Pictures

 Fun in the sun, bike riding

 The new camper we thought we should buy at the Tampa Rv show

Brooksville Historical Court House. Very pretty!

Pictures

I love the way the trees overhang on the side streets. This was taken in Savannah Ga.

Thurs. Jan 27th 2017 It has been a relaxing type week. Weather has been pleasant but the prediction for the next 6 days is cooler. 60's! As son kevin said this morning, we don't dare go out in such bad weather! Sunday night as had been predicted the weather turned a bit nasty and while we were down in the club house watching the Packer game a tornado warning came across on every ones phone. We decided that we were probably in the safest spot so we hung out there for a couple of hours while things settled down. No tornado for us but a rotation over the top of our town was noted. Lots of wind and rain. Scary! Tom and I participated in the weekly bike ride yesterday. 16 miles roundtrip from Floral City to Inverness. Beautiful ride. Today he is golfing today and I get quiet time by the pool. :) since it is supposed to be cooler the next few days we are going to try and go to see the manatees in Chrystal River. I understand they come into the shallower waters when it is cold out in an attempt to stay in the warmer waters.

Jan 29th I have been having trouble posting photos with my blogs and entire blogs disappear after I have typed it out in its entirety. frustrating!! it has been busy over the last week. last sunday we had tornado warning go off while we were in the lodge watching the packer game. A bit scary, there was a rotation seen on radar over Brooksville but nothing touched down. tom and I went on the weekly bike ride on Wednesday and did a 14.9 mile round trip ride from Floral City to Inverness, beautiful ride. also, played cribbage on night and tom played poker another, then WII bowling another (I won $5 for low score of the night!)The weather turned cool on Friday this week so we had to drag out the longs pants and sweatshirts again. very sad! tom and I did a short bike ride today. the trails are so great I just want to keep going. Oh and we found a great place to eat. Shamrock Inn in Floral City. Tom had a Rueben sandwich and said it was the best he has ever eaten. I tried it, I don't even like ruebens and it was great. Tomorrow, more line dancing lessons and social/happy hour. Everyone is looking forward to the weather warming up on wed.

Jan 22 2017 Up to today it has been 75 plus degrees daily with plenty of sunshine. Todays prediction is for a nasty storm to come thru at 3pm today. 50 mph winds/rain/hail and possible tornado.  yikes! the prediction would make me less nervous except that they have been predicting it all week and have not varied the forecast. I have scoped out the storm shelter and we have put away anything that can blow around. There is a packer party this afternoon down in the lodge which is at the bottom of the hill which would be a good shelter too. Tom golfed on thurs and was quite pleased with his golf game esp since he hasn't really golfed  for almost 2 years. A new friend beth and I went biking again and on Friday tom and I drove into tampa for the rv show. we looked at a bunch of campers and found one we liked even better than ours. it was bit bigger tho so we would definitely need to up truck if we went any bigger than we have now. It was our first trip into tampa and traffic wasn't bad but we heard from others that we lucked out on that. We had our neighbors Fred and Sharon over for grilled chicken last night and ended up sitting outside until 9:30 visiting and enjoying the 75 degree evening

Jan 18 2017
  Getting all settled in and have done significant reorganizing of the camper. We have already discovered that we brought too much stuff esp. clothes. Evidently, we were having separation issues with most of out winter clothes and could not leave them at home. We may need to find a goodwill store somewhere and donate..I went on a 5 hour, 14 mile bike ride on Monday with the group. We took lots of breaks, had an orange milkshake at the Citrus Stand in Floral city. I guess that destroyed any benefit of the bike ride.  Good news, I took my bike to the local bike shop and they can fix it so I wont have to get a new one. YeaH! Yesterday, was the water aerobics class at the pool so I took part in that, again we definitely did not overwork ourselves but I spent a couple of hours paddling around. Tonight they are having a Margarita party, followed by Line dancing lessons. Good move having margarita's first I think. We have met many many nice people from all over already. I have started writing names down on paper, their lot number and where they are from so that I don't appear to be a complete idiot all the time. It does help. We went on a walking tour of historic Brooksville yesterday and they have a farmers market on Saturday I want to go to. Brooksville is a larger town than we thought with all the big city amenities but not the traffic of the St Pete area.

2nd Jan 15 post
 Packers won!! whoop whoop! we had to find a local bar to watch the game as our cable here does not cover Fox.  During the game the local patrons started playing Dirty Bingo. Interesting twist on normal bingo. A person who wins cant yell bingo, if they do they have to show the rest of the bar their best organism face! I do not recall hearing what the word was they were supposed to call if they got a bingo...I guess we have to go back next week for the next packer game. I may play...Too bad Fl. allows smoking in the bars/restaurants. I have forgotten how bad it smells and there are a lot of smokers in florida.

tom watching the game and dirty bingo being played.

Jan 15th 2017
 We have arrived at our "home" for the next 3 months. Belle Parc Rv resort, site #83. It has been a very good trip overall, with snow free roads and except for 3 days in Savanah Ga pretty decent temps. A total of 2634 miles to get here in our roundabout way. This is a very pretty park but they are still doing an expansion and upgrading with according to the neighbors is a weekly improvement. The folks here are very friendly and like to talk, so far Tom is fitting right in. A bike outing is planned for tomorrow which I hope to take part in, but I have to use Toms bike as I think mine is shot. water got into the stem of the main fork and broke the seal. Now my front tire falls off if the front end is lifted.  Damn, I loved that bike! Tom is all geared up for the big packer game this afternoon. I need to further check out the Resort.

Jan 13 2017
 We  are now in Old Town Fl. We are staying at LuckyCharm Rv park. Very nice park with extremely large sites. $31 a night includes everything, they told us they charge a monthly rate of 385, very reasonable.

 Unfortunately, not a lot to do within the park

so probably won't consider staying here long term. We also did some wine tasting at Dakota Winery in Chiefland Fl and we were entertained by the owner Max Ritgers who has connections to Hayward. Ended up buying 3 bottles of very good wine. Thank goodness! Here in Fl from what I have seen my boxes of 5 liter wine I like only come in 3l and are a lot more expensive..Dang!

Jan 10th 2017

 We at now at St Augustine FL. At Stage Coach Rv park. site #46 cost $41 per night.  We spent 3 chilly nights (lows 25 degrees) in Savannah Ga. Savannah was fun but would have been better with warmer weather. we went to Tybee Island an did not have to fight the tourists on the beach. Also went for a sunday bloody mary at The Crab Shack, fun place and is probably very crowded during high tourist season.. It even had parrots that talked and whistled at Tom!! We stopped at Fort Pulaski and lucked into a ranger tour which was very informative and educational.  It was also free with our national park pass. Yeah, for FREE! We also took in a city tour of  historic Savannah. It was ok but a long day and very cold weather.

Jan 7th 2017
 Well, we made it to Savannah GA. yesterday and are staying the  Biltmore Gardens campground. It is the oldest campground in Savannah and the smallest, about 20 sites. Very friendly hosts who have owned the business since the 50's. Surprise, the original owner was an Army nurse who retired a number of years ago because she could no longer safely read the medication labels. She would hate the computer system I bet. :)
 We were going to go on a tour of historic Savannah today but canceled due to the rain, wind and cold! I am typing this note sitting in front of a fire in the lodge. Who would of thought we would need a fire in Georgia!! We are going to stay here until tues. then continue heading south. Tomorrow, aside from the all important packer game we are going to head to Tybee Island and then Fort Polaski and check that out. According to our host here at the campground we can use our National Park passes and get in for FREE! Bonus, I knew getting old had to pay off some how.! We will do our tour of historic Savannah on Monday. It will still be cold then but at least sunny.

Jan 5th 2017 DAY 9
 On the road again..went from Spring Lake/Fort Bragg  NC area to Georgetown SC..We found a campground at Johnsons Marina for $36 a night for full hook ups. As it was 60 degrees when we got here we thought it would be a good place to get the 5th wheel re-organized. We stopped early today at 3pm and set up and cleaned up the camper from all the mouse mischief earlier this fall. I totally feel right now that I am at home  and looking forward  to spending more time in our "home". Still trying to keep ahead of the cold snowy weather that they keep predicting. I would love to spend 4 or 5 days in the Savanaugh GA. area but we will have to see how the weather pattern flows.

Jan 4th 2017
We left Brad and Mallory's this morning and drove down a great hwy 29, very pretty but the state of VA needs to clean up the roadsides. Tons of garbage lining the hwy. Such a shame! There is a "chance" of up to ONE inch of snow so the highway depts. were all over the place putting a pre-storm treatment on the road. On to North Carolina we drove on great roads with really good traffic flow. NC correctional system utilizes prisoners to pick up their roadside garbage. All states should seriously consider this! It appears that our goal has been since we started the trip to buy gas at the most expensive gas stations and that continued today as gas at the border in VA was $2.05 and just across the state line $2.34. Really hate to break tradition. It is good to support OPEC in all possible ways.  :(..Staying at a Super 8 in Spring Lake tonight and walking over to Ruby Tuesdays for dinner. We are trying to stay ahead of the Polar Vortex, but they are even predicting snow for here later this week. Going to try and get to Myrtle Beach area tomorrow. Hopefully, warmer weather ahead. Although, it is 60 here right now. I guess I should not complain too much.

Jan 1 2017

Bought my senior national park pass at the Shenandoah National park for a  lifetime pass of $10. Brad, Mallory and I hiked a potion of  the Riprap trail. 3.3 miles which felt like 30. Ow, gonna be stiff and sore tomorrow. I read that the national park systems is going to be raising the pass of the senior pass to $80 soon. Guess I got in just under the wire. Beautiful park to hike in. We are enjoying spending time with grandson Brett also.

12/31/16

day 5
Arrived at brads in Crozet Va. for New Years. Surprisingly, we didn't get lost along the whole way until getting to Brads small town of Crozet and coming into town the bridge was too small for the 5th wheel to get under. So after a lot of yelling while trying to turn the beast around and find a different route to his house we finally had to call them and have them come and lead us to their house for the last 2 miles.  Geez! A few beers later we all felt better.

12/30/20146

day 3
Traveled thru Ill. and into Kentucky.
Kentucky observations.
A Baptist church on every corner, must be a lot of sinners.
From the looks of the homes a person is either very rich or very poor
There is no Kentucky bluegrass in Dec..
It snows in the mountains of Kentucky and the mountains are bigger than we anticipated.

12/28/2016

Day one
 Left the Trego cabin with a fully loaded 5th wheel, up an ice covered driveway and hit the road for our Retirement Travel Journey.