Member Travels

This winter mother nature redefined the term "snow bird". Southern states from Florida to Texas reported the coldest, wettest winters in years. Despite the bad weather, Dogwood members enjoyed their travels.

Wallace & Nancy Twigg: Nancy and I spent a couple of weeks in Florida this winter. We arrived in Port St. Lucie just after the first cold snap. Although the temperatures had moderated the wind continued to blow the entire time we were there. From Port St. Lucie we traveled over to Polk City and spent the majority of our time with friends at Mount Oliver Shores North. What a wonderful community. We had strawberries in Auburndale, visited Lakeland and Winter Haven and made out first visit to LazyDays. I’m still at a loss for words to describe that place. Everybody needs to go there once whether you buy anything or not. I still have 3+ years to retirement but I think we’ve narrowed down the area of Florida where we want to spend our winters. Safe Travel,

Mann & Carolyn Duff; As we headed south in January, we joined Donald & Carol Warthan for dinner in Gaffney South Carolina. We spent 2 months in the Houston area visiting with Mann's daughter and her family. On our trip home we spent time in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

Donald & Carol Warthan: From one "snowbird" to another...when we left home it was 18 degrees...and it never got out of the teens at night until we got to Ocala, FL. We are now in Palmdale near the southern end of Lake Okeechobee and it's still hanging in the mid 30's at night. However, it does warm up pretty quickly...71 degrees at 8:00 this morning. So much for "global warming"..."Climate Change" I can accept but have trouble believing all the hoopla about global warming. We will be heading back north in a couple of weeks.

Steve & Judy Czarsty: We are in the Southwest, not as warm as we would like it but all in all enjoying what we get. We are on the way to Albuquerque for the show, hope to see some people from the east but I guess not many. We had a good time at the Southeast Rally in Brooksville, saw a lot of folks there, snowbirding in Florida. We will be heading to South Carolina as quick as we can to help Steve and April get ready to bring the newest Czarsty into the world, talk about getting excited we are! See you all soon...

Carl & Donna Gruel: We were in Texas this Winter for about 10 weeks and we did not find any "suitable" weather. But, we keep in mind that it was a tough Winter all over the country, we know from all the news reports that it could have been and would have been worse somewhere else. We are looking forward to the April Rally and being Hosts along with Shirley and Mo Martin. We'll be begging ovens during the weekend to make it all come together in the dry camp situation.

Butch & Liz Jones: We left early for our trip to Florida and missed the first big snow storm. We stayed south a month missing all of it and it sure was good to have the freedom to decide to stay away (Butch recently retired). We spent three nights on the way down in Charleston, did a lot of tourist bit, then on to St. Augustine for two days and rest of time in Nokomis, Fla. where we spent lot of time on beaches and touring towns Sarasota to Venice. Even though it was the coldest winter "they can remember" as some said, the days in the 60's with sunshine were just fine with us.

Jim & Donna Venable are in central Florida for the winter. The local weatherman said that the first two months of the year were the coldest in the last 58 years. We are still having the best time possible with all the cold weather. We are looking to go to the Strawberry festival on March 4 , senior citizen day and enjoying all of the sights and strawberry short cakes. Hope that the normal weather Florida comes soon.

Members who will be attending the FMCA International Convention in Albuquerque: Steve & Judy Czarsty, Wilt & Barbara Greenwood.

Wilt & Barbara Greeenwood are in Benson AZ at the Escapees park at the moment, recovering from our $9000 transmission replacement in Birmingham, AL. We missed Quartzsite and the INTO rally, but are OK now and expect to attend the Monaco International pre-rally in Tucson and the FMCA Convention in Albuquerque. Back home in early April .