Sunday, November 15, 2009

Catchup TIme

It has been awhile since I posted here.  I may go back and fill in some period information but so far I am just trying to stay on track.

Once the plans for the Smart bed for Clifford were done enough to start finding fabricators, I found that the fabricators I had previously spoken to about the project, had all gotten a lot busier.  The primary one said that hunting season had just started and his main man was going to be gone until mid December.  Two other fabricators begged off with concerns about liability and too few employees at the moment to tackle it.  Pook!  They were all ready to jump on it 3 months ago without a second thought.

So, Merrily drove Sprite down instead of renting a car.   Since we were simulating a typical full timers traveling style we were not intending to move more than a few hundred miles a day.  This and the cost and trouble of renting something once we were at our destinations, was enough incentive to try it out.   After all, a lot of full timers drive in two vehicles when moving locations so how bad could it be.

In our case, it has been fine. Sure, it would be nice to have my honey by my side but this is working for now and it takes the pressure off to get the Smart bed built too quickly for its own good. It also has the advantage on these short junkets of having the Smart readily available when we want to spontaneously jaunt off track.

Katie loves it, too. She rides with Merrily in the Smart car and does fine.  She was having periods of angst when riding in CLifford.  I think now that it was due to her not being able to see Merrily.  M rides behind Dakotr so Katie can look out the front window and see Dakotr up ahead and goes back to sleep.

We spent a week camped in Disney’s Fort Wilderness campground in site 542.  It was a good site and the whole rig plus $prite fit into it still hooked up. Although we were there for the week we were only in a theme park for 2 days.

The first was the Animal Kingdom which was interesting but not particularly memorable. Part of the difficulty is that so much of it needs daylight to experience the animal aspects so it closes about 5pm and we are not early starters.

We went to Epcot on Merrily’s birthday and she got in for free.  That was nice and saved $80 or so. Katie spent the day in doggie day care at Ft Wilderness and did fine.  We closed the park… in the rain but saw the entire Illuminations light, fireworks and laser show.  It was worth the effort and the drizzle. We were in Epcot the first month it was open in 1982 and again in 1985 but not since then. It has fleshed out a lot more but still the same basic good times everywhere.

We also attended the Cirque Du Soleil – La Nueba show at Downtown Disney on our anniversary, 10/30. Great show. Pricey tickets but worth it for a one time experience. Not sure I would pay that to see it again, though.

Beyond these few specific items, we just enjoyed the Ft WIlderness campground experience.  Sometimes, its more about just being there than doing this or that.

Here at Jetty Maritime Park in Port Canaveral, it is also more about being there than what we are doing.  The intent in coming here was to see a space shuttle launch but this not a bad campground for a beach front campground. Rates are reasonable and there are some trees. Some big rig spaces work out, too.  Its a little light on the power/sewer connections mostly because the 50 amp sites are not sewer prepped.  The weather has been cool, though, with temps in the low to mid 70s and windy. Today was the first non-cloudy day and it was a gorgeous one. 

The shuttle launch is set for 11/16 and we plan to leave 11/17 for St Augustine Beach to visit family for a day or so before starting back to Raleigh.

This 3 weeks of simulated retirement has been  great.  We are both very happy, de-stressed and ready to do this full time.   Just have to get the ducks to walk in a row and wrap up the expense issues before we can take off.

ttfn