Our first trip in the new camper

So we get to the place, they go over everything with us, we stay the night there in the parking lot, to make sure we didn't find anything not working, etc.  It is just a parking lot, but they had this cool little pond area, and plenty of room to walk around.

By the way, for those of you that don't know, that's Jemma, our child!!

The next day we are ready to pull out, and head to our first spot

Our first stop was scheduled for Natural Bridge state park in Kentucky http://parks.ky.gov/parks/resortparks/natural-bridge/default.aspx
Now we of course didn't do much research about the locations of these campgrounds, so we did have to drive down a pretty windy, steep road, but it wasn't to bad, then we get to the campground, only to find that we cant fit down the road without scraping tree limbs.... Our brand new camper was not about to touch tree limbs yet!!  So we had to find a different place to stay, which was fine.
We went to Fort Boonesburough State Park, I know it doesn't sound very exciting, but we did enjoy it.
http://parks.ky.gov/parks/recreationparks/Fort-Boonesborough/default.aspx

This was our spot, not a lot of shade but weather was cool so we didn't mind

We stayed here for 2 nights, didn't do much the first night, had our bomb fire of course

The next day we found this trail that lead down to the Kentucky River, we walked as far as we could walk in both directions up and down the river, it was very nice, and Jemma had a blast in the water.

Then on to our next stop, which was in Carthridge Tennessee at a COE campground called Defeated Creek Park on Cordull Hull Lake  http://corpslakes.usace.army.mil/visitors/projects.cfm?Id=H303940

Now we had quite the hair raising experience getting here, as our GPS took us down a road that we soooo would not have taken if we had known how it was.  It was a white knuckle experience!!  2 lane road, cliff on one side 90 degree curves, locals speeding by in the other direction hauling trailers, PHEEW, but we made it, and it was well worth it.  Of course the lady at the check in said "Oh why did you take that way, you could have come _______ way" yeah, yeah, we know now!!
But as we pulled up to the gates this was our view right from the road in

and this was our view from our campsite

We loved this place, and this spot.  We had tons of room, and great views!!  The next morning I got to watch the fog disappear

The we decided to blow up our Seaeagle kayak and take a spin around the lake, we only went a short distance, it was warmer here, and Jemma was getting to hot in the kayak.  When we got back we walked around the campground (our favorite thing to do) to check out other peoples rigs and see the whole campground.  There weren't any hiking trails, but they did have this nice little pathway through the woods.

They had a swimming area on the other side of the campground, but we did not indulge as it was a little to chilly for us. 

We stayed here 2 nights, and then moved on to our next stop in Lagrange GA, another COE called Whitetail ridge http://www.recreation.gov/camping/Whitetail_Ridge/r/campgroundDetails.do?page=details&contractCode=NRSO&parkId=71499&topTabIndex=CampingSpot

This was also a very nice spot, with great views.

  More clay here, and the water seemed to be low so the edge of the water was a little mucky but still nice. 

This is where we learned that Jemma can swim, she took off into the water after the Canadian Geese.

We stayed here for 2 nights also.  They had a short hiking trail that was nice, overall nice campground, we enjoyed.
Then we headed home after that :(
We had such a great trip back home though, so many nice views.  Just made us want this lifestyle even more.

Our story, The Beginning

So this is our story.....
I met my husband 7 years ago, and we got married 5 years ago.  From our first date on, all he talked about was how badly he wanted to quit work, and travel the United States to see everything.  I, of course, thought he was nuts, I thought how on earth is that possible??  Well he proved to me it was possible.  After many years of getting on board with the budget, and doing all we could do to set us up for this future, we are finally doing it!!
Now of course there is a lot to tell on how we prepared for this, but i will try to give you the short version.
Here is my husband, Shane, and I when we first met

We love the outdoors!  Which is why we want to see it all. 
In the beginning we lived in my Shane's house, a 5 bedroom, 3 bathroom, 4 car garage home on 5 acres, i know huge right?  Way huge, and we were in agreeance on "no kids", so it was way to big for just us.
So we sold this house and property and moved into a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath, 1 car garage house that we rented, so we way down sized, sold a ton of stuff, but who cares, its just stuff right.

After renting for a year we decided to go ahead and buy our camper, we had sold all of our outdoor toys when we moved, except for the pop up camper, which was getting tons of use.
After shopping around for awhile we found a great deal on the camper we wanted and a truck to pull it, only one small issue... it was in Ohio!!!  so this was our first planned trip with our new camper. 

One of the hardest sacrifices I had to make, was deciding to trade in my beloved truck, my dream truck, we had a good run, but it was time to let her go.  :(

So we take time off work and drove up to Ohio to pick it up, at Holman Motors http://www.holmanrv.com/ , which by the way, we highly recommend, we had a GREAT expierence with them, and thank goodnes because it is very nerve racking buying something out of state, we didnt know what to expect, we worried that we would get there and things not be what they were supposed to be, but that didnt happen, everything was great, staff was super friendly, and the truck was way nicer than we thought.

And there she is, our new soon to be home!!  We were so excited and you can see it on Shanes face in these next couple of pictures.

 

And that is the beginning, stay tuned and I will continue with the places we stayed on journey back home with our new home.