Thank You!

I'm finally back on. I wish to send a heart-felt thank you to all the folks who expressed their sympathies. I am still amazed that folks who have never even met you "for real" will take the time to write a short note. The RV community is wonderful, and there's nothing else to say about that!

The week before our troubles began, we had spent a few days down in Hillsborough State Park in Thonotosassa, FL. Very very nice park, and we will definitely return there again to enjoy the recreational activities available there. Our trip there had ulterior motives, however. I wanted to spend a day with my sister and her family while they were visiting Kissimmee, and we also wanted to attend the RV Supershow at the Tampa State fairgrounds.

Tuesday was our travel day down, about 2 1/2 hours from here at Otter Springs. We had made an appointment with Linda and Howard Payne of RV-Dreams.com to have our trailer weighed, so we stopped to have that done at Long View RV Superstores. Very nice folks at the dealership, beautiful facility. We plan on going back there and having an annual service done on the trailer before we leave Florida in April. After making our way to the campground, we were invited by other RV-Dreamers to join the campfire circle that night: Gin and Syl (Wandering Sylville) were our hosts, and we were also joined by Nancy and Bill (Our Road to Retirement), Sherry and David (In the Direction of Our Dreams) and Linda and Howard of RV-Dreams.com. It was a lively and entertaining night, thank you folks for making our night so much fun. Also, congrats to Gin and Syl on your new motorhome, and also to Nancy and Bill, who just contracted to sell
their house after being on the market for 19 months, and also on their new motorhome as well.

We had a lovely visit with my family, even though the weather did not co-operate for the first time since we arrived (its been a lovely winter here in Florida!), and we are all so happy that my Dad had a good visit with the grand-kids before he left us.

The house closing went off without a hitch, and we are now official Florida residents with our brand-new driver's licenses. Next up will be the title and tag transfers of our vehicles, and yes, I know how much that is down here when doing it for the first time :-)!

We have also been finally cleared to work! Background checks came in fine, and we had our drug screens done and back within a couple days, so we started last Friday. We work Friday Saturday and Sunday, for 5 hours a day. Our duties consist of mainly bath house cleaning once a day (2 bath houses with 2 showers each side), cleaning vacated sites and making sure sites are prepared for new arrivals, trash patrol throughout the park and along the hiking trails, and any other projects that may need assistance on during our shift. There are 5 workamper couples here, and everyone is so pleasant and easy-going. Otter Springs is really very nice, I like it here a lot. Its very quiet and peaceful. Since the county took over a couple of years ago, (it used to be privately owned) they have been working diligently to upgrade the facilities and make it a  really nice place. I have to say they are succeeding. The location is very pretty, but it is pretty far off of the main highways.  I think that is one thing keeping it from the snow-bird circuit. All sites have full hook-ups, they are slightly less crowded than your typical park down here ( and as they are upgrading, they are removing sites that are really making a section crowded, which is a great idea), there's a heated, indoor pool which is quite large, and its on the Suwanee River, great for kayaking or canoeing...or fishing if that's your thing. There's lots of birds here too, which I love. So if you're on the west coast of Florida heading up Hwy. 19, stop in and say hello. I'd love to see this campground become more widely known, its so nice.

Lastly on the news front, as my troubles keep going (if we have them all now, will the rest of the year be ok?), we had taken the dogs to "doggie day care" while visiting in Kissimmee and the RV Supershow. Friday, they came down with kennel cough! It's breaking my heart listening to them hack away, especially Casey. Chelsea had already been on medication (prednisone) for an ear infection, so that was subduing her symptoms somewhat, but Casey got this wet hacking cough that was terrible to listen to. We took them into the vet in Homosassa, and they are both on antibiotics now, with Casey also on Benadryl to calm the inflammation. They seem to be getting better, but Casey was a bugger, because he wouldn't eat anything and I didn't know how I was going to get the pills into him. He would finally take a puparoni treat that we stuffed the pills into, then he ate a few bits of chop meat, and now he is eating again.

So, today we head back to Homosassa

We did go to Cedar Key a couple of weeks ago for the day, and had a fun jaunt around the town, and did a hike in the Scrub Preserve. I'll leave you with a few pictures of that day, and see you soon.

We found an outdoor deck serving lunch that we could bring the dogs out to. This was our view as we ate.

Casey was ready for lunch!

Coconuts Restaurant and Bar, our table was under the green umbrella at the end of the deck

Beautiful day!

Hike through the scrub preserve, looking for scrub jays...don't think I saw any!

This building was in rough shape!