Greetings from Iowa!
We hope everyone is doing well. It's been just a little over a year since we returned from our 2017 journey to the great Northwest and a lot has changed in the Schellhase household. Doreen had been suffering from severe back pain upon our return last year so she sought treatment for that which resulted in back surgery in May 2018. Fortunately the surgery was successful and she is well on the mend. We camped "locally" in 2018 so Doreen could have access to physical therapy, which was a critical part of her recovery. She was very comfortable in the Pinnacle fifth wheel so we ended up camping 110 nights this summer and fall! Most of the camping was in central Iowa but we also traveled to Minnesota and Wisconsin before calling it quits for the season. Everything is going very well with Doreen now so we are now making plans for our next big adventure, hence the new blog!
Another major change since we returned last fall is that we have moved! It was inevitable Doreen was going to need surgery to fix her back issues and obviously recovery would be next to impossible in our split foyer home in Norwalk IA, so we decided to move. We looked and looked, and finally found a nice ranch home in Ankeny IA not far from our son Dan.
My sister Karen Nantz and her husband Jim will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in February 2019 and we are looking forward to joining them for the big event where they live in Mercedes TX, about as far south as you can go. If you remember from our past trips we traveled the Northeast in 2016 and Northwest in 2017 which leaves most of the south, southwest and southeast unexplored. This is a perfect opportunity to head south and enjoy some warmer weather this winter!
Some history - here is a map of our previous journeys and the states we have visited with our RV:
Visiting the Gulf Coast and Southwest will require a different approach than our previous trips, which all happened during the summer. So we are planning to depart on 1 December 2018, return on 3 May 2019 and follow this route:
We will be able to reconnect with several Air Force and Air National Guard compadres along the way, take in several Spring Training Major League baseball games and visit a few Major League baseball stadiums as well. The National parks are plentiful and other sites to make the journey very interesting. Most of the reservations are complete and again, many of the campgrounds are on military facilities.
Our intent like in the past is to update the blog nightly once we get on the road. Please bookmark this site and "stay tuned" as we prepare to head out on our Gulf Coast and Southwest Trip 2018-2019!
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