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Abstract

b">May</h2><p id="e501">In May, we took my 90-year-old mother with us in the RV for a two-week trip to Connecticut and Maine. (She turned 91 in June). Our oldest son lives in Connecticut, and one of my nephews was getting married in Maine.</p><p id="5dfc">While we were in Connecticut we visited Gillette Castle. Then we took her to see Niagara Falls near Buffalo, New York, for the first time in her life.</p><figure id="abd7"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*BgRYp8qfkmdMLS8WdMxMkw.jpeg"><figcaption>Lake Michigan at Van Buren State Park. Photo by author.</figcaption></figure><h2 id="a933">June</h2><p id="7620">June is filled with family birthdays and it was a good month to be home in Ohio. But if you know us, we can’t stay put for long. We took a short trip over to the Indiana Dunes State Park and explored all along the shore of Lake Michigan. We visited several lighthouses and beaches. It is amazing how much it resembles the ocean. You hardly know the difference.</p><figure id="81d6"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*[email protected]"><figcaption>Lake Erie from the Marblehead Lighthouse. Photo by author.</figcaption></figure><h2 id="2537">July</h2><p id="4c69">The 4th of July was spent at Coldwater Lake in Michigan. We spent some more time at home in Ohio and also took time to visit the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Cleveland, Seneca Caverns in Bellevue, Marblehead Lighthouse, and Kelley’s Island State Park on Lake Erie.</p><p id="4afb">Ohio is a big state and has many wonderful places to visit. We have lived there our whole lives and there is still more to see.</p><figure id="467d"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*[email protected]"><figcaption>Bison in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. Photo by author.</figcaption></figure><h2 id="c4c6">August</h2><p id="8989">August saw us heading west. We explored some places in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Idaho on our way to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.</p><p id="8ecf">Theodore Roosevelt National Park is amazing. The most memorable part was getting stuck in a bison herd for over an hour while they passed by us crossing over the road back and forth.</p><p id="a372">This is also when I realized I had severely damaged my right knee again because I got to the point that I couldn’t even walk from the RV to the car. I ended up on crutches and we cut our trip short and headed back to Ohio at the end of the month.</p><figure id="f787"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*[email protected]"><figcaption>Corn field in Ohio. Photo by author.</figcaption></figure><h2 id="e528">September</h2><p id="8d90">September saw me sitting in the recliner for most of the month until my knee surgery on the 13th. I had torn the medial meniscus for a second time and it needed to be trimmed and repaired. By the end of the month, I was walking well and felt ready to go. We did some sightseeing in Ohio by taking short trips to places where I wouldn’t have to walk too much but could work at building that leg back up.</p><p id="edbf">The corn fields and bean fields are abundant in our part of Ohio; the northwestern region. They are beautiful to photograph.</p><p id="a8a9">My favorite part of September was spending time with family and watching the ducks grow up. They became more our pets than our little granddaughters. They followed Rich everywhere he went.</p><figure id="bc79"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*[email protected]"><figcaption>Kentucky Veterans Cemetery. Photo by author.</figcaption></figure><h2 id="a790">October</h2><p id="5f71">In October we headed south, first to Kentucky and then to Tennessee. We stayed in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and visited Abraham Lincoln’s Birthplace and Boyhood Home National Parks, Saunders Springs, Fort Knox, and the George Patton Museum in Kentucky.</p><p id="52e5">On the way to Tennessee, we swung into Mammoth Cave National Park for a short visit. We had been there once before and explored the cave, but this time I just needed a stamp in my National Park Book.</p><p id="709b">In Tennessee, we stayed at the Whispering Oak Campground and visited the Old Stone Fort, Stones River National Battlefield, Johnny and June Cash gravesites in Hendersonville, and the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg.</p

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<figure id="f650"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*[email protected]"><figcaption>View from Cherokee Rock Village in Collinsville, Alabama. Photo by author.</figcaption></figure><h2 id="442e">November</h2><p id="88ce">November saw us camping in northern Alabama at Guntersville Lake. This is a beautiful area and we did a lot of sightseeing. The northern mountains are gorgeous in Alabama.</p><p id="c814">We explored the Talladega National Forest, drove the scenic byway, saw four bald eagle nests around the lake, explored a prehistoric cave shelter at Russell Cave National Park, drove through Little River Canyon National Preserve, found some old covered bridges, and saw our very first armadillo at the Guntersville Dam.</p><figure id="fe8f"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*[email protected]"><figcaption>Gulf Shores, Alabama public beach. Photo by author.</figcaption></figure><h2 id="dd58">December</h2><p id="6218">We moved to southern Alabama on the first of December, parked the RV at the Alabama Coast Campground in Foley, and spent the month exploring the beautiful white sand beaches of the southern Alabama and Florida Panhandle coastline.</p><p id="4f07">Our daughter and three grandchildren flew down from Ohio for three days right before Christmas which was a great surprise. The photo above is from the day we took them to Gulf Shores Public Beach.</p><p id="3ae9">I have been writing about all the places we visit and explore since last January so you can always scroll back through my old articles to read about any of them and see more photos of each place.</p><p id="dbcb">Old articles need some reading love too.</p><p id="a1de">Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed my recap of our life in the RV in 2023.</p><p id="dc9c">(<a href="undefined">Aurõra</a>, <a href="undefined">Melissa Rach</a>, <a href="undefined">Allisonn Church</a>)</p><p id="c732">The 2023 photo review challenge was started by <a href="undefined">Barb Dalton</a>. Be sure to check out the following 2023 photo reviews by her and some other great photographers and writers too.</p><div id="9c22" class="link-block">

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2023 in the RV

12 Photos from 12 Months

The entire year of 2023 was spent living in the RV shown above. It is truly home for us no matter where we are.

Living and traveling in the RV allows us to see so many great places each month. It was fun going back through all the photos and remembering everything.

It is difficult to pick just one picture to highlight for each month. You have to understand that I take hundreds of photos in a day when we travel and see places.

I went through them all until one made me go “wow” and then I knew that was the one I wanted to share.

The Cole Park Pier in Corpus Christi, Texas. Photo by author.

January

January was spent living in Loyola Beach, Texas. We camped at the Loyola Beach RV Park. We visited the USS Lexington, Padre Island, Mustang Island, Port Aransas, South Padre Island, Corpus Christi, the King Ranch, and so many more great places.

January was also the month that we crossed the Mexican Border into Mexico at the Progresso International Bridge. That was quite an adventure.

The photo above is of the Cole Park Pier in Corpus Christi, Texas. It is one of my favorites and I use it as a background on my laptop. In fact, I use all of the photos in this essay as backgrounds on my laptop.

Mule Ears in Big Bend National Park. Photo by author.

February

February we moved to Big Bend National Park in the southern tip of Texas. On the way there we visited the Amistad National Recreation Area and Del Rio, Texas. Big Bend National Park is amazing and we loved it there. If you ever have a chance to go, I highly recommend it but know that the closest Walmart is 100 miles away.

The photo above is of the Mule Ears Mountain Peaks. The trail traverses a landscape of desert beauty through the Chihuahuan Desert. The two mule ear peaks are distinctive eroded rhyolite dikes. You can’t miss them as you drive the road.

View of Carlsbad Canyon National Park from the top of the mountain. Photo by author.

March

In March we headed north to Carlsbad, New Mexico, and visited Carlsbad Caverns, Guadalupe Mountains, and White Sands National Parks. We visited Sitting Bull Falls National Recreation Area, the Living Desert State Park and Zoo, and even saw a pair of wild Oryxs in the mountains.

I just can’t say enough about how magnificently beautiful this area is. My photo-taking skills have improved quite a lot this past year using just my iPhone.

The view from our camper in our daughter’s backyard. Photo by author.

April

At the end of March, we headed home to Ohio. Along the way, we stopped in Oklahoma and explored the Chickasaw National Recreation Area for a couple of days.

The best part of heading home was knowing the granddaughters and my mother were excited to see us after being gone for several months. We love parking the RV in our daughter’s backyard. It is so beautiful there as you can see in the photo above.

A lot happened in April. We had to do some major repairs to the RV which cost a lot of money. Rich’s mother passed away. She was in a nursing home with late-stage dementia. She hadn’t recognized us for over a year. And the granddaughters got baby ducklings for Easter.

Gillette Castle State Park in Connecticut. Photo by author.

May

In May, we took my 90-year-old mother with us in the RV for a two-week trip to Connecticut and Maine. (She turned 91 in June). Our oldest son lives in Connecticut, and one of my nephews was getting married in Maine.

While we were in Connecticut we visited Gillette Castle. Then we took her to see Niagara Falls near Buffalo, New York, for the first time in her life.

Lake Michigan at Van Buren State Park. Photo by author.

June

June is filled with family birthdays and it was a good month to be home in Ohio. But if you know us, we can’t stay put for long. We took a short trip over to the Indiana Dunes State Park and explored all along the shore of Lake Michigan. We visited several lighthouses and beaches. It is amazing how much it resembles the ocean. You hardly know the difference.

Lake Erie from the Marblehead Lighthouse. Photo by author.

July

The 4th of July was spent at Coldwater Lake in Michigan. We spent some more time at home in Ohio and also took time to visit the Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Cleveland, Seneca Caverns in Bellevue, Marblehead Lighthouse, and Kelley’s Island State Park on Lake Erie.

Ohio is a big state and has many wonderful places to visit. We have lived there our whole lives and there is still more to see.

Bison in Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. Photo by author.

August

August saw us heading west. We explored some places in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Idaho on our way to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is amazing. The most memorable part was getting stuck in a bison herd for over an hour while they passed by us crossing over the road back and forth.

This is also when I realized I had severely damaged my right knee again because I got to the point that I couldn’t even walk from the RV to the car. I ended up on crutches and we cut our trip short and headed back to Ohio at the end of the month.

September

September saw me sitting in the recliner for most of the month until my knee surgery on the 13th. I had torn the medial meniscus for a second time and it needed to be trimmed and repaired. By the end of the month, I was walking well and felt ready to go. We did some sightseeing in Ohio by taking short trips to places where I wouldn’t have to walk too much but could work at building that leg back up.

The corn fields and bean fields are abundant in our part of Ohio; the northwestern region. They are beautiful to photograph.

My favorite part of September was spending time with family and watching the ducks grow up. They became more our pets than our little granddaughters. They followed Rich everywhere he went.

Kentucky Veterans Cemetery. Photo by author.

October

In October we headed south, first to Kentucky and then to Tennessee. We stayed in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and visited Abraham Lincoln’s Birthplace and Boyhood Home National Parks, Saunders Springs, Fort Knox, and the George Patton Museum in Kentucky.

On the way to Tennessee, we swung into Mammoth Cave National Park for a short visit. We had been there once before and explored the cave, but this time I just needed a stamp in my National Park Book.

In Tennessee, we stayed at the Whispering Oak Campground and visited the Old Stone Fort, Stones River National Battlefield, Johnny and June Cash gravesites in Hendersonville, and the Jack Daniels Distillery in Lynchburg.

View from Cherokee Rock Village in Collinsville, Alabama. Photo by author.

November

November saw us camping in northern Alabama at Guntersville Lake. This is a beautiful area and we did a lot of sightseeing. The northern mountains are gorgeous in Alabama.

We explored the Talladega National Forest, drove the scenic byway, saw four bald eagle nests around the lake, explored a prehistoric cave shelter at Russell Cave National Park, drove through Little River Canyon National Preserve, found some old covered bridges, and saw our very first armadillo at the Guntersville Dam.

Gulf Shores, Alabama public beach. Photo by author.

December

We moved to southern Alabama on the first of December, parked the RV at the Alabama Coast Campground in Foley, and spent the month exploring the beautiful white sand beaches of the southern Alabama and Florida Panhandle coastline.

Our daughter and three grandchildren flew down from Ohio for three days right before Christmas which was a great surprise. The photo above is from the day we took them to Gulf Shores Public Beach.

I have been writing about all the places we visit and explore since last January so you can always scroll back through my old articles to read about any of them and see more photos of each place.

Old articles need some reading love too.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed my recap of our life in the RV in 2023.

(Aurõra, Melissa Rach, Allisonn Church)

The 2023 photo review challenge was started by Barb Dalton. Be sure to check out the following 2023 photo reviews by her and some other great photographers and writers too.