The months of December and January have been the best so far

 



The months of December and January have been the best so far. We have some exciting news, we have sold the 2 scooters and bought a car. When we were in Key West we put our scooters on Craigslist to see if there was anybody interested in buying them, we had a few calls but nothing was for sure. When we left Key West we took the ad off Craigslist. A week after we got back to Orlando we received a call from a guy in Key West willing to come up to Orlando and pay us twice what our scooters were worth, seemed like a scam but

he showed up at our campground and paid us cash for the scooters, hard to pass up. It was hard to see the scooters go but we were able to find a nice car that we can pull behind the coach. The car will certainly allow us more freedom to visit more places without having to rent a car.

Leaving New Orleans on November 27^th we went to a PA (Passport America) park in Miramar Beach Geronimo RV park for 2 days. The Beach has gorgeous white sand that looks like snow. The whole area is beautiful from Pensacola to Destin to Miramar beach. We didn’t need to unload the scooters here, the beach was only 2 blocks away from the campground, we walked to the beach as soon as we got set-up. We spent the whole 2 days walking and exploring the beach. We will definitely be back to this area but for now we had to pack up and head towards Orlando. On the way to Orlando we stayed at a Wal-Mart in Lake City Fl, and we took advantage of Applebee’s 2 for $20 deal while parked for free in a Wal-Mart parking lot, cheap night.

We arrived in Orlando Thousand Trails (TT) park on December 1st and was very surprised, this place is super nice. We are so glad we ditched Texas and headed to Florida, the resort has 850 sites with 2 large pools, pickle ball courts, mini golf and a lot of activities daily. The park also has bingo on Mondays and Wednesdays and on Tuesdays they set up a farmers market with local fruits and vegetables, very cool. On the first weekend in Orlando we rented a car for the weekend through Enterprise rent a car, $10.00 a day weekend rate and they even came here and picked me up. On Saturday night we drove to “Old town” Old town has a classic car show on Friday and Saturday nights, we spent the night walking around looking at classic cars and at 8:00 they cruise up and down the main street. It  is a lot of free fun that we would recommend to anyone going to Orlando to attend. We also drove to Downtown Disney and walked around, Downtown Disney was free and ok but kind of a tourist trap.


Blue Water Key

Fort Lauderdale Beach



We left Orlando on December 15th and stayed at an RV park in Fort Lauderdale for 2 days as we wanted to check out Miami and South Beach on our way to Key West. We also rented a car in Fort Lauderdale to get to South Beach. South Beach is such a cool place that we had been to before on a cruise ship. Next stop is Blue Water Key for 5 days. We arrived at Blue Water Key RV resort and were blown away. This is the nicest place we have ever stayed at. We have our own Tiki Hut and private dock on the ocean. There was a great place to eat right down the road from Blue Water Key “Kaya Eats” they have a great Happy hour and wonderful food, get the wings. We would have stayed at the Blue Water Key  longer other than the cost.

Now Boyd’s Key West Campground in Key West, we loved. We stayed at Boyd’s for 8 nights including our Christmas. We were able to ride our scooters everywhere in Key West without a care in the world. The weather was beautiful, in the 80s every day.

 

On Christmas Day we went deep sea fishing what a great way to celebrate Christmas. Every day at sunset most everybody heads to Mallory Square to watch the sunset and the many street performers. We found some great restaurants in Key West with the best happy hours, if you stay in Key west look for the A & B Lobster House, on the docks below the A & B Lobster House are 3 or 4 restaurants that have ½ off their menus from 4 – 6 every day, best deal in Key West. We love Key West and will be back next year no matter what.

 

               

Back to Orlando Thousand Trails for New Year’s eve. On our last visit here we had met a couple from Canada and looked forward to seeing them again. The park had a New Year’s Eve party with a band and snacks. We took our first road trip in the “new old car” we drove to Daytona Beach to drive on the beach, what a cool experience. We also visited the Daytona 500 racetrack, we will be in Florida on February 24th for the Daytona 500 so we decided to buy tickets to the race. This will be the first Nascar race we have ever been too, we attended the Indy 500 a few years ago and loved it. We went to Universal Studios “City walk” while in Orlando this time and had a blast. This place is way better than Downtown Disney and would recommend this place if you like to have adult fun. They have many, many  night clubs including a Karaoke bar "Rising Star" that has a live band with back-up singers and the place rocks, also a Pat Obrien’s with a dueling piano bar.

We spent our 2 weeks in Orlando and had to move on to our next destination, TT Peace River in Wauchula Florida. The park is southwest of Orlando near Tampa with a small town country feeling. We really liked this park, the pool and hot tub were smaller than those at Orlando but they were nice, newer and clean. We drove the “new old car” to Tampa, Fort Myers, Captiva and Sanibel Island while we were in Wauchula. We liked the peaceful easy feeling this park has, but we never got to see any alligators or even a snake like people were saying this park had.

Thousand Trails Orlando

We are back in Orlando for 2 more weeks and we honestly feel somewhat at home when we come to this park. The people are very nice, the pools are always warm and the place is always neat and clean. With so many restaurants and attractions in the area there is always something to do. Being the area has so much to do if you plan accordingly Orlando can be a cheap place to stay. Most restaurants have a happy hour and daily specials and if you hit them at the right time (4-6) food and drinks can be quite reasonable ($3.00 appetizers & $1.00 beers)

We are preparing for our family vacation to Jamaica with the kids in February. The kids are flying out of Minneapolis and meeting us in Jamaica, we are flying from Orlando. We haven’t seen them since October and can’t wait to see them. We will be in Jamaica for a week staying at Legends on the beach. Laurie has been working on her tan for the past couple of weeks and she is looking forward to cliff diving and snorkeling and just hanging with the kids. We were married in Jamaica 14 years ago and have been there on 3 different occasions but never with the kids.

After we get back from Jamaica we will be staying at Southern Palms RV Resort just north of Orlando in Eustis Florida for 2 weeks. We also have the Daytona 500 on February 24^th then back to TT Orlando for 10 days before we head to Seyenna Vistas RV resort in Mesa Arizona for a month. On April 11^th Ed and Missy (nephew & wife) are flying to Phoenix to travel with us. They will be staying in Mesa with us for a few days and then will be traveling with us from Phoenix to Laughlin Nevada (2 days) then with us to Las Vegas for 5 days before they fly back to Minnesota and we head to Palm Springs California.

Safe travels, Jeff and Laurie