Leaving Florida – The Struggle

We started out on April 1, 2026 for the Great American Heartland Tour (Our journey’s name). This journey is a little different than anything prior. Trips we’ve taken in the past lasting up to 3 months have been in a pickup and driving over 6000 miles and tent camping with Airbnb ever few days. This trip we put all of our belongings into climate controlled storage, sold some stuff and gave away some too. This journey is been discussed for over a year in light discussions and on Christmas day, I decided to pull the pin and do it. So in January we purchased our 2025 Entegra Ethos 20T Ram Promaster Van as our mode of travel.

Our current journey out of Florida has been nothing short of a blessing! We started close to home going to Oscar Scherer State Park as a test to see how we’d do. Check systems and supplies and make sure we could do this.

Then we moved a little further out to Myakka State Park to continue to check our systems, schedules, procedures and get our feet wet at the whole RV life.

Traveling with a large dog makes this whole experience a little more difficult but ever so worth it to bring our favorite traveling companion. Nove has been on all our trips and she loves the van. She rides up on my bed as we drive as if she was the Queen of Sheba.

We said our good byes to all our neighbors, friends after we had to come back into Nokomis for a few extra supplies and minor parts. Like a 50 amp to 30 amp conversion plug. (a.k.a. Dogbone). Which in my book has been a good purchase.

Even though this trip is expected to only last 6 months, it’s been extremely hard and stressful for everyone.

Here is an updated list of where we have been:

As of May 7, 2026 – It looks like or should I say, FEELS like I’ve contracted the Alpha Gal Syndrome from tick bites at the Alexander Springs State Park where I was bitten at least 8 times around my belt line. It started to effect me maybe 5 days later after eating a delicious burger. The next day I had a great classic Reuben sandwich which was also delicious, but after eating both sandwiches I had really bad stomach aches. I honestly thought I ate the first one to fast and thought the second one was the sauerkraut. It wasn’t until the next day when I drank a large glass of milk when alarm bells were going off. My stomach was on fire like I had a severe sunburn on the inside of my stomach. It lasted for maybe 6-8 hours. Then last night we had spaghetti and it all returned. Same M.O. Today, we are researching tick bites causing Alpha Gal Syndrome. It’s not a pretty picture for anyone who contracts this. No red meat, no dairy, no jello or anything from beef/dairy products.

I will keep you posted.