Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Alaska Trip Planning 2017 and Stubby 2

It hardly seems possible that it has been 2 years and 4 months since we were last in Alaska! We are literally chomping at the bit to return, and started our preliminary planning about a year ago. Where do we want to go? Who do we want to go with (if anyone)? What do we want to travel in? What do we want to see? Lot of things to think about and discuss. In our discussions, we decided we really wanted to go in a smaller rig again. We sold Stubby, our 05 Itasca Cambria when we returned to Texas in Oct. '14. We loved it, BUT...The quality of workmanship was outstanding and it served us well for 6 months of travel (and 3 shows!) but we both agreed that 23 ft, 1 slide and "NO BED" was just too small for us and my running a business to boot! The "no beds" part was the deal breaker. Sleeping on a sofa (Charles) and a dinette (me and 2 dogs) just didn't do our backs or other achy, old parts any good! Plus making them up and down daily and removing all my business stuff daily made for too many chores. So we started looking in June 2016, for a longer Stubby when we were in upper NY state in. We found RVTrader to be a great resource. We decided we wanted to find one on the east coast so logistically it would be much easier for us to pick it up and store it on our FL Lot. And find it we did! In fact we are still pinching ourselves over "THE DEAL" we got! We found a 2014 Itasca Cambria, 30J !!  Much newer and fancier than what we were looking for but could not pass it up! Used twice; 3100 miles (most from factory to FL) and every option not even imaginable on a Class C! It was located in central Fl. After many emails and phone calls we struck a deal and told the owner we would be there in 9 days. We were doing the Escapees NYC HOP with friends Lynn and Mickey Waite the next week. (We had a blast!) Then the week after that we had to head to VT to work Escapade! How were we going to do this?? It's called... store the big motorhome at our campground in NY, jump in the SUV with the dogs,and an overnight bag, and in one and a half days we were in central FL! Whew! The owners were so gracious and had Stubby 2's frig stocked with breakfast! We spent the weekend in their backyard! We loved it! Monday a.m. we got all paperwork finalized and Charles drove Stubby to our south FL Lot with me following behind. Our wonderful friends, Jim and Michael, took us for a special Mexican dinner. It was so wonderful seeing them!
Stubby 2
NYC skyline from top of
Empire State Bldg.
HOP cake

Michael and Jim

We spent the night and headed back to NY at 5 a.m. the next morning. WOW, what a crazy but fun trip!  Of course there is more to the story.....

15 comments:

  1. This is great! We always say, "Every RVer Needs a Blog."
    Mrs. Geek has resolved to blog in the new year, too.
    We blame Facebook for distracting us.

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    1. Thanks, Jim! Miss you 2. Will you be at Chandler and Escapade?

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  2. Always look forward to your adventures, Chris and Charles!

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  3. You're inspiring me to re-start my blog. Especially now that we're traveling ALOT!

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  4. Chris, thinks for sharing your information. Bonnie and I are also looking to travel to Alaska too. Keep blogging and I will keep reading.

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  5. We look forward to hearing about your next Alaska trip, as well as your other travel experiences. Daisy

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  6. Wow. I really envy you. Would love to go back to AK. We were there in 2004.

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  8. Wow. I really envy you. Would love to go back to AK. We were there in 2004.

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  9. Wow. I really envy you. Would love to go back to AK. We were there in 2004.

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  12. Nice to read a blog rather than doing one. We enter BC in the middle of May and will toodle our way up to Alaska before heading back into Washington in August/September. Perhaps our paths will cross.
    Terry & Gill

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  13. Hope to cross paths in Alaska with you. If not, will see you soon in Q.

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  14. After attending one of Judy Howard's writing seminars I felt guilty for not having a blog. I am a retired Journalism/Communications professor so writing comes easily. I started our blog in 2011 prior to our trip to Alaska. Documenting the trip with extra research, photos, and internet links became a nightly chore after a while. (Click the blog link below and read the archives from May-September, 2011 for our Alaska trip. Facebook, however, has captured me in the social media web and the blog is in hiatus AGAIN.
    I'll follow your blog about going to AK and will pop-in with comments from our trip. Enjoy Stubby 2
    -- Cooljudy
    www.Coolrvers.blogspot.com

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