Getting Settled and Oriented

We've been here about a week and settling into our new digs.  Funny, we've been coming to the  Venice/Nokomis area for over 25 years and just moving north 25 miles seems in some ways to be a completely new place.  With our delay getting down here, the first thing I did was go see 2 of my 4 docs that are here and got passing marks and another 10,000 miles.  Jan is 1 for 2 with a passing grade as well.  We've gotten our site almost how we want it.

And knowing us we've had to go out and find new places to eat on this side of town, and we've been pretty successful so far.  Found a good sushi place nearby, Mizu Sushi.

We've been able to get together with Karen and Tom a couple times, and with our running around we've hit a couple of our favorites, Kacey's,

and Thai Seed.

We installed mud flaps on the new truck.

And a highlight so far, a get-together lunch and visit with our long time friend, Ray, and Linda.

A short post for now.  We have several projects including installing the baseplate on the truck, doing a few things on the motorhome, and, of course, laying out some plans for the new travel year.

A Quick New Year's Post

So after one last delicious pizza lunch with enough for our first travel day's lunch, my implant was placed without incidence.  We left Ellijay early with 26 degrees and went right through Atlanta with no problems and little traffic, driving separately as we haven't got the base plate for the new truck yet.

A quick overnight in Madison, FL, then off to our new seasonal digs in Florida, Timberlane RV Park in Bradenton.

We got situated in our site and while we planned what we were going to do, we popped out the chairs and the fire pit, and enjoyed a nice evening overlooking our little pond.

The next day we put up the hut and started to make the site our own.

We are excited to be able to explore a different area this year and still only 25 miles from where we spent all those years.  In fact we already found a dynamite new seafood place and market, Lobster Pound a couple minutes away, the lunch was awesome, just like Maine, fried whole belly clams and a haddock sandwich!  We even bought some beautiful grouper for dinner.

So after a lineup of doctor appointments we'll settle in and enjoy Florida.  TTYL.

Another Year in the Books Part B

Westward towards Buffalo we stopped in NH and VT.  In NH we had a pretty site right on the Connecticut River the border between NH and VT.  

Then over to VT and the Woodstock Farmer's Market and Singleton's in Proctersville for awesome sandwiches.  Through Turning Stone into North Tonawanda, NY near Buffalo to visit Jason, Joanne, and Jax, and the rest of their family.

Out to lunch

Not sure what Jason is proclaiming to us, Jan, Moi, Jax, Joanne's parents, Joe, and Donna

Then we were off to Ohio to visit very old friends, Larry, my old college roommate, just to date myself, and Mary Ellen, we had a nice visit, lunch, and got to see their beautiful new home.

After that we went and did something Jan and I have been talking about for years and years, visiting Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water in PA.  Well worth it, incredibly beautiful and innovative.

Then back to Talona Ridge, where we looked at numerous potential properties, and on a whim and a suggestion form Jason even went down to the "southside" of Atlanta where Peachtree City, Newnan, and Fayetteville are.  We had a good time, saw a lot of nice property and splurged for a midafternoon beer in the daunting heat.  We really liked the area, but decided to keep looking up in the north.

Had to do a little awning repair after a service shop broke the extrusion that holds the awning fabric.

Now the rest of my dental saga, after I had gotten my crown and a root canal in the spring, I was having some discomfort with the tooth with the root canal so went back to the endodontist.  He took a look, x-rayed it and told me that sometimes there's just a tiny spot that wasn't able to be gotten with the root canal and that he would be happy to do it again, but he really thought it would be best to have it extracted and replaced with an implant.  So just for reference, I have now had a crown and a root canal in one year, so with our insurance I had hit the maximum limit for a year, but my tooth had to come out, so that was on me.  BUT, as they are hooking me up for the anesthesia for the extraction the oral surgeon says, hey you're in A-fib.  Wait a minute I had that fixed.  Anyway he pulled the tooth and since it was right up against another crown it was dislodged so I had to go back to my dentist to get that put back on correctly.  I called my heart rhythm doc, sent them a sample of the EKG, and they decided to put me on a heart monitor for 1 week.  Actually it wasn't too bad, and after the reading they said I was only in A-fib very sporadically and we didn't need to anything about it at this time.  So now I needed to wait until the new year when the dental insurance resets to have the implant placed.  All good now.

We had to leave Talona Ridge for the month of October, they were totally full and had no room in the inn for us, so we planned a little loop, but before we left we had a great get-together with friends.

Ted, Jan, John, Diane, Moi, and Pattie

So first we headed over to Marion, NC, just west of Asheville to Tom Johnson that has a nice campground and would give us access to one of our very favorite Vietnamese restaurants, Wild Ginger, and in Biltmore Village there is a great cigar bar, Casablanca, we like.  

All settled in with a little rain

Got our pho fix

I noticed on the way over the motorhome was making more boost than usual, in fact it would go all the way up on the gauge to 50psi instead of the normal high of 38psi.  Hmmm.  Did some research, it needed to be taken care of, and then we needed to figure out where.  We had booked a week in Marion, we knew Helene was coming, but really never gave it much thought as all that was forecast way up north was some rain.  Well, on the 3rd night at 0130am we awaken to banging on our door!  I stumbled out to find out what the H was going on and was told we had to evacuate, like right now.  OMG.  Took us several minutes to become conscious, then in the pouring rain we got all unhooked and ready to go, go where?!?  The area we were in was surrounded by streams and rivers, but we remembered a large store parking a few miles away, so that's where we went.  We tried to go back to bed but we were worried that the flooding would reach us, so basically we just waited for the dawn.  We spent some time trying to figure out where we'd go, we had already decided to go to Charlotte to try to get our boost problem fixed, we looked and looked, but most everything we saw was surrounded by water.  Meanwhile at about 0900am we jumped in the truck and drove back to the campground to see what was up, half of it was already underwater, we stopped in the office, not expecting anyone to be there, but it was manned.  We asked if they knew anything, they didn't yet, but offered us a full refund!  Now we could really plan what to do.  We ended up going to Statesville, NC for a few days to get us in position to get to our appointment in Charlotte, meanwhile we started hearing about the devastation, entire towns washed away, interstates closed indefinitely, Biltmore Village where we went to the cigar bar under 24' of water!  PS: Tom Johnson campground is still closed, the cigar bar is trying to rebuild.  We were so grateful we had headed east somewhat away from the worst of it, but even in Charlotte we experienced roads closed, trees down, and flooding.

We got to our appointment first thing in the morning, actually they don't make appointments, it's first come first serve, but we didn't wait more than 20 minutes, the tech hooked up his computer, and off we went on a drive, turned out it was a bad sensor which they didn't have, but were able to get in less than an hour.  It got swapped out, another test drive, and we were good to go.

We moved a little farther along the way killing time before our reservation in Virginia Beach, and had time to celebrate our 51st anniversary in a quiet but nice way.

Then off to Virginia Beach to a nice campground where we had our own private peninsula.  We were all the way out on the end, in fact we had to back up a couple of hundred yards to park, we'd never done that before, but it was beautiful, right on the water, and quiet.

We took a Naval Harbor tour, had great food, enjoyed the sunsets, explored, had a good time.

Then I wanted to do one more thing, when I flew for Delta umpteen many years ago, there was an amazing restaurant we used to go to for crab cakes near Norfolk, and I had told Jan about, I guess too many times:-)  My advice is to never order crab cakes in a restaurant because you will always be disappointed, except for Surf Rider.  I wondered if it was still around, it was, and they have numerous locations now, so off we went to one in Norfolk at the Bay Point Marina.  We ordered fried oysters, fried shrimp, and of course crab cakes, and the side of broccoli.  Yes broccoli, that was another unique thing I remembered they had, it was a huge head of steamed broccoli that came with a dish of hollandaise, never seen that anywhere else.  Wow, it could not have been better, everything was delicious, we had so much food, we had plenty for lunch the next day, in fact there were 24 oysters on the fried oyster plate!

Then around to Wilmington, NC, a pretty little town with a river walk, nice restaurants, a ferry ride to Southport, another cool little town.

Then on to the Myrtle Beach area and a very nice campground that we hadn't been to for 20+ years, we splurged for a premium site right on the water, a huge site with awesome views.  They have miles of paved and unpaved walking trails, a really great place, Willowtree.

We stayed on the paved trails as these cute guys, Orb Weavers
had huge webs between, I swear, every two trees,
and yes, they are huge!

We found a very casual, excellent Mexican place, Tu Taco, that we actually went to 3 times it was so good:-)

On to Charleston for a quick visit and a lunch at famous Hyman's Seafood, been there since 1890, and a nice walk around town.

Off for a really short visit to Savannah for oysters, yup, we got them.  Also we bought 20 pounds of fresh shrimp for the freezer.

Then back to Talona to discover a small coolant leak we couldn't fix ourselves, hope we can limp to Florida with no issues.

We got word that the new truck we ordered at the very end of September specifically so it would arrive in the Jan-Mar time frame had arrived early!  We made plans to go pick it up in Louisiana and get the brake system and lights for towing installed in Athens, TX, then back.  Meanwhile we had a visit from Karen and Tom, followed by our early T-day celebration with Jason and Joanne.  They rented a cool place nearby where we hung out, John and Diane even came up to join us one evening.

The Bobbsey Twins:-)

Jason, Joanne, John, Diane, and Moi

We got the truck, all was great until we got back as I've shared, and the truck was in the shop for 2 weeks, all fixed now and running great.

Then I had a surprise on my birthday, we met up with friends, John and Diane, and Ted and Pattie for lunch, then went back to Ted and Pattie's house for pie and ice cream!

It's been cold here, so we thought it made a good pho day.

Then a quiet Merry Christmas.

One last project on the motorhome, new chassis batteries.

Then one last hurrah with John and Diane, a nice lunch, then over to the cigar bar for a few hours.

So now we are at the end, with our delay to Florida, we will still be here for me to get my implant placed, and then the next morning we will be enroute to Florida.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!        (If you made it this far:-))