Gary's Visit With Little Victor

So what are we doing in our little rented park model here in Florida?.  Are we busy arranging our future?  Well that will have to wait for a future post.  But for now I'll report on Gary's trip to Columbus, Ohio to see our now 10-month-old grandson, Victor (and son Andy and daughter in law Natasha too -- but you know who now is the star of that show).  They were talking about coming down here for a visit but somehow we didn't think with a 10-month old that was quite ready to happen and didn't.  So Gary said he was just going to jump a plane and go to Ohio.

He flew on Allegiant Airlines.  This was a first for either of us on this discount carrier.  It was about $225 for a round trip with one bag and it flew out of Sanford, Florida rather than Orlando and used the cargo airport in Columbus.  It was a direct flight on a plane that seemed well refurbished and was on time.  It appears we have a new good flying alternative when we need it.

Gary spent a week in Columbus and enjoyed his several visits with Big Vic.  Of course we have a few pictures to share. Don't you just want to pinch those little cheeks?

Temporary BooneDocks

For the past 3 1/2 years, every location for the BooneDocks has been a temporary one, but now we are in a longer-term temporary state until we figure out just what it is that we are going to do next.  When we sold the motor home, we decided that the most expedient thing to do would be to rent within the RV park where we already were located.  We have rented a “park model”.  Technically, a park model is an RV so we guess you could say that we still are full-time RVers.  In order to qualify as an RV rather than a mobile home, a park model has to have less than 400 sq ft of living space space and has to travel as a trailer to its home destination.  Once there, they simply detach the tires, wheels, suspension, and A frame/hitch and the “RV” is pretty much going to stay at that location ongoing.  Apparently there are tax and other advantages to a park model being classified an RV.

With that background, let’s get on with the show.  Here is what our park model looks like including its attached car port.  Note that I already have put out some flower pots.

In front of the car is a nice sized screen room with access to the back entrance of the house.

Inside, there really isn’t much more space than in the motor home and a lot less storage so we also rented a small storage locker.  Note that the living room is resplendent with kitty.  Alley cat is adjusting well and has laid claim to the screen room as her own house.

And as we are still in an “RV” and you know the saying, “home is where we park it”, we had to post our sign at the front entrance to our temporary home.

 

We can rent this place through the end of the year, so we have about that much time to figure out what is next for us and make it happen.

MotorHomeLess

After the scam dance with the first person who we thought was going to buy our motorhome, we relisted it and again received a number of interested inquiries from just a Craigslist ad.  One couple from here in Florida contacted us the day after it was listed and two days after that were here to view and inspect it.  On their way back home they called to declare they wanted it.  This past Tuesday, the funds were wired to our account and they came to drive it away.  There she goes off into the sunset – our last glimpse of the motor home that has been ours for the past five years and our one and only home for the last three and a half years.

Cleaning it out was far more work than we had envisioned.  We thought we might be able to get it all done in a day.  In reality, it took us the better part of three days.

Below is a shot of the couple who purchased “Number One” and the last picture of her on our rented RV site in Titusville.

So, what are we doing?  Are we on that beach in Hawaii?  Has Gary joined the World Poker Tour?  Are we buying another RV?  Good questions.

Were We Being Scammed?

Our ads for the sale of our motor home generated a lot of interest.  We had people from all over the country wanting to come see it.  One person from a distant State quickly had his Credit Union indicate to us that he was approved for a loan that along with his funds would allow him to buy it right away – that they would wire us the funds as soon as he inspected it and give them the go ahead for the wire.  That seemed sufficient for us to declare the unit sold to the others, pull our ads, and to proceed to the sale with this prospective buyer.

Only then were we informed that the buyer could not get off of work to come inspect it and drive it home.  He put his son who was located somewhat closer to us in the process to come inspect it and drive it away.  But the son also had a lot of scheduling issues.  It then was suggested that we empty the unit, drive it to the location of the son, and after an inspection receive a certified check for the purchase.  Somehow, that was labeled by the prospective buyer as a “win win” solution.  Huh?  We did agree we would deliver if it could be inspected, paid for, and us put on the buyer’s insurance for the trip.  He would not accept that plan.

At that point we lost a lot of trust in this potential buyer.  We put our foot down that the sale would be at our RV lot in Florida and that the payment terms would have to be exactly as we had always specified – a wire transfer received in our account.  But the prospective buyer keep pleading his case that his son would only have a limited amount of time with us and that we would have to empty it before his arrival (we live in this motor home, emptying it only potentially to have to reload it would be a monumental task), allow an inspection, and drive it away on the strength of a phone call from the Credit Union that the wire had been sent.  At this point the negotiations became irreparably damaged.

The demands of the potential buyer had the aura of some classic scams.  The only part we could not figure out was that the Credit Union verified by email his loan for the purchase and we separately had verified the status of the Credit Union and the loan officer we communicated with.  Just the same, it just didn’t pass the smell test and we never did get confirmed timing for when it all could have occurred, so it was best that we move on.  We will contact the other interested parties to see if they still have interest and may have to relist it for sale again.  Meanwhile we are glad the silliness of this prospect if not the scamming is over.  We will have to find a buyer who is prepared and willing to follow a robust and orderly sale process.

As The Alligator Flies

Everyone is familiar with the saying, “as the crow flies” to indicate the straight-line distance between two points.  Well, the straight-line distance between our RV camp site and this pond with alligators in it is all of about one mile.  You certainly do pay attention when you see a sign that says, “SWIMMING PROHIBITED BEWARE OF ALLIGATORS”.  This pond is a part of the ecosystem of Chain of Lakes Park, a Brevard County Park here on the Space Coast of Florida.  It is a very nice Park with bicycle paths that we used during this visit.  It has baseball fields and soccer fields.  Many varieties of birds live in its wetlands.  Lest you think we are making too much of this alligator threat, shown below are a couple of the specimens we saw that day while out riding.  They say an alligator can run at up to 35 miles an hour and that if one ever starts chasing you, heaven forbid, you should zig zag as they have a hard time making turns on land.  But at 35mph, we figure at full speed these guys could be on our patio in about 2 minutes.  No, it’s not going to happen but we have heard there has been a baby gator or two get into the retention ponds of our RV Park.

Changes Could Be Coming–Part II

We haven’t fallen off the face of the earth.  We just don’t seem to feel the need to write about the latest pot luck dinner, or our daily 3-mile walking videos down at the clubhouse, or our Friday dinner evenings out with the crowd from the Park (if you can call meeting at a restaurant at 4PM dinner), or Gary’s exploits at the driving range, or our bicycle rides about the Park, or the afternoon “tea times”, etc. 

After a long season of traveling it is nice to kick back and enjoy the weather.  But wait, February’s weather has been less than spectacular.  Stop sending those Artic blasts dipping down into Florida.  One night we may actually have dipped below freezing here.  And each new wave of cold sets the humid air here off into rain showers.  We know we will not receive any sympathy though from those of you in the North who are experiencing below zero temperatures with ferocious wind chills.  Just keep them to yourselves, OK?

So we wrote last month that we were doing a lot of looking and that changes could be coming.  Well we have continued looking and talking and thinking and we haven’t decided much of anything other than to put our present rig for sale.  Here is the link for the Craigslist version of our offering:  https://spacecoast.craigslist.org/rvs/4905886657.html

It just seems like it is time to let her go.  So if you know of anyone who needs a rig and a trip to Florida, send them our way.

What will we do?

Will we buy another motor home and toad?  We don’t know.

Will we buy a place in Florida?  We don’t know.

Will we adopt another of our many alternatives?  We don’t know.

Will we move to Hawaii?  Now that sounds pretty good.  But we don’t know.

Perhaps selling the rig will force us into a decision and that is pretty well a given.

Changes may be coming……..or not.

Canaveral National Seashore

We had a beautiful day of weather that allowed us to spend a relaxing afternoon at the beach.  This time we skipped all the beachfront humanity of Coach Beach and headed out to the Canaveral National Seashore.  The beach is on a barrier Island that also houses the Kennedy Space Center.  This 24 mile long stretch of Atlantic Ocean beach is the longest stretch of undeveloped pristine shoreline in Florida.  The National Park Service administers the area.

I fixed a picnic lunch which we enjoyed sitting in our folding chairs under a beach umbrella as the waves rolled in and out.  Gary pulled out his metal detector for the first time in a long time hoping that Spanish Doubloons would be found in the sand.  But as it was the first time in a long time, maybe he should have checked if the batteries were charged and if there was a spare set.

Changes Could Be Coming

Last week we drove over to the West Coast (of Florida that is) and spent two days touring the Tampa RV Supershow.  We had gone to this RV show three years ago and it is amazing.  There are somewhere between 1,200 and 1,500 RVs on display.  Last time, we attacked this giant show all in one day heading out at the crack of dawn and not returning to our motor home until midnight after enjoying an evening in Tampa as well.  This time we drew on our experience and made it a two-day affair.  We had enough points from our trip North to secure a free night’s stay at a motel directly across from the entrance to the Fairgrounds.  Leaving a little later, we avoided the traffic crush and simply parked at the motel avoiding the parking fee in the process.  The entrance fee is good for two consecutive days of entry so we took advantage of that as well.  We had dinner one night and lunch the next day in Tampa and had a nice little vacation away from the motor home in Titusville.  While wading through the throng of people, we just happened to bump into our full timing classmates and friends Toni and Daryle.  I think this was the fifth encounter we had had with them in our 3 1/2 years of full timing.  And they were married since we last saw them as well.  Congratulations Toni and Daryle.  And, oh, Toni was taking the picture.

So, about these potential changes, we looked at a lot of different things at the show and some were very interesting to us such as this rig.

But no, we are not going to buy a $2 million Newell, a favorite of NASCAR drivers.  But we are seriously contemplating some changes.  So, stay tuned.  We might just be making a change………or not.

Fresh Squeezed

At least part of Willow Lakes RV Park at one time was an orange grove.  Back in some of the undeveloped areas, there still are orange trees.  We availed ourselves of these oranges when we were here three years ago and we could hardly wait until they ripened up this year.  They weren’t quite ready up to the time of our departure to the North, but when we got back it seemed they had pretty well ripened.  The trees no longer are tended so they don’t produce huge quantities of uniform oranges like in the commercial groves, but they still are sweet and very juicy, just a little hard to get to with all the “jungle” that has grown up around them.  Shown to the right is our first batch of the season, and below is our “super duper juicer” we found via Craigslist and finally the finished product.  We gave the small container of juice to one of our neighbors as a partial payment toward the future use of their pole-mounted orange picker.  We won’t be drinking juice from frozen concentrate – at least this Winter – just fresh squeezed from FREE oranges.  Ahhhhhhhhh.

Hot Weather–Let’s Go To The Beach

In part, that title is for our northern friends and family as we know they are now suffering through by far their coldest conditions this Winter.  But as the beach trip was Sunday, the cold front has pushed even into Florida and we had our coldest night too last night – 39 and today it is only in the low 60s.

But on Sunday the forecast for the Space Coast was in the low-to-mid 80s – near the record high.  The sun was shining and we made our first trip of the season to the beach.   The closest beach would be out on Cape Canaveral but that is undeveloped and very secluded – well, except for the nude sunbathers we encountered out there 3 years ago.  http://boonedocksllc.blogspot.com/2011/12/day-at-beachooooooops.html  Our beach of choice is Cocoa Beach just down from “I Dream Of Jeannie” Lane.   We set up not far from restaurant Coconuts on the Beach which has bathrooms, live music, and food and cold beverages.  We took our folding chairs and umbrellas; we have only had to replace one of our two $6 Harbor Freight umbrellas in our 3 and a half years of fulltiming.

We didn’t go into the ocean.  Portuguese Man of War were washing up and we didn’t want to be stung.  And we already noted that Coconuts has bathrooms.  It was great being out on sandy beach and watching and listening to the waves roll in.

After the beach we trekked down to the town of Melbourne and found a place to watch our Detroit Lions……….yes, in the NFL playoffs.  We have noted in another blog or two that we are long-suffering Lions fans.  And in our first step toward the elusory Super Bowl title, well, in a word we were jobbed  NEVER in the history of the NFL has a defense been flagged for pass interference, the refs announce the penalty, spot the ball accordingly, and then without any explanation just pick up the flag and respot the ball from 1st and 10 back to 4th and long.  But then the Cowboys at Green Bay was the dream matchup for this weekend.  WE WERE JOBBED!

Holiday Travels

Our trip to the Midwest in the car for Christmas totaled 2,600 miles, 13 nights, 4 motels, Christmases in both Michigan and Ohio, 3 dentist visits, and many restless nights for the Alley Cat but we would not have been without our families.  Before we left, we did have a chance to “decorate” the motor home and car.

The lights on the luggage rack were a big hit as we received many a thumbs up from other drivers and pedestrians.

Christmas with my family was hosted by my sister and her new little doggy, Frizz both dressed in their best Christmas garb.  And her living room was filled with presents.

In Ohio with Natasha and Andy, of course little Victor was the star of the show.  How could that boy be any cuter?