“RV there yet?” Anonymous
What seems like a lifetime ago, we lived and worked full time in Miami. In June 2018, we sold our home, retired and moved into a 33-ft fifth wheel. My name is Connie and my wife’s name is Vivian. It’s through our personal ambitions; mine – nature photography, Vivian – fishing, and our love of traveling and learning that we let go of our work life in the city and began living the RV dream.
Most of the time, our home on wheels is parked on an RV lot in Outdoor Resorts on Chokoloskee Island, Florida. We are fortunate to own the lot, a home base surrounded by wilderness, and that which gives us easy access to the water. Chokoloskee is a 150-acre island in the middle of the Ten Thousand Islands of the Gulf of Mexico and surrounded by Everglades National Park. It is located on the far side of the ‘bridge to nowhere‘ and it is exactly where we want to be when not traveling.
Through photography and fishing, the Everglades is both a physical place and a way of life for us. Being avid canoe and kayak paddlers, our dream has always been to live on that island. The RV made that dream happen.
The RV made another dream come true and that is to travel the United States while taking our time doing it. Since July of 2018, we have pulled the RV across the ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ every year and each time have come back several months later bringing memories of our American tours.
We savor the locations, explore the wilderness parks and forests, tour the cities, and learn American history and culture through its museums and residents eager to share their knowledge and experiences. After a combined total of 25 travel months from July 2018 through Oct 2022, we have only just begun to explore what this beautiful country has to offer. Enjoy this slideshow of highlights from our travels over the years.
Harvest Host Blue Sky Winery, Illinois 
Lake Louisa State Park, Florida 
Three Rivers Petroglyphs, New Mexico 
Badlands National Park, South Dakota 
Dam on the Mississippi River near Davenport, IA 
Mackinac Bridge, Michigan 
Mesa Arch, Canyonlands National Park, Utah 
Black Hills of Custer State Park, South Dakota 
Downtown St Louis, Missouri 
Dolly & Oakley, Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota 
Farmers’ Market, Holland, Michigan 
Old Faithful 
Tahquamenon Falls State Park, Michigan 
Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Wisconsin 
Gettysburg Cyclorama 
Lorraine Motel Museum, Memphis, Tennessee 
Goblin Valley State Park, Utah 
Downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin 
State Capitol, Springfield, Illinois 
Mesa Verde National Park 
Custer State Park, South Dakota 
Chaco Canyon National Historical Park 
Gulf Coast, Florida pandhandle 
Bison tracks in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota 
Printers’ Alley, Nashville 
Shenandoah National Park, Virginia 
Mt Rushmore 
Yellowstone National Park 
Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, New Mexico 
Downtown Sana Fe, NM 
St Mary Lake, Glacier National Park 
Selma, Alabama 
The Caney Fork, Tennessee from the Long Branch Campground 
Grand Tetons National Park 
Highway 160, Colorado 
Jekyll Island, GA 
Theodore Roosevelt National Park, ND 
Carhenge in Alliance, NE 
Young bighorn sheep, Badlands National Park, SD 
Providence Canyon State Park, GA 
Valley of the Gods, Utah 
Burgess Falls, Tennessee 
Devil’s Tower, WY 
White Sands National Park, NM 
House on Fire, Mule Canyon, Utah 
Fort Robinson State Park, Nebraska 
Lake Erie, PA 
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan 
Amnicon Falls State Park, Wisconsin 
Harvest Host, East Grove Meadery, Iowa
Through our blog entries, we hope you join us on our travels because we’ve had countless great experiences, some close calls, many unexpected good and bad events, and we’ve learned so much. Our changing view of the United States continues. Here are a few of our favorite stories over the years.
Jul 29, 2018: Putting Our Home in Motion
“Be thankful for everything that happens in your life; it’s all an experience.” Roy T. Bennett On a steamy summer morning in south Florida deep into hurricane season, we connected the RV for the second time to the brand new Demco Recon hitch installed in the bed of the brand new Ford F350 diesel truck.…
Sep 19, 2018 – We’re not in the Tropics Anymore
“Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories.” Anne Bradstreet Using the reclining chair heater for the first time, I sat huddled in a fetal position under a crocheted blanket that was given to us as a wedding present from a dear friend who has always lived in Michigan. I was so pleased…
Jul 6, 2019 – Fightin’ for our Rats
Feeling relieved to have survived the 120-mile drive on I-95, we happily pulled into Santee State Park’s spacious Cypress View Campground. We backed in easily to our site that appeared to be the only empty one in the middle of a holiday weekend. The next day, we visited Fort Sumter and Charleston and came back…
Sep 9, 2019 – Breaking from Normal
This part of our trip began with great anticipation and much preparation building up to one thing, the White River in Bull Shoals Arkansas. But that all ended just as quickly as it began. Let me start by describing how the preparation played out. Much of Vivian’s spare time (when she is not fishing) is…
Jul 9, 2020 – Let the Chips Fall Where they May
The American Alligator is synonymous with The Everglades. I can remember clearly the first time I saw one in the wild. At least six feet in length, the reptile’s presence commanded its watery environment. It appeared to not have any interest in me or anything for that matter- it was just there biding its time.…
Aug 26, 2020 – Running from Laura
Sometimes intentions are just that. Vivian and I had every intention of spending quality time in Arkansas this year, mostly because we didn’t get to do it as planned last year. That’s when Vivian broke her ankle while fly fishing the White River on the first day of our month-long Arkansas adventure. Consequently, reservations got…
May 12, 2021 – O’Keeffe’s Faraway Place
“Interest is the most important thing in life; happiness is temporary, but interest is continuous.” Georgia O’Keeffe In the summer of 1929, a 32-yr-old artist well known by that time as an influential and successful modernist painter, drove her Model T automobile cross country from New York to a “faraway place” in northern New Mexico.…
June 26, 2021 – A Science Lesson Brought to you by Yellowstone National Park
This blog is inspired by our first visit to Yellowstone National Park. But I will warn you now, I am going off on a tangent, sort of a Bill Bryson “Short History of Nearly Everything” kind of tangent. Many years ago, I picked up an oversized book at the local Borders bookstore titled “The Animal…
Aug 25, 2021 – Full of Grace
The RV parked for six weeks in northern lower peninsula of Michigan was not normal for our home on wheels. August 8th, the day we drove to our 6-wk home was out of the ordinary as well, beginning with a flat RV tire 30 miles north of the Mackinac Bridge. That event, which could have…
Jun 11, 2022 – Art and Nature Florida Style
According to our original plans, this day, June 11 would have ended week-5 of our 2022 travels and the final day at Cheyenne Mountain State Park in Colorado. Instead, we found ourselves on Chokoloskee Island preparing to hitch up on a steamy morning hungover from a hard rain. Drenched in sweat, I performed the regimen…
Jul 24, 2022 – Wisconsin Part 1: Drifting Through Summer
It was laundry day, which is why we stood in the County Seat Laundry in Viroqua, WI talking with one of the owners. Within the time of a normal wash cycle, we learned quite a few things about the people living in this area of Wisconsin. Up until that conversation, Vivian and I were so…
Fulltime RVing – Eleven Tools we Cannot Live Without
Wisdom is commonly described this way- “If I only knew then what I know now”. Such is fulltime living in an RV. Four years of it can be summarized as follows – an accumulation of trials and errors, painstaking learning curves that rely heavily on YouTube videos, the occasional and quite gratifying “high five” when…
Changing Views From Our RV 