The next stop was at The Ranch at Arcadia Palms on 2/10. Kim’s friends Tammy and Steve came to see the RV. They live in Cape Charlotte. We had a nice dinner and gave them the full tour of the rig. There was a small pickleball group, so we played daily. Our friends, Andy and Katie, brought their Luxe from Okeechobee and stayed for a couple of days. It was great to see them again. We watched RC car races and Kim took line dancing lessons at the RV park. There were really nice sunsets from our RV site. However, the site was so short that the truck was right next to the front steps and we could only put out 1 awning, because the truck was in the way in the front and the back one stuck out into the street. While we were there, David fixed the HD antenna, which has been broken for over a year. We went to visit the Sunseeker resort in Charlotte harbor with David’s friends, Mary and Lindsay. We spent most of the day with them, which was fun! The next day, we went to Siesta beach where the sand is soft and white, like Charmin. However, we could not put our feet in the water because there were a lot of dead fish due to the particularly bad red tide this year. Another neat attraction was Solomon’s castle. It is the creation of renowned sculptor, Harold Solomon. The castle was built in 1972 and he worked on it for 14 years. It was built out of various materials including printing press aluminum sheets for siding. His art was quite large and he made all his sculptures out of junk basically; oil drums, car parts, household appliances, etc. He was very innovative. He built a boat on the property, which is 3/4 the size of the Santa Maria. It did sit in a little bit of water because the whole place is built on swamp land. He also had a nice car collection. There was live music, a restaurant and gift shop. All in all a fun day. We did a poker run at the RV park, where a number of RV sites put on themed stops. We didn’t win the poker part of it, but we won $50 in the raffle. There were also cows everywhere. It was like they built the RV park in the middle of a cow pasture.

The next stop was Oak Alley in Webster. Great pickleball courts and the people were a lot of fun. David did knock a woman’s earring right out of her ear with the pickleball during one game! Turns out we were 16 miles from the villages again, so we went to look at houses again with Jamie and Erin (our realtors and now friends) and actually put in for one. There might have been wine involved, Hahaha. We did not get it because it is a lottery when there is more than one offer and our number didn’t come up. We are looking at several others that haven’t been released yet. We took a manatee boat tour in Crystal river. We did get to see some Mamas and babies. They are incredible creatures. It was in King’s Bay, which is beautiful! You can actually live on a boat in that bay for free and they have a poop boat that comes and pumps your tank out. I was kicking that idea around for a bit. We could store the boat during hurricane season. We saw the house that John Travolta built for his son before he passed away. There was also a house that was built by NASA engineers to withstand the hurricanes and it wasn’t until the storm surge from the most recent ones that they got water inside only because it came in the roof vents. We also went to a great restaurant on the water called Waterfront Social. We went because it has been there for a long time and it is scheduled to be torn down and replaced with Marriot. So sad… We also went to the Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park where we saw alligators, fish, hippo, deer, flamingos, eagles, pelicans, wolves, fox, turtles, owls, bear, bobcats, cougars, snakes and various other birds, Oh My! These are all animals that have been injured and can’t go back into the wild. We did stop at the Copp Brewery on the way back, which was a very cool building with great pizza and beer.

Our next stop was in Mayo at Suwannee River Campground. Not a lot going on in the surrounding area. We played some pickleball, but there wasn’t a lot to do, so we jumped on the motorcycle and headed to the Villages (about 2 hours away) again to see Kim’s cousins, Brenda and Steven, Roxanne, and Cheryl. Kim hasn’t seen Roxanne in many, many years. We had dinner together twice and played pitch in the evenings. What a great time! We reminisced about how our parents hung out together the same way. Our realtors/friends Jamie and Erin graciously let us stay at their awesome house for 2 nights while they were in Michigan. The only problem is that we didn’t get to see them. It is always nice to get out of the RV once in a while. The HD antenna fix did not work, tech support told us it was a bad motor, so we replaced it. Neither one of us thought it was the motor, and we were right, still giving us the same error code.

Our final stop in Florida was in Eastpoint at Coastline RV resort. What an awesome view of the Gulf of “Whatever they call it now” from the RV. Although it was another tight fit on the site for the RV and the truck, but we made it work. We worked on our generator that has been having fuel delivery issues and successfully fixed the problem…Finally! We added another inline fuel pump at the fuel tank, and it fired right up. One of the drawbacks to being on the gulf… we endured an awful storm while we were there. Both of us were up all night watching the weather and listening to all the thunder. The amount of lightning and heavy rain was absolutely amazing. We were more concerned that we were in a tornado warning all night. Our house on wheels would not fare well. After the storm passed, we went out to St George Island and took a 6-mile hike through the state park there. Part of the trail was a fit trail where they had workout stations all along the route. Kim got in some sit-ups and various stretches. It was nice hike and had some beautiful views along the way. After our hike we enjoyed an early dinner at Paddy’s Raw Bar where the food was a little spendy but was very good. One of the last nights we were there, we spent the evening around a bon fire on the beach with a group from the RV park. We really enjoyed everything about this RV park except the pickleball court. Absolutely the worst designed court we have ever played on. The concrete stopped right at the edge lines. Which made it very slippery from stepping on the gas and then back onto the court.

Now for the big news…. Kim bought a house in The Villages!!! She put in for the one she really wanted and got it. Although the financial end of a home purchase has been really stressful for her, this will be a really nice place to spend the winters. We probably won’t stay there every winter; we still want to spend some winters in the Southwest.

We are now headed West to meet David’s Granddaughter (Jolie), daughter (Jenna), son-in-law (Evan) and Evan’s parents in Moab.