Thursday, February 12...On The Road Again (Willie Nelson) 

  Let the 2026 snow birding trip begin!! When we said good-bye to Ryan and Felicia last April, we told ‘em we’d be back on Feb. 15, 2026. Oh, and by the way, could we please have Lot 59/60 again?Please?  Today was the day to be on our way. Crossing our fingers that the weather would cooperate…and so far, it has.

   Kim is the driver and I am the navigator. Since I’m not a fan of always traveling the same route, I try to change our route from one year to the next, even if it extends the trip by a few miles.  However, because we couldn’t leave until today, which makes it tight to get there on the 15th, Kim wanted to take the shortest, fastest route this year.  No problem!  It’s a little over 2100 miles from Charlevoix to Picacho. Left at about 9:15 this morning and stopped in Jacksonville, IL, at about 9 p.m. (Central Time). Just shy of a 600-mile day so that leaves about 1500 miles to go.

----------

   The temperature was a sunny, but cold 20^o when we left Charlevoix; as we headed south, the day was mostly sunny and at one point, the temperature read 39^o. Since we didn’t have a long enough broom to pull the snow load off the top of the camper, we started the trip with that extra weight; but by the time we stopped at the hotel, the snow on the camper was mostly gone.  Sunshine and an uptick in the temperature to the rescue!

----------  

   Last fall we sold our 2013 Forest River camper and bought a newer (used) one…a 2021 Coachman. Length is about the same, but the inside is totally different. Both campers are toy haulers but instead of the bikes being stored in the living space like in the old one, this one has a separate garage for the ‘toys’. And when the garage is empty, a table/bench set-up and a queen bed can be lowered to provide another dining area and/or sleeping space. The main area has a kitchen area on one side with slide-out on the other side.  The slide out contains the dinette area that can also be made into a bed. And then there’s a regular bedroom up front. This camper is rumored to sleep eight, but I’d say they’d have to be small people to fit comfortably on the table beds...so maybe not eight adults.  While our bedroom has a queen bed with ample storage underneath, the general layout and clothing storage area are not as roomy as the old one was, but we’ll make it work. Oh, and this camper has a separate bathroom with bathtub/shower combo. Everything about the bathroom is small; in fact, we had to mount the toilet paper holder on the bathroom door. But the fact that the shower curtain adequately hangs inside the tub, preventing water from running out on the floor makes it a major improvement, in spite of the smallness.

   Plenty of storage and windows, an indoor/outdoor sound system, and the separate ‘garage’ make it a definite upgrade…just wish the bedroom was configured a little differently. But I guess to get some extra living space something else had to give.