We have been in Florida for nearly two weeks. We "booked" from TX to see friends in Vero Beach....Dan and Claudia McCaffery are great folks.....we enjoyed our couple of days with them. We then headed over to Tampa....well, nearby in Seffner....where we set up camp at the Lazy Days complex. And what a complex it is.....the campground has a few hundred sites, the Lazy Days dealership and store are phenomenal....there is also a Camping World on site as well as a Cracker Barrel and a Flying J complex. If you are booked into the campground, all the courses of study are free. I took a class in tire safety....and just missed the one for electrical systems (with an all electric coach that would have been a very good one to attend.....maybe next time). Pam had a conflict that precluded attending the convection microwave class....and we both took the driver confidence class with Bob Bergeron (a New Hampshirite!!). Bob taught a two hour morning class on motorhome driving tips and safety procedures....very interesting...and then we went out with him and drove a 40 foot motorhome around a prescribed course. Not so bad for me to do as I have 25,000 miles of RV driving under my belt....when it was Pam's turn she looked at me and said "sit here and don't say a word".....ha ha. I did as I was "requested" and she took the wheel and did quite a nice job of driving the one mile course. As a result we both received driving certificates....yay!!
Oh, Bob Bergeron (cousins with Tom Bergeron of DWTS)...told us how important communication can be on an RV trip. One couple in his class some time back had an interesting situation develop....the woman said she was going to lie down while the husband stopped to fuel the bus....he topped off the tanks and quietly re-entered the motorhome. He then drove 150 miles when he was pulled over by a State Trooper who asked him if he was missing anything....turns out his wife had decided against the nap and got off the motorhome while he was fueling.....not telling him of her change of heart. So she was left at the truck stop while her husband drove three hours further without her. Communication!!!
While in Tampa we discovered good friends from home (NH) Lee and Dr Robin, were on Siesta Key just outside Sarasota. So we drove down and had lunch and a visit with them at their rental condo. We will see more of them when we are all back in NH later this month.....especially since we are planning to park the MH right next door to them in Twin Mtn.
Here Lee and I sit in the rustic rockers outside Der Dutchman restaurant, waiting for the ladies to finish their shopping inside. A great all you can eat buffet lunch, by the way....and both Lee and I got our money's worth!!
This photo Pam took with her kindle and the newly acquired photo app she downloaded for it. In the photo we are driving from Mt Dora....a wonderfully picturesque 'artsy' / 'cutesy' town in the Florida Lakes district north of Orlando.....and driving to Madison, GA to visit some of the Antebellum homes spared by General Sherman on his March to the Sea in the Civil War. Stay tuned for more from Madison and then Harrisonburg, VA before heading to Burlington to visit good friends Larry and Lainie before heading home to Littleton.
(Sorry for the lapse between blogs but we have been EXTREMELY busy with stuff these past two plus weeks.....more on that later too).