Another Year in the Books (Recap A) Yes, Long

I had planned to make this one big post, but partly through I realized it was way too long to be just one, so it will be split in two, that way there is at least a small possibility you might get through it without killing yourselves:-)

I hinted there were going to be changes ahead for us, and while some were accomplished, we were unable to complete all our goals, yet we still are trying.  When we left Royal Coachman Resort in Nokomis, our winter digs and normal place to stay for almost 30 years, it was for the last time.  Not to go into details, but several extreme changes that were made by management along with a change in the overall complexion of the park coupled with extraordinary increases in cost, made us finally say enough is enough and we left.  It was a tough decision as we had many friends and family there, but we will still be in the general area this coming winter, so we will be able to visit friends, family, docs, and favorite restaurants along with being able to explore a different locale than before.  We will be officially in Bradenton at a small park, Timberlane.  We think it will be good fit as only time will tell.  We sat in one place more this year than ever before, mostly in North Georgia, specifically to look for a piece of land to be able to park the coach on and eventually to build a small home, we have so far had no luck in that endeavor, but we will continue looking.  Now on to the nuts and bolts of 2024.

Because of all the sitting in GA we only did 6865 miles compared to the 10,700 last year.  We had 34 travel days vs 46.  We still visited 13 states compared to 21 last year.  Our shortest day was 38.2 miles between Harmon, ME and Ellsworth, ME, our longest day was only 386.5 between Fort Chiswell, VA and Pine Grove, PA.  Our average campground cost inched up from last year's $63.82 to $64.73 even with all the long term, read much cheaper rates.  Our least expensive stay was zero dollars just like last year staying over at a service facility, and our most expensive night was less than last year's $143.88, $132, still a lot, at Talona Ridge on a daily rate at a premium time, we had 5 stays over $100/night!  We used only 1153 gallons of diesel as compared to 1867 last year with an average price of $3.40 this year compared to $3.85 with again just shy of 6 mpg:-)

Our 50th wedding anniversary was in October of 2023, but we were in CO at the time, so our son, Jason and D-I-L Joanne surprised us with an awesome evening in Tampa at a boutique hotel to go to Bern's Steakhouse!  It was amazing, thank you guys.

Lunch before the big event

Dessert

We met up for dinner with an old friend, Debbie and got to meet Dom.

We enjoyed many sunsets during HH with friends.

Jan did tons of Liberty Puzzles thanks to our dear friend, Ray.

Ray and Linda

Had some amazing sushi thanks to a Merry Christmas from Jason and Joanne.

Our middle air conditioner bit the dust, so we replaced it with a little help from our friends, Steve and Tom, and of course, in the midst of what should have been an easy swap, Murphy had to join in and cause Dometic, the manufacturer, to change out the size of bolts that hold it to the roof, making our simple job an incredible challenge which we did finally overcome, but added a couple hours to the project:-(

Still enjoying local seafood.

Our daughter Kelly came in to do a cruise with Jan.

My new cardiologist discovered I had A-Fib which launched several tests and a visit to a heart rhythm specialist who told me I needed an ablation, the problem was we were leaving Florida in 2 days, so we arranged things so we would return in a few weeks time for the procedure.  Meanwhile we said our final goodbyes to our site, and dear friend's Debbie and Harold.

The last drive out

So as we made our way north almost out of Florida fat, dumb, and happy, I get a check engine light followed immediately by a STOP engine light at 65 mph on the interstate.  We coasted into a wide exit ramp, found we had a catastrophic coolant leak where a hose had come apart, but amazingly, we had everything we needed to make the repair and a NAPA was at the top of the exit where we could get the 9 gallons of coolant that leaked out, all in all 1 1/2 hours later we were back on the road.

Where the leak was

The culprit, this little piece of hose

But we made it north to Talona Ridge RV Resort where we ended up spending many months over the year, a beautiful place.

And while here we had doctor appointments, and as it turned out the beginning of my dental saga.  I had a crown put on and then needed a root canal, got that done, the rest of the story as they say will be in Part B, and then had to go back to Florida for my ablation.  All went well and after 8 hours in the hospital it was done and deemed successful.

Looking pretty chipper after a long day

This return gave us an opportunity to stay at Timberlane and made us decide to commit to a reservation the next winter.

Also while we were there, we were able to meet up with Jan's sister, Karen and Tom who hadn't yet left Florida, and then were able to meet up with them later outside of Nashville, before we parted ways.

We had to celebrate St Paddy's Day in style with, of course, Guinnesses and Reuben sandwiches.

Outside of Knoxville heading for Maine I lost the turn signals, so we detoured into a NAPA and picked up a new flasher, we stuck in in and then as we walked around to make sure it was working, we noticed we had no front turn signals, everything else worked fine.  We decided we would limp that way into Maine and work on it there as we were sitting for 7 weeks.  So we worked and worked to diagnose the problem, even enlisted two experts from a forum I frequent and after literally hours of probing and testing I find out that BOTH of the light bulbs are broken!  Lots of egg on my face.

Into Maine and what do we want, seafood, seafood, seafood!

Our spot for 7 weeks, Bayleys Camping Resort

Our escape from the wind

And some of the food.

Home of the best lobster rolls in the world (except for homemade:-))

Amazing, right?

And a local springtime delicacy, fiddlehead ferns

And as for our own homemade lobster rolls, we got you covered.

Had a wonderful visit with some of our Maine friends, Bob and Harlean.

Took advantage of  excellent close by seafood markets.

Jan and I got to see one of her cousins, Mary Beth and Jim and family when they unexpectedly came right by on their vacation.  Short, but sweet!

Then we had a visit from Jason and Joanne.

Started with oystershttps://www.billyschowderhouse.com for most of us:-)

And a walk on Wells Beach

Beautiful weather!

Amazing food

Then we set out to prove to Jason that our homemade lobster rolls were the bomb.  He had to agree.

Prep

Assembly

The moment of truth

Then of course our final dinner was, what...........lobsters:-)

Then a lunch of the best seafood stew in the world from The Red Barn with more Maine friends for a great visit.

Moi, Harlean, Jan, Scott, Sue, and Bob

Then we moved farther up the coast to Wiscassett to Chewonki Campground, but first had to put a lobster roll package together.

New Harbor and the lunch that went with it.

Then we moved again to Harmon, just outside of Bangor and had a nice lunch and visit with the last of our Maine friends, Doug and Nancy, no pictures to prove it, but it happened:-)  Also found time for a Guinness, and a wash job.

A couple great lunches at Eagle's Nest, and a great Asian chicken salad of Jan's creation.

Then we made a big move, we had dropped DirecTV while we were in Florida, the price had continued to increase and we found we only watched a few of the hundreds of channels they offer, so we started streaming and found it was cumbersome now and then but it worked.  For internet we had a Verizon Mifi that we have used for years and years, but we were very frustrated the whole time we were in Scarborough as the coverage was poor, for our AT&T phones as well.  We finally decided to check out Starlink after all that time.  It works amazingly well, easy to set up, handle from campsite to campsite, super fast internet, flawless streaming, and wifi calling, we have no idea why we waited so long.

Still had a few items to attend to before we left Maine, lunch at a favorite, Bagaduce Lunch, big lobster dinner, I mean large lobsters, and our favorite, a hike around Jordan Pond in Acadia National Park, and we did all three.

Bagaduce

Awesome lunch

Our hypnotized dinner

These are big!

Jordan Pond

So those were our last days in Maine, we turned and headed west, and this is where I'll break off to continue in a few days with the B side.  

Surprise, Surprise!

Well I am sure some of you very observant readers have noticed I haven't announced our arrival in Florida as planned.  We have been caught up in a totally unexpected issue with our brand new truck.  We finished up our trip to get it as I shared last post and got it back here to Georgia where we were going to mount the roof rack and Rod Vault, repack the new truck and make our way to Florida a couple weeks ago.

We got the truck reloaded and really enjoyed our new multi-function tailgate which made it so much easier.

Weather here has definitely turned cold, so Jan dug out our very last quart of the fantastic seafood stew from the Red Barn in Maine for lunch, yummy.

We had ordered new glasses earlier and got a call that our glasses had come in and were ready for pickup, so we jumped in the truck Monday morning and headed down to Marietta.  On the way we didn't think things were right, the new truck wasn't maintaining speed on cruise control even up the little hills on the interstate and didn't seem to have any snot at all, and this was the truck that startled us how fast it was bringing it back?????  We picked up our glasses, had lunch and talked about what should we do?  We obviously are too far away from the dealer in Louisiana, will it make it to Florida, should we even consider that, were we making things worse, what should we do?

On a whim on the way back we stopped into CDJR of Woodstock, a Ram dealer and told a service person what we had going on, amazingly he said well let's take it for a ride and let me see what's up.  Well, we didn't even get out on the road when he said, wow, something is really wrong, no kidding.  Also, amazingly they took it right in to check several obvious things that could be causing the issue, we waited around a couple hours with them finding no answers, they suggested this should be escalated to the Chrysler engineers, and that I should contact Chrysler Customer Care to get a rental, and no, they said, you should not be driving it like this.  We started a claim, and decided to get a rental at least until we could figure things out.  So we drove back in this little itty bitty POS to get back to the motorhome.  We heard from Chrysler the next day with approval for a rental, so we drove back down and got a larger vehicle, stopped back at the dealer and they had no more info, but they had started going back and forth with the engineers to diagnose the problem.

Meanwhile we met friends, John and Diane, and Ted and Pattie for a nice lunch, then went over to Ted and Pattie's home where they surprised me for my birthday with pie and ice cream.  What a surprise and a wonderful time!

L-R, John, Diane, Jan, Pattie, Ted, and Moi

Happy Birthday to me!

After that we went back to John and Diane's for bourbon, cigars, dinner, and an overnight, a wonderful time was had by all.  We had a late breakfast in the morning, then left to go back, and decided to stop by the dealer, this made one full week.  They still had no answers after doing all kinds of testing.  One full week in with no info we had to make some decisions, we were supposed to be in Florida, so we decided we would extend here for a week, called Florida and told them we would be late arriving, so we had at least a week covered.

We switched rentals again to an even more comfortable vehicle and knew we had to make some serious plans, we sure didn't want to be double paying for a place here in Georgia and also the site in Florida.  So we called and talked to Florida, explained further our problem and the fact we had no estimate of when it would be fixed, and they were so nice.  They let us change our 4 month reservation into 3 months and set our new arrival to the beginning of January.  Then we extended here until the same time.  So at least we had things covered without paying double:-)

With all this down time we found a new to us restaurant in Cartersville, Maine Street Coastal Cuisine, fantastic seafood, great service, really great place.

Grilled catfish with salsa and homemade chips

Grilled haddock, caper butter sauce and grilled corn casserole

But on Wednesday, the phone rang, they found the problem!  It has two turbos and one of them had seized for some reason, now we had something to go on, the engineers had to get the part and they said they would let us know an ETA as soon as they got one.  What a relief, knowing the problem took a lot of the unknown mystery away.

Meanwhile we met John and Diane again for lunch to show them the new restaurant we had found, then after we went next door to a cool cigar bar, Old Havana and had a beer and cigars, and my phone rang, the dealer told me the turbo should arrive Monday or Tuesday, hurray!  This was Friday, two full weeks in.

So on Monday, the dealer called and told us the turbo arrived and was being installed and we should be able to pick up our truck on Tuesday!  What an ordeal, and so unexpected.  We are sure it is a fluke and all will be good from here, and we sure are happy we were able to contend with all this as well as we did, and it didn't happen on the road on the way back, anyway we are much relieved.  Another little silver lining is I have an appointment to have a dental implant the very beginning of January and had planned on driving up from Florida to get it done, now we will still be here for that saving me another round trip.

Anyway, we believe all is well now, quite a process.  See you in Florida.