Advertisement
Published: January 25th 2014
Edit Blog Post
Blog Florida 2014
The winter escape adventure started in a snow storm, well as it was blowing out. As happened last year, there was a snow storm the night before my departure that dumped about 4” on us. I was able to head out about 11:30 am and as I traveled west on 80 there were snow squalls to reinforce the need to get out of this cold and into the sun and warmth.
I stayed with my son Dave and his wife Lisa in their home in Laurel, MD. It was great to have a visit before leaving the north for 2 months and I was able to see my granddaughter’s new apartment.
Because it was a Sunday I drove around DC with little effort and was on my way south on 95. Put on the cruise control, turn on the tunes, and drive “straight on til morning.” It was a 467 mi journey to reach Florence, SC where I decided to stay the night. The next morning, after a very refreshing shower and walk, we proceeded south. I reached Jacksonville about 2:30 and was able to take a wonderful walk in 64 degree temps. I visited with
a friend for 2 days then headed out Wed morning to meet 3 other friends at a campground in Clermont, west of Orlando.
I discovered that I forgot 2 very important items, my snorkel and and the can’t be without pair of shoes, the crocs. First order of business was to find a crocs store. It was about 25 min away so Joanne joined me on the shopping trip. After successfully finding a great pair of camp shoes we stopped at Camping World were I got a perfect size crock pot. Then on to the farm stand for fresh strawberries, bananas and of course, oranges. How can you be in FL and not get oranges! Next we hit the grocery store and headed home with all our treasures.
The 4 of us had cocktails together at Ginnie’s house then we went to Kat’s for dinner. Great time getting caught up with my camping buds.
Then it was back to my home, walk Oscar and settle in for the night.
I bought a new tv antenna before I left because everybody was getting stations that I couldn’t and I can’t miss something I really want to see. The
antenna is performing as advertised. It picks up lots of stations and I now have the longest list of available options. Yeh!!
Friday Jan 24th was a great camping day. The sun was out and the temp went up quickly. The camper needed some organization so that was a priority and made me feel all settled. I had a wonderful shower ( I’ll comment a lot about the showers at campgrounds), caught up on e-mail, had breakfast and took Oscar for a long walk to the lake. I was hoping to see some wildlife but I think they all went further south. It’s been cold here in FL, comparatively speaking so these local natives are not very active.
Once back at home I got out my recliner, book and hat and sat in the sun to recharge my batteries. Oscar loved it as much as I did and rolled around in the warm sand and basked in the sun.
The campground was serving a chicken dinner at 5 so we all met in the rec hall and had dinner together. We noticed that a band was setting up so we decided to wait there and listen for a while.
Ginnie got her game (can’t remember the name) and we played several rounds while listening to steel drums, sachsephone?? (I stumped spell check) and guitars. There were just 2 men playing but they were very talented and played lots of styles.
It was cold when we went home but the weather man promises warmer temps for tomorrow.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.149s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 16; qc: 33; dbt: 0.0961s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
The cold follows
It is not good when you escape the cold in the north to have it follow you to Florida.