4 Jan 2026 - 2026 Trip Planning in Progress

Greetings from Iowa! We hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. We have been very busy since we returned from our 2025 RV travels in September.  Like in years past, as soon as we got the coach cleaned up, winterized and tucked away in the barn, we started in on various projects - everything we neglected all year while we were gone.  

Our first project involved our front entryway concrete.  In 2024 we had it demo'd and repoured.  Then they applied a decorative coating, which looked really nice but developed some small cracks, caused by the sealant under the coating.  The warranty repair involved grinding the coating off and re-applying a different product, all under warranty. They gave us the option to change the coating so we chose one that looks like wood, and it came out really nice.  This was completed in September.  

We followed that with some landscaping, new mulch and a new Sun Valley Maple tree to replace the Ash tree that succumbed to the Emarald Ash Bore.   

Landscaping fabric/weed barrier applied first

It even still had a few leaves on it when they planted it.

Throughout these projects I was careful to protect the left shoulder rotator cuff they repaired a year ago and Doreen's left foot that was also repaired last winter.  .  

We wrapped up our outside work as the weather started turning cold and blustery other than a final couple mows and leaf mulching.  Then planning turned to the holidays and our 2026 RV trip. This year we were very thankful that just about everyone was able to come back for Christmas.  We had 18 here and served up a taco bar with all the fixin's.  It was a great time and it was great to see everyone, even though it was just for one night.  Our grandson PFC Lucas Buehner was able to get leave and come home over the holidays too, so it was great to see him and hear about his experiences at Combat Medic school.    

So the holidays are over, the decorations all stowed, and our focus has shifted to our 2026 RV trip planning and Doreen's upcoming cataract surgery.  She is having both eyes done towards the end of January and the first week in February.  We are hoping the recovery will be short and uneventful.  

As far as our 2026 RV plans, our trip will be a bit different than in years past.  We normally launching out on 1 April and return sometime in September or October.  Our grand daughter Hailee was engaged earlier in 2025 to Elijah and they announced a wedding date of 19 April 2026.  So we are going to haul our coach over to the Alliance factory, better known as "the mothership", at the end of March and leave it.  They are going to address a couple items and give it a once-over.  The coach was born in February 2020, so this will be camping season #7 for it.  It has been super reliable but a few things need tweaked.   

After the wedding we will return to Alliance to pick it up and head back to Iowa to prep it for our 2026 travels.  Our goal is to launch on 1 May 2026.  From the map above you can see our route which will bring us back home from 1 June to 21 July.  We will be able to catch the majority of our Ankeny grandson's (Calvin and Daniel Jr) summer baseball games during that time.  Then on 21 July we will head towards Milwaukee for our grandson Jon Ervin's high school graduation celebration.  Following that our focus will be exploring primarily Wisconsin and Minnesota and reconnecting with friends, family and military comrades.  Right now the plan is to return home on 8 September, unload and clean the coach, winterize it and prep it for it's winter slumber.

Today I created the blog for the 2026 trip (you are looking at it) and this is the first post.  The URL is:  https://schellhasetravels2026.blogspot.com    Notice the URL is the same as in year's past except for the year. You can go back and revisit any of our travels from 2016 through 2025 just by changing the year on the URL. Here is a map that illustrates our travels since 2016:

This year we will camp at 23 sites, 149 nights, and approximately 3532 point-to-point miles, which is significantly less than years past.  Should be a great trip!  The trip is planned and 61% of the reservations made. This year we are sad that our travel partner, little Miss Liberty, will not be accompanying us.  Her little heart gave out in the middle of our 2025 trip so she crossed over the rainbow bridge in Kentucky. She sure loved her camper.  R.I.P Meatball!

Stay strong folks, and stay tuned for updates. Thank you for tagging along and, again, here is the URL to bookmark for future reference. https://schellhasetravels2026.blogspot.com   The blog will be updated daily once we launch in May.

Take care,

Ed and Doreen Schellhase