

Hampton Beach & Leslie's Heroics!

We haven't posted very often because we  are fairly boring and ordinary.  We try to get exercise and try to eat right.  This past week we uprooted ourselves and went to Hampton Beach State Park which is a small campground right on the beach.  We were thrilled that Lyla came to spend a day at the beach with us and ended up staying overnight for a repeat performance.  Of course we were super careful with putting sunblock (50) on her but somehow we ended up with sunburns!  We had so much fun with her and boy does she like the water!  Uncle Les was awesome with playing in the water with her for five hours straight, with a short lunch break!

We returned to our seasonal spot at Angle Pond yesterday.  Today was laundry day and general hang out here day.  We knew the park was slated to be full, including the spot right next to us that is usually left empty.  Sometime around noon a 38' fifth wheel arrived.  The two men set up the camp, connected water, electric, sewer and generally made it ready for the family to come back later.

Seriously about 1/2 hour later we heard a loud pop.  Les was outside and thought he smelled electrical burn, calling me out to investigate with him.  Within minutes we saw sparks under the RV and then within seconds flames!  Les is so cool headed and as I ran over to the office which is almost directly behind us he pulled the electrical connection and turned off their propane tanks.  Then he grabbed our fire extinguisher and put out the fire.  The Sandown NH Fire Dept. is a volunteer one and they responded quickly as well as the police.  The firefighters promptly pulled the bottom out of the RV to make sure the fire was out.  There was smoke inside but not enough to damage the RV.  It was determined that the wiring was pinched in the slide out and heated up and shorted out causing the fire.  It was later discovered that the fire burned the water hose inside so there was some water damage.  Then to top it off, the hydraulics hose burned and that started to leak.  Sounds bad but really Les saved the RV from total loss.  Those of you familiar with our "tin cans" know that a fire in an RV is usually quick and total.  Just in case Les was ready to move our RV in case we were not able to put the fire out, a small one but scary.  The owners just bought this unit and had warranty work finished last week.  We are all grateful that his family was not asleep inside when this happened....

Well that is all for here for now!

Summer in New Hampshire

Guess we have been having so much fun we haven't had the time to update our Blog!  We arrived in New Hampshire to a new grand niece, Makynlee, courtesy of Liz and Jerrod and big sister Lyla!  Posting a picture of each of the girls so you can see them.  We have been playing with Lyla on her new swingset too. 

We settled into a campground on Angle Pond fairly close to Liz.  Of course since we are on a pond now, we had to get a canoe!  We found a used one that Les was very  happy with and now we are members of the paddling club!  I joined a Candlepin Bowling League in Salem NH and recently convinced Les to be our 4th on our team!

Jimmy & Maureen, our friends from Florida and Staten Island, came and visited with us for a couple of days and we had a great time!  They are always so much fun to be around and there is never a dull moment with those two!

We are really hoping that our friends from Kentucky will come with their Motorhome and visit too, but if they don't we may meet them somewhere new and different!

Massachusetts in the Spring??

After we left DC we stopped in Connecticut to see Joshua, Sarah and Eve Benton, Leslie's nephew and his wife and daughter.  It was a real treat to visit with them and see how grown Eve was at 2!  We also had the opportunity to tour their new home (which is lovely and authentic New England).  While we were in Ct. we also took the time to visit with Les' Aunt Marion, who is recovering in Rehab from a fall.  She looked terrific and at 92 has a lot of spunk!

Off to Massachusetts to spend some time with Pat, our dear friend from Lakeville.  She always welcomes us with a cleared out campsite in her yard!  Our title is Spring??? but the weather has been anything but Spring-like, more like Fall or early Winter.  I think we have run our heat every single day since we left Florida!  Les has his electric blanket on every night.  One of our projects to do with Pat was to gather as much brush from the yard as we could and have a "burn" day.  Actually this is a lot of fun, sitting around a huge fire and having our lunch out too!  The only problem with this day was that when I was returning the lunch material to the RV it was locked!  Turns out that Boots, our smarty kitty, locked the door while he was trying to open it!!!  We didn't have the keys with us so ....

We had a chance to have a nice visit with Aunt Barbara in Middleboro (another of Les' Aunts) and a visit with Shirley, Don and Barbie Erickson, lifelong friends of Les' mother Shirley. 

We then moved to Scussett Beach Campground, located directly on the Cape Cod Canal.  It's a State Park and very reasonably priced with water and electric.  We have a terrific site and easy access to the Canal.  We have either walked or biked every day and some days both to try to get off some of these excess pounds we acquired over the Winter.  Today we walked  6 miles before breakfast!

Our side trips a tour of the Lighthouses on Cape Cod (Chatham Light, Truro Light, Provincetown Light at Race Point).  I now know more than I ever wanted to about lighthouses and after climbing them don't care to see another for a while!  We also visited Provincetown specifically to climb the Pilgrim Monument which is about 252 vertical feet.  The views are gorgeous at 350 ft. above sea level!  Of course no trip to P-Town is complete without a visit to the Penny Candy store!  Might as well have a lobster while we are here too! 

We spent a day in Hyannis, visiting the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory.  We also visited the JFK Memorial Park which included a memorial to the Korean Veterans as well as JFK.  Didn't even know this existed! 


Pilgrim Monument - Provincetown MA

Socks - just chilling!

View from the top of Pilgrim Monument
 

Chatham Light



Truro Light

Scusset Beach at entrance to Cape Cod Canal

Washington DC

We were lucky enough to get to DC before the heavy rains and winds came wiping out the last of the Cherry Blossoms.  As soon as we arrived we hopped in the Jeep and drove into DC to see the blossoms from the road!  We stayed at Cherry Hill RV Park, one that we had stayed before during the hottest July they had experienced in years.  This time we arrived during one of the coldest April's they experienced - ha!  a no win situation.  We have been running our heat almost every day since we left Florida.  Hummm, perhaps we departed a tad too early!  Anyway we took the Metro the remainder of our time in DC, fantastic way to travel, clean, easy and not too expensive.  As you can see from our photos we pretty much did DC.  First thing on our priority list was to get to Legal Seafoods and have lunch!  Les loves their chowdah !  We had a chance to spend a lot of time in the museums this visit and we both enjoyed them.  We think we have had our fill of DC for quite a few years now.  We will head East towards Massachusetts where you know we will be eating seafood!

Original Supreme Court located inside the Capitol Building



Easter Roll Preparations at the White House
 

Washington Monument in Pink



Selfie on the Mall












Darlington SC NASCAR Race and beyond...

We try to attend at least a couple of NASCAR races every year.  Since Rockingham NC no longer hosts the Truck race we chose Darlington SC to attend the Bojangles Southern 500. We were lucky enough to secure an infield spot between a group of young men and a very nice couple from Louisana.  We enjoyed both of our neighbors but leaned toward the quieter ones from LA.  In additional to being newly wed, he whipped up a mean Jambalaya on Saturday that I enjoyed before the night race.  You wouldn't believe how large the pot was that he cooked up this masterpiece was!


Kyle Larson (Pat's favorite new driver)



Junior (88) and Bowyer (15) warming up!



Our site at Darlington - a tad close!

 

We bid Darlington a Goodnight

Sunday we headed out a day early to reach College Park, MD (just outside of DC and the nicest RV Park around), before the anticipated rain/wind event.  Glad we did so we had a chance to drive into DC to see the last of the cherry blossoms before the storm wiped them out.  Today we are spending a quiet day listening to the rain, catching up on emails and letters and just relaxing.  Tomorrow we will map out where we want to go first on our museum excursion.  Of course from now on all travel to DC will be via the Metro.  We were lucky yesterday that traffic was light, thanks to school vacation, Easter break and the beginning of Passover.  We are sure we wouldn't be as lucky later in the week.

We will stay here in DC until sometime next week and then head to New England.  Les' aunt, Marion, is in a rehab center in Connecticut and we hope to be able to stop by and say hello to her on our way through.  We may even be able to grab a visit with his nephew Joshua and his family who recently relocated to Connecticut.

See Ya Florida (at least for a few months!)

We closed on the house on March 24.  We leave the neighborhood with wonderful memories and the knowledge that the family who will now raise their children there are just delightful!  We wish them all the happiness we enjoyed there.

We have been very busy finishing the kitchen installation at Joshua's and just generally getting loaded to start our Summer trek!  We are eventually off to New Hampshire for the Summer.