Wednesday, January 1, 2014

2013 Travel Recap & Happy New Year!

Our 2013 travels

Gimmarro Family Travels

January – December, 2013

We covered a lot of miles in 2013, and had many beautiful homes.  2013 started out with our volunteer position at Lover’s Key State Park, through the end of February.

Lovers Key

Lovers Key State Park – Ft. Myers Beach, FL

Leaving SW Florida, we travelled north and west, following the Gulf Coast, and celebrated Easter in New Orleans.

Spanish Main

Spanish Main RV Park – Thonotosassa, FL

Day 70_Homosassa River_site H7

Homosassa River RV Park --  Homosassa Springs, FL

Torreya State Park

Torreya State Park – Bristol. FL

Foley AL

Magnolia Springs Golf & RV – Foley, AL

Bayou-Segnette_site 66

Bayou-Segnette State Park – New Orleans, LA

Tom picked up a workamping job for the month of April in the Texas Hill Country, which gave us a good home base for exploring the area around San Antonio and Fredericksburg.

Boerne

Top of the Hill RV Park – Boerne, TX

After 3 weeks, we’d had enough and were back on the move, travelling all the way to the Texas/Mexico border, and back up to our next workamping job in Colorado for the next 2 months.

Junction TX

North Llano River RV Park – Junction, TX

Site #5

Marathon Motel & RV Park – Marathon, TX

Brantley Lake State Park_site 12

Brantley Lake State Park – Carlsbad, NM

A tight squeeze but it fit!

Leisure Mountain RV Park – Tijeras, NM

Echo Basin

Echo Basin Ranch – Mancos, CO

After exploring at a slower pace in Colorado for 2 months, the boys finished up their school year and we got into serious “vacation mode”.  We hit some serious tourist spots – Moab, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, Badlands -- and then started making our way back toward “home”.

Site #50 OK RV Park

Okay RV Park – Moab, UT

Our campsite at Golden Spike RV Park

Golden Spike RV Park – Brigham City, UT

Teton Valley

Teton Valley RV Park – Victor, ID

Our home for the week

Yellowstone Holiday RV Park – West Yellowstone, MT

Our Bighorn Canyon Home

Bighorn Canyon Recreation Area – Ft. Smith, MT

Rapid City SD

Heartland RV Park -- Rapid City, SD

Wall SD

Arrow RV Park – Wall, SD

Our Omaha Home

Walnut Creek City Park -- Papillion, NE

As we moved into familiar territory, we met up with family and friends, and got some maintenance work done on the RV before finally arriving back in Michigan.

Our Blue Springs Home

Blue Springs Lake Campground – Blue Springs, MO

Our Hannibal Home

Mark Twain Landing – Monroe City, MO

Our home at Jellystone Goodfield

Jellystone RV Park – Goodfield, IL

Camp Newmar

Camp Newmar – Napannee, IN

Shipshewana South Campground

Shipshewana South Campground – Shipshewana, IN

Silver Lake Sand Dunes

Silver Creek RV Resort – Silver Lake, MI

We settled into Camp Lord Willing in Monroe, MI and spent September and October re-connecting with family and friends and taking care of lots of little details.

Camp Lord Willing - site #21

Camp Lord Willing – Monroe, MI

Autumn in Michigan was beautiful, and fortunately for us, the nice weather held out until nearly the end of October.  After 25 years at Ford, Tom retired, and we were back on the move!

Our winter destination was Arizona, and at Nicolas’ request, we would be following Route 66.

Site 8

Camp A While – Lincoln, IL

Ladybug RV Park

Ladybug RV Park – Cuba, MO

Coachlight RV

Coachlight RV Park – Carthage, MO

Kiva RV Park

Kiva RV Park – Tucumcari, NM

Route 66 RV

Route 66 RV Park – Holbrook, AZ

Our campsite

Grand Canyon Railroad RV Park – Williams, AZ

On November 15th, we arrived at our winter destination, just north of Phoenix, AZ.  We’ll be here for 4-1/2 months -- our longest stay so far -- and we’re looking forward to doing lots of exploring as we volunteer as camp hosts.

Day 330_Our new home

Lake Pleasant Regional Park – Peoria, AZ

On this last leg of our journey we also added 5 more National Parks to our list of Parks visited.

Lincoln Home

 

George Washington Carver

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Painted Desert

 

Petrified Forest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grand Canyon

So that was our 2013 . . . it was quite a year!!  We have been blessed with much good fortune in our first full year of fulltime travel – including lots of exciting adventures, great friends, and breathe-taking scenery!  We’re looking forward to even more in 2014!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

6 comments:

  1. WOW...what a year you had and what wonderful memories you have made!! We wish you a Very Happy and Healthy 2014!!!

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  2. What a fantastic year you had traveling as a family. I have followed your blog since the early days when you were trying to sell the sticks and bricks and all you went thru....so worth it. You have one of the BEST blogs out there! One thing I would like to read is an entry on how your toy hauler works for your family. We have a 5th wheel and we are considering a toy hauler for our full time travels as we have a Harley.

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  3. First off Happy New Year to all of you and we're hoping that it is filled with good health and happiness.
    Finally just getting caught up on the last few days of reading and you have had one busy year and the best part was you shared it as a family.
    Be Safe and Enjoy!

    It's about time.

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  4. I've loved following your journey and look forward to a great year with you in 2014. Happy new year and safe travels!

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  5. WOW!! What a great year!

    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
    Karen and Steve
    (Blog) RVing: The USA Is Our Big Backyard
    http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com
    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

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  6. What a nice recap of 2013. Hope that 2014 brings you many miles of travels and more great adventures. Your boys are so lucky too have this family time together. Becki

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Thanks for reading! We'd love to hear your comments!