Bittersweet

I have been hinting for some time about changes coming up in our life, well one chapter has just ended.  We have been coming to our winter digs here in Nokomis for years and years, more than 20.  My mother lived nearby and we would come visit many times throughout the year when we lived in Atlanta, truly the area seems like a second home to us.  We have enjoyed and cherished numerous friendships here and had a lot of great times.  We have seen people come and go and experienced a family member, BIL Tom, and Jan's sister Karen come to this park and embrace the camaraderie and activities.  But since Covid and actually even before some of the shine on the apple has diminished for Jan and I.  While the park is still a wonderful place, there have been a lot of changes, not good in our estimation that started us looking for another spot.  Management handled Covid poorly, started not enforcing rules, or very sporadically at best, a total fiasco with hurricane Ian as far as policy, rentals, etc, held a lot of folks high and dry for weeks on end, although they did get it cleaned up in record time, the park started to have spots that were trashy and not taken care of, numerous units looked like they were derelict with so much moss and mildew it was hard to tell their color, and hadn't seen a washing in literally years.  But when the manager disrupted the park 2 years ago for no good reason, displacing at least 20 people from sites they were on for years and years, showing no compassion at all, a situation we got wrapped up in forcing us to spend $4000 more per year than we had with no intention of staying any longer, well, that was the last straw.  And when a two tier rent schedule was imposed, that really did it.  We looked and looked for an alternative park, as we still love the area, still have our doctors here, and many friends, we actually found several contenders.  We weren't even planning on being here this season, but the park we had chosen was working on a big brand new section that wasn't going to be ready in time, so we bit the bullet and just spent our last 3 months here at the very highest price per night that we have ever paid.  Will we miss the park, well of course, we have a lot of years invested here, we will miss the very fine friends and a few very dear friends, but Jan and I know it is time to move on even if it is difficult.  We have kept this very secret, as one of our absolute goals was to be sure our site didn't end up in a free for all. We'll still be in the area, and look forward to visiting, but it is time to go.

One of our very last Happy Hours joined by our daughter, Kelly

A fond farewell to dear friends, Debbie and Harold

Rolling out for the last time

Now we are on the road again, but we had a big surprise with my last doctor appointment, seems I have a heart issue in addition to my stents that I got 11 years ago that needs to be taken care of, so we are still leaving for the Atlanta area, dentist and doctor appointments there, getting a oil change, chassis service and our transmission filters and fluid changed on the way, and then we will return to Florida for a week to have a procedure done and followup.  We expect a good result and then we will head back out and resume our travels.

So the first day was pretty uneventful, except for very heavy rain for the last few hours to Ocala where we were getting our service done at Detroit Diesel and Allison.

We got out in record time, back on the road before 1100am for our leg to a new RV park, Tifton Overnight, a no-contact, all paved with concrete pull through sites.  It was very nice, although there are way, way, too many lights, a lot like a Walmart parking lot!  On our unexpected return to Florida we will be staying there 2 more times, one south and one north, and we endeavor to move sites to see if we can alleviate a bit of the light. So we'll give it an 8 out of 10.

BUT, getting there was a bit tough.  Jan and I thought about it, and only 3 times has our coach actually put us on the side of the road, that's in 199,000 miles and 16 years of ownership.  The first was soon after we purchased it on our first leg from Florida to Atlanta, it quit dead right on I-75.  After some troubleshooting and checking every fuse we could think of on our new to us coach we found a blown 10 amp fuse that was in a spot labeled 25 amps, replaced it and it has been perfect ever since.  The second was many years ago in the middle of Kansas when we had an air line fitting blow, we managed to get it off the side of the road safely, and since we didn't have a lot of extra air fittings at that time had to wait for a mobile guy to come, crawl under and replace the bad fitting, and the third time was on the way to Tifton.  After a lunch stop, we were just purring along when the "Check Engine" light came on, immediately followed by the "Stop Engine" light, much more critical, and finally an alert saying low coolant!  There was an exit about 1 1/2 miles ahead so I idled in, got off to the side and immediately shut it down.  We ran out expecting to see a blown radiator hose and coolant spewing from under the engine but it was dry??  But under the compartment where our AquaHot lives was a lot of coolant dripping.  Remember our AquaHot provides our hot water, heat, powered by electric, diesel, or the heat from the engine.  After looking and looking, we finally found a short piece of hose had failed on the antifreeze loop from the engine and had managed to pump what we later found was about 36 quarts of coolant out, and a lot of it was dripping all over the AquaHot compartment.

The spot of the failure

The culprit
Ha, I noticed the petroleum jelly in the picture, I needed it to get
the new hose on the fittings

We were oh so lucky in so many ways, the failure was identified quickly, we had everything we needed to repair it with us, it was accessible so that I could actually deal with it, and from where we sat on the exit ramp we could see a NAPA store!  Our cooling system holds about 55 quarts, we had no idea at that moment how much we had lost, so we unhooked the truck, Jan ran to the NAPA store and bought 6 gallons of antifreeze.  Only bad thing you couldn't go back down the wrong way on the exit ramp so she had to drive 6 miles to another exit make a U-turn and come back.  Perfect because it took me about that much time to do the repair and some of the clean up.  We found out pretty quick 6 gallons wasn't enough, so it was my turn to get more, I bought 7 more gallons and did the U-turn thing and we ended up putting another 2 gallons in, enough to get it started, knowing it would probably settle and we'd have to add more later.  So 1 hour and 50 minutes on the side of the road all told, pretty good.  We were lucky it was a beautiful day, NAPA was right there, we could fix it, and we only had 30 miles to go:-)  PS: We put another gallon in before we left for Atlanta in the morning, and imagine we might have to add just a little more.

So now we are in East Ellijay, GA at a favorite park, Talona Ridge for 9 days until we turn back around and head for Florida once more to get me taken care of, in the mean time we have hearing aid appointments, dentist appointments, root canal appt, dermatologist appts, and will try to see some friends in between.  More to come later.

T minus 10 Days and Counting

Our departure date is fast arriving now.  We're getting the last few things taken care of, trying to get the last lunches in, visits, HH's, and of course a few chores here and there.  

My drive to Atlanta to get my new crown was a mixed bag, it reminded me, even though we've driven it a hundred times, it is still a long, long drive, 8 and 1/2 hours each way.  Maybe I won't be so eager to do it in the future, although going to our very favorite dentist is very compelling, and then just to let us know Murphy is still alive and well, I found out I need a root canal on another tooth as well.  When it rains it pours:-)

Jan cheering me while I was in Atlanta.

Cheers!

You knew there would be food pics.  Jan and I ran down to Punta Gorda for a change and had a nice lunch on the water at the Riviera Bar and Grill.

Fried shrimp and onion rings, and those are pig wings on the bottom, yum!

I actually made dinner one night, seared scallops and fried corn over, yes, Jan's mashed potatoes.

I have completed my physical therapy for my left leg and I think it helped, I can walk much better now.  Also my medical tests have been completed and I have my final doctor appt later this week, hopefully all good news.  We also have been tweaking our summer plans.

Spring has sprung, maybe too much, pretty humid these days, but littles are appearing.

Yes, that's a baby tortoise

Jan and I went to one of our go to restaurants, the Dockside, we hadn't been to yet this year and had nice lunch. 

We split Ahi tuna nachos, and

a grouper wrap

Then we splurged again with yet another lunch at the Crow's Nest, complete with a Guinness!

Jan and our daughter, Kelly had been planning a mother-daughter cruise and the day arrived, Kelly flew in the night before.  I drove them up to Tampa where it was leaving from and on the way we had a nice lunch at Crabby Bill's on St Pete Beach.  A bit overcast, but nice anyway.

So after I got back and started my week of batching it, they got on and left the dock headed for the Caribbean.  I made the best of it with a nice bourbon at the motorhome, on the boat, Kelly with a G&T, Jan with a Canadian whiskey, and off they went........

My choice

Jan's

Kelly's

Underway

Under the Skyway Bridge leaving Tampa

My next post will most likely find us out of Florida, see you then!

Less Than a Month to Go and Little to Report

Didn't want you to think we'd died or anything, but very little is going on.  The weather has finally turned pleasant.  We have accomplished several small things, and worst of all we both got colds!  Neither one of us has been sick in over 3 years, so it was an unwelcome surprise, but not as bad as good friends coming down with Covid.  Kept us contained for a few days.

Jan has completed washing and waxing the motorhome, we replaced a slide seal that got tangled up a few months ago.

The portion with the line is what we replaced

Jan, courtesy of our friend Ray, was able to do an enormous Liberty puzzle, 881 pieces!

We heard about a little Cuban deli here in Venice at a gas station, Belki's that is supposed to have one of the best Cuban sandwiches anywhere.  We've been meaning to get there for a couple years, and we finally made it, picked up 2 sandwiches and went over to the jetty to have our lunch.  Well, we can report they were perhaps the best we've ever had, in fact if we had known we'd have split one sandwich, as it was neither of us could eat more than half, but that was good as it gave us another lunch.

Not the best picture, but these were the bomb!

I've been in physical therapy twice a week and the good news is, it seems to be helping, I'm walking pretty good now.  Back to our favorite Thai place for lunch.

Nam Sod salad and chicken filled wontons

Spicy Tom Yum seafood soup

I don't mean to include X-rated pictures on my blog, but this is why we have a bunch of tortoises in the tortoise preserve:-)

Spring is in the air

We had kind of boycotted a popular restaurant here for several years for no real good reason except for a bad experience one time, but when Jason and Joanne came to town they wanted to go to the Crow's Nest and we said yes.  We had such a nice meal, excellent service and experience, Jan and I both said we needed to go back before we left. We had another excellent meal and ended up in what we thought were the best seats in the house!

Wonderful grouper sandwich with awesome house made chips

Fried oysters

I still have a couple more doctor appointments, I have to run up to Atlanta next week for a crown, several more physical therapy sessions, numerous get togethers with friends, Jan has Mah Jongg, a couple small projects on the motorhome, and this and that to go.