Our time at Recreation Plantation is nearly finished! Our 5-month winter stay has gone by so quickly, it’s hard to believe we are already in mid-March.

I’ve posted a 2019 travel summary under the “Our Travels” tab. Last year offered a more relaxed style of travel. We drove fewer miles and stayed longer. We were able to spend a lot of quality time with friends and family. Our warranty issues were solved during service work at both Spartan and Entegra. We explored new parks and landed in a great spot for the winter season. There were a few challenges last year, including dealing with repairs from a fire at our beloved Gatlinburg cabin, and an invasion of stupid stinkbugs! While the bus was parked at our winter spot, we traveled back to South Florida in November, flew home for Christmas, drove up to our cabin in January (to complete repairs) and even went on a February week-long Southern Caribbean cruise with my sister! It was a great year.

But now the world has changed. We’re in the midst of an evolving public health crisis as the Covid-19 virus spreads throughout our communities. Activities in our area have been almost entirely shut down – no exercise classes, theaters, or church services. Stores are stripped of cleaning wipes and, of all things, toilet paper. It feels like hurricane prep mania, without knowing when/where the hurricane will hit or how big it will be. It’s hard to prepare adequately, when we don’t know exactly how all of this is going to play out.

So what will we do? We had already booked campgrounds for the year ahead and we are moving out as scheduled at the end of the month. We are currently healthy. RV parks aren’t closing (nor giving refunds) and our camping lifestyle lends itself easily to “social distancing”. We may not be able to do everything we hoped (like, visit museums and such), but I expect that forests and mountains will be open! This isn’t a vacation, it’s our lifestyle. After all, we have to live somewhere! We’ll be smart about it and follow recommendations regarding gatherings and hygiene. And we’ll continue to monitor the situation and adapt if needed.

We live in interesting times, friends!

Be well.