We completed another year in the Busse Bus. Seems odd as we original planned to travel for only one and a half years. We foolishly thought we could see our beautiful country in such a short time! We have settled into a pattern of traveling throughout the warm summer months and spending the winter months on our purchased lot at the Myakka River Motorcoach Resort (MRMR). Here is a picture of our summer travels taken from the map application contained within this blog:
We only traveled 6,000 miles during the past year due to attending weddings in July and September. This allowed us time to explore the Midwest in much more detail and visit with friends and family along the way.
We started out at a Harvest Host in northern Florida to see the primates. From there we got our annual chassis maintenance completed at the Freightliner headquarters in Gaffney, SC. Stopped in Asheville and we were wowed at the Sierra Nevada Brewery. We had multiple stops along the bourbon trail where we were able to see Jerry & Yolanda in Lexington, Jeff & Molli Wills and John & Sherry Murphy in Louisville, and Pam Mercer & Kirt Warner and LeeAnn and Sam in Shepherdsville. What fun times tasting bourbon and enjoying friendships! We stopped in Nashville to get our Rettrobands and new front tires installed. We feel much safer on the road now.
From there we traveled up to Saugatuck, Michigan where we stayed at Kirbie & Brian Stephan’s house where we “mooch docked” in their driveway. Up in Holland we were able to see Amy & Sean Cooper. Since Katrina entered into a pickleball tournament we moved over to the Grand Rapids area. Then up to Traverse City and the beautiful dunes of Lake Michigan at Big Bear. We crossed the Mackinac Bridge (scary with the wind “howling” to stay with Ron and Ruth Sherman in Cedarville. Back across the bridge to stay at Hearthside Grove Motorcoach Resort, a nice place we had heard about for years. From there we ventured up to northern Wisconsin and visited with Pam & Kirt at their summer location. A little further south we stopped to see Greg & Kathleen Jaroch, friends of ours from Libertyville. From there we traveled to Milwaukee to witness my nephew Brad marry Casey. Such a beautiful ceremony and reception.
On our way to Nappanee, IN to get our annual house maintenance work completed we were able to stop in Vernon Hills and watch the Fourth of July parade with our daughter Ariana and her husband Matt. As we were driving to Portillo’s for lunch Ariana learned that there was a mass shooting during Highland Park’s parade. Ariana is a School Counselor at Highland Park High School and would be heading into work to counsel any students or families as they worked through this awful experience. After getting our maintenance completed we headed to Dayton to meet Sarah, our son Keenan’s girlfriend. Sarah was assigned to work in the hospital there as part of her rotations during MD schooling. What a brave person to meet us alone! We had a wonderful time with Sarah over the next few days. She is such a nice young woman, extremely engaging and a welcoming beautiful spirit, we can see why Keenan is so enamored with her!
We headed up to South Amherst, OH where we stayed at Kim Mulder’s place. We had a great time with him and Gia sightseeing and having a pizza making experience in his backyard. We were also able to see our friends Ant & Anne Cannon see the Doobies at the renowned Blossom Music Center. Heading east to southwest PA where we stopped to see Falling Waters, a beautifully designed house by Frank Lloyd Wright – a bucket list item for me. We were able to drive up to Curwensville and stay with Cub & Marge Stewart on the beautiful piece of property along a river that they had just purchased. From there we headed to Rehoboth Beach, DE to see Kevin & Kathleen Fluharty. We always have a great time with them. On the drive over we stopped Chris & Jamie Mosberg’s house who are our MRMR neighbors. The next leg of our trip started off very interestingly as we drove over / under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel on our way to Williamsburg, VA. There we got to see Colonial Williamsburg which was very hot. The next day we went to Busch Gardens before traversing to Richmond where we “moockdocked” with Tom Conner & Alice Clark. They were gracious hosts and showed us around Richmond. In North Carolina we “mooch docked” with Laurie Calfee on Lake Hyco.
Heading south to Charleston, SC to see David Fluharty and his girlfriend Jenny. Kevin was also there helping them move out of their apartment and into a house, we jumped in and helped too. While we were there we got to see the Angel Oak Tree, a Lowcountry Treasure. Next to Savannah, GA where we tried yummy new restaurants and the Creepy Crawl, a haunted pub tour which was a lot of fun! From there we went to St. Augustine where we met up with Cindy Page (Insel), who was a grade school classmate of mine, and her husband Patrick. What a great time catching up! We also drank the water from the Fountain of Youth, I’m still awaiting acne to return. We headed back into Florida staying in Ocala where we got to visit the World Equestrian Center, an absolutely beautiful horse park. We went to Marathon Coach in San Antonio to have new front floor mats installed before going to see the Mouse. Katrina’s niece, Cailin got married to Josh Meyers at the wedding pavilion at the Grand Floridian in Walt Disney World. What a beautiful and fairytale wedding! While the whole family was gathered we had the opportunity to celebrate Rita Jerger’s 80th birthday with a splendid dinner atop the Contemporary Hotel overlooking Magic Kingdom. After all the celebrations we headed back to MRMR.
We got back to MRMR to clean up the casita and the site before we unpacked all of our outdoor furniture. Three days later Hurricane Ian was projected to hit our area so we repacked everything and drove to the east coast to stay with our friends Barry & Rhody Hausauer. Ian made a direct hit on MRMR tearing up trees, roofs, and lanais. Our casita withstood the force but both our lanai and pergola were damaged. Perhaps the worst part was trying to find people that could repair the damage in a timely fashion. At this point in time we have a new lanai but are still waiting for the power screen, louvers and granite to be replaced. A lot of the owners spent months cleaning up, repairing fences and reestablishing plantings. It was sure a different feeling at MRMR this past year due to the hurricane and other factors such as, self governing, owner turnover, and more casitas built. We still had a great time doing the typical MRMR celebrations like Thanksgiving feasts, Christmas party, New Year’s Eve, Valentines Day complete with flowers, St. Patrick’s Day, etc. and we also add in other campus specific events like block parties, game nights, poker night, cosmic pickleball, smoke outs, states days, boating excursions, bike rides, moonlight bike rides, pickleball, pool parties, rock painting and so forth. Honestly, we are so busy January through March that we are a bit happy when April rolls around and the place starts to thin out. But that’s one of the reasons we love the place so much! The other major reason is because of the people that have chosen to make MRMR their winter home. We are so happy we found the place!
Until next year, we will continue on with safe travels!
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