As Labor Day comes to a close, so does the summer of 2020. If you’ve followed the news through this historic summer, you know it hasn’t been exactly uplifting. So we must all try to stay uplifted in our own lives. Having Frodo and Sam has helped to do that for us. From June all the way through the end of last month, we were out in the RV just about every other weekend. When we’re not there, it gives us something to look forward to. When we’ve been out, we’ve found respite from the times we’ve been living in.

We’ve been to our local 370 Lakeside RV park three times and though not woodsy or particularly scenic, I’ve enjoyed the wetlands, the birds, and the bike trail around the lake. It’s close to home so it’s been a good place to learn our new RV’ing skills. We had epic rainstorms on two of our Saturday nights and on Sunday morning of the last one, the entire picnic pad at our site was a miniature lake–and the only one in the park to still be wet! We were really glad that our tenting days are over. The next pictures are from our various weekends there.

There was also an Onandaga State Park weekend with some friends of ours, Kris and Rusty Thompson, and their granddaughter, Alexandra. We were able to share a family site, thank you very much to them. When you have a kid around, it’s absolutely obligatory to have a campfire. When it’s 95 degrees out even at dusk, though, what do you do? Well, if you’re RV’ing, you have can use an electrical outlet to have your fan going!

Part of what made Onandaga fun was this manic cardinal who kept attacking our window. He returned often through the weekend. It wasn’t the first time we’ve seen this behavior in a cardinal, and I did feel a little sorry for the poor confused little guy.

We stayed at another state park, Cuivre River, which is a park we had tented with our girls a couple of times back in the day. It was a different business altogether driving the long narrow road through the park with a 34 foot RV. Together with a tightly packed campground, it wasn’t our favorite stay of the summer, but we did enjoy two great hikes with trailheads just off the RV camping area. One was a prairie walk and the flowers were in bloom. These pictures are from those hikes, and the last picture is from the one commercial RV park we stayed at, Lazy Day.

With our successful home sale and move to the apartment, all systems were go. I looked forward to starting to plan a trip to Hawaii and other international travel for the next year. We were all settled in for just two weeks when COVID 19 became a reality in everyone’s life. My company told everyone to go home, work remotely, and not come back to the office. The gym that I had just joined closed down. And it wasn’t long before Hawaii mandated a two week quarantine for anyone arriving. We enjoyed Saturday walks and bike rides in various parks which, Cal being retired, he was enjoying every day. With COVID isolation, getting outside was the only thing to do. I had started wondering if we were going to be able to travel over any ocean the following year. A flight to Denver to see our grandson was canceled. And so was our family reunion planned for Washington state in July.

After a few weeks, we noticed an RV motorhome in the parking lot behind us on Thursday afternoons. On Friday morning it was gone, only to return again on Sunday, and then disappear. An idea began to germinate. What if…?

I started seeing Cal spending a lot of time on his notepad researching RV’s and Ford trucks. We both came around to the idea, he sooner than I, that an RV would put us in our own little bubble so we could keep traveling. He did the research, took me out to see his favorites, we had endless “what if” discussions, and in May we found ourselves to be the proud owners of a Montana High Country 5th wheel and a Ford Super Duty 350 truck. Frodo is the truck, and Samwise Gamgee is the “5er” (RV lingo for our 5th wheel) following him along, just like in the Lord of the Rings ( We were fans of the book before the movie ever came out, by the way).

It may have seemed like a sudden, impetuous move. But it was an idea we had played around with for years. We used to go to one or two RV shows a year until we pretty much decided what we wanted. I have nine siblings and 3 of them have had RVs, two of them living the life full-time and now on the other side of it, so we’ve had many years to observe, discuss and plan. It just wasn’t supposed to happen this soon. Life has a way of planning things for you when you least expect it, right? And who could’ve expected the COVID pandemic?

Here are some views from the inside:

Right now there is no better feeling than getting Sam all set up and unhooked from Frodo, and stepping into that RV for the first time on a Friday afternoon. And we’re always sorry to leave on Sunday. There’s no place like Sam!