Florida - January 2013

On January 10th, we arrived in the Fort Meyers area, staying in Estero at the Koreshan State Historic Site. Turns out it was the only state park in the area with camping.

We headed to the Tampa area on Saturday, January 12th, staying at Lazy Days in Seffner for 5 nights. My sister Cathy, niece Michelle and nephews Benjamin, Brandon and Cameron, drove up from Palm Harbor to see us on Sunday.

On Monday we drove to Safety Harbor to see Julie’s Aunt Jo. On Tuesday, Julie and I both took the Lazy Days RV Driver’s Confidence Course. It was very good with classroom instruction in the morning and practical RV driving in the afternoon. We drove their Itasca Meridian motorhome around the campground, navigating many turns and around parked cars.

On Thursday, January 17th, we headed back to Mims (near Titusville) to stay at Willow Lakes RV & Golf Resort with Julie’s sister Cindy and brother-in-law Terry for 4 more nights. We headed to Fort Wilderness at Disney World on Monday for 3 nights. It was a nice RV park and convenient to the Disney parks. We walked to the dock and then took a ferry boat to Magic Kingdom on Tuesday.

Wednesday we went to see Animal Kingdom for our first time.

We went on the “African Safari”, which was very good open-air safari vehicle tour of a lush African savanna, home to many exotic animals.

After Animal Kingdom, we went to Disney’s Hollywood Studio for a couple of hours. It was a very long day.  On Thursday, January 24th, we left Disney and headed to Tallahassee. We met up with my sister Marcia and bother-in-law Mike who were headed to the Super Bowl and Mardi Gras in their motorhome. After a night in Tallahassee, we spent a night in Biloxi and a night in Lake Charles.

We said goodby to Mike and Marcia on Sunday, January 27th and headed to Austin to spend 3 nights to visit Julie's mom and nephew. We left on Wednesday, January 30th to head back to Colorado Springs with overnight stops in San Angelo and Amarillo. It was a fun 38-day trip, covering over 5,000 miles.

Florida - January 2013

We left for Florida on December 26th and overnighted in Clayton, NM; Denton, TX; Vicksburg, MS; and Tallahassee, FL before arriving in Titusville, FL late afternoon on December 30th. We stopped at Country Tavern, near Kilgore, TX, for a lunch of BBQ ribs—best in the USA.

We enjoyed seeing Julie’s Mom from Austin, Aunt Jo from Safety Harbor, FL and her sister Cindy and brother-in-law Terry from Titusville, where the weather was warm and sunny.

We spent New Year’s Eve with 8 other couples and Julie’s Mom and Aunt participating in a poker run (using golf carts) and answering Trivia Pursuit questions. It was a lot of fun and we laughed a lot.

We enjoyed dinner with Julie’s family at a seafood restaurant on Tuesday, New Year’s Day.  Julie’s Mom and Aunt Jo departed on Wednesday. On Thursday, we drove to Daytona Beach for lunch and stopped by the Daytona International Speedway on the way home where La Mesa RV was holding a small RV show.

We went to Cocoa Beach on Friday night to celebrate Cindy’s birthday. Ironically, Julie and I had gone to Cocoa Beach (about 30 miles away) earlier in the day for lunch, not knowing we’d end up there for dinner too.

We left Titusville on Saturday morning and drove south 375 miles to Key West. We’re staying on Sigsbee Navy Annex at the military campground. We picked out our camp site, not knowing the potential danger of getting hit in the head by a coconut!

Yesterday, January 8th, we took a boat trip to Dry Tortugas National Park, 70-miles west of Key West. It was an interesting visit to Fort Jefferson, constructed over 30-years beginning in 1846, but never finished.

On the way back to Key West, our boat had an engine problem and could only use one of two engines. That resulted in a top speed of only 14-knots vs. 25+-plus knots and arriving back in Key West at 8PM vs. 5:30PM. However we got some great photos of a famous Key West sunset from out on the water.

We leave tomorrow and head up to the Fort Meyers area for a couple of days before we head to Tampa on Saturday.