Year Two in Review

We made it through our second year!  I guess we are not newbies anymore, although at times it sure still feels like it.  There is still so much to learn on this coach.  What a great adventure so far – once in a lifetime for sure!

Our second year started at the Mother Ship (Newmar in Nappanee, IN) getting some warranty work done.  From there we headed up to Chicago for Ari and Matt’s wedding!  Welcome to our family, Matt!  After the wedding we headed up into northern Wisconsin and stayed with friends of ours, the Jaroch’s at their lake house.  Sad news that we lost our Aussie, Sydney there.  After a nice relaxing stay we were off to see Northeast Canada.  Up around Lake Michigan and Lake Huron before seeing Niagara Falls from the Canadian side.  Katie and Vinny Jiuditta met us in Niagara for a wonderful visit. Following the north side of Lake Ontario (now having touched all the HOMES) we followed the St. Lawrence Seaway up to Rivière-du-Loop, stopping along the way at Toronto, Kingston, Montreal and Quebec.  Ari Anderson (wow, my little girl is married) joined us in Montreal.  Found a gem that I didn’t know about – 1,000 Islands!  Toured the islands by boat and visited the Boldt Castle.

We explored the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.  Beautiful places.  We especially like seeing the tide changes throughout the Bay of Fundy.  Dropping back into the good ole USA, we spent some time at Acadia National Park.  Absolutely wonderful!  And I’m saying that after visiting Alaska last summer.  We followed the Atlantic Coast down through Boston to Cape Cod.  Our friend, Lynn Joy, showed us around the Cape.  Great having a “expert” along with you!  Continued down the coast and stopped at the major cities along the way.  New York – saw plays, Philadelphia- saw history,  Millsboro, DE – Saw the Fluharty’s, and Washington DC – saw most of the sites and Keenan joined us!

After that we attended a couple of rally’s, one with the Newmar Full Timers in upstate NY and the other one with the Newmar Annual meeting in Syracuse, NY.  We then headed to Gettysburg to learn about the Civil War.  Took the Segway tour and it was fantastic!  Highly recommend it!  Continuing our eastern route south to Hershey, PA where we made a “Busse Bus” chocolate bar!  Stayed outside of the Greenbriar and truly loved learning the history of the hotel.  Down to Asheville where we got a chance to tour the magnificent Biltmore Estate.  From there, we headed back to coast starting in Wilmington, NC.  Down to Myrtle Beach and then Charleston.  All of our kids and the Fluharty’s met us there for a wonderful long weekend.

Continued south along the coast with visits to Savannah (love it!), Jacksonville, and St. Augustine.  We spent the next four months in Florida looking at Motorcoach Resorts to purchase a permanent lot for our coach.  We have realized that we will be spending the winters in Florida and wanted a place to call home.  We think we have found the resort, but haven’t purchased the lot yet.

While we were making our way north because we had tickets for the Kentucky Derby, the Wuhan coronavirus hit.  Changed our plans as we hunkered down in North Carolina basically doing nothing except working on the coach.  I was able to get a lot done!  We headed up to Tennessee for some more quarantining, missing out on seeing the sites like Lookout Mountain, Rock City and Ruby Falls.

We left Tennessee and headed north towards the Mothership to get our full wall side fixed and updates done on the BusseBus.  All-in-all we have been extremely happy with our decision to buy Newmar.  Would do it again!  Here are some pictorials of our year:

Year One (25 states)                                             Year Two (17 states)

Year One  (19,610 miles)                                       Year Two (12,401 miles)

One of the new features that we have been able to add to this site was the “map”.  It shows where we have been.  Really a great tool!