Travel Plans

5-4-3-2-1 take off! Doesn't Charlie look like she's ready to fly? Actually it was very windy here today and a big gust of wind lifted her ears just as I snapped this photo of her and her cousin, Cooper.

Up until now our travel plans have been loosely predetermined by the family members here on the East Coast that we wanted to spend time with. Today we move back into the motorhome and finalize our decision to head south or west to avoid the colder weather ahead this winter. Though we both want to explore Florida as well as Georgia and Alabama a couple things are compelling us to head west. During our stay here for Thanksgiving we learned that our son, Zach, is definitely being deployed to Afghanistan in February where he'll be for the next year. So, our plan now is to head 500 miles west to the Nashville area so we can spend more time with him as well as see Fort Campbell, his home for nearly the past year. Since we don't do anything in a hurry anymore, we will also be taking a side trip to The Great Smoky Mountains National Park along the way. We so enjoyed The Shenandoah National Park we feel we shouldn't just drive by a National Park when we are so close.

The other reason we chose west over south is that my older sister in Arizona is not doing so well so it's important to spend some time with her now. She is the only sibling I have left from my childhood family of five. Southern Arizona is a great snow bird location and it is sooo so different from Connecticut that we'll be like kids in a candy store.