Everyday is a
New Day for a Good day!
This is our family time travel diary. Our Events Page. To notate what we did, where we were at because we are doing a lot. We do not want to forget all the amazing things we are stumbling across. These little event blobs will later turn into a blog that will be posted later! For the time being, this is the most up to date way to venture into knowing what we are discovering in life currently. This collection of day-to-day events is a collection of our Summer Unplanned. The kids may or may not remember all of this, but we sure will! We have designed our life to be full of adventure, experiences and to see all the things!
After these 2.5 months, and as time allows, this content will be expanded into so much more! We cannot wait to share. For now, we want to have fun, enjoy, bike a ton and embrace it all!
Iowa Pit Stop
Found ourselves a small cozy little farm town outside of Bloomington! We took a trip to the local town diner, had some good conversations with the owners, made our bellies happy and worked our way to the city to check it out.
Des Moines, IL
Decided to stop and rest! We had a good half of a day to explore the city. Ended the day with some good ole’ fishing!
At this point, we decided to start making grounds back to Cheyenne, WY to make it to the last weekend of the Worlds Largest outdoor country celebration and Rodeo. CFC- Cheyenne Frontier Days!.
Family Farm
We have some family property in a small rural area outside of Troy, OH. Approximately 180 acres! We decided to make a pit stop to show it off to the kiddos and meet up with some family.

Travel day.
Travel day! We really have no idea where we are going, where we will be stopping or such. We just know, we are to head west. Makes it a little nerving, with literally having no slight plan as we hit the road but hey, spontaneity at its finest.
We have gone through West Virginia, and headed into Ohio. We assume, we will be somewhere near the border and will explore that area for a day or so. This is probably the first time on this trip that we’ve jumped onto the road with absolutely no idea where we are headed! Definitely fitting of our summer theme, “ Planned, UNPLANNED summer!” We usually have a good idea where we are headed, and it’s usually the things we do that are unplanned. But today marks the first!

Guernsey Trail
Cambridge, Ohio! We made an unknown stop here after a wild event in Washington, PA. We attempted to stop at a KOA, however, even acknowledging our long tug a boat of 70ft long, the space for us, but getting to the campsite was the challenge. After an attempt to take the original directions that were given, holding up traffic, taking over a side parking lot, and a having a screaming lady thinking we were going to take out her car, not realizing I was in the back with a walkie notifying of any wrong moves, I hopped in the motorhome, we got back on the road and just left west! Massive moment of stress and not worth staying. I called and explained our little snafoo of our experience trying to get to the campsite and thankfully received a full refund.
We landed in s little cozy town outside of Cambridge,Oh. Took the day to bike a 11 miles on the Guernsey Trail. This area is very woodsy. An area of multiple site seeing of Big Foot. The boys were very much intrigued and on the hunt! We loved this little area so much we actually extended our stay for another night! Ended the evening with the Friday night social for the campsite and played a good couple of bingo games! No luck winning this go around, but always a good time.

Gettysburg, PA
The kids have gotten so spoiled with most of our locations having a pool and a mini golf course for putt-putt. What a life?! Waking up on your summer mornings for some mini golf and a swim, can life get any better than that for a kid?! An everyday ritual that we have incorporated into our days whether it be starting the day off or ending with it! These kids are living their best life. What is so great about that- is that we get to experience and live our best lives with them! 100%!
We stopped at a horse park campground that you can ride horses into the battlefields of where much of the Civil War occurred. Though we didn’t take up this experience, as we walked majority of all the historic spots and all those trails, we by far hit the gold mine with this site. This campsite was actually the closet to the actual downtown area of Gettysburg. This was perfect distance and had the perfect amenities. This by far probably had the best pool we have had for a campsite. 18-hole mini golf, corn hole and whole lot more. We only planned for two days here. But man, there was so much to see and do. First thing first, we passed a fruit stand/market about 10 miles prior to this campsite that we wanted to hit up on for some homemade specials and pies. We have learned, these spots, have THE BEST food. Between the Farmers Markets and these random fruit markets on the side of the road next to large fields- we have learned are the places you want to stop at for fresh, natural ingredient items for meals. 2 frozen premade pot pies, 3 frozen pies, a couple apple dumplings, and a fresh pie for home made its way back into the Jetta! I swear we have spent majority of our money at these sorts of places. If you are ever passing through Pennsylvania/Maryland and drive by the Catoctin Mountain Orchard- STOP! Turn around, make the time! Absolutely worth it! We want to dig into that Strawberry Rhubarb pie and cinnamon apple dumpling donuts!
Gettysburg is setup for a self-guided, audio-car tour. Which is super cool. You go at your own pace, learn of all the stories within certain stops and get to walk the trails that they have and all the monuments…oh the monuments! So many monuments everywhere! So much history. We were mind blown! So enamored with the history, the reason for the Civil War and the purpose of Gettysburg. You hear of it, you learn of it, but you don’t truly understand it as well, until you are walking the walk and reading the stories of the people and their fight! Let’s just say, we couldn’t get enough. The kids were surprisingly so intrigued with it all as well. Blake had us watch quite a few different movies leading into this, so it was fun for the kids to experience it and reference certain things. And man, history can be cruel and brutal, and some may turn their heads on us showcasing this to our young kiddos, but the fact that they can experience our history in a way that we were able to have analogies and movie scenes to reference, it only betters their knowledge and perspective of life, how we fought, what we fought for. How grateful we should be for our life we get to live and so forth. I feel like this day has brought so much more perspective for them and broadened their views and continues to diversify them in life and in our history!

Where are we headed?!
We woke up this morning having no idea where we are headed. Today marks 2 full months on the road! 5000 miles in! Our summer trip is starting to wrap up as we have to start looping back soon. We were really hoping to make it up to Maine and the New England states, but as always, time is flying by, and it doesn’t look like we will make it! So, being we are on a time schedule for leaving this current site with the person in our neighboring site behind us, we aren’t sure when we will even be leaving. So, off to the maps! Thew our finger down and I think we will be in Pennsylvania for a few days. We talked about going to Philadelphia and maybe make our way up to at least Connecticut. Or just head west of Pennsylvania to just start our turn back to Idaho. We even had the discussion if we could make it up to Niagara Falls, if we just head straight north!?! We don’t know. But the next thing that determines where we are headed is the campsite that can accommodate us!
Well, second pick win! Gettysburg for the win! Some more American History here we come! And looks like we get to leave at a decent time! It is about 10:15! We should be on the road in about 15 minutes and a short 2 1/2-3 hour drive, if traffic allows!

D.C. Trip 2
Upon waking up, we decided we would head back to D.C. to attempt a museum. We were able to see many of the famous sites and landmarks, but we kept talking about how bummed we were to not have gone into at least one museum. And two, we truly loved it there and wanted to experience more. The drive there was much quicker! Very quick in comparison to the time before. However, the weather was much hotter! D.C. just had hit record breaking temperatures and the day was supposed to be over 100 degrees and that was not including the humidity. With humidity at the end of the day, it said we were at 104 degrees. We definitely felt it. As the trip back to the car was brutal. It was hot, it seemed to take forever, and it was only a little over 4 miles. Nothing that we aren’t used to, but I feel the heat dragged it on! I guess we shouldn’t complain, we heard back home, they been rocking the 107 degree weather for days and were heading towards the end of the week to be at 111 degrees! Total of 7.97 RT miles today! We were looking forward to back home, food, and a jump into the pool, and the kids want a little fishing to happen! So maybe all the above! It’s summer, what the heck!

Hydration Day!
We all woke up super dehydrated. We took the morning and made sure to soak up lots of liquids. We debated on going on another bike adventure elsewhere, however, the boys really wanted to stay at camp and do all the fun things it had to offer. The place we stayed at moved us into a spot where there was such a massive hill that, with us towing, we actually would not be able to pull forward. To back out, would have worked however, two trees were perfectly aligned that Blake would have to back perfectly into the middle of them with no room for error. It is no ones fault really, but it has been a little frusterating with a few campsites that we have been too, that we reiterate our length and making sure the road within the site are workable with our load but to barely fit. We fit into the lots, but the turns and such that get you there, have been the most challenging. Again though, Blake is a beast when it comes to driving this thing! He’s confident, calm and has made it happen and kept us safe! Maybe a scratch or two onto the motorhome, but with that said, everything has been fairly seamless.
With the stress getting into this location already, we made the decision to extend our trip by a day. Our neighbor on the backside was staying until Tuesday, and that would allow us to back straight into their location and loop forward onto that back road. So, we decided to hang low and took the whole morning to swim at the pool and do other things around the campsite. Later, we took a trip into town to do some shopping, lunch and worked our way back to fish and mine for gems! There was some pyrite gold that the kiddos and myself legit thought was real gold! That fool’s gold is tricky! We played along with it and made it a fun learning experience as I pulled out my sourdough scale and we weighed the gold vs just the regular rocks and gems that were collected! Needless to say, it was pretty interesting to see the weight difference! And fun little science experiment intertwined with some fun!

Washington D.C.
2 hr drive to Washington D.C. Now I understand why they say Idaho traffic, for those moving into Idaho, say we have no idea what traffic is. What should have taken about an hour to drive if you base on distance, took us a whole additional hour! But we made it!
It was a hot one! 10.90 miles rode throughout the National Mall. I honestly wouldn’t do it any other way. D.C. is extremely bike friendly. As nervous as I was with the kiddos and riding on the main roads and such. It turned out to be the best adventure, the best and fastest way to route yourself around town and we didn’t miss out on anything! Although, if and when visiting D.C again, we will defintly plan more time, and much closer area so our commute wasn’t so long! Though we were able to get around and see a lot of the places along the National Mall. There is was no way we would be able to do it all in one day!

Fredericksburg/Washington DC
We are almost at 2 months. We haven’t decided if we are making our U-turn after this point or attempt to make it more north! It is crazy to think, 2 months. We are not ready to head back. I even mapped it out to where if we made our way up to Maine, it truly would only extend out to about 3 more weeks! I can’t believe the trip is already about over! The joy, the fun, the adventure, the smiles…just the time alone with the 5 of us! It’s been a good 2 months! We told the kids we were close to heading back home and they too are not ready! They even asked to be homeschooled- which was a shocker to us! They love their school and love their friends. That is not a comment we would have ever expected to hear from them. Kind of funny, but I also know they are just having the time of their life! I know in a heartbeat, if I said, we would home school them, they would fight me on it!
We leave today! We are looking forward to a weekend of lots of learning. Blake, Kaycen and myself watched the Patriot last night and are all prepped for this next area of exploration! I know, probably not a movie for an 8 year old. But we explain everything in advance, as well as throughout the movie. But he mentally is mature for it. He loves learning and was curious about 4th of July and as we have approached this area, we have talked a lot about the history of how we became America. So, for him to watch a movie surrounding that, puts everything in perspective. Rhett watched a little, but I later put on another movie for him and Raylee to watch! That movie is a little too intense for them. But Rhett kept coming back asking questions in regard to whatever scene we were on. We definitely are trying to make a lot of this trip super informative and full of education in between all the fun! We may even try to make it to Washington DC. We shall see! Like I’ve mentioned before, there never seems to be enough time in the day! Let alone a weekend doesn’t seem long enough to expereince some of the most historical places our country has! Off to Jamestown and all that surrounding area!

Chill day!
We haven’t had many chill days. Lots of pool days for sure! But with the downpour rain spells, we knew heading to the beach wouldn’t be happening. We figured in between the down pours, the kids could play at the beach, hangout onsite and we could catch up on laundry and just hangout!
The kids befriended a group of kiddos and played mini golf and a game of baseball for the better half of the day! Blake and I love watching the boys befriend people at site. It just reminds us of our childhood, running into other kids and just playing. Having fun with no worries and just being a kid! No electronics - just the outdoors and good ole imagination to create the fun! Anytime the boys find kids around their age to hang out with, we are left with just Raylee. Blake and I love it! It’s rare we get any of the kids to ourselves on their own! She usually is right behind the boys, however, when they play the bigger kid stuff, she stays behind. She has become such a chatty little gal! She could tell stories all day long! I swear. Blake and I reminded in moments like this, that this will probably be our future at some point, when the boys are old enough and leave us to hang out with their buddies. Her being a tad bit younger will be left on her own! And it’ll be just the three of us. Super sappy of a thought, I know! But the truth. And it’s these trips like this that we have to embrace the present because we know, it is not going to be like this forever! I mean, they are 6 and 8 and we already have been replaced with friends a couple of times so far on this trip. LOL! It’s already happening.
Today is our last day! It was a good day, nothing exciting! Just a great day with lots of family time, laughter, jokes and hanging out on the campgrounds.

A little Mtn biking, water fun and some BINGO
Our days are long! We attempt to try everything, and we still fail to do all that we want! We stayed up late last night hanging out by a campfire! Can you believe it was our first campfire of our camping trip!? HA! Bet your bottom dollar we had to make some smores! It was a long day; however, it didn’t stop us from getting up early to go back to that bike park we found to ride around!
We wanted to be able to leave early and make it to the beach afterward to let the kids catch some waves with the boogie boards we purchased them! They’ve been dying to boogie board since we’ve reached the coast line! We rode for about 3 miles and as we were leisurely biking around the pave bike path, it started to rain, we quickly pedaled back to the car, loaded up! We went and found ourselves some food, and decided then that we probably wouldn’t go back to the beach but head back to our site to let the kids hang out at that calmer beach! The kids really wanted to partake in some of the campsite activities and in order to make some of them, we needed to cut our daily activities in town short! It was easy convincing. Though we just had dared our two boys to take a bite of the pepper from our meals! That left them in blazing uncomfortable pain! So uncomfortable we had much of our surrounding tables looking over at us, smiling, laughing and acknowledging what they knew was going on. At one point Kaycen ran to the bathroom and threw up! His ears were burning so bad, and the tears that unwillingly just poured out of his eyes! Rhett seemed to be managing. He kept grabbing his ears, drinking water non stop! I am not sure if Kaycen just got the brunt of most of the seeds or what. But, our waiter clearly felt bad for them, bringing them out some horchata and ice cream at no charge. We looked like great parents, I tell you! I promise, we don’t make our kids do anything they don’t want to- but we do sometimes challenge them! I didn’t think they both would take such large bites out of these peppers for $5! Yikes!
Back at the site, we joined in on the campsite Bingo night! $5/card. We each had one! 5 games with a total pot of about $700. First game in, I had myself a BINGO! The last game that was the biggest winning Blake and Rhett were two numbers away! However, they were beat to the punch! But what a fun evening! Something we’ve never done as a family and it was a good time! Who would have thought BINGO would be such a hoot!

Virginia Beach
We are kind of out from the hustle and bustle of the city life. Which is kind of nice! Today we decided to go check out Virginia Beach and the board walk! The kids would have loved to stayed back and enjoyed all the fun things this site offers. We were driving out and the bounce house opened up at 10am. It was 9:40am. We heard the sighs, made a quick turn back into the entry parking lot, and told them to go play while we waited for them to open the bounce house! These kids, I swear.
After a few minutes, the heat and bounce house, became an uncomfortable combo, and the boys were over it. We left for town! We also drove around looking for some biking areas that we can attempt for tomorrow! We did find a bike park that we walked and will definitely be coming back to. It was tucked away in a little neighborhood, that had many paths for mountain biking amongst its main paved pathway. This gave it great variety for the kids and if Raylee couldn’t keep up on the back roads, I knew I had the paved roads to move over to. It was the perfect spot!
Virginia beach is very spread out! We learned you can drive for awhile and still be in Virginia beach! We made our way up along the coast line and saw that there was a bridge tunnel that took you over to another part of Virginia/Deleware. 17 miles across the atlantic to cut the drive short for those travelers traveling northbound. We decided we wanted to check out this bridge/tunnel. I looked it up, and we had learned there was two artifical islands created to be able to create the infrastructure for the underwater tunnel! Ok, this just blew our mind. Well, mine and the kids. The questions they were asking were so in depth, I ended up having to google so many of the answers. Let’s just say the kids were mind boggled by this idea of being in the water, in a tunnel that started from being on a bridge. Mind Blown!
We made our way over but then realized we had to make the track back. Before doing so, we figured we would check out the closet town! Which happened to be Cape Charles. Such beauty! We drove up to the coastline, that had a fishing pier/boardwalk like type thing that oversaw the coolest beach! You could walk out into the ocean every bit of less than 1/2 mile and the water only came to your knees. They kids stripped and we ended up spending a good chunk of time there splashing away! The east coast beaches are so beautiful. The white sand, endless sites of the water crashing along the shoreline, is something else. I've been to the west coast beaches…a lot! They are nothing like what it is over here. A beach is a beach. Sure. But there is something evidently differently and we are loving it here! Our hearts are truly loving the east coast beaches moreso than what we are use to on the west! And mind you, we defintly have been to some beautiful west coast beaches. But I can’t say they’ve topped our perspective after witnessing the kind of elegant beauty here!

North Landing Beach
We have arrived at our location! 5 days at a location with a private beach, catch and release fishing, a large pool area with water volleyball, and a rec area with batting cages, bounce house, horseshoes and so much more! A campsite we do not need to leave! The boys were already planning out our week! This place reminded me of a summer camp! Kids running around, playing, driving golf carts, adults hanging out at their trailers mingling amongst each other, daily activities to keep everyone entertained! Pretty impressive. We arrived around 4pm, so we ordered pizza from their little pizza and ice cream parlor here on site and hung out on the beach to close out our evening! We laughed at our little adventure, watched our kids energetically attempting to body surf the smallest of waves and we watched the sunset along the beautiful Virginia skyline!
The squeeze in was interesting! On the way out will be even moreso. I have to say though, having Blake having the diesel background and knowing how to drive large big rigs like this is a an absolute AMEN to the good lord! As we have come out east and more north, things just keep getting more narrow and so nerving! There was this road called, Land of the Promise. There was no promise! I was biting my nails from the moment we got onto that road, seeing the NO TRUCK sign and it being a one lane road into the woods. The trees and set up of the land is absolutely amazing and gives a unique look and picturesque beauty that we aren’t use to seeing back home, but it definitely adds a whole level stress driving 70 ft down the road!

Back Window Shattered!
We are headed off to Virginia Beach! We found a place about 2-3 hours near Raleigh, NC. We figured we could stay there for the night, check out the city and the next day make our way to Virginia Beach for the week. However, as we did make this plan work out, we had another little sna-foo occur. Blake fixed our turbo problem, replaced the part- we were golden there! But how about a shattered window?!
As we were loading and packing everything up, the boys decided they wanted to ride the bikes to the trailer. We were in the back woods; we unhitched our trailer upon arriving and left it in the overflow open area near the winery instead of attempting to bring it into the tight spaces of the woods. It was recommended by the campsite host and just seemed like a safer option! So, as the boys were jumping onto their bikes, Raylee of course wanted her bike. Her bike was tucked away in the trunk of the Jetta. We have a bike rack back there that holds Rhett’s bike. However, because the boys decided to ride their bikes, Blake had the rack unhooked and loose. So that when he loaded it into the trailer, it was a quick release to take off. I did not know this, nor could I see that it was unleashed. I opened the trunk like I normally would when the rack is on; but when I went to shut the door, things turned for the worse. I grabbed the metal handle like thing that you put through the tires of the bike, like I always do, to pull the trunk door down. This allows stability, so it doesn’t slam shut. Well, it wasn’t hooked, the door went straight down yanking the rack out of my hand and smashed into the back end of the rear window, leaving it to just start cracking everywhere! What a freak accident. Something so simple, just went south real fast! I instantly knew something went wrong, as I heard the crackling sound. I couldn’t make out what it was in that instant moment. I yelled for Blake, asking “what did I do?! What is this sound?” He shockingly realized what I did and told us all to back up. I had shattered the back rear window. GOSH DARN IT! After we already had the turbo actuator part break and had to have him fix that. Here I am adding another problem! But how are we going to fix this in the middle of the woods in South Carolina! And we were leaving!
Thankfully we had an aftermarket tint which held all the glass together! The entire way to our next stop! Thank goodness. But seriously! I was terrified to open the trailer when we arrived at the next spot assuming I was going to find the window completely shattered out of the frame! The tint seal really did a great job holding all the pieces together for he whole 3-hour drive, I was on the hunt to find a mobile window guy that could replace our window within the time frame we had! 24 hours to be exact. It was a Sunday. No one was open.
All in all, we made it to the spot, found someone able to come out that next morning, however we just were without a rig for the evening. So, no exploring into the city of Raleigh for us! I guess things could have been worse. So, I will be grateful for what it all transpired to be.
Talk about creating an adventure within our adventure!

Camp Fun!
Our site was throwing a 4th of July celebration event today! First off, our site was at a vineyard that was open with the vines and such. The campground was tucked back away into the forest, but everything was all intertwined! The kids had been talking about attending this 4th of July event since we arrived. They started out with a water balloon fight. There were probably thousands of water balloons! The amazing thing about this site was that it was family ran and operated. Majority of the people were family and friends of the owners. From what it seemed. It was really neat to see something so kid friendly and what is usually for kids, was being played by the adults. The water balloon toss turned into a crazy free for all, dodge ball session. Anyone is throwing distance was going to get hit at least a few times. They were including everyone! Didn’t matter if you said, you weren’t playing. If you weren’t playing, than you needed to stand at a pretty far distance to not be included. The kids thought it was the coolest thing just throwing the water balloons at the adults. And there was a sense of satisfactory us throwing balloons right back at them!
Soon after all the balloons ran out, we started a game of slip and slide kick ball! These southerners go all out. Forget the dish soap! They were using straight up vegetable oil! Dumping it everywhere and after every inning. Man, people were slipping everywhere. Raylee was not a fan, as she just could not hold her balance! The fact you couldn’t even crawl if you had fallen, goes to show how much oil was on these pathways to the bases. Each base was a mini pool, Raylee made comfort in the home base pool and sat there playing in the water until she saw someone from 3rd base sliding right into the pool with her!
There were a few other games that entailed water, which was genious because it was the only thing that kept you cool! Afterwards, everyone jumped into the pool and enjoyed watermelon at the pavillion. This place truly made you feel like you were just part of the family and a family party! We met more people and just truly enjoyed the day staying at camp and hanging out! It was a great solid end to our trip for this section of our Carolina trip. We ended the day with a hike, some pool time and good quality family time!

Beach Day
There is just something about a beach and what it does for the adults as well as the kids! We wanted a beach day!
We drove to find a low-key beach to let the kids do their thing! I swear much like all kids their age, these kids love the water. I particularly think this trip is turning them into a fish slowly. These kids could live in the water, and it is always the dreadful statement of telling them to wrap it up, as we know that leaving is 30-minute process into just leaving! I know you hear of the Florida beaches being white sand, clear blue waters, however, there is something about the Carolina beaches that are beyond beautiful. You get the seashells, the white sand, the splashing waves, you can walk out forever before it even deepens. Perfect for little ones. And parents who may be nervous with the crazy wild ocean fear! My kids are big into body surfing. So, with them not being able to go out deep, they were able to still be close to shore and hit the waves the way they like it!
The kids just love it! They are having the best of time and living it up!

4th of July on the East!
When deciding where we were going to be on the 4th, Myrtle beach was in our path and seemed like the choice to take! We hadn’t done our biking in this state, so we were off to an early start to an attempt to beat the heat! We found the Horry County Bike Park. The introduction area was simple for Raylee. However, she officially rides on her own. She is not a fan riding with us on her shot gun seat! She wants to ride her own bike. So, on the opposite end of this park, we found a paved trail. We took this trail which wrapped us through some greenery to the side of the freeway! Which late led us back down into a subdivision community with a little less of 8 miles total.
After the bike ride, we found ourselves at a sushi place filling our bellies and then driving back to Ocean Isle in hope to play on the beach and stay for fireworks. However, we learned that Ocean Isle wasn’t doing the fireworks that evening specifically. We made our way back to our campsite to drop off the bikes and headed back to Myrtle Beach to enjoy the evening on the beach. The firework show was amazing! Absolutely worth the back-and-forth driving. Being on the beach, you could see firework shows up and down that coastline from all the other coastal towns, in addition to whomever was doing them off the beach! We had a fella, firing off his own right in front of us that gave the kiddos, front row seats to their very own firework show, with the big granddaddy shows in the background! It was definitely something we’ve never experienced, and we all just kept saying “how cool is this…” A day that will be remembered as probably one of our most favorite 4th of July Trips!

Wilmington, NC
Wilmington is a place I’ve always wanted to go to! And here was our chance! We decided to leave the bikes and do the walking. We had a late start to the day, therefore arrived for a late lunch. Driving into the downtown scene, the town just screamed with history! You could see it in the roads, the buildings and such! What a beautiful place! It is a place I would love to come back to be able to spend a weekend there. We only walked the boardwalk with about 2 miles of exploring. Being so far from our campsite, I couldn’t see us making it back this way unfortnately. But hey, we are out here discovering, and for the places we want to come back to, we are creating a list!
Before we left Wilmington, we were on the hunt for a bakery! We are not a pie family! But we have become one, since we left Kansas! The fruit pies they make on this side of the country are to die for! I googled for a place and came across a few blogs that stated, this was the place to go! Apple Annies Bake Shop! It was a top-notch bakery with treats of all kinds, breads, pies, cakes, donuts, etc.. We definitely took more than we came for! We found a Strawberry Rhubarb pie. I’ve never had rhubarb but have heard of it. We added that to our long list of eclairs, cream puffs, some sort of crisp puffed layered pastry sandwiched that layered in a custard, and finished with the smoothest, satiny black and white glaze. I have no idea what it was called but it was phenomenal! And that pie, oh that pie! The best dang pie we have ever had! I feel like we keep saying that to each pie we taste!


Off To Myrtle Beach!
Our plan is to spend the week in and around Myrtle Beach. We are staying on the border of North and South Carolina, so that we have quick access to all the places we are wanting to visit. Charleston, Wilmington, Myrtle Beach and who knows what more! However, we realzied about an hour into our trip to our site, we lost our boost… Will we make it to our spot today or are we going to be stuck here over night?!

Pit Stop @ Kindred, SC
We are as far east as we have ever been as a family! Boy are we so excited. As we arrived, we were introduced with a sign outside the office with all our names on it! Talk about sweet southern hospitality! I tell ya, the farther out we come, the nicer the people truly are. I mean I love where we are from, but as time as come along, people aren’t nearly as friendly as they use to be! The amount of times we have been approached, the most random of conversations and the community of the RV life community, I swear I am just amazed. I am convinced these are some of the best, down to earth, well-mannered people. Even the kiddos. I can’t even count the number of times I have been called “mam” or “mrs.” It seriously is a take away to better teach our children on mannerism.
The campsite owners took us to our site, introduced themselves and a candid conversation begun. We learned all about how the campsite came to be and much more. Seriously, the sweetest retired couple that truly have an awesome thing going. We love hearing stories like theirs. This campsite was a gem! We were bummed to only have booked one night there. The number of things they had for the kids was amazing. They turned it into a KOA with thoughts to keep it very family friendly. We were beyond impressed. There’s no better way to keep the kids entertained than telling them there are gnomes scattered throughout the campground that they need to go locate! The boys were given a long sheet to what they were needing to look for to be awarded ice cream once completed. As we were getting settled, the kids begun their scavenger hunt going around looking for gnomes. Super interactive. This site, is truly located in the woods off the freeway. You wouldn’t have known there was even a freeway nearby. It sounded like majority of the people staying were either getting away from the city that was fairly close by or people passing through. It’s on the main path to the east coast to major cities in the Carolinas, and for those headed straight down to Florida. This family clearly know how to leave an impression. Upon arriving, they let you know they have pizza and wings that they make onsite and delivered to your campsite. Talk about the best customer service. We decided to skip the cooking, ordered the pizza and joined the kids on the scavenger hunt. The scavenger lasted a little over an hour, leading us all over the campsite and meeting a lot of people. We explored for a while and of course found the pool; so, you can guess where we ended our evening!




Anakeesta Mountain Top Adventures
Tree top skywalk adventures, gondola ride to the top of a mountain enjoying mountain coaster rides, treehouse activities, birds eye views of the ever beautiful Smoky Mountains and full taste of their summer taste tour of America! A hot, sticky day on the mountain!


Speed Park Amusement
Go karts, roller coaster, arcade, carnival like type rides… a little bit of all to make any kid ONE HAPPY KIDDO!

Hello Gaitlinburg!
A stroll through Gaitlinburg and a sunset view of the town on the infamous Skywalk bridge to view the whole town and the beautiful Smoky Mountains!