Tampa

We left LaBelle last Tuesday and drove back to Seffner to get settled in at Lazydays RV Resort for six nights. Our friends Kris and Jan from Albuquerque met us at the campground.

Wednesday morning we headed to the nearby Florida State Fairgrounds to go to the Florida RV Super Show, the largest in the country with over 1,550 RVs on display, 450 vendor booths, covering 26 acres.

Our RV show tickets were good for two days so we went again on Thursday and met my sister Marcia and brother-in-law Mike who drove up the 120-miles from LaBelle.  In the late-afternoon we headed to the Columbia Restaurant in the Ybor City Historic District area of Tampa. The Columbia Restaurant is the oldest restaurant in Florida and was founded in 1905. It has remained in the same family for 114-years since it first opened. The Spanish style food is very, very good.

We head south tomorrow for warmer temperatures and a two-week stay in Key West.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Wintering in Florida

After spending Christmas in Cedar Key, we drove to Seffner, Florida for a short three-night stay at Lazydays RV Resort. We visited Julie’s Aunt Jo, who turns 92 in March, and enjoyed lunch together. She loves to garden and grow flowers in her backyard.

On Saturday, January 29^th, we drove south to LaBelle, about 20-miles east of Fort Myers, to spend a couple of weeks at Oak Grove RV Resort. We spent several months here last year. My sister Marcia and brother-in-law Mike are also staying in LaBelle, but at another RV resort up the road. We enjoyed New Year’s Eve, but at these 55+ resorts, the ball drops a lot earlier than midnight!

We enjoyed going to a musical a few weeks ago, On Your Feet, The Emilio & Gloria Estefan Broadway Musical, in Fort Myers with Mike and Marcia.

Mike and Marcia invited us over for dinner one night and Marcia made Key Lime pie martinis. They were yummy! The sunset was awesome too.

Last Friday we enjoyed going to the Friday Night car races at Mike and Marcia’s RV resort. The cars are all radio-controlled and battery or gas-powered. There were eight racing heats and then a feature race with the heat winners. We liked all the races and I got an idea of how hard it must be for the drivers to control their radio-controlled cars.

We enjoyed an evening out tonight at The Boathouse Tiki Bar & Grill in east Fort Myers on the Caloosahatchee River with several folks from the RV park we're staying at. It was our first time there and we'll be going back.

  
We head back to Seffner tomorrow where we’ll spend six nights at Lazydays RV Resort. We’re going to the 2019 Florida RV Super Show, the country’s biggest RV show, which is open Wednesday-Sunday. Our friends Kris and Jan from Albuquerque are meeting us on Tuesday.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Cedar Key

We drove to Low Key Hideaway in Cedar Key, Florida last Thursday, December 20^th for a six-night stay. We got set up in our campsite and put up our Christmas decorations.

The next day, we left our motorhome and drove our pickup 120-miles down to Palm Harbor near Tampa to attend our niece’s wedding on Friday night. The wedding was lots of fun. We got to see my three sisters and many of our nieces and nephews.

We drove back to Cedar Key on Saturday where our cat Shasta was waiting our return. My sister Marcia and brother-in-law Mike met us with their motorhome in Cedar Key as well as my sister Janet and her wife Nancy in their camping van.   

On Christmas Eve day, my sister Cathy, her son Benjamin, daughter Mickey, new son-in-law Andy and their children came up from the Tampa area to celebrate the holiday with us. Mike and Marcia hosted Christmas this year and we all thoroughly enjoyed the day, including a late-afternoon stop by the Tiki bar.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Destin

We went to Destin, Florida to one of our favorite state parks, Henderson Beach State Park, on December 13^th where we stayed for six nights. It was a short walk from our campsite to the park’s pristine Gulf of Mexico beach, with white sand and emerald-colored water. 

My sister Janet and her wife Nancy joined us for our last two nights in the park. We especially enjoyed a boat trip from Destin Harbor to watch for dolphins.

We left Destin on December 19^th and drove to Eastpoint, Florida for an overnight stay. It was heartbreaking to drive through Panama City, past Tyndall Air Force Base, and through Mexico Beach and witness all the devastation from Hurricane Michael. The eye of the Category 4 hurricane hit Mexico Beach on October 10, 2018 with peak winds of 155 mph. The seaside town sustained major damage.

We arrived at Low Key Hideaway in Cedar Key, Florida last Thursday, December 20^th for a six-night stay through Christmas.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Sweet Home Alabama

We left the San Antonio area on Sunday, December 2^nd and drove east through Houston to Beaumont. After overnighting there, we headed to Biloxi for a 3-night stay. We enjoyed walking along the beach across the highway from our RV park, on a new boardwalk that Biloxi had built.

We especially enjoyed meeting old friends Paul and Darlene for dinner in nearby Ocean Springs.

We departed Biloxi on Thursday, December 6^th and drove through Mobile on our way to the gulf coast area of southern Alabama. We had never been to this part of Alabama before. It was a good time to visit the area because it was “low-season” and we missed all the summer crowds and traffic congestion.

We stayed at Bella Terra, a beautiful RV resort in Foley, Alabama, just north of Gulf Shores for a week.    

We went to Lambert’s in Foley one night for dinner. We had gone to Lambert’s several years ago in Ozark, Missouri (between Springfield and Branson, Missouri) and were surprised to learn there are only three locations.

We head out tomorrow to Destin, Florida to one of our favorite state parks, Henderson Beach State Park, where we’ll stay for 6-nights.

Steve & Julie Cornelius