When time slowed down

A hunting dynasty that included thoroughbreds, show jumping horses, polo ponies and hunting dogs of all shapes and sizes. Beautiful both inside and out but unfortunately they don't allow photography inside.

All in all a very busy couple of weeks.

We decided that since we did Interstate up to Tallahassee we would do side roads back and took FL 27 south. What an eye opener! We should have taken this road up, it's 4 lanes,no traffic, very few towns and shorter!! Duh....

We stopped at Homasossa for a couple of nights. Someone had told us what a great place it is, how the campground is wonderful etc, etc. 

If wine isn't the answer then don't ask the question

Needless to say we were disappointed and the campground was expensive (to our mind) for what as basically a weekend party resort for people from Orlando. 

We dropped by the Elks Lodge to unwind then moved a little closer to our final destination in Orlando. We decided to stay at the SKP's Sumter Oaks RV Park. As soon as we entered the office we met with somebody we knew from SKP's Chapter 57. Once set up we got invited over for a “Happy Hour” and lo and behold there were more Chapter 57 members and we were immediately at home and relaxed. You can't beat SKP's and/or Elks for a friendly welcome.

Chapter 57 Happy Hour

Party time

Laundry and sketching took up the following day and the evening was the night I was to be initiated at the Eagle Eerie in Oklahumpka. So now I'm an Eagle as well as an Elk!

Sumpter Oaks was quiet and getting quieter by the day as the Snow Birds left to go back north. Even the work campers left. Somebody mentioned there would only be 4 occupied rigs during the summer.

Sketch of Sumpter Oaks SKP Park

No need for binoculars when you bird watch here.

Barbara and I had the run of the place for the rest of the week. We discovered that the TV in the big activities center could get NBCSN so we watched the Russian Grand Prix on Friday, Saturday and Sunday to get our Formula 1 fix. Barbara got to watch Call the Midwife on PBS and we also caught up on Home Fires. Unfortunately the park has poor TV and phone connectivity so we couldn't watch our own TV (we don't have, nor do we want satellite TV). Luckily our phone booster system got us a good phone/internet connection and the activity center has a big library of books, magazines and DVD's so we got our movie fix too!

Pen and ink sketch of a 1940 Plymouth Woody Wagon

Thousand Trails in Orlando was like, well Thousand Trails! A very wide assortment of RV's from Mega Motor-homes to beat up trailers. It was very, very quiet without the snowbirds and winter family tourists. We had a quiet couple of weeks reading, watching TV, sketching and sorting out all the things we need to do before we fly out to UK.

I got to hang out with the creative people at the Leesburg Center for the Arts again

Cinco De Mayo party at LCA

I called my sisters and caught up with their news, messaged our friends to let them know we were on our way, searched the internet for motor-homes for sale in the UK, and finally decided that when we get to London we'll take the train to Portsmouth and stay with my Aunt Sheila for several days while we look for a camper van. We let her know and ordered a GPS to be delivered to her house. We have to remember to call it a “Sat Nav” because that's what they call them in UK. There will be a few new phrases we'll have to learn while we're over there.

Time dragged, we got on each others nerves, made excuses to go out shopping or for dinner just to get out of the campground. Waiting and anticipating are tough.

Boredom got the better of me so I got creative and invented a way to make “Solar Shades” for the RV windows. When it's stored down here in Orlando the daytime temperatures are going to be in the 90's every day and it's very humid too. To keep the heat down inside I got rolls of reflective insulation and cut them so they were 1” bigger than the inside of the window frames. That let me tuck them into the frames to retain them, no tape needed. And they seem to work. The next day the outside temperature was 95 but with one AC unit running it was 77 inside.

My home made "Solar Shades"

After we got to bed one night the phone started ringing but we ignored it. In the morning I looked and it was Mike and Lynne our Aussie friends. I called them back (Allowing for the 2 hour time difference!). It turns out they are in Calgary Alberta and the sun had come out! The rest of their Aussie friends are arriving over the next couple of days and they will then caravan around the area for several weeks. It was good catching up with their news and to have them catch up on ours. 

Maybe we'll meet up again next year.

Time was dragging, then we started packing our cases, prepping the rig for storage. 

Seems to be picking up speed again!