An update, January 18, 2018
Well, here we sit in Key West, Florida for the next couple of
months. We fled the extreme cold at our
home in Michigan, as we normally do at this time of year. We left Michigan in our truck, with camper
aboard, on January 4, arriving at my daughter’s house in northern Georgia on
January 5.
My daughter and family live in Dahlonega, in the middle of the
state, about one hour north of Atlanta, in the mountains. We leave I-75, as guided by our GPS, and
proceed through about 2-1/2 hours of 2 lane, twisty/turny roads, through small
towns, and wooded mountains.
We had one adventure (it seems we always have some sort of
mis-adventure on our journeys) on the way through the mountains. I looked back at one point and saw that the
outside door of a storage area on the camper was completely open. As soon as possible, Dan pulled over to close
it. Unfortunately, the compartment was
empty…The tool box, two electric drills, batteries, chargers, electrical
cables, and drinking water hoses – all gone, likely either on the side of the
road or down the mountain. We did turn
back, watching carefully as we retraced our path around some S curves, mostly
with no shoulder and no guard rail. On
the first pass, we didn’t see anything.
On the return, we saw a couple of the items and pulled off at the next
opportunity. All we recovered was a box
of drill bits, a trailer hitch, and a rivet gun. Bummer – the tools were not particularly
costly, but necessary. Dan was able to
replace most of everything for under the $500 deductible on our household
policy.
Another event on the trip was seeing a sign “Guns and Drugs”,
an advertisement for a store in the next town.
Dan felt it was imperative that we stop and see if they had any t-shirts… This was a truly unique store – it was a
regular pharmacy, also a compounding pharmacy, a home health store (walkers,
canes, etc.), plus all kinds of guns and ammunition! And, yes, they did have t-shirts. One said “Pistols and Prozac”. One said “Because Sometimes, Short, Dumb, and
Slow Will Do the Job”. You won’t see
those anywhere else!
Ordinarily, we can expect temperatures in Georgia to be much
warmer than at home. But, not this
year! It never got above about 21
degrees – so, the winter clothes and the heater in the camper stayed on! We enjoyed the time with Laura and Derek,
parents to my two grandsons, Rylan, age 12/almost 13, and Brody, who just
turned 10. It is always amazing to see
how they’ve grown and changed in the few months since last seeing them. Rylan, in particular, is now 5’6”, almost as
tall as I am! I taught that boy how to
play Michigan Rummy, and he caught on almost too quickly! Brody killed me in a game called, aptly,
Aggrevation!
From north Georgia, we headed to our friends’ house in
Orlando. The Sprenkles always welcome
us, with extreme hospitality, a place to park our car and camper, and even
electrical hookup! Finally, we got some
warm weather! What a pleasure to remove
most of the layers of clothing, plus socks, and put on those sandals! We spent two days with them, with Denise
plying us with her usual good cooking.
On Thursday, January 11, we headed to Key West. This year, hurricane Irma did a number on the
Keys. Key West fared better than the
Middle Keys, but still had significant damage.
The campground on the Navy Base had damage to the
shower/restroom/laundry building and was not available. So we took a spot on the Sigsbee base
campground until our preferred Trumbo became available. We were just glad to be able to get a spot in
Key West, a place where we always enjoy ourselves to the max. We were at Sigsbee for about 5 days, and then
were assigned a space on Trumbo.
Hallelujah! Besides getting to
move to our preferred Trumbo, this also facilitated our move into the much
larger (a real kitchen, walk around bed, easy chairs…) 5th wheel
trailer we store there. What a pleasure
to have comfortable seating, a fully equipped kitchen to prepare meals, and a
bed that I can walk around!
So, now we are at the Trumbo campground with many familiar
faces. We are currently ‘suffering’ with
‘extreme cold’ and high winds. I’ve been
mostly inside all day, wearing shoes and socks, and two layers of sweatshirts. The temp is now at its high of 60 degrees and
sunny – but, the 25 mph winds are keeping most of us indoors, waiting for that
famous lovely warm weather.
One happy discovery, this morning, is that there are a few ‘looper’
boats currently in town. They are
members of the same America’s Great Loop Association that we had joined two
years ago, before we even owned a boat.
We are in contact with them, and will be meeting some of them for some
social time once the winds die down a bit.
Life is good!
