On the road again 2019

One thing we discovered during year two of our well-deserved retirement gig is the wonder of southern Florida in winter. Why would anyone in their right mind not be there in January and February? Yes it does have a bit of the "Nobody goes there anymore because its too crowded" syndrome. But it's totally worth it.
There are endless possibilities for the mature consumer in Florida. Buy a house, condo, trailer, RV, motor home, tent, travel trailer. Rent all the afore mentioned, know someone who has any of the afore mentioned and abuse their hospitality, get a hotel, Airbnb,  timeshare - you get the picture. The place is crawling with us northern sun followers.

Camp Runamuck

With this as our home base, we spent the weeks investigating Florida options, looking for a bigger and better RV, visiting friends and family. Fortunately my brother lives in Port Charlotte and he and Nancy were very hospitable to us on many occasions. On our last night be enjoyed our second annual German restaurant dinner along with Ellen. Chuck and Nancy realized too late the basic rule about German restaurants. Get the damn German food! Next year.

The first appointment I had in Florida was a call to Jury Duty. Nineteen years in New Jersey without a summons, but Florida nabbed me after about two weeks as a resident. Of course I was anxious to serve and be a catalyst to "throw some bum in jail" But about an hour into the process my hope of being chosen vanished. Talk about boring nonsense. Fortunately after seven hours of 
repetitive BS, nine poor Floridians were chosen and I happily was not among them. (PS- the guy was guilty. I could tell.)

Another fun thing to do when one is retired is to look at various "Florida options" for living. We went to a few 55 plus places where you buy a house but not the land. This sounds like a foolish idea, but I'm not sure if it is. We particularly liked one that had five swimming pools, a golf course, restaurant, pub and a little village square under the palm trees that was reminiscent of a quaint Mexican village from an old movie. We seriously toyed with this one until we got our senses back. At this point we want to continue traveling so we went out and bought a bigger camper. The added room has made us blissful! We went from one small slide out and one inner door to three slides and three doors! It's heaven, we call it the Taj M'Haul (get it, we haul it behind the truck?)

An astute follower of our blog will note that we keep running into 

the Deleviches, Elsie and Walt. Sometimes it's in Jersey, sometimes Pennsylvania, then there's the Chesapeake Bay, Chicago, Wisconsin, Sweden now we find them in Florida. First I ditched Svend and went to visit them and the wonderful Bethann and equally wonderful Phil Dunn in Del Ray Beach. I have to say it, I love the east coast beaches in Florida. It's the Atlantic Ocean, I'm very fond or it. It's not that I dislike the Gulf of Mexico or another large body of water, I just prefer the lovely Atlantic. However I realize we need to explore more of the west coast beaches and we will. Perhaps I'll change my mind.

Elsie and Walt came over to Fort Myers and we spent a rainy afternoon at the Edison Ford museum and homes. I know all you Nicolai Tesla aficionados love to put down Thomas Edison, but come on, he was amazing! Let's see - my accomplishments vs. 
Edison's accomplishments. Hmmm, well did he have a blog? I suppose he was too busy inventing a gazzion things. Go to his museums America, it's time well spent.

So we had to leave Florida to get back to Boston so I could go to Ireland with my family (scary blog to come someday) On the way out we camped at the Ocala National Forest at a place called Salt Springs. Should have been called heaven with it's amazing cool spring natural pool, tons of birds, large flat full hook up sites. We will be back!