We got up at 6:00 this morning and by 7:00 had started to break camp. Mike emptied our tanks and disconnected the hoses last night, so that saved us some time this morning. After saying goodbye to our friends, W.T. and Glenda, we left The Willows at 8:00.
We drove down to Tractor Supply to fill our on-board tank and a portable tank. We paid $2.99 a gallon for the propane. We then stopped at Publix and hitched up the car there. The way the propane tank is positioned at Tractor Supply the RV has to be backed up after having the tank filled (not possible with the car hitched up). We finally got on the road about 9:00.
We drove over to US-231 up to Montgomery and took Taylor Road north to I-85 west and then north on I-65. We stopped for lunch about 11:45 at a rest area near Clanton before going on toward Birmingham. When we were near Hoover, we took I-459 north up to I-59 and headed east. We stopped for gas at a Love's near Steele and paid $3.659 a gallon. We left I-59 at exit 205 and traveled some winding county roads north to Guntersville Lake.
We arrived at Mountain Lakes Resort a little after 3:00 and checked in at the office. We are using our Coast to Coast membership to stay here. We traded our rewards points from our credit card for Coast to Coast camping points, so our week here is free.
We parked the RV near the club house and drove around to pick our campsite. We settled on site #76 and drove back to the office to let them know what site we picked. Then back to the RV to drop Mike off and then we drove to our site.
We have full hookups (50 amp electric) and we are able to get satellite TV over our rooftop dish (there is enough space through the trees to get a signal). Our site doesn't have a concrete patio, but we have grass covering most of our site and it's fairly level, too.
There is wi-fi here, but they charge $3 a day to use it. We have 3G service through Verizon and so far the signal and speed are good.
Last week we showed our friends Mike and Gayle some of our photos from our trip to Alaska last year, so they would get an idea what to expect this year on their trip to Alaska. I remembered that I had wanted to include in our blog a recap of our expenses for our Alaska trip - so better late than never.
We left Dothan, Alabama on May 1, 2011 and returned on October 9, 2011. We drove a total of 13,291.7 miles.
We bought 2,047.8 gallons of gas for a total of $8,390.98. The most expensive gas we bought was in Watson Lake, Yukon on August 20 and paid $5.636 a gallon (converted from Canadian dollar to US dollar). The cheapest gas we bought was here on Dothan on October 9 for $3.139 a gallon.
We stayed in 53 campgrounds for a total cost of $2,904.31. We also stayed in 10 Wal-Mart Supercenters and dry camped in pull-offs 3 times. We averaged $18.04 a day for camping and that's including the nights at Wal-Mart Supercenter and the pull-offs.
We took the Alaska Ferry from Haines to Skagway and that cost us $227.00 for the RV, car and us (Tinker even had a ticket, but there was no charge for him).
Our sightseeing expenses totaled $627.12. We also enjoyed a lot of good food on our trip and our expenses for dining out came to $1,737.24.
So, just to recap -
$8,390.98 Gas
2,904.31 Campgrounds
227.00 Alaska Ferry
627.12 Sightseeing
1,737.24 Dining out
$13,886.65
We had a great time on our Alaska trip. We enjoyed the scenery, wildlife and museums. We met a lot of great people and made a few new friends.
We've been busy this past week - we got our eye glasses, had a new windshield put on the Saturn Vue and drove down to Marianna, FL to renew our Florida driver's licenses.
Glenda and I had a "girls day out" and went to the Mall and had lunch at Piccadilly's while we were there - just did window shopping at the Mall. Mike helped W. T. run an errand and they had lunch at Ryan's.
I had 2 doctor's appointments (primary care doctor and chiropractor). Tinker had a grooming appointment yesterday, so he is ready for our trip.
Yesterday we put a few things that we aren't going to need this summer in our storage unit here. We've been asked by a few friends how big our unit is, so we took a tape measure with us. The unit is 5' X 10' and is almost full as you can see by this photo.
Today I did some last minute shopping - Petsmart for Tinker's dog food, Sally's Beauty Supply for hair color, and Publix for a few groceries. I also wen to Bed Bath and Beyond and stopped in at Kohl's and got a couple of blouses that were 50% off.
Mike spent the morning working around the RV and getting ready for our departure on Monday.
Then after I got home from shopping Mike and I went to lunch at the Mexican Connection. We did get to see a couple of our friends there - Sandy was our server and we got to talk with Chad for a few minutes. Caroline wasn't working today and Frances (the owner) was busy working in the kitchen, so we didn't get a chance to visit with her.
Mike took a couple more photos here at The Willows yesterday. He took another photo of our RV here
and a photo of our neighbor Bill's 1963 Airstream.
This afternoon Mike and I went to our dentist for a routine cleaning and exam.
We met Mike and Gayle (they live in Ozark) at Golden Corral a little before 4 p.m. to have dinner. We all made several trips back to the buffet and had a good time catching up on each other's news.
After dinner we all came back to the RV. Mike and Gayle are leaving next Thursday in their motor home and heading west. They will eventually be going up to Alaska this summer. We had already given them a couple of books and some maps that we used on our Alaska trip last year.
We showed them some of the photos we took last year in Alaska and talked about some of the places we visited and some restaurants we ate at that we think they would enjoy. We talked about some of the campgrounds we stayed at and a couple of places where we dry camped.
Mike (my Mike) and Mike talked about the routes we took and road conditions. Gayle took notes about the campgrounds, restaurants and places to sightsee.
We enjoyed our visit with Gayle and Mike, but it finally got late and they had to leave.
Since my last post 12 days ago, we've both had an eye exam at the optometrist and are having new lenses made for our glasses. Since our eye glass frames aren't even a year old, we're keeping them and just replacing the lenses.
I've had a few chiropractor visits and we had Tim from Auto Glass Medic come out to look at the Saturn Vue's windshield. It developed a crack about 2 months ago that has gotten longer and appears to be a stress crack. Tim is going to order us a new windshield and have the repair covered under warranty.
We got gas again at Sam's Club last week and the price of gas is down to $3.699 a gallon. The prices keep going up and then back down just like a roller coaster.
Tomorrow we are getting together with our friends Mike and Gayle at Golden Corral for dinner.
We decided to go to our favorite Mexican restaurant here in Dothan for dinner tonight - the Mexican Connection. We always request to sit in either Debbie or Sandy's section and tonight we were seated in Sandy's section.
One of the first jobs I had after moving to Dothan in 1980 was working at Mrs. Boomer's Pub in downtown Dothan. I worked there until early 1988. Sharon was one of the owners of Mrs. Boomer's. She is now working and helping out at the Mexican Connection and her son, Chad, is working there (he's really grown up since the last time I saw him!). Debbie and Sandy also worked at Mrs. Boomer's while I was there.
So tonight besides having a great dinner (burrito supreme dinner), we got to visit with some old friends. We didn't have our camera, so Mike took photos with his phone (please excuse the photo quality).
We didn't get to see Frances (the owner of Mexican Connection) and Caroline who works during the day - both Frances and Caroline worked at Mrs. Boomer's when I was there.
Our first week here in Dothan has been a busy one. Mike & I had our eyes examined at Eye Center South. Mike's eyes are fine after his macular surgery last year and I have just the beginnings of a cataract in my left eye. Dr. Feagin suggested we have our optometrist check our eyes to see if we need new glasses.
I had routine lab work done at our primary care doctor's and will get the results later this month.
Today Tinker had a grooming appointment at For Paws Only and he looks much better after a bath and cut. Then this afternoon I had saw Gina at Regis and had a hair cut and perm. I also got gas today in the car at Sam's Club and it was $3.739 a gallon.
We have some great sunsets here at The Willows
and Mike took a couple of photos of yesterday's sunset.
He even got a photo of our RV with the moon overhead.
We left Oaks 'N Pines RV Campground this morning about 10:15 and headed west on I-10. The rain from yesterday has passed through and we have sunny skies today. We stopped at a rest area about 50 miles east of Tallahassee to have lunch a little before noon.
We stopped at the Flying J just west of Tallahassee at Midway to get gas for the RV ($3.779 a gal). Later on we passed over the Apalachicola River and entered the Central Time Zone.
Then after about 30 miles we saw
