Launching from the Space Coast

Our adventures next landed us in Melbourne, Florida – which is where I had lived for 12 years prior to meeting Chris in 2006 and subsequently hitting the road with him.

We’ve spent a lot of time on Florida’s Space Coast, as my parents remained living there and of course, we were here through a lot of my dad’s illness.

Our return this time was to spend some more quality time with my mom before we leave the East Coast of the US, and help her with some of the remaining logistics of clearing my dad’s stuff. Namely, dealing with his computer – which Chris boldly took on. Not only was the machine a Windows PC (something Chris vowed to never touch again), but for a computer geek like my dad – it’s on par of properly preserving the data on his brain.

While Chris dealt with that, I helped my mom with her taxes and getting in quality mother-daughter time. I joined her for Bingo (I won an entire dollar!), took her to India Fest that was being held at Wickham Park, which was also the location of our campground this visit (our review) and went on a few little outings.

We also had the pleasure of meeting fellow full time RVers Stephanie & John of RV Daily Life. Ironically, one of the first questions they asked was ‘How do we go about meeting other RVers like us?’.

And of course, our timing in Melbourne coincided with our big launch of RVillage!

We got very little sleep during our visit as we balanced quality family time with long hours working with our distributed team getting everything ready. From testing code, finalizing our post and communicating with lots of people.

The final launch sequence was initiated as we were pulling out of Melbourne after another all-nighter, and I actually fired the publish button as we pulled onto I-95 to head northward.

3…. 2… 1….

LAUNCH!

Appropriate for a launch of a site dedicated to RVers – on the road, launching from the Space Coast, where I had started my own nomadic travels!

The launch has gone tremendously well.

RVillage is now just barely 5 days old and we’re approaching 2300 members who have signed up. Lots of marvelous stories of people making new friendships already, and tons of Groups created.

Our next stop was just south of Savannah, GA to visit our dear friends Ann & Elliott. We met these two a few years back via our blog, and our friendship has grown over the years – from hillarious Le’Sharo adventures and time in Cedar Key together. We always make a point of stopping while we’re on this coast.

In fact, they’ve become such a part of our lives – that we’ve officially dubbed them a ‘Nomadic Port’ for us, and they now have the sign to prove it! They always welcome us with an open driveway, power, shared meals, long hot showers, WiFi and friendship. What more could a nomad want?

My mother also drove up for a weekend away, as she’s become close with them as well. So it was extra special to get some bonus time with everyone.

An excellent visit, and it was wonderful to be around friends who understand the magnitude of a project like RVillage and could share in our excitement (and exhaustion) of being in the midst of it all!

We’ll definitely miss these guys as we start heading westward for a while!

Next up, was a repositioning across the state to Perry, GA to the Georgia National Fairgrounds, the site of the big FMCA Rally – our first big RV Rally.  The timing was perfect for us – right on our route (or lack thereof), several friends already planning to attend and the launch of a major new RV product we’re involved with.

In fact, our friends at the Geeks on Tour have taken quite a liking to RVillage (thank you for the RV.Net posting guys!) and hosted a Get-Together planned entirely on the platform. We had quite an attendance last evening upon our arrival, including finally getting to meet Linda & Howard of RV-Dreams.

At this exact moment, I’m finishing up this post while we’re still in a temporary parking location, as the main parking was shut down when we arrived due to the rain.

Hopefully soon we’ll get situated in our spot for the week and we can get out and explore what these big RV rallies are all about!

What’s Next?  We actually have no clue. Other than we need to be to northern Nevada by late August for Burning Man (yes, we got tickets!) and then Oregon by early September for volunteer hosting Cape Blanco Lighthouse again.  We’ll take some time meandering across the country, and hopefully catch up on some sleep!  We’re watching the weather, and will probably pass through St. Louis sometime in the next few weeks once spring arrives there. Other than that, we’re letting serendipity be our navigator!