Well, dear readers, the holidays are over! I can hardly believe it, but we all made it to 2025. In between spending quality time with our friends Sherry McClintock and Steve Kutina, we enjoyed deep diving into the Tiffin life.
We spent a very long day doing the final check out (to the best of our ability), signing papers (the easy part), and transferring our stuff (the hard part) into “Big G”. We were exhausted! And still had a three hour drive to our next destination, a small inland Golf and RV resort in Madison, FL we were both looking forward to. We BARELY made it in time to park while there was enough light to see what we were doing! Then we spent the first night pretending we knew what we were doing. Note for others: when you purchase a condo on wheels, EVERYTHING is just a little more complicated. So while Dale had mastered the essentially straight forward use of the heating system in Moses (the Winnebago), we spent a very cold night and morning learning it worked very different in Big G. Through trial and error, a little RTFM (IYKYK), and stretched patience, we figured it out. So we spent the next day and a half putting things away, decorating a little for Christmas, watching some sad Seahawks football and getting a little golf in. The resort is definitely outside the more popular snowbird locations, but we liked it! Could even consider returning for a longer stay in the future.
We made it to our KOA in Madiera Beach in St Petersburg on the 23rd. We spent the evening reworking our storage, and getting to know the A/C since we came in to high humidity and warmer temps. And after seven months of showering in the campground supplied facilities and using paid laundromats, what a kick it was to shower in my own “house” and do laundry without paying extra. As much as we loved our View, (and we really did!) we have become comfortable in our new condo embarassingly quickly! We’d also been having a great time on Amazon, ordering all kinds of organizing extras. So we were finally in a place where we could utilize the delivery address of the campground. Which by the way, I use that term loosely, since this was a “KOA” where half of the park was full of park models and seasonal rigs like ours. The other half was more for the short term stays. We aren’t sure how our 7-day stay qualified for the long term side…maybe they were subliminally trying to sell us on something. I finally struck up a conversation with one of the extensive staff members, and found out KOA has a work and stay program. Not all parks participate, but those that do offer you super discounted fees to stay in exchange for hours worked maintaining the site. This park had MANY folks participating. It’s intriguing….at least once we are done playing.
We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with Steve and Sherry. Christmas Eve we met up with their harbor-based friends, Don and Eileen, and enjoyed dinner and drinks on the town. On Christmas Day, Dale, and sous-chef Sherry, whipped up a really impressive prime roast dinner. The rest of our week was split between daily walks, and working on the condo and then spending the evening with Steve and Sherry. At the end of dinner one night, Sherry observed, from the safety of their car, that we had no tail lights. Our headlights were working just fine, so what the heck!?! Dale was so upset, he drove it back to the Avis the next day and asked for a new car. Which they could not accommodate because so many cars were rented! So, as I was the driver, I promised to ride the brakes on the way home. Something just didn’t seem right though. All these rental cars are different, but I just had to believe there was some button we needed to push. Well, four days into our rental period, I finally turned on the interior lights and found….how to “turn on” the headlights, and magically, the taillights came on too! Yes, I own it, I just assumed if the headlights were shining, then the lights must be on Auto. But apparently, this car had an “always on” set of headlights for safety. Kinda stupid error on my part, but at least I didn’t need to pretend to ride the brakes anymore.
We headed out to Jacksonville on NYE. We have Big G all tucked into the woods, and have been enjoying New Years Day football. Tomorrow we head to Charleston. We are both looking forward to being back for the next ten days. We’ve had to dig super deep for things to do in town that we haven’t already done! All the really cool food festivals and other events don’t start until March, but we WILL be in town for Restaurant Week! And Charleston is a GREAT place for that.
For now, dear readers, it’s NEW year, and another set of adventures to plan. We look forward to planning how best to cross paths as we continue our quest for National Park stamps!
Love y’all! Lady Wanderingwise
Weise's Wanderings 
Leave a comment