I really hope everyone's having a great summer.

High gas prices have come with a mixed blessing for us. As most of you know, we had planned a trip down Route 66 that would take a couple months this summer. As it turns out $5.00 a gallon for gas put those plans on the back burner pre-quickly.

As we revise plans and scouting locations a couple of things have come up. If you are around last year you know on a not for driving long distances. I guess it comes from years of traveling with my grandparents and even as an adult I would make the trip to from Chicago to Florida in one.shot without stopping.

Our last trip took almost 3 days, but we took a couple detours to miss in bad weather. I still managed to drive 10-12 hours a day. When we got the RV we had originally planned to stop and smell the roses but old habits die hard and when I planned the driving parts of the trip we would leave early in the morning, get in after it was dark, set up watch a little TV, and go to bed. Then we get up early the next morning and start the routine all over again. it was definitely more about the destination than the journey getting there.

Over the past couple months, just like everyone else. We have been taking our trips and staying closer to home in order to save a little gas. Over the Fourth of July weekend we had actually planned to take a longer trip down south. With our schedules and the current price of gas we decided to take a shorter trips to spend a little bit more time at a campgrounds closer to home.

Instead of an 8-10 hour drive we decided to hit a campground that we've spent time at before. The best part was we are able to leave a day later than we'd planned and stay a day longer at the end of the trip. We pulled into our campsite Friday afternoon after everyone had already got there. We were set up within 20 minutes. There was an added bonus of staying the extra day. As you can imagine the campground was packed all weekend and I don't think they had one extra spot available. By Sunday night almost everyone in the campground had gone home so we pretty much had the place to ourselves. It was the perfect end to a great weekend.

Over the Fourth of July weekend I had one of the biggest treats a dad could possibly have. Both my four year old girl and my five year old boy caught their first fish. They have these tiny rods and reels that they practice casting with on almost every trip. We never seem to find a easy fishing spot at our destination campgrounds, and we're in and out so fast at campgrounds along the way that we were never able to really stop. Since we slowed everything down this trip we are actually able to fish for a couple days.

I let the kids go with their own pace and quit when they were tired so they didn't get burned out. They also got to do a little swimming and some crafts so all in all we had a great weekend and spent a minimal amount on gas.

I know most of you that have RVs are already aware of the pluses when staying close to home it just took a little while to get through my thick skull.

I guess even if you can drive all over the country with your vacation home and all of your stuff you just don't have to. Check out some of the places closer to home and you might be surprised.

Steve

I thought I would do a quick post with my new toy and give everyone a quick update.

I want to apologize if you've got a couple of e-mails today with some errant posts. I've invited some guest posters to post on this blog. Unfortunately they are not posting what I feel to be appropriate content. I usually catch them in time but today those two got through. Sorry about that and it won't happen again.

It's been 24 hours since I started using the new computer with Dragon NaturallySpeaking. All I can say it's been almost like a dream. I've used these text-to-speech programs before but never one with the accuracy like this. I swear I'm not a salesman for them but I could be. It's really high on the geek scale plus it works exceptionally well. Enough about the geek update now on to something a little bit more meaningful.

I was trying to figure out a couple posts about the time I spent in Charlotte at the Coca-Cola 600. What I didn't want to do is post every little thing and bore you all to death. Well, it's been a little over a week and there are two things that still stick out in my mind.

The first thing is how crowded the campground was. I have done a lot of camping over the past year and have never seen this many RVs in one place even at the Camping Shows. One thing I can say is these folks sure know how to pack them in. I put together a little video of some of the prerace festivities and a view from the top of the stands looking over just one of the campgrounds.

I'm not sure if you can get a feel for it from the video but the campground that we were in was huge. Now if you can imagine a campgrounds just like this all around the race track you'll get a feel for how many people were actually there and camping. I had somebody asked me if I thought the gas prices kept people away from the race. From the amount of people there camping in RVs and the distance they drove. I would say no, at least for this one. I don't know what it will look like next year but as far as I'm concerned everyone that planned on going showed up.

As for the party atmosphere that I thought was going to be there that didn't really materialize at all. Maybe we were at the wrong campground, maybe I believed all the hype, from what I saw it was just a bunch of folks at having a good time enjoying Memorial Day weekend. I could've brought the kids and they would've had a great time. I would've not been worried about them at all. I have been the campgrounds much worse than this and they were supposed to be family-friendly.

Don't get me wrong, people were drinking and having a good time but it was NOT an out-of-control party like I was led to believe it was going to be. It was a little bit of a letdown as I was prepared for something a little different but it turned out okay and was one of the best Memorial Day weekends I can remember a long time.

There was one more thing that sticks in my mind even a week later and I'll share that with you tomorrow in another post.

Hope you enjoy the video. And for my fellow geeks (you know who you are) this whole post was done on my handheld computer and dictated through the microphone. (very cool)

Steve

Just wanted to le everyone know we are back on the road Friday morning. 

Had a great time at Disney and more videos will follow.  We did a live show while we were here so I hope you were able to catch it. 

The trip back will take about 3 days so you will be able to Ride shotgun all the way back over the weekend.  To be honest I am not looking forward to heading back to the cold weather. 

From the weather reports it looks like spring is still a few weeks off.  We really do need to get back to meet with the Travel Channel for a few days.  Then another day of packing and off to California for a few days.  We will be flying out to California since we are under a deadline.  We should be back pretty quick and then the planning starts for the summer trips.

Don't forget to join us on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday for the trip back from Sunny Florida.  We are looking forward to you riding along.

Steve

If you were watching as we left Nashville this morning you would have seen the rain continued from the drive the day before.  Sorry I missed a post last night but after diving in the NASTY wind and rain all day I had to get a couple things taken care of with the RV. The rain has stopped us from doing a Live show so the Route 66 commercial has been playing.  We should be able to get a Live Show done on Wed or Thurs.

It was really bad on the way to Nashville.  You might have seen the 3 crashes in the median on the way.   Crash might be the wrong term to use here since one of them was just someone who had spun out on the Interstate and ended up in the median.  If that has ever happened to you would be scared enough to warrant calling it a crash.

We also had a little mishap with the RV as the wind caught the door on one of our stops and slammed it against the side.  It punched a hole in the door so we will  need to fix that once we get to Florida.  Not a big deal but it still hurts to see it.

We hung out for a little while longer in Nashville than planned this morning to let all the storms pass completely.  After a little rain on the start things cleared up in the afternoon.  We took the long route through Alabama to miss all the storms going through Georgia.  Turned out to be a blessing in disguise since a shortcut we took through Alabama took us down and older 4 lane highway and through about 6-7 small towns.  The weather was perfect and we got off the interstate and onto some back roads for a while.  It was a great prelude for the Route 66 trip this summer.  Most of the roads we will be on will be like this or smaller.

There is allot to be said for getting off the interstate and going through some small towns.  I never knew how pretty Alabama was.  I have been through it a couple times but never like today.  If you ever get a chance to come down this way I highly recommend it.  You can even stop at one of the dozens of Flea Markets and get a deal.

Sorry about the new website being as weird as it is for the video.  Our developers are still working hard on getting it done.  For now I have put back up the old site.  I got hundreds of text messages today asking about why certain things did not work or when you tried to move the camera the video just turned blue.  They are working on all this in the meantime I put back up the site I hand coded myself.  It was never meant to be PRETTY.  It was the original code for testing. Best thing I can say about it is "it works".  This was suppose to be a test run and we did not think there would be this many visitors so soon.  We are not complaining about the visits. In fact, we are happy people are enjoying it this much.  Keep telling everyone you know! 

I just personally hate going to a site that does not work.  I apologize for the way the old site looks but having something that will work is more important than the look right now.  Glad we are doing this test and it was not an official launch!

Tomorrow is the last leg for the trip down. We will be leaving early in the morning for Fort Meyrs, FL.  Should be about a 8 or 9 hour drive and the weather is suppose to be clear.  We will be shooting some video and getting a live show together down there so stay tuned for more info.  After Fort Meyers we will be off to the Home of the Mouse ( Walt Disney World ).  We will also be doing a live show from there.

If you have an questions and don't have our text message ID feel free to post a comment here.  You can still qualify for one of this trips souvenir giveaways by posting comments.

Thanks for riding shotgun on the trip down.  Should be a great couple weeks in Sunny Florida.
Steve