Happy Holidays to All!
Connie and I are enjoying our relaxing time at Patrick AFB in Florida. We can't believe we've been here for 2 months already! The weather here has still been humid, now in the mid-70's. We recently had some terrible rain storms, but it's all sunshine again.
We're not doing too much, other than our usual winter "work" of preparing software for a client. We're about 75% complete and should be finished within a month. We'll have the time to spend with our eldest daughter (Leslie) and grand-daughters (Kaylee and Khloe) in February. A while back we knew we would be in Florida and we offered to take them to Disney World for a few days. They live in Seattle, so this will be a special treat for them. We took our other daughter (Cynthia) and her friend to Disney World in 2009. We were here waiting to pickup our current motorhome from the dealer. Now it's the other girl's turn.
We've booked a week at Disney's "Fort Wilderness" RV Park in mid-February. All three of them will be out of school for Spring break. Although Disney's Fort Wilderness RV Park is a tad expensive, it's convenient. 1) Disney will pick the three girls up from the airport. 2) We don't have to pay the high cost daily parking for a car. 3) We each can come and go to the Disney Parks as we wish directly from the RV Park. The girls may want to stay out late, but Connie and I can drag our tired butts back to the RV in the early evening without waiting for them. The RV Park itself is pretty nice, with scheduled events for campers. We're all looking forward to this "special" get-together!
Besides relaxing here at Patrick AFB, we've been catching up on a few maintenance tasks. The arms of the drivers and passenger chairs of the motorhome were starting to look pretty bad, after 10 years of use. While in Goshen, Indiana, we had ordered new arm covers and recently installed them. Now the chairs look new again!
We've had this motorhome for 10 years and I always thought our water heater was an Atwood brand that didn't have an "anode" rod. Recent discussions about water heaters made me take a look and surprise! We have a Suburban brand that DOES have an anode rod. An anode rod is a steel core wire surrounded with one of three different metals. These metals include aluminum, magnesium, and zinc. They protect the water heater from rusting. They should be inspected annually and replaced as needed. Oops! Our anode was gone! I replaced it and hope the life of our water heater wasn't severely effected.
Connie and I have also been making our 2020 travel plans. While we know this will change several times, we've finished version 1.1. Currently, our upcoming travel plans consist of:
- January - February: Staying at Patrick AFB, FL. until mid-February. Disney World for a week, then put the RV in the shop for about a week for some repairs.
- March: We start heading north, stopping in northern Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.
- April: We plan to visit North Carolina and Virginia.
- May: Planning to tour parts of Washington DC, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
- June: Visiting New Hampshire, and Maine.
- July: Our main goal this summer is to tour the Maritimes region of Canada. This month, we'll visit New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
- August: Taking a ferry to New Foundland, back to Nova Scotia, then over to Prince Edward Island.
- September - November: Heading back to the USA with Arizona as our destination for the winter. The current route has us going back via Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico, into Arizona.
Here's my first "test" of the zoom on my new camera, a Nikon P900. When fully zoomed in, I need a good tripod. Holding the camera still and staying in focus is almost impossible without a good tripod and using Connie's shoulder while she's swatting mosquitoes wasn't much help either. These photos were taken without a tripod. Connie hasn't played with her new toy yet. But soon!