Travels with Snowbirds 2020 Jan 21-28, Clermont FL

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The one about catching up on a week without blogging.

Kathy arrived on Tuesday 1/21 and for some great reason beyond our scope of understanding, was able to secure a site within an easy walk of mine and Ginnie’s campsites. It’s all about the weather. Very breezy, which would be great if the air temp was 75, but at 60, it feels nippy. Heat was required in the evenings, and again in the morning to warm up. Heavy pajamas, heated throw blankets and socks were in order!! Lots of fun and interesting things have happened, so I will plunge right in, and once again, they might not be in the proper chronological order, but who cares? Noone but me.

Dogs. I still have mixed feelings about not having Winston along on this trip. I miss the companionship and affection, but it sure is nice not having to go out at 11:00 pm or 7:00 am. I never have to deal with him barking at passersby, and the RV is a whole lot less sandy. These are all good things. I continue to browse the ‘adopt-a-dog’ websites both here and in Wilmington for just the right dog. While there are some cute ones all over, the perfect one has not come along just yet. I want to find a rescue, I don’t want to pay thousands for a pedigree. There are over 800 campsites here, and I bet everyone has at least one dog, some 2 or 3!! Lot of Schnauzers, “doodles” of all kinds, chihuahuas of all colors, hounds and many mixed breeds. I have seen 2 I would like to steal from their owners, and they are both mini golden doodles. Did you know they are now identifying doodles of all types by their generation from the starting parents? These are both F2’s, meaning for them, 3-part poodle, 1-part golden. I need to zero in on a rescue operation for doodles; there doesn’t seem to be a lot of them at rescue agencies. Kim also was searching the internet and found a 10 year old blind dog…..she looks for the downtrodden to perk them up and ease their lot. A cute small white fluffy thing with obvious white eyes. What Kim had to go thru to see this dog was almost silly. Fill out an on line application, have 2 references and a home visit……..before she could even see the dog. Home visit? She’s not home, but the agency was willing to give her a chance based on her current living situation…..a park model here at the campground. Ginnie served as one of her references and her phone conversation must have nailed it for Kim because she had the dog the next day. Maya was found as a stray with a large growth on her ear, malnourished, matted, very blind. Her medical needs were addressed, and she was put in a foster home which is where Kim adopted her from. About 6 pounds and seems to be 100% Maltese with the worst haircut ever. Someone really hacked her up baaaaad. She chews her feet and they are saliva stained, easy fix. She easily adjusted to Kim’s other two white fluffy small dogs. Maya immediately jumped up on the couch. How’d she do that? Not one accident in the house. Pees and poops appropriately when brought outside. My guess is that when she got the ear growth, her owners dropped her off in the woods someplace not close to home and she was picked up. She obviously has had some training because she understands “No.” Kim barricade all dogs in the kitchen when she goes out just to see what would happen when she returned, Maya was sitting outside the kitchen on the chair used to barricade the doggie gate….How’d she do that? Kim decided to crate her next time in a pink soft crate she uses on the back of her golf cart. Maya figured out how to unzip the zipper from the inside just enough to get herself out. How’d she do that? Her nickname is Houdini. Now she has a new metal crate with a soft cushion, and she can’t get out of that. Any training Kim will get accomplished here in FL will have to be relearned when she returns to NJ in the spring.

My friend John lost his beloved yellow lab, Jake, this week. Funny. We got out dogs very close to each other 9 years ago, and both died close together. They never met. John says he will not get another one right away, but I know John, and I suspect he is already out looking for a new one.

Ginnie continues to look for another Doberman as a playmate for Alfie, but the correct dog has just not come along yet.

I posted on the campground facebook page that I was looking for a dog in case anyone was trying to rehome theirs. Got one response with something that looked like a fox. Too hairy for me. And I still face the same question, am I ready for another dog, or should I take a break from the vet bills, boarding costs, and general necessity to be home. Tough choice for me.

Full time families. This seems to be a growing trend for large families, at least 4 kids, but I have seen 5 and 6 kids, buy a VERY LARGE trailer pulled behind an Expedition type SUV. They can stay in the Thousand Trails system for 2 weeks, on the cheapest plan. Then leave for a week where they probably pay retail price, in this area $30-50/night, then come back for the next 2 weeks. They home school. You can imagine the clashes with old folks, some very frail, when they are overtaken by a herd of 5-10 year olds on bikes with no sense of right or wrong. There is a constant clash between the 2 groups here at a traditional campground for seniors in the winter. As I understand it, there is a home school organization that many belong to and can travel around the south joining up with other like-minded parents and meet for shared teaching events. This is a very cheap way to live…..$500 or so a year gives you this 2 week in 1 week out plan. For another $200 or so you can add a whole other group of campgrounds that you get a big discount for that week out. So, live with your large family for $700/year. I am going to come right out and say this, many of this type of camper are white trash. Loud and foul mouthed, overweight drinkers with unkempt rigs, and cars, with extremely unruly kids who never get taught campground etiquette. When addressed by other campers about their kids, it can turn into an ugly scene. Campground management will do nothing about it. It’s very difficult to enforce traditional campground etiquette rules. But, the opposite is also true. Case in point, the family next to me. When they arrived the day after me, I was ready to break camp and find another site, but I figured I would give it one more day. The parents don’t look a day over 30. 4 boys one girl, 13-4. The only complaint I have about them is they scatter their bikes all over the yard between us. Is that a big deal? No. They have a very long trailer with 3 slides. I also see grandma and grandpa there with them frequently. Mom goes off on bikes with 4/5 of the kids every morning at 9:30, I assume to classes somewhere in the park. Dad comes out about an hour later with the youngest and they toodle off to I suppose the same place. They all return home around 12:30 and are home the rest of the day, mostly inside until 3 or so. Dad must work from ‘home’ as he hardly every comes outside. I never see any of them go to the bath house for showers, meaning they must all shower and go to the bathroom in their rig. This morning dad came rushing out, unhooked his water line from the utility pole and crawled under the trailer to wash down the pavement under his rig, I assume because his sewer line overflowed. I didn’t really understand what he was doing, but he was very frustrated as his 25-foot hose was all kinked and knotted. On Sunday they all left I assume for church. When they returned, mom had them come one by one, except the girl, for hair trims. Dad sat at the picnic table with his tools and inflated tires, adjusted bike seats, looked at ‘broken’ toys. It was kind of cute. The kids have no electronics that I can see. They ride bikes, play with chalk in the street, have remote control car races, play frisbee and the parents join!! This group certainly has given me some new perspective on this whole full-time family camping trend, and I wish more families could be like them. I commented to mom yesterday how much I enjoyed the hair cutting event and how pleasant her kids are. She was pleased and said it takes a lot of work and paying attention. It sure does.

Disney Springs. Sunday afternoon was the day for our annual trek to Disney Springs. Ginnie opted out as Alfie had bad poopies and she could not leave him. For you old timers, Disney Springs is what was built around and over the old Pleasure Island where every night was New Years Eve, at 7:30 pm. It required a separate ticket and had lots of eating and entertainment venues. It is a massive area now. Multiple parking lots and decks. Probably over 3 miles walking if you do the whole thing. Cirque du Soleil and other theatrical venues. Many large chain restaurants and other smaller upscale full service as well as quick serve spots. The shopping is what draws most. They have the worlds largest Disney gear store with clothing toys, home goods, Vera Bradley, Dooney and Bourke, candy, jewelry, on and on and on. If you want it in your favorite character, this is the place to get it. Some of the Star Wars items were wonderful – Storm Trooper baseball hats. There is another new smaller store called the Co-Op which has much of the same merchandise in an enclosed kiosk area. I didn’t understand that place. There is a lake where you can get a launch across to cut off walking or rent a 4 paslsenger boat that looks like a car . There’s a tethered balloon you can rise up in for a sky view of the area. I fell in love with a pink sparkly baseball hat with sequined Mickey logo on the front. I had to have it. And got it. We wanted to eat there and get ice cream at Ghirardelli’s, and did that first, but the line was out the door and around the building, so we opted out. We walked to the sit down Irish restaurant and opted for inside seating. Good choice! Entertainment included step dancers and music and singing. Kathy and Kim had what we called chicken pot pie but had some fancy name, and I had the scallop appetizer which was wonderful. We stopped in shoe stores, chocolate shops, and many other stores on or way back to the car. I found a Coldstone Creamery on our route home and I sampled theirs to avoid eating a whole 1000 calorie dish of my own. It was already a bad diet day, so a little more cheating wouldn’t hurt too much. Yeah right.

Happy Hours. One day we went to Bahama Breeze for happy hour. They offer a great selection of half priced ($5-7 reduced price) appetizers and $5-$6 drinks. We selected 4 appetizers to share and fruity drinks and ate like rock stars. It was fun. Many days when warm enough we sat outside someone’s rig and had our own glasses of wine or drinks and our own cheese, crackers, and chips, and talked about the neighbors, or life in general. Fun times.

Bingo. Ginnie and I went last week. I won half a pot, total $25 on the first game. Ginnie’s number got pulled from the hat for The Queen’s Prize. You select a bingo number, and every time it comes up you win $1. Her total was $8k I think that was a pretty good haul. We both left pleased. It costs me $10-$15, depending on how many cards I want to play, and it is generally exciting when you get down to only needing 1 number to win. I will go back this week. I am on a winning streak with scratch off lottery tickets. I buy 2 and win on 1. So far a losing investment, but still fun.

Yard Sale. I am probably going to hang up my keys when I return home from this trip. I had a five year plan when I bought Moya. I extended that so I could do 6 years, and didn’t go out last year due to surgery, so this year is actually 7, but really 6, I have done everything I want to do with her, I have camped winter and summer, by myself and with friends. I had funds to easily pay for 5 years, but now am starting to resent the money it costs every month when there are other travel things I want to do and don’t have the budget for. Sometime in February I will figure out how much I owe on the loan and come up with a sale price and list her with agencies or try to do it myself. The time is right on a physical side as well. There are just too many things I can’t do any more…..attach the sewer hose, tighten the water hose, lift my bike out of the rear compartment. It has been a physically easier trip without the up and down the stairs so many times a day with Winston which in itself eases the knee pain. All these things add up to the voice in my head saying SELL, SELL. To that end I planned a yard sale. Each Saturday there is a loosely organized yard sale for campers. I looked thru all compartments and took out a variety of items to sell. I have other stuff I would have liked to sell, but I will need them for the remaining month on the road. I sold a lot of things and made somewhere between $60 and $70. Not bad for a morning’s work. I organized the remains into trash, sell at home garage sale, or leave with RV. The other girls went off to Lake Ridge Winery in the afternoon for a free concert. I opted to stay home and put my stuff away, do laundry, clean inside etc.

I think that catches us up on the past week. Whew. We have a couple more adventures planned, definitely going to visit Hermann’s Lipizzan Stallions, maybe another happy hour outing, and definitely bingo. I leave on Saturday 2/1 for the month of February at Florilow Oaks in Bushnell.

Kat Out

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Photos

New Hat
It really is pink

Waxing crescent with Venus!
iphone XR. Not too bad

#1 grandchild Lilly and Aiden
Annual school Holly Ball 'princess'

Future #7 grandchild
Kristine and Lou are expecting this baby in June. This is the 20 week ultrasound with no peek at sex.