We left Alabama and are now going to make our last big turn south. We are about 570 miles away from our destination so we will make 2 more stops before getting to Sarasota Florida. We are going to stop next near Tallahassee, 230 miles further and then in Ocala another 210 miles away. That will leave us with about 160 miles to our month-long stop in Sarasota Florida.
On our way to Tallahassee we got on to I-10 east again in Mobile AL. I-10 in this part of the country is in great shape. However, the part of I 10 through LA and MS is not good at all and is why we took I 20 for that part of the trip. From now on the travel is going to be pretty easy going!
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| Loads of yellow flowers along the way on I 10 into Florida |
Our first stop is at the Beaver Lake RV Park just outside Tallahassee Florida. This was just a one night stop and this place was perfect for a one nighter. The park was behind a Marathon service station. I had to pull into the service station and pay inside before going to the park that was just to the right and behind it. The park was just a grass field but it had full 50 amp hook-ups for just $20 a night with Passport. The place is literally just a few hundred feet off of I-10 so it really is a quick on and off.
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| Our site in Beaver Lake (We never saw a lake). Note the plants still on the table after I had hooked up to leave! |
The only memorable thing for us here was that we forgot our 2 plants the next morning after leaving. Putting the plants into the RV is usually one of the last things I do. I try to do this chore just before hooking up the truck to the RV. Sometimes I forget and I do it as the last thing before we leave. The chore of lifting the heavy plants has become a larger chore since having this weird headache issue. I really don’t want to strain too much because it makes my head hurt. So I get down and bend my knees the way I should anyway and lift with my legs. Anyway, I forgot the plants this time. It was the first time ever we have forgotten the plants and left without them. The only way I remembered was that the RV door handrail was still out when I looked out the rearview mirrors just after we got onto the highway. That made me remember the plants. The exits were sort of far apart here at about 10 miles so we had to make 20 mile U-Turn to get the plants.
After the plant U-Turn it was smooth sailing the rest of the way to our next stop in Ocala Florida. On our way we went through our last time change so we are now on Eastern Time again. That was our third time change in 3 weeks and will be our last for some time. We won’t go back west again until after the new year in 2019. We also made our last big turn south on to I 75.
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| Of course we are in the south. We are on I 75 in Florida |
Ocala will be a 2 night stop for us. Patty had originally picked a park on the north side of Ocala for our stay here. However, as we were driving she reviewed our blog post from 2 years ago when we were here last. She saw that we really liked the place where we stayed then. We stayed at the Ocala Sun Resort on the south side of Ocala.
So we decided to return there again. When we were there last it was a Passport place which made it a great place but now it is no longer Passport. The cost is now $40 a night verses $20 a couple years ago. We like the place so it is all good!
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| Our site in Ocala Sun Resort |
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| This was an interesting homemade RV in Ocala Sun Resort. |
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| The homemade 5th wheel even had a residential door and windows. The RV has rain gutters with filters that fill their freshwater tank! Never seen anything like this! |
Not too much to write about while here as we were going to do laundry while here on our one full day. We did go out for dinner at Harry’s Seafood Pub in downtown Ocala. The food was very good here so we would recommend it.
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| Dinner out in downtown Ocala Florida |
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| Not sure why, but across the street from Harry's is this painted horse |
The day we were here, the 8th was the worst that my head issue got with exception to the original headache I had back on the 30th of May. It had been 8 days since I went to the ER with my head hurting. Now I have something affecting the rear of my legs. It is the weirdest thing; it is hard for me to straighten my legs out as I walk. It feels like the back of my legs are tight and when I straighten them out as I walk it hurts so I have to walk funny. This weird walking is very strenuous and makes my head hurt. None of this was happening before I had the massive headache. Anyway, I couldn’t even walk the few hundred feet to the laundry in the park! The people who know me and the amount of walking I do, they know this is just not right! So we got the clothes washed, using the truck to go back and forth.
So, that was it for Ocala and now we are on our way to our month-long stop in Sarasota just about 2 hours down I 75.
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| This is one of the worst cases of love bug splatter we have seen! The car had just come off of I 75. |
We arrive at our site in Sarasota around 1pm at the Windward Isles RV Park just off of I 75 on Clark Road. We are staying on site A which is just a few sites from where we stayed 2 years ago. This park is very close to everything here. Our friends Connie and Tony are just 3 miles to the west. One of the best beaches, Siesta Key, is just about 4 miles west. Also, just about anything you would want is also right on Clark Road. The price is only $500 for the month too and includes electric! So this is a perfect RV Park for us here.
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| Windward Isles has these murals painted on one of their perimeter walls. |
Another reason for staying at this park is that it is centered in the area where we want to house hunt. We want to look for a house as far north as Bradenton and as far south as Punta Gorda. This is 60 mile stretch along I 75 on the west coast of Florida. For us, this area is just far enough south to stay warm in the winter and still be close to major airports and highways. It also helps that we have friends here too!
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| Our site in Windward Isles when the truck was here. Mostly we have had a rental car! |
On our first full day here, Thursday the 10th, I have my appointment with a doctor concerning my headache ER visit the week before in Texas. At the appointment, I gave the doctor a rundown of my concerns as well as the paper summary of the CT scan done in Texas. She performed a neurological exam that included me walking around. The Doctor didn’t see anything wrong with me. Basically, all of my symptoms had started to dissipate the day after my worst day in Ocala. By the time of this appointment, 2 days later, I didn’t have any symptoms except for a mild headache. I was still taking Ibuprofen, so I am thinking the symptoms are just being masked by the pain med.
The doctor is quite perplexed and leaves to consult with a neurologist. After the consult she says that, yes I should have the MRI but that they don’t think it is anything I need ASAP. However, they stressed that if anything changes I should go straight to an ER. I was told that they would call me to set up the MRI and I was lead to believe it would be next week sometime.
I’m going to jump a bit ahead in time in this post to cover my health issue up to today the 29th of May.
As of today, the 29th of May, I have not had any symptoms or issues for several days now. I am no longer taking any medications and feel fine. I have even started back on my exercise routine but at a greatly reduced level. So I am walking the same distance but no running and am doing the same resistance routine but at less resistance. I just don’t know what to think right now.
The MRI is scheduled for tomorrow the 30th at 12:30pm. My biggest concern is getting into the tight tube as I am very claustrophobic. I asked the MRI lab how much of me would need to go into the machine thinking that it may just be my head. Ha, ha, no, all of me needs to be in the machine. To make matters worse, the woman on the phone at the MRI lab said that there is no need to worry; it is just like being in a “Twinkie”!!!! This woman is definitely NOT claustrophobic! Ok, so I do have a little concern about my head, but, you know, it is what it is, I’ll deal with it.
Other than the MRI issue we have had another issue with the truck after getting here. The truck bucks and hesitates when accelerating sometimes, but not all of the time. So I took it into Sarasota Ford on Wednesday the 23rd to have it looked at. We rented a car so we could still be able to run around while it is in the shop. We have never had this truck in the shop shorter than a couple of days unless it is just an oil change.
After a week we just found out that the truck will be ready this coming Friday, June 1, That will have been 9 days since I took it in. Some of the problem was that it was a holiday weekend but still! So we have a fuel sensor that is bad causing the bucking issue. We also have a small oil leak that causes a pretty bad stink inside the truck and a backup light out. Oh the fun of having a big old (going on 11 years) diesel truck. This will be it's last year for us.
Since being here in Sarasota we have spent some quality time with our friends Connie and Tony. They live just about 3 miles from where we are in Windward Isles. So in between house hunting, truck repairs, and doctor visits we have had dinner a couple of times at their house and have gone out a couple of times. We also got together with the Suncoast
Naturists for dinner at a local restaurant.
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| Look real close and you can see the swarm of Lovebugs! This is the most I have ever seen! |
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| A nice place in Sarasota for dinner! |
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| Love bugs again! |
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| Patty and Tony playing shuffleboard. We haven't seen one of these for some time |
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| Dinner with the Suncoast Naturists. We plan to join the organization |
Now for house hunting! We had a terrible start on Friday the 11th. On Friday the houses we looked at were just not anything we would even consider. One was in a flood zone and the other was in a great location but I would need to basically bulldoze it down and start over. Furthermore, the prices were way too high to even think about either one. They were in our budget but not after what we would need to spend on them. We were somewhat depressed after that.
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| These were at a local strip mall in North Port |
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| A mailbox we spotted while house hunting. Not sure where it was but it's funny! |
Now that we looked at houses on Friday our realtor was not available until next Wednesday to look at other houses! We didn't let that stop us as we were on mission, we were going to find a house damn it! Patty started looking on the internet and I made a checklist of things that were important to us so we could evaluate them before we even looked at them. The checklist includes things like the distance to grocery stores, highways, as well as how many rooms had carpet that we would want to replace and or do work in. Anyone in a flood zone was automatically left off the list.
With our list we went on drive-bys Sunday and Monday and looked at about 20 houses. Then on Tuesday we again checked off houses that didn't make the grade for us. By the time Wednesday rolled around we had a small list of properties we wanted to visit with our realtor.
On Wednesday we looked at 4 houses, 2 that were of interest, and we made an offer which has now been accepted on the last house. At this time we close on the property on the 30th of May - tomorrow! It will have been exactly 3 weeks since we started looking!
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| Two entrances to North Port. This one is from the west |
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| This is from the east about 2 miles from our new house |
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| Our new house during the inspection |
Over the Memorial Day weekend we have been doing furniture shopping. Since we have been living in an RV for the past 6 years we don't have anything. Well, we do have something, we have 2 La-Z-Boy chairs we bought for the RV a couple years ago. We also have a very nice mattress we are going to keep too. So far we have purchased the bedroom set, the living room set, the dining room set, the washer and dryer, and 6 bar stools. Still need all of the little stuff but that can wait until we are back here at the end of October.
The 2 La-Z-Boy chairs will leave a space in the RV without chairs. We want to fill that space with replacement chairs before we sell it in the fall. So Patty found a pair of very nice chairs for sale in the local paper. We went to look at them and really liked them so we bought them. They were for sale by the nicest older woman who is downsizing after her husband died. They are the same color as the love seat in the RV and were just $100 for the pair! Actually, we are planning to put these chairs in the RV and leave the La-Z-Boys here when we leave in a couple weeks.
While furniture shopping we also "battled" Alberto. I say battled in quotes because it really was not much of a storm here anyway. The storm was a lot of rain and a little wind. Again the big thing here for was the longevity of the rain. It has been raining here for over a week now. So far this has not been the usual Florida rain we are used to where it only rains a bit in the afternoon. This has been on and off heavy rain with light showers and with bits of sun just to throw you off and forget sunglasses.
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| This was what it looked like out our RV window the day Alberto passed us. Not a big deal |
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| Nice lunch here in Sarasota |
Right now our plan is to leave here, Florida, on the 10th and travel to Indiana for a month. Then we will travel to New Jersey for 2 months. In October we will head to Ohio for a wedding and then back to Florida.
While back in Florida we will sell the current rig (Truck and 5th wheel) and purchase a smaller travel trailer and an SUV to pull it. Our plan then is to head back to Texas to our site there after the new year for a couple months. At that time we plan to sell the site there too.
After all of that we will be residents of Florida and will travel on shorter duration trips from our house in Florida.
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| Just had to put this picture in! I was getting ready put our garbage into the dumpster here in our RV Park when I saw this in between the lids. Ok, I was shocked at first as I thought this was a real kitty. No, it was a stuffed toy kitty! Whew! |
Busy, Busy!
Stay tuned!
