When Georgia gets too cold, what do you do? You leave to the Bahamas to enjoy 77F degree weather!

We found a last minute cruise deal and booked it late in November, packed, and drove 8 hours to Port Canaveral in early December. The plan was to have a day in Nassau and another day on the MSC’s Ocean Cay enjoying the warmer weather and taking a much-needed decompression between busy holiday weeks.

Initial Truck Specs and Setup:

I could have probably afforded a bigger truck had I worked a part time job delivering pizzas with all the research I put into finding a suitable travel trailer and tow vehicle. We started with a very luxurious F150 Limited which had been an excellent truck for all things a suburban family needs a truck to be. It could haul so many groceries! In all actuality it did a great job, we built a deck, garden boxes, and many other projects around the house with that F150.

After a full day of driving back from Indiana, the infamous soap spill of 2025, and not a full nights rest - we dropped the kids off with grandparents and took a very much needed weekend to ourselves. Ziggy(dog) doesn’t enjoy camping as much, he can’t get up the stairs without assistance and the floor in the TravelBarge is smooth and he has to tip toe around. Ellijay can still hop up into the truck so she came with. Shout out to our house/dog sitter for watching Ziggy.

Last weekend, our family traveled from Atlanta, Georgia to Evansville, Indiana to attend the funeral of my grandfather, Richard Tenbarge. While it was a solemn occasion, the trip reminded us of the importance of family, connection, and cherishing every moment together.

Preparing for the Journey

Early on Tuesday morning, we loaded up the Travel Barge and said goodbye to Atlanta. The kids were quiet as we pulled onto the highway, as the journey progressed Alex and I tried to impart some understanding of death when either of them asked about Grandpa Richard. Sensing the seriousness of the trip, we made sure to bring along comfort items and snacks for the long drive.

Welcome to our family travel blog! This is our first post.

We’ll share tips, guides, and stories from our adventures around the world as we learn all the lessons along the way.

Our shakedown trip was short, close to home, near the dealer and several accessory-selling stores and yet was still frustrating nearly the whole time.

We planned to pick up our new Grand Design Imagine 2800BH from our local dealer and have enough time to bring it home for several hours to make loading up easier. However, due to several long hours of paperwork that we were promised wouldn’t take nearly that long, we ended up taking the TravelBarge directly to Mckinney Campground on Allatoona Lake.