Good day today despite the weather….

November 30 2008 9:27pm

Someone had emailed me and wanted to know if I could resize the font a little to make the words bigger so it would easier to read.
Hey, no problem, my pleasure 🙂

Hello! Pretty eventful day despite the weather. This morning half the tenants in the RV park left after their four day holiday weekend. As you can see, we were abandon and left on our own….

This is the view from one side of our RV…..

And here’s the view from the other side of our RV…..

When we got here Friday night, we literally got the last spot in the RV Park, so today around 9am, we walked over to the RV park check-in center and asked about options of switching to a better RV spot since we weren’t too crazy about the unleveled spot that we got Friday night. We were fortunate enough to even get a spot on Friday over the holiday weekend. But, today, we had plenty of empty RV spots to choose from and we got a pull-thru spot closer to the entrance for $4 dollars more a night. We will be here until December 7th. After we accomplished that, we drove directly across the street (US-192) to the Breakfast Buffet, I can’t remember the name of it, Western Sizzle Buffet, maybe, I’m sure someone will read this and correct me on the name of the restaurant. And we had a nice breakfast there. It wasn’t busy either around 10:30am. After a pretty good morning, things were going too good, so of course, the weather moved in……so we took advantage of the day and went to visit my aunt and uncle in Groveland, Florida. They just retired this past April and they got their hands on a little house in an Independent Living community. Nice quiet community too. This was about 1/2 hour north from where we are staying. I love visiting, especially family and friends, there is nothing like good company!

The weather on the way to Groveland…..

The temperature was still nice and warm…..

Then when we got closer to Groveland, the weather let up a bit…..

Then we got to Groveland and pulled into their community neighborhood and this is what we found…..

And their neighborhood is cozy….

This is my aunt’s new hobby, she does this all hours of the day……

Their porch…..

And then we left them and came back to the RV to check on Jake. We got back to the RV and you can tell it definitely rained earlier in the day. Our outside carpet blew into our picnic table and our lightweight chairs that were folded up next to the RV had kicked up a bit with the wind and rain and moved a few feet. It was only very lightly sprinkling, so I took Jake for a walk and it started to sprinkle a little harder, so we ran back to the camper and since Jake was a little wet, well, wet dogs don’t smell too good, so…….

And this is where he ended up tonight and now I’m on the laptop 🙂

Well, that was our day for today. Our agenda for this week is for me to hit Disney at least for two days this week, go to Downtown Disney, Universal Citywalk, oh, and of course, the Sanford Dog Track. I’ll keep you up to date on what I’m up to, so check back again soon! 🙂

Old Town…..

November 29, 2008  9:49pm – I do have two blog entries for November 29th, scroll down below this one to read the previous one for earlier today.

Well, we just got back from Old Town this evening. It’s always fun down there at that mini main street. Everything is set back in time….and old Main Street, antique cars, old general stores……got some pictures for you. My camera is “Day Time friendly” and don’t work too well at night. I should invest in a better camera, but if it’s not really broke, it’ll do for now and I’ll manage with it. Here’s some pictures for you, so you can see what I saw tonight……

Hope you enjoyed these pictures. There must of been over 200 antique cars at Old Time……hmmmm, now that I think about it, Old Town has it’s own website, ahhhh, here it is http://www.old-town.com and take a look at their website, it’s pretty neat. From our RV park, Old Town directly across the street, walking distance. Alot of people were there tonight, but I really think it was mainly due to the four day weekend everyone took advantage of. Tomorrow we are off to visit my aunt and uncle in Groveland, Florida. I’ll check back soon. Stay tuned! 🙂

Let me show you around….

November 29, 2008  5:19pm

Well, we are settling in nicely here. Moseying around being the typical tourist. Thought I would take a minute to show you around the RV park we are staying at. Let me be your host….

We are all set up and in our RV park spot for the week….at least one of us made ourselves comfortable pretty quickly….

We extended the awning out today and there’s still some last minute set up that we got to do….

all set up and pretty….

this is the view from the lawn chair from our spot…..the place is packed for the four day weekend and alot of travelers are leaving on Sunday…..

Here’s a look around the RV park…..the life of retirement……..

Some more RVers living the good life……

This is the pool and bar area…..they were having a Karaoke party when I took this picture……

This guy is set up next to the check in office. His company is called Chainsaw Sculptures.
Wood carver that makes wood statues and wooden signs with your name on it for your RV……

This park has ALOT of little cottages that they are selling…..The price: $60,000 plus tax plus $535 per month for association fee which pays for the taxes and maintenance of property. You don’t own the land…..

Some more cute little cottages for sale……These are not exactly in a separate section, but weaved between RVs. RV and cottages are parked near each other…..

Here’s the fitness center for this RV park. This RV Park is called Tropical Palms RV Resort in case you were wondering…..

Right next to the Fitness center (and behind the check in building), we’ve got the volleyball court and also the basketball court behind it, you can see them both in this picture…..

Alot of travelers brings a golf cart with them when they travel. I swear they try to out-do each other with the style and size of their golf cart. So nice to be comfortable in their RV and golf cart. Living the retired life…there’s so much to look forward to. I’m witnessing it firsthand.

I’m glad you enjoyed the tour around the Tropical Palms RV Resort with me. I had Jake on a leash during the whole time I walked around the park taking these pictures. He’s getting his exercise, too. We are having a great time here. Tonight, we are all going to Old Town (no doggies allowed, sorry Jake), and I promised you some pictures of Old Town, so I’ll be back! Thanks for checking on me! Don’t forget that if you want to email me, I can be reached at DPJake11002@aol.com, drop me an email or if you have questions or comments, don’t be shy! 🙂 Bye for now!

We made it :)

November 28, 2008 – 11:30pm

Wow, we made it to Kissimmee, Florida. Oh, so much to tell ya. We left Wednesday morning at 9am, everything packed, officially leaving, if you forgot something behind, too bad, we are leaving, that kind of leaving. Diesel fuel wasn’t too bad in Hooksett, NH when we left, see……

and the temperature when we left…..

and we had some company on the way down, don’t know them, but we were both thinking the same…..South Bound!

and traffic was terrible at times…..

So we drove thru NY and NJ, staying in NJ for the first night at a truck stop. We found a open parking lot more near the cars and probably slept about 8 hours. Woke up about 6am and hit the road by 8ish. The second day on the road was long too…..Virginia was bumper to bumper with traffic and North Carolina had some snags in traffic too, sending us down to 40 mph per hour on a three lane highway on Thanksgiving Day!?!?!?! We weren’t expecting that at 2 in the afternoon. We thought people would already be at their Thanksgiving destination, but most of Virginia wasn’t. We stopped at South of the Border at around 6pm and stayed at a campground right there off the exit at South of the Border….got some pictures of that too.

Fuel prices still looked appealing…

Some pictures of South of the Border…

And after a long day on the road…..This is alll I need…….. 🙂

Jake beat me to bed that night…..

What a good night sleep we got at South of the Border.  The one night with tax at the campground at South of the Border was $22.07. Not a bad price at all. Keep in mind, that there is no internet or cable here. I’m sure it’s because they want you to wander down to their souvenir shops and spend some money with nothing else to do. You see, when we got there we were planning to stay at South of the Border for two nights and relax a little, but when we woke up after the first night there around 8am refreshed and looked around, we all thought, “Let’s get going and get to Florida”. Not a bad idea. So….Back on the road again……

Here’s my co-pilot…..Ready and willing to help…..

We stopped at another rest area for a few minutes….Isn’t this picture something……

And yes we finally made it to Florida. Crossing that border at 4pm with that digital read out displaying 75 degrees….yeah, we found Florida! We are staying at the Tropical Palm RV Resort in Kissimmee and this place is pretty full for the weekend. They had one spot left with a 30 AMP available. So we are here for 9 nights and we will be leaving next Sunday. We got here around 6pm and got the camper set up in under 45 minutes. We walked over to Old Town next door (which now 1/2 of it is owned by FunSpot USA). There sure was alot of people there. We’ll go back again and I’ll get pictures if you’ve never seen it before. It’s just a small main street you can walk and go inside stores and next to it is an amusement park for kids. It’s pretty neat and something to do. I’ll be hitting Disney this week too. But for now, we are hitting the souvenir shops and taking in some sights. Just settling into being the typical tourist one can be! 🙂 Thanks for checking in on me and I’ll post more soon! 🙂

The day before….

Tuesday, November 25, 2008 11:21am

Well, it’s been a productive weekend. Got a lot done. Packed some last minute stuff, went shopping for some last minute stuff, and found some last minute stuff that we didn’t even know we had in the first place! 🙂 On Saturday, my mom and I stopped by Hannaford’s to go shopping for the New Horizon of New Hampshire Food Center for people who don’t have a place to go or anything to eat. My mom and I brought them four turkeys and alot of canned food and boxed food. We do this every year and I wasn’t going to leave with bringing the tradition back this year to help people in need. Sunday was a relaxing day, we all went out to breakfast with my uncles and aunts and extended family that wanted to treat us to breakfast. That was fun. I don’t think I spend enough time with my big family, but try negotiating family time with my summer job. I don’t usually win that debate. But, that’s okay now, I’ve got the winter off and it’s catch up time! 🙂 Speaking of catching up….Jake’s been catching up with his sleep, take a peek

Now isn’t he the cutest puppy you’ve ever seen (6 years old, and yes, to me he’s still a puppy *smile*). I had to bring him to the Vet yesterday (Monday) for a check up, he wasn’t feeling that well, so the doctor put him on some anti-biotics and changed his food. They put him on the scale and the digial readout displayed 6.8 pounds and when he sat down on the scale it hit 7 pounds! 🙂 With all the tests they ran yesterday, it all came back as reflecting low protein. So we have him on some Hypo-Allergenic Food to increase his protein levels. Poor little guy. But, he will be good as new with his medicine and new food. I also picked up some more Heartgard Pills for him to take regularly once a month and I picked up a copy of his current shot papers to let all the RV Parks know that his little guy isn’t a threat to society! 🙂 Well, I’m disconnecting the laptop tonight and we are heading out early tomorrow from New Hampshire and the bad weather. I hope to write soon, but the joy of RVing is, who knows where we will stop that night to rest. Thanks for checking in on me and I’ll be back online soon! 🙂

Let’s get serious here…

Well, my seasonal work year is over (gosh, that temperature outside is dropping fast) and it’s “kick back and relax” time. I’m Margarita-ville bound !!! Buuttttt, not just yet, hold on a second, got some loose ends to tie up back here before we find some beach sand and palm trees. Today, we packed alot of stuff into the new RV, some of Jake’s toys and food, some books for me to read (I love reading, betcha’ didn’t know that! 🙂 ), a few clothes, other junk I think I might need but will probably throw away half way through Virginia. We also installed the heart into our RV today and fired it up…..that’s right, the generator. No need to buy a new one, when we just ripped the old one right out of the old camper and put it in the new one, right up front, where there was a closed off section just the right size for it (I’m sure that’s what that compartment is for anyways! 🙂 ). I wish I would of brought my camera to show you, but I learned my lesson and I promise not to leave my camera behind again. 😦 Never ever leave the camera. Anyways, after that was installed, we stopped by Wal-mart in Concord to buy the Ultimate GPS system. This little gizmo is pretty neat with the touch screen pad and all. I sound like a hick now. I got a top-of-the-line laptop, a PDA that helps me conserve my brain cells, a 4-in-1 printer system, and a 500G external hard drive for my computer, BUT I’ve never had a GPS system before, so of course, I was quite impressed with it. I mean, it’s got a touch screen that beeps whenever you tap it. Pretty cool, eh. Anyways, it really didn’t take me long to figure it out. It took me longer to figure out the battery/power life of this techno-thing than it did to figure out how to actually use it. Tonight we are kicking back at the movie theater to see “Quantum Of Solace”. Sure is nice to be on vacation! Stay tuned and thanks for checking in on me. Now, where is that darn camera…..

It didn’t take long to put a hole thru the side of the brand new Keystone Montana

November 16, 2008 – 8:08pm

Well, the power tools came out and the washer/dryer unit went in !!!! And it didn’t take that long to put the washer into the RV either. We moved some other things in too that was in the old RV, such as, dishes, blender, coffee machine, bed sheets and blankets, etc. I’ve added some pictures of the damage we did today. I hope you enjoy the pictures and our next project is shopping for a GPS system for the pick up truck. Does anyone have any GPS product suggestions? Don’t let me exercise my expertise in map reading…… 🙂

We put a hole in the side of the camper today…..

A closer look at the damage 🙂

Lucky they put this sticker on the inside exterior wall for us! 🙂

Here is our precious little washer/dryer combo…..

A nice new vent for our washing/dryer covering the hole we made.
Don’t pick on me, I take pictures of everything!!!!! 🙂

 

Can you believe the amount of storage room we have under the RV?? So much room!!!
And this lower storage compartment is heated too!

And yes, Jake found his own little spot making sure he doesn’t miss out on anything….

Stay tuned as we continue to prepare of our adventure and thanks for checking on me! 🙂

We brought our new Montana home today….

Saturday, November 15, 2008 at 6:20pm

Hello! Well, the closing of the house went smooth yesterday. Everyone showed up on time with the right people having the right amount of money for the right people. I love it when things go nice and easy. No more house, no more home. My parents are retired and now homeless. You really didn’t think I was going to take them in, did you? Ha! Anyways, we took the next exciting step today and went to visit our new Montana fifthwheel that was in “prep” mode at the dealership. Out with the old and in with the new! This unit is absolutely beautiful. Words can not describe what pictures can show…..

Count down…..

November 6, 2008 at 7:53pm

Is it countdown time, or am I just pushing the calendar?? The 2009 Montana Fifthwheel (click here for a view of the floorplan of this rv unit) is still sitting at the dealership under “prep” mode waiting for us to take it to a good home :). The closing date for the house is November 14th. Can’t we just skip a few of these steps and just hop in the camper?? Packing is pretty much done, work is pretty much done, and winter is almost here. Okay! Okay! I’ll stop pushing the calendar! Sorry. This is going to be a short but sweet blog entry. But I just wanted to tell you all that I’m still here and I’m still in the mist of trying to get rid of this ear infection that I’ve had for about a week now. Bare with me and we will be set for take off shortly. 🙂