NEVER a dull moment!

We last left you at our arrival at Alliance Coach in Wildwood, FL where we were getting a new washer and dryer installed. In addition, we asked them to refasten some of the plumbing for the washer that had come loose in the garage.

I can't say enough good about these folks! Done in a professional and timely manner, all the staff we encountered were wonderful. In addition, the new generation of stack washer/dryer from Splendide (Ariston model) is wonderful. Quiet and efficient - a great combination.

We stayed over an extra night to get the trailer washed, polished and waxed by the detail service located on the Alliance property. Wow!! You never realize how bad something looks until it's clean. They did a great job - the rig hadn't been waxed since our last winter in Yuma, AZ (maybe 5 years ago?).

Then it was on to Bee's RV Resort in Clermont where we had picked out our lot the previous day. Although we are arriving fairly early in the traditional season, many lots were already taken. We managed to find a nice long one with access from the back for the garage AND shade (always a good thing in Florida).

We got pulled into our space without much trouble at all. See how nice it looks?

Don't let that fool you! This is what the other side looked like shortly after getting settled.

Due to the steepness of the incline on the site and the softness of the sand plus chocks that failed, we had slid forward and bent one jack. Thanks to our kind neighbors, Peggy and Pete, who had a 20 ton jack as well as straps, comealongs and brute strength, Stu managed to finally get the rig up enough to somewhat straighten the jack and get two jackstands underneath. (I love you, baby!!)

He also bought wood and made some awesome chocks for the wheels - no more worry about failing chocks! Cost, maybe $20 plus a day of labor. Well worth it!

We will get the actual jack repaired when we return in January, the rig is quite stable now. Phew!!

Now we are preparing for our two week cruise as well as our final six weeks in Ecuador. Laundry & bills today, tomorrow the pickup gets washed and waxed while we take some time riding (and maybe a movie), Wednesday is the final packing & "setting up rig to be empty" day and Thursday we drive over to the east coast to stay with family.

Saturday morning we are taking a shuttle service to the port at Miami for our cruise. This is likely to be our last post until we get back to Cuenca on 11/17.

Ciao!

   

Where the heck are we?

Ahhh, busy, busy, busy bees! We had a great month in the northeast, visiting family and friends. We almost had to move to Pennsylvania for a bit but Hurricane Joaquin changed direction. Phew!

All medical stuff is done - no major issues, even with a few extra tests. My internist told me my liver was unremarkable and my dermatologist said my skin was boring (both are good things). Stu may be getting his cataracts done this June, so we will be back in Maryland then to see how that goes. Mine are at least another year away.

The cold moved into the NE quickly and we made our escape on Sunday after a night of near freezing temps in Delaware. Our first night was spent in a nice campground,  RV Resort at Carolina Crossroads. They offer 13 nice, long, level pull-throughs set up for one night stayovers for a $30 rate. It was perfect since the temps were back down into the 30's. Brrrrr.....

The next two nights were spent Wally-docking and the same at Flying-J. Today we arrived in Wildwood, FL where Alliance Coach will be installing our new washer and dryer tomorrow. We've been here before and love the service. We are parked in their campground and they have extended their wifi out there! So we have 50 amp electric which means we can run both A/C units, water and wifi. We dumped as we came in and they are going to do the install without us moving. Ahhh.....

Now on to our connectivity. When we made the move to Ecuador, we knew we'd be gone long enough that it made no sense to keep our Verizon aircard, even though it was unlimited data. Reluctantly, we let it go and cancelled our plan. Now that we are back, things have changed a LOT. No more 90 go plans at AT&T for my cell phone, no more standalone data plans for aircards, etc, etc, etc. So we asked around and finally settled on getting Stu a new iPhone and my taking over his, buying a monthly data plan giving us 12GB. This is addition to our Karma broadband device for which we pay $14/GB.

We had no idea how much that would provide us so we've been monitoring our usage. We had 15 days left in our billing cycle and we started using my iPhone 4S as a broadband hotspot. It works quite well and has the added advantage of being a 3G device which uses less data than Stu's iPhone 6 which is 4G/LTE.

Now that we are paying per GB, we are more careful about watching videos and updating apps. We try to do that at free wifi spots (like now). This also means in the future, there may be less blogs and less photos uploaded. Time will tell..

That said, I have photos from our last couple of weeks, but haven't uploaded them from our phones and iPads. We have been SO busy, barely a spare moment to deal with the little things. And once we leave here on Friday to move to our winter spot at Bee's RV Resort, there won't be much spare time. We have a couple of days to pack for our 2 week cruise as well as our trip back to Ecuador.

We will have good Internet access while in Ecuador but will also be busy liquidating all our household goods before our return here the end of December. Oh, and seeing all our friends before we go...LOL!

Ciao!

   

Rolling right along....

No, the RV isn't rolling along but our daily life. We have:

• enjoyed visiting family & friends
• seen a couple of good movies movies (No Escape & The Martian)
• eaten out less than usual (a good thing)
• completed 80-85% of our doctor/dentist/ophthalmologist appointments
• escaped the wrath of hurricane Joaquin
• done some rehab on the inside of the RV and the outside of our pickup
• made some RVing plans for 2015 (including going to the 56th Escapade in Essex Junction, VT at the end of July)

We haven't done much motorcycle riding due to the amount of rain and wind the last week. So much, in fact, that the annual Red Helmet ride was cancelled. A disappointment for sure but a huge safety issue for the riders.

This week we take care of Stu's feet, both our epidermis, hopefully get the carpet in the RV shampooed and take delivery on a new loveseat, have a couple more meals with family and then move the RV to Greenwood, DE.

We are definitely enjoying the fall colors starting to show, the Halloween decorations popping up everywhere and the familiarity of the familiar. (Yes, that is exactly what I meant to say!)

All in all, it's been quite a satisfying visit.