Now that our Lance 1685 travel trailer is in storage, what do we do? Sit in central Illinois and freeze? David swore when we retired he was never living anywhere that he couldn’t wear his shorts. Someday we dream of taking our trailer south & discovering all the perfect snowbird locations, but first …
“Camping” on the water. Sunset at Boca Grande, 16 miles from Key West.
We’re enjoying paradise aboard our sailboat, s/v Winterlude, in Key West, FL for now. The sailboat is the reason we have our Lance 1685 travel trailer. We discovered during a trip to Alaska that we LIKE living in our own home while exploring different locales. We hated moving around from ferry ship cabin, to bed n breakfast, to hotel and finally to a rental RV in Alaska. After all, we’ve been traveled 15,000 miles in the sailboat for over 15 years, every winter. And we always have our home with us.
s/v Winterlude under sail. CommuterCruiser.com
If you want to follow our most recent adventures aboard until we return to the Lance, we have a website for that. Click here: CommuterCruiser.com
We’re currently hanging out in Key West and hoping to go sailing in the very near future. Who knows where the wind will blow us, but hopefully it will blow us somewhere! There are tropical, palm fringed islands out there just begging to be explored!
Camped at Watchman Campground, Zion Nat’l Park
In the meantime, we need a plan for 2016’s upcoming camping adventures. Without a plan, years fly quickly past and nothing happens. So where do we go next? And when?
Chaco National Historical Park campground, Site #27
When we bought our Lance 1685 travel trailer, we randomly decided to spend 50 nights a year camping. Over our first year, we spent more like 70 nights, over 10,000 miles, 20 states, 16 national parks/monuments plus countless other state parks & locations. We fell in love with the lifestyle.
Friends above Piegan Pass, Glacier National Park. Camped at Many Glacier Campground.
In 2016, we’d like to go visit friends in Montana – towing our Lance, of course. And stop on the way in Rocky Mountains National Park to visit our son… and camp in the N. Georgia mountains with two of our grandsons (and maybe their parents) … and maybe next fall, instead of returning to the boat in the dead of winter when the northers march through the Keys making the weather less than sunny & tropical more of the time than we anticipated, we just might take the trailer and drive the US southern coast – through Texas, stopping where David always spent time at his grandparent’s in South Padre Island, and on to Tucson to visit other friends. Then return to the boat in late January/February for several months when the weather for cruising is more conducive.
We’ll see and in the meantime, we’ll enjoy our days aboard s/v Winterlude (our interlude in the winter since 2001). 🙂
What are you up to these days? Where have you camped far south that you particularly enjoyed? Don’t include south Florida, we’re already familiar with the possibilities here – and there are some that we love, so you never know! Please leave a comment and share so we can start dreaming about where we’ll be in 2016!
Cheers! Jan & David
7 Comments
Was wondering if you have the original receiver hitch on your 4runner? We plan to use our 2008 4runner v6 to tow a 1685, and the manual states not to use a weight distribution hitch with the v6 hitch, only the v8. Also what kind of “heavy duty rear suspension do you hve? We plan on using airbags. Love your stories, keep em coming.
Hi Mark! Yes, we have the original receiver hitch on our 4 Runner – it was the factory towing package because we also tow boats. We didn’t realize the manual said differently! Oops. We stopped in Albuquerque at the Toyota dealer who added “heavy duty shocks” nothing drastic. Maybe that was the wrong terminology? At some point, they reduced the towing capability of the 4 Runners, but I’m not sure what year. We love our 4 Runner! 🙂 Cheers! Jan
Jan and Dave, one other question, do you use any special mirrors? Mark
Yes, Mark … we use Grand Aero Mirrors. Here’s the link from Amazon. They’ve worked great for us…. http://www.amazon.com/JR-Products-2912-Towing-Mirror/dp/B0095TC6I6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456786664&sr=8-1&keywords=aero+mirrors
Nice site–enjoying reading through it as we start to plan for our retirement in 8-10 years. We traveled down to Florida’s panhandle this past fall and we really liked St. Joe Peninsula State Park near Port St. Joe. Beautiful park and incredible beach. Check out some of our photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fashantslovecamping/
Happy travels! Maybe we’ll see you out west this summer. We’re headed out to Yellowstone, Washington State, Oregon, and Glacier this year in July.
Andy
Our link isn’t working but you can get to it through my RV.net profile: https://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/memberprofile/MID/20931121.cfm
Hi Andy, Karen & Family! We’ll look forward to crossing campsites someday! We’re headed to Glacier and beyond sometime this summer, haven’t decided when yet — and I don’t want to miss Bow Valley outside of Alberta, Canadian Rockies, not sure if it’s this summer or next, but soon! 🙂 Cheers! Jan