Greetings

 Greetings


It was another wonderful weather day here in Orlando; it was overcast but a nice moderate temperature. It was another shorts and T shirt day.

Yesterday we went to a car cruise-in over by Disney, today we didn’t have anything special planned and it ended up being a maintenance day. Millie did laundry; I cleaned the bathroom and ran the vacuum. In the afternoon we watched the Daytona 500. My RV friends Rebecca and Clay stopped by and watched the race with us. Everyone was rooting for Danica K. except me; I couldn’t decide whether I should cheer for the Lowes or Best Buy car. My thinking was I paid for at least a couple tires on the Best Buy car and for sure I’ve shopped at Lowes enough to by an engine!

Even though this is a timeshare type RV Park and we all rotate in and out every 21 days or so friendships are somehow maintained. Last night we ran into my Aunt Dorothy’s cousin Alice and her friend Henry at the activities center. Last week Ed Bibey and his wife were camped three sites down from us, on Pine Island in addition to the Locust Point crowd at their winter homes I ran into another coworker Jack Valachck from Chrysler at the RV Park, the week before that we saw Gary Wyatt. It’s crazy but we’re always running into someone I know. Millie doesn’t seem to know as many people out here on the road as me yet, but has a seven degrees to Kevin Bacon thing going on. Instead of Kevin Bacon its Danville Virginia that she finds a connection to with almost everyone she meets!

That’s all for now, we bought a bunch of DVD’s at a garage sale and are watching one a night. Tonight’s movie is Shooter with Mark Wahlberg.


Diary Photos

24th Feb 2013  Car cruise near Disney

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24th Feb 2013  Car cruise

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24th Feb 2013  Millie Skyping

Millie skyping with her family in New Mexico on her smart phone

living the good life in Orlando

2013-02-22

Greetings,

I don’t know what the cause is but time sure flys by down here in Sunny Florida. We’ve been back here in Orlando two days shy of a week and I haven’t posted anything to the blog. The weather is great, and although we haven’t done anything special it’s nice just to be outside in shorts and T shirts.

I broke from my normal routine of leisurely living today. Yesterday when backing the jeep into our sight I noticed in the mirror that the headlights on the drivers side of the motorhome where hanging down. Further investigation revealed that the entire grill assembly including headlights on both sides was about to fall out.

Without going into a lot of detail, all the brackets were attached to the fiberglass grill frame with a putty type adhesive. Five out of the six attachment points had failed. I repaired them by drilling and thru bolting. It is visible on the outside but I used stainless steel bolts with finishing washers and it looks ok. Most importantly I don’t have to worry about hitting a bump and the whole grill fall out.

There’s always something going on here at the campground, last night we went to the Jammers session. It’s an open gathering of musicians that changes weekly depending on who’s staying in the park. They played mostly mountain music and some country, they were pretty good. Tonight they had dancing with a two person combo. She sang, he played computerized keyboards and also did vocals.

Life is good!

Road to Orlando

2013-02-17

Sunday was supposed to be an easy run up highway 17 back to the Orlando Thousand trails Campground. About 2/3rds of the way just as we were entering the town of Bartow we heard the unmistakable sound (think shotgun blast) of a 100 psi tire blowing out a sidewall. It was one of the rear dual mounted tires and we were only doing about 45 mph so there was no driving danger. There was an empty parking lot just ahead so we just pulled in and parked. A call to my road service dispatched a service truck to our location.

The spare tire on the old motorhome was mounted in its own little locker in the back cap, it was very convenient. The spare on the new motorhome is mounted on a rack under the back like the spare on most pickup trucks. The problem is these tires are very heavy and there is no ratchet mechanism to raise or lower the spare. It took both the service truck driver and me to manhandle the tires.

This was my third tire failure in my nine years and 60+ thousand miles of motorhoming. I’ve had two side wall blowouts and one road hazard blowout thru the tread, all on the rear. Front tire blowouts are far scarier and potentially dangerous if it happens at speed.

All’s well that ends well; we were back on the road in short order and soon arrived at the campground. I was so busy helping the tire guy I never thought to get pictures for the blog.

Still laid back in Pine Island

2013-02-16

My first visit to Pine Island was way back in the 1970’s, there was nothing here then but Mosquitoes. The island has grown in popularity a lot since then, but it is still a laid back kind of place. There are no traffic signals on the island, no gated mansion communities and more palm trees than people.

                                           Larry and Millie in Naples

                                                    Bob Hooke at his new Pine Island home



The week has flown by; we’ve done the tourist thing in Naples, gone to two dances here at the campground, visited with friends who have winter homes here on the island, walked the dogs, relaxed, eaten out more often than is healthy and used the gym at the campground, but not enough to counteract the French fries.

Tomorrow we go back to the Orlando Thousand Trails campground for our second 14 day stay of our winter retreat here in Florida.

Pine Island

2013-02-10

Greetings,

Our 14 day stay at Thousand Trails Orlando Campground just flew by, like the saying goes, time flies when you’re having fun! Two notes of interest: in the last days of our stay we had a visit from one of my coworkers from Chrysler. I haven’t seen Gary Wyatt in a couple years; it was good to see him again. He and his wife Pat are RVing snowbirds like us and we usually cross paths at least once per winter down here.
The Saturday before we left we went to a U-pick citrus farm. We didn’t really know what we were doing but we picked at least 30 lbs of oranges of several varieties. We must have done something right because all we have eaten so far have been ripe and ready to eat.

                                                    Ramp we made for the girls access to the dash

On Sunday we drove down to Pine Island, which is just a bit northwest of Cape Coral. We will stay here for a week at the Pine Island KOA campround. There are several roads that lead from Orlando down to this area; we drove the longest route, 170 some miles down thru the center of the state. I’m always looking to take roads that Millie and sometimes myself haven’t traveled yet. We share the feeling that the journey is part of the adventure and should not be a hurried dash from one destination to another.

The fun continues!

Larry vs the time share sales team

2013-02-07

Greetings,

We’re still at the Orlando Thousand Trails campground near Disney World. We’ve been busy, but mostly doing little projects to the motorhome. Some are needed do mostly to age of the RV and some are personal touches. None of it was very word worthy so I haven’t had anything to write about.

Millie has never been to Disney world, so of course we have to go. Its like a bucket list item, everyone needs to go at least once. There are discount ticket sellers everywhere and a few days ago we decided to see what the deal was.

When someone in a neon festooned storefront is offering tickets for ½ the $100+ prices Disney is charging just a mile away, you know there is a hook! For the uninitiated, the hook almost always involves Time Share Sales!

I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck but played the game and acted naive as the seedy looking hook man assured me it was just an informational tour. I once said no to a nun who was selling time shares, (strange but true) so felt certain I was up to the challenge.

Yesterday morning we drove to the Westgate Resort for our 90 minute tour. I must say my initial impression of the resort was very positive. It is very large, 300 acres I think, and almost surrounded by Disney property. After registering at the opulent welcome center we were assigned our host, DaVita, a tall slender very attractive and pleasant young lady. After our complimentary breakfast she began by getting to know us, asking the usual questions about lifestyle, family, likes, dislikes, etc.

Next we went on a golf cart tour of the property, driving by the many amenities and stopping to look at the villa and condo model units. After the tour, it was back to the welcome center for the sales presentation.

This post is getting long so I will abbreviate; first was the sales presentation with our host sales agent, the lovely DaVita, next we heard the better deal we could get from the business professional (forgot his name)inventory manager, and finally the deal from Angel the exit manager (Cuban Mafia?) which was the same price but with extra features added to the deal.

Did we buy?.............

No

After getting all the rubbers stamps on our prize form we still had to pick up our tickets at the gift center where they tried one more time and we again said no to returning for a travels club 90 minute presentation for which we would get yet another gift, this time a free meal at a local restaurant.

The whole process took almost four hours; it was predictable and at times interesting. In the beginning it was enjoyable but got tiring as time went on. Once I even felt guilty for taking up so much of the sales agent’s time, but heck they were taking up our time as well so all’s fair in love, war and time share sales!

Disney World here we come!

Disclaimer: While I am not saying anything good or bad about time share ownership, I am saying do not go to a sales presentation just for the free gift if you are not up to the challenge. You may go in anticipating a $100 something and leave many thousands of dollars poorer and obligated to pay annual fees for the rest of your life.