Goodbye Florida

It's always a bit of an ordeal tearing down our site, and we are usually pressed, so this year we decided to do it in small doses, especially since it was so frigging hot.  Did it over 3 days for a change.  Also had to get in a few other things, some fresh fish for dinner, and some crab cakes.

Fried corn with fresh cod

Served over a small bed of mashed potato

Wonderful crab cakes!

We had a delicious dinner and a very nice visit at Linda's with Ray. Then did a final dinner out with Debbie and Harold, and Doug and Nancy, another great visit.  

Had a weird experience with booze.  I know sounds odd, but each year we stock up on bourbon, Canadian whiskey, and wine while in Florida, somehow Jan stashes it all away and we normally get enough to last us all the way back to Florida.  It is so much cheaper there, it is worth the effort, to give you an idea as much as $20+ a bottle!!  So this year we went to Total Wine to get my go to bourbon, Maker's Mark, and they say they don't have any..........  Now those of you who are bourbon drinkers know that many bourbons are either in short supply or non-existent, but I never imagined MM would be one of those, it is good bourbon, but not a "premium" label.  So we contacted another Total Wine and they said they had some, so we picked up a few cases and they said they were out as well.  So I went online to try to find some more at another liquor store, found ABC had some, I ordered a few more cases which wiped that store out and then Jan and I thought if this was a run on MM, we would try to find some more and just leave it in our storage unit.  It sounded like another bourbon, Buffalo Trace, that is unavailable now.  So I went online again to ABC and ordered a few more cases, it was accepted, but several minutes later, I got an email that my order was cancelled, huh?!?!?!  I called the store and they told me the head office cancelled my order.  What?  So I called to find out what was what, but they had closed for the day, but I left a message.  Then I called another ABC and asked if they had any, I was told they had a few cases, but didn't know if they were going to get anymore either.  ABC got back to me asking why I was buying so much bourbon, and if I was legitimate, they would approve me to buy some more.  I have never before been asked or questioned about buying a larger quantity at any store at any time.  Anyway I proceeded down to the store I had called feeling like I was trying to get away with something and wondered if I was going to get in trouble or something.  I actually had no problem after all, and all the guy asked was if I was a snowbird heading home?  He said they see this all the time:-)

Jan played her last Mah Jong with her friends, got her hair done, we had our last few Happy Hours, and even had cigars with Debbie and Harold one night.  We had our last campfire at D&H's.

Jan found an interesting guy trying to hitch hike out with us.

 We had our last Happy Hour.

Tom, Phil, Moi, Nancy, Doug, Jan, Harold, and Deb

And Wicket (Buff)

Departure day!  We have never had a picture of leaving before, but Debbie grabbed a few:-)

Hooking up

Out the gate

We had to stop by Detroit Diesel to get our chassis lube that accidentally got skipped earlier.

Always something, as you know, our bedroom TV decided to just shut off, it did it a few times in an hour and now only stayed on 30 seconds at the most.  We need a new TV.  We got our chassis lube first thing in the morning and proceeded to Americus, GA for the night.

Nice site and nice evening, and dark at night too

Then we stopped in for our first fuel and had our what I am sure will only be our first sticker shock for the season.

Pulled into Allatoona Landing in Atlanta early enough that we could run to Best Buy for a new TV.

Our Atlanta spot

Then we replaced the TV, why oh why can't these things be simple and standard?  We assumed, wrong, that the mounts would be the same, and each 27" TV would measure the same, no again.  And we found out that basically there is only one company making a 27" TV anymore, LG.  Don't know what we'll do next time.  Anyway, with some effort we got it done, and it works great.

Our swinging cabinet front door mount

Modifying the mount

DONE!

So hopefully while here we will finally finish all our dental visits, and visit with friends a bit in the short time here.

Less Than a Week!

Definitely in countdown mode now, we leave in less than a week.  Jan finished washing and waxing the coach, looks beautiful now.  We have only a few little things to do before we go. I still have to do the annual maintenance on the AquaHot, our heating and hot water system, a new filter, new nozzle and general cleaning of the combustion chamber.  I replaced the rub strips on our slides.  They are there to flip the rubber seal as the slide goes in and out to keep them water tight.  An easy job, thankfully.

Just have to pull the old one off, clean it up with acetone,
and then align the strip and carefully pull the backing off

We have been using a dash cam for some time, and our old one has been acting up for, I'm embarrassed to say, more than a year.  So we decided it was time for a new one, did some research and settled on a Garmin 67W.  We can't get over how tiny it is, and how user friendly it is.  Also the other one mounted with a suction cup and was constantly falling off the window, this one uses a tiny magnet that is adhered to the window and just snaps in place.  I think it will work out well.

Hard to tell its size in the picture, but
it is about the size of a box of matches!

And you knew there had to be food in here somewhere:-)

Our own scallop dinner

Shrimp tacos at a local restaurant

And delicious Oysters Rockefeller at the same restaurant, Dockside

So we are girding our loins for the increased price of diesel this year, and looking forward to getting on the road again.

An interesting little guy we found on our walk
A Ring Necked snake, see his tail?
They do that when agitated

So my next post will find us back on the road, and hopefully a little more interesting:-)  

Chairs Are Finally Back!

The big news is we got our captain's chairs back from the upholsterer.  We got a call and coordinated a time once Jan had her soft cast off, and ran up to get them.  We were able to get them both in the bed of the truck carefully and brought them back.   Thankfully both Harold and Tom were here to help get them out of the truck and into the coach.  The 3 of us managed to get them through the door and then Tom singlehandedly took them the rest of the way when Harold and I got pinned in the door:-)  Thanks again to both of you!  Jan and I then spent the next 4 1/2 hours getting them reinstalled.  The passenger seat was the easiest as far as wiring went, just a few connectors, but the bolts that hold them are almost completely inaccessible even for her small hands, but my seat's wiring was a nightmare.  When we took them out, I disconnected every connector I could find, but there were still several wires holding the seat, so in desperation as Tom and Jan were holding the seat up, I just cut the remaining wires.  My seat has many more features therefore many more wires, memory, heat, lumbar support, and the seat itself moved forward and back, so to get all the wires reconnected properly and splice the cut wires with the seat close enough to make it happen, well it was a challenge.  But now they are in.

Biggest challenge, getting them inside

Getting a bolt in

Rewiring

The diesel mechanic finishing up

Are we happy with the results?  Well, not quite as much as we wanted to be unfortunately.  About a 7.5 out of 10, so I am not going to share the name of the place we had it done at.  Some of the seams don't meet right, and a couple of spots are a bit questionable, but I think as we just accept the fact the seats are back and work fine, we won't notice the little details as much as we do right now.  No matter what they are one hell of a lot better now than they were.  Mark one more project off the list.

I can now say all the doctor appointments and even the joy of a colonoscopy are all out of the way for another year!

We've had several get togethers with friends and unfortunately Debbie had to go back home to attend to some family business, so we are missing her company.  Crossing our fingers that she'll be back before we leave in only a little over 2 weeks.  Hard to believe.

Me, with Scott showing me some photos, Tom, and Phil

Harold, of Debbie and Harold, Phil, moi, and Scott

So we are now in countdown mode, finishing up some of the last few projects, going out to lunches with Ray, visiting friends in the park before we bid adieux until next season.  It will feel very different when we come back as our site will be ours starting Oct 1st until the next Oct 1st as we were forced to go "annual", as did Tom and Karen and many others in the park.  Our park changed the rules that affect reservations, and by doing so actually kicked Tom and Karen off their site, which dominoes a bunch of other people to change their sites unwillingly as well.  We used to have a policy that when you rented your site "seasonally" you got to keep it 3, 4, 5, or 6 months, and since an annual has precedence and if someone wanted to take your site annually they would call and offer you first right of refusal, so you could keep your site by going annually, no more.  Tom found out he was bumped off without any call or notification whatsoever even though he had been on that site for 5 years!  This change in policy has frustrated many people here but management doesn't seem to care, and I guess the fact that they have over 200 people on a waiting list to get in, they don't feel any loyalty to long time customers.  It has really changed the attitude and complexion of the park.  When you take your site annually no one else can stay on it, and the park may not rent it out in your absence, also you can improve your site, put in pavers, plant shrubs or flowers, put up a more permanent pavilion, and even install a small shed, so I guess there are some advantages, but for us the importance of keeping our site, the site we have been on for 7 years is going to cost us $3500 or so more dollars for the same amount of time.  Sorry, I had to get that off my chest.  I will probably have one or two more posts before we hit the road, then on to future adventures.

Saw this guy with his dinner on one of our walks in the park.