St Petersburg, FL

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Blythe Island GA - St Petersburg, FL

Days 4 - 8



After another one night stop we looked forward to stopping for a couple of days. It was a easy ride from Blythe Island to St Petersburg, most of the trip traffic was moving, and it was not until we got to Tampa that we hit stop an go traffic. We made reservations at Robert's Mobile Home & RV Park. It is a mix of permanent mobile homes, long term RV's and transient RV's. When we checked in at the office, the receptionist told us to wait at the office, and someome would come in a golf cart to escort us to our site. We used that time to disconnect the Jeep. Not only do they escort to your site, they guide/direct you into the site. Since this was my first time backing into a site, I really appreciated the help. It was alot easier then I thought it would be.

We have several friends in this area and hoped to meet up with as many of them as we could. (If we did not meet up with you, our apologies we did not schedule enough time in St Petersburg!)

The first thing I needed to do was to see if I could stop the leak on the washer machine. The water connection on it are metric, and the leak was at the metric to standard hose adaptor. After a lot of fighting and a trip to Home Depot I was able to get it to stop leaking.

I thought that was the end of our problems with the washer machine. OH HOW WRONG I WAS. I wanted to run a quick cycle with no clothes in it just test it. Five minutes in to the cycle, smoke started pouring out of it. I quickly shut the breaker off, and decided it was time for a new washer machine. I am pretty sure it wash the heater element for the dryer that was fried but we were not taking any chances with it.

We had two problems with replacing the it. One was disposing of the dead unit, and finding a repalcement machine. The washer machine is a combo washer/dryer and most often found in boats and motorhomes. One thing we found while doing the Great Loop, is Florida is the place to get boats repaired or find boat parts. It turns out Florida is also the place to get motohomes repaired or parts. While looking online for the replacement washer/dryer the seach defaulted to New Jersey, and the soonest we could of gotten one at home was 4 to 6 weeks. When I change to look "near me" it showed me a Camping World store in Tampa with one in stock. What a difference. It turns out the store had several in stock. Getting rid of the old unit turn out to be even easier. It turns out there is a recycling yard 3 miles from from the campground that we were able to take it to.

By Friday afternoon the new washer was installed and working.

Also Friday afternoon Mark & Karen (Kay Dee) stopped by. We purchased new electric bikes from Mark's niece and they were dropping them off for us. We are very excited to have new and functioning bikes again. After the loop one of our bikes died, and we gave the second one to Rebecca. I had been wondering if the bikes would fit in the storage compartments under the motorhome. I was very pleased to find out that they do.

We will be seeing lots of Mark & Karen, when we leave St Pete's they will be traveling with us for the next 2 months.

Saturday (New Year's Eve) we went to Sissy & Ray's for lunch, they have a condo over looking Boca Ciega Bay. Sissy is one of Angel's oldest friends. Sunday we meet up with Amy & Rommel (Happiness is) another couple we traveled with on the loop. We went to a local bar to celebrate one of thier friends birthday and then we went to the local VFW with them. It was good catching up with them.

Monday we are off to our next stop. Weeki Wachee, to Mark's sisters house. This will be our first Moochdocking (Moochdocking - At its most basic level, moochdocking is spending the night for free in your RV on the property of friends or family. Some people call it driveway surfing. Often it is overnighting in a driveway. Or out back.) Stay tuned to see how that works out.

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