Adventures Every Day - Some More Fun Than Others

Well, I haven't caught you up in a number of days as to what we've been up to and frankly the "writing bug" has been tapping me on the shoulder, so here's another episode of our "Adventure in Making A New Life Amongst the Alligators".

 It's interesting that my sister and bro-in-law just asked us the other evening what we do all day.  Well, of course Al's answer is easy - he works all day, then stops for supper, watches a few movies on Roku, plays Angry Birds with me for a while, then hits the hay.

I, on the other hand, had to admit that I mostly unpack, stop for a while to check email or read articles or check out Facebook etc., then unpack for a while, stop to maybe run an errand or two, come back, unpack another box or two, then pick up with Al for supper, movies, Angry Birds, etc.  It's tiring, fairly boring, and involves little of what I think of as "a wonderful, funderful time".  Some adventure, huh?

Well, one of the things we do other than the above is search for good restaurants in the area.  We are, as my bro-in-law stated lately, somewhat out in the Styx here in Central Florida - just BETWEEN two large cities (Ocala to the north and Orlando to the south) so there isn't any mecca here of what you might call "fine dining".  Because of this, our hunt for really good restaurants has not met with great success... until just a few nights ago.

See, January 16th was Al's and my 41st wedding anniversary, and we had intended, as we do each year, to go out to dinner to a really nice restaurant.  We had chosen what looked to be a promising "Asian Fusion" restaurant and had invited my sister and bro-in-law to join us.  Sadly, prior commitments prevented their accepting, and as it turned out, that day was not a good one for Al and he was pretty much house-bound.  Instead of trying the Asian Fusion place I drove out to the local "Outback" and brought something home for us but of course, that wasn't really any sort of celebration (though it was a definite improvement over fast food or pizza!)

So the following day we phoned my sister to see if they wanted to get together for dinner THAT evening and they graciously told us they would take us to a really, really fine restaurant as not only an anniversary gift but also a "Welcome to Florida" gift.  How could we refuse?  You're right - we couldn't and we didn't.  We agreed to meet them at 7 at The Legacy Restaurant; ( http://www.legacyrestaurant.com/ ) part of the Nancy Lopez Country Club which is actually not far from our house at all.  What could be easier?

Well, it didn't turn out to be quite as easy as all that, and it was because of our Garmin GPS device.  Yes, I blame the Garmin entirely!  Let me explain:   When Heather told us the name of the place we looked it up on the internet, studied the menu and took a look at how to get there from here.  The route looked pretty straightforward but when we got into the car and turned on the Garmin it outlined a different route that actually looked shorter than the route from the internet.  Putting our trust in the Garmin that had, after all, brought us across the entire country, off we went.

We started to get uncomfortable when the Garmin instructed us to go into one of the private, gated communities (why the gate opened for us I still haven't figured out) but we kept faith and before long we could see the lights of the restaurant on the top of the hill nearby.  The only problem was that the only road leading to it was only big enough for GOLF CARTS!  Where have I had problems with golf carts before???  OH YEAH - That Other Restaurant incident!!   Hey, I could develop a "THING" about golf carts and restaurants already!

Anyway, we would have been on time if the golf cart lane had been a real road so now we were late and had to backtrack and try to find the place via my vague memory of how the internet said to get there.  With a little help from a friendly gate guard we finally arrived - and discovered that the restaurant was one of those with NO signage, no arrows saying "Hungry people go this way" or anything like that - you had to ALREADY KNOW which building the restaurant was!  (Garmin didn't even try to guess).  Confused and somewhat frustrated, I appealed to some strangers who looked particularly well-sated, and they led us in the right direction, where we finally met up with the family.

Well, I must say, the confusion and delay were well worth it!  The atmosphere was charming, the music soft and pleasing, the service friendly and prompt, and the food, excellent!  Not to mention my favorite part of the evening, the company we were with!  I always have the very best times with my family!  Thanks again, guys - it was lovely!  Now THAT was a celebration!

The next day I did a lot of unpacking in our bedroom and the kitchen (we're presently sleeping in our guest bedroom, since - oh, did I mention it? - the movers broke the pedestal of our water bed and we had to order a new one so we're waiting for delivery on that.  It'll be a few more weeks.  Special order, you know. Anyway, so I kept busy doing that, and it was just as well, because at about midday it began to rain - a really good, strong, hard, steady rain.

Of course RIGHT THEN is when the delivery truck rolled up to deliver the 2 big birdcages we ordered for our flock.  Oh, and by the way, the cages were NOT built.  No.  They came in PARTS that Al and I had to construct like giant, 3D jigsaw puzzles (this was not a surprise to us, in case you wondered).  But first we had to get them into the house.  I know you can already visualize Al, me, and this truck driver guy standing in the pouring rain unloading this HUMONGOUS bunch of boxes all tied together with strapping tape and plastic and rising off the pallet like a skyscraper in miniature.  Seven enormous shipping cartons, 7 or 8 inches wide and some of them over 80 inches long and each of them heavier than an elephant in a suitcase.  In the pouring rain.  Well, it IS Florida, after all.

Dorian is NOT in the cage

Eventually the boxes were safely inside, taking up most of the space in front of our front door and dripping rainwater onto the carpet but that was okay because WE were also dripping rainwater onto the carpet.  We dried off, took a good, long break (well, actually Al went back to work to be perfectly honest about that part) and after dinner we tackled the smaller cage.  Dorian's.  Here it is...   It took us 2-1/2 hours to wrestle the thing together.  The chair in front of it is a dining room chair so you can get an idea of how large it is.  It's MUCH, MUCH larger than his old cage was.  It's 64" tall, 43" across and 36" deep, and though he was uncomfortable in it at first he seems to be acclimating to it pretty quickly.  Oh, and he's developed a new habit.  During the journey across the country he started saying "want gummy" a great deal, and it soon became clear that he didn't mean "gummy bear".  We're still not sure what exactly he wants when he says it - but I suspect he means that he wants to share my breakfast - because once he's chomping down on whatever I'm having he stops saying "want gummy" and becomes more contented.  Even as I type he's next to me on the dining room table, mowing through my leftover Steak, Mushroom, and Cheese sub.   He even lets me have some!

Triumphant after our successful cage-building, we bravely set forth to try out that Asian Fusion restaurant, which I had accidentally located when I went to pick up our food at the Outback that other night because the Asian Fusion restaurant is in the same shopping center.  Go figure!  Well, this restaurant, called Bamboo Bistro turned out to be very good!  It combined food from several parts of Asia, and we had a lot of fun with our waitress, teaching her the names of certain Japanese food items we wanted to ask the sushi chef for.  More than once she returned to the table saying that, while the chef regretted he didn't have what we asked for, he enjoyed laughing at the waitress's attempts to pronounce it.  So we've now found two really nice restaurants, and have resolved to continue the hunt!  Neither of us really wants to drive an hour or more to Orlando where we know we'd find a ton of restaurants (probably crowded with a ton of tourists, though thankfully I doubt I'd see any golf carts there) however Ocala to the north promises to have much to offer and it's definitely closer - only about 15 - 20 miles!  Apparently around here you need to be willing to travel a bit!  (the nearest Costo is over 40 miles distant though there's a Walmart maybe half a mile from here)

Anyway, so back at the house the next day, now we had one large cage, two small cages (and don't think Rover wasn't jealous of Dorian's new, roomy digs!  He tried harder than ever to remove himself from the small travel cage!), four huge boxes and 3 EMPTY huge boxes all over the room.  I tried to distract myself from this chaos by going out and doing errands while Al was working but eventually I had to come back and try to make sense of all the stuff.

Both birds ARE in the cage

FINALLY Al's work day was done and  we unpacked all the pieces, grabbed our electric screwdrivers and with much grunting, groaning, and determination put together this 80" x 40" x 74" monster for Rover and Pol.  It's a Double Cage, meaning there's a removable cage wall in the middle so the birds can be together if we take it out or separated when we put it back in.   We had also bought several Java Wood perches of varying sizes (from Medium up to Holy-Cow-Where-is-THAT-Gonna-Fit???) and part of constructing the cages was figuring out where to put them, then going about attaching them with me standing INSIDE the cage (oh, Al LOVED that part!!).

By the way, in case you wondered what Java Wood is, (I know I did!)  when coffee trees get too old to produce, they cut them down and use the wood for other uses, such as perches for bird cages.  Like manzanita, Java Wood is very dense and hard, making it difficult for birds, who chew on EVERYTHING to bite through it, so it lasts for many years.  See?  Reading my blog is EDUCATIONAL!

We had a bit of trouble convincing Rover to get into the new cage.  As those of you who know him recall, Rover is frightened by just about everything, and this huge strange thing with the branches all over looked like it might just have a taste for Umbrella Cockatoo.  It was a huge act of faith for him to let me put him into it. We opened the divider for a while and the two birds promptly sought each other out for comfort but by the time we wanted to put them to bed they were each in the half of the cage we had intended for the other and we couldn't get them to switch places so we put back the divider, covered them with a dark-colored bedsheet (not even nearly large enough) and until Al and I went to bed they clung to the front bars of the cage where they could see us.  Once we switched off the lights they each found a  perch to settle on and this morning I found them each peacefully napping.  Polgara, being an Amazon, who by nature are fiercely independent and assertive, seems to be acclimating more easily than Rover but now that they've breakfasted and had a fresh drink, they're just sitting contently on the new branches looking out the front window.  Whew.  Today's assignment:  go to Joann Fabric and get about 6 yards of dark-colored felt to use as a night cover for the huge cage.

As to Al and me, after 3-1/2 hours of construction we were both exhausted, aching, and ready for a hot tub (which they do have at the community center by the way - but it was far too late for it to be available).  The last task was to bring the empty boxes out to the corner of our driveway to be collected by the trash men.  This accomplished, we collapsed onto the sofa, watched The Pajama Game, played a bit of Angry Birds, and went to bed.

Rachael phoned just as we turned out the light, so a brief conversation with her put some icing on what otherwise was a very tiring day.  As I look around, there are still tons of boxes everywhere but I'm beginning to think we may actually open them all someday - but maybe not today.  I gotta rest!!

I'm TIRED!!!

Moving-In Day - A Tale of Terror...well...Horror?

I seem to recall that when Al and I were young and wanted to move from place A to place B it was hard work but kind of fun.  We'd call up a bunch of friends, buy a case of champagne, and hand a bottle to each helper to refresh themselves as they saw fit, and somehow it all got done in a day and everything went back to normal pretty quickly.  Nothing got broken, nothing was lost, and all the furniture was set up exactly the way we wanted it.

That was then.

I seem to recall that when we moved into the house we just left it was a "Move from Hell".  The unloading team here a handful of guys we referred to as "gorillas" because they seemed not to care where they put what, despite our instructions, and laughed rather a lot about piling up most of our boxes in the garage.  And we had lived in a small place so didn't have a great deal of stuff.

Perhaps it's the rental of strangers' musculature that makes all the difference.  The move out was exhausting and  stressful but somehow or other it got done.  The sad thing is that during the weeks and weeks before the move that I spent packing, I carefully inventoried every item that went into each box.  Then time ran out and I had to contract Bekins to finish packing for me.  Their inventory sheets listed things like "Stor all con, pbo/cm" or "cube carton".  I don't recall owning any Stor all cons...Happily, the packers wrote on the outside the room from which they'd packed whatever-it-was but here I am, 2500 miles later unable to find my telephones, my kitchen utensils, and a myriad of other essentials.

Yeah, I know I'm bitching but believe me - that's just the tip of the iceberg.  I'm telling you this horror story for a reason and it isn't JUST to relieve my own frustration, though frankly, venting it is helpful.

The moving van in front of our new car.

While the guy who drove the truck was very professional and helpful, the team he had to hire from "Gator Moving" up in Gainesville had an issue or two.  They were three young men and we should have anticipated trouble when they showed up an hour late.   The day itself was lovely - not too warm, not too cold, just a few fluffy clouds in the sky - the occasional new neighbor coming by to introduce themselves...then came the  Three Stooges.  Well, honestly, two of them had a nice attitude and all three were very respectful however one of them - the youngest, was one of those kids who want to do exactly the job he was told he was to do and to move anywhere outside that definition was to mortally offend him.  His name was Sonny (I knew this by the tattoo on his neck that said "Sonny").  So picture this, if you will.  Al and I are strategically positioned in the garage, ready to examine every box and piece of furniture and specify where it was to be put.  The one exception to this was that the team was warned beforehand that there was a great deal of furniture to go into the room designated as the Office and much of it had to be put together, so the boxes marked "Office" needed to be set aside for the time being.

The day was VERY long, and before it was over I dearly wanted to burn every cardboard box with 10 miles but at long, long last the final box was off the truck and the furniture was in the house,.  Mostly.  Sort of.  See, it was getting late and Sonny got antsy because the driver (Kevin) told him he had to help put together things like the guest bed and the office furniture.  He starting whining about how he was hired to take stuff off the truck and nothing more, and turning to us, assured us he would move those "Office" boxes into the house out of the goodness of his heart.  Kevin gently read him the riot act, telling him his job was to make the Bekins customer happy and to quit being childish.  Sonny shut up but remained surly for the rest of the job.  Al tipped him anyway.  There were a lot of boxes...there still are.

And today I've been trying to unload the RV...alone.  I keep thinking about those three guys who, as it turns out, put boxes...oh, it any room they felt like, left stacks of them scattered all over the place, set down some of the furniture so the drawers were facing the walls, and quite nearly left Al's dresser in the guest bedroom (glad I caught that one!).  Such quality work.  Aren't you proud of our young American workers?

Anyway, the bottom line - the reason I've told you my tale of woe is to give you fair warning!  My Aunt Pearl and Uncle Sam were right all those years ago when they moved from New England to California!  Take their example to heart and SAVE YOURSELF!  If, for any reason at all you decide you need to move, do NOT pack up your stuff!  SELL EVERYTHING and start over on the other side!  I'm serious!  I know you've kept your mom's Rococo-Baroque lamp for all these years but GET RID OF IT!  Save yourself.  Hire an estate liquidator.  They take a percentage but they do all the work for you.  Think of the fun you'll have designing a brand new home when you get to wherever-it-is!  A new home - a new look - and no hassles, no idiots putting your clearly marked Living Room item into the kitchen.  No broken furniture, (part of our waterbed frame got broken so we have to buy a new one, despite having carted the heavy old one across the country), no lost items, no living in a forest of cardboard.  Believe me - it'll be worth it.

A Gaggle Of Golf Carts?

What do you call a large group of golf carts?  We know it's a gaggle of geese, a pride of lions, a murder of crows (yes, it is!) a sleuth of bears... oh, collective nouns are fun.  They define everything from a parliament of owls to a passel of possum and an ostentation of peacocks.  But I've gotta wonder - what's the proper terminology for golf carts?  There's a reason I ask...

As you may recall, yesterday I mentioned that we went to the nearby Japanese Steak House for dinner.  Since the sushi bar there was somewhat simplistic we resolved to try another Japanese restaurant tonight, this one located in the very popular Lake Sumter Landing town square which is part of The Villages.  This restaurant had a nice website and looked to be somewhat more, let's say sophisticated, so after taking a pleasant ride around the neighborhood for a while, Al and I decided to try this new place.

Now, I must admit that we've been a little bit spoiled by the fact that Al's knee infirmity has merited him a handicapped placard.  We've been used to getting the best parking spots everywhere we've gone however we hadn't ever lived before in a place so very densely populated by golf carts!  Plus, we hadn't given any consideration to the fact that down here in Florida it's "Snowbird" season and everyone from up in the north who hates the winter weather is down here filling the hotels, rental properties and RV parks.  Oh, and the restaurants and parking spaces, too!  With Golf Carts!!

Now, Sumter's Landing is an interesting place to begin with.  It's a town square surrounded by little streets filled with shops and restaurants and offices and golf cart sales places and so forth, and it's right there in the middle of The Villages, which is already well known to be the most densely golf-cart populated place in the country - probably the world.  So despite the fact that we'd been there a few nights before with Heather et al dining at Panera Bread (remember?) and had seen for ourselves how many golf carts there were, we bravely drove forth to try our luck at finding a parking space for our brand-new Toyota Camry.

HAH.

It was like trying to get through to Glenda the Good Witch of the North through a convention of Munchkins. Not only do these golf carts drive everywhere within the Villages (and the headlights on those things are BLINDING!) but they take up every spare inch of space in every parking area on the main streets of the square.  Yes, there are large parking lots BEHIND a lot of the stores but Al's knee problems do NOT allow him to walk from behind those stores and across the streets on the main drag to a restaurant.  It simply can't be done.

So we drove around and around and around, looking for some place to park our now-perceived-as-enormous Camry without running into golf carts disguised as 1920s Model Ts or tiny fire engines or '57 Chevys, or...or golf carts.  It was almost as though we were traveling through some giant beehive, looking at the rows and rows of tiny bees on either side, lined up like shopping carts at the biggest Wal-Mart parking lot in creation.

Time after time we circled and sought, only to be hemmed in once again by the tiny little vehicles.  After a fruitless half hour we just gave up and resolved to come back some time in April when the "Snowbirds" have departed.

Long ago we lived in New Hope, Pennsylvania, which is also a town whose population swells seasonally, though nobody there drives golf carts except on the golf courses.  This is a little different here - and of course we've arrived at exactly the wrong time of year for trying out popular restaurants and destinations.

Oh well - sooner or later we'll get our chance.  Until then we'll have to stick with the chain restaurants or just plain stay out of The Villages and their town squares.

Tomorrow the moving van comes to deliver our stuff into our new house.  We spent a little time there today, trying to figure out what to do with "this" piece of furniture or "that" one.  9am Eastern time, the moving van pulls up to the house and we start the next adventure - that of sorting everything out and moving in.

Wish us luck - and if you have a nice box of dim sum lying around, just send it along...

Buying and buying and buying and buying and buyi...

Things move slowly around here.  I've noticed that even though Californians are supposed to be "laid back", the peoples' slow pace here makes Californians seem like frenetic neurotics!  No such thing as hurrying.  Nope.  Doesn't happen.  So when, in my usual fashion, I make a mental list of the things I want to get done on any particular day, I've been noticing that maybe half or fewer of the tasks actually get done unless I make a special, out-of-the-ordinary effort to get it accomplished.  Now, I've claimed to have given up hurrying but it's becoming clear to me that I really haven't because you CAN'T hurry in this town!  I've found that I'm up against Non-Hurry Experts!  Therefore, when I find I can't move forward with whatever I had in mind because I must await a call-back from someone, or something else in this leisurely-moving universe interferes, I'm learning that I should really just chill out - play a game or nap or read something.  REALLY chill out.  It's culture shock, I guess.  It's acclimating.  I'll learn.

So it's Saturday now, and I've been LONGING to do something mundane.  What is it, you ask?  Wash the laundry.  In my OWN washer and dryer!  Yeah, the laundry has accumulated again from when I'd caught up several days ago but that'll happen if we continue to wear clothes every day and change the bed linens once in a while.  See how we are?  Anyway, have I done any laundry yet?  Nope.

Well, let's see what we accomplished since Wednesday, when we saw the house for the first time.  We rented a car - a Nissan Altima (it was all they had) which both Al and I decided we weren't awfully fond of.  But it's wheels and it allowed us to meet up with Heather, Bobby and Heidi (who was visiting for a few days) and have a nice supper at Panera Bread, which was very pleasant.  We visited at their house for a while and traded a lot of stories and hugs.

Thursday dawned with lots of plans.  I had a lot of errands to run, and having a car now, I was eager to get to them while Al was busy working.  Heather, Bobby, and Heidi wanted to come see the RV, so we agreed that they'd come by around one-ish; giving me plenty of time to go to the post office, wire transfer the payment for the purchase of the house, find a dry cleaner, and pick up some groceries, along with a quick meal for Al and the birds.

Okay, first the post office to pick up our forwarded mail and have them send everything on to the new address.  Relying on the Garmin, I wound my way around behind some shops and found the post office to which I'd sent our mail.  The line moved fairly quickly so before long I greeted Nice Post Office Guy and explained what I needed.  He listened with a bright smile on his face, waited until I'd finished explaining the entire story, then told me I was at the wrong post office.  "But this is the address I put on the forwarding order," I protested hopefully.  "Sorry," he said with a regretful shake of his head, "any mail going to General Delivery in this town (Lady Lake) goes to the main post office, which is maybe a mile from here."

With lots of friendly smiles and encouragement he wrote down the directions to get to the main post office, wished me luck, and sent me on my way.  Okay, I started out again, and drove around a winding road behind the shopping center until I realized (within a half mile or so) that I had probably chosen the wrong direction.  Whoops - turn around in the parking lot of this medical building and go back...yup, here's the right road - make a left and onward I go.

Now, the interesting thing that I'm discovering about this neighborhood, that nobody really pointed out before is that there's a main road called Route 441 that is generously populated with businesses and shopping centers for miles at a time.  This road might be considered an equivalent to Ventura Blvd for my Californian friends, Northern Blvd for those from New York, or City Line Avenue for Philadelphians.  Very civilized - a shopper's paradise, all sorts of chain stores of every type we're all familiar with.  The surprise comes when you go just one block away on either side of the road.  Suddenly you're in the country!  There are meadows and houses and once in a while a shop standing alone in the middle of nowhere right next to a field with cows in it, which is next to a fenced-in grove of Spanish moss-covered oak trees.  IT'S REALLY COOL!!!!!

Anyway, not being used to this diversity, I'm following the cheerful Post Office Guy's directions wondering where on Earth I'm going to end up.  Here I am, following this road for 3 miles, having that spark of relief when the road that he promised would appear actually DOES appear...turning onto that road and suddenly AHA!  The promised post office is THERE!  YAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!  I go inside, stand on another line, and at last another pleasant Post Office Person (a lady with a braid all the way down her back) helps me through the process of diverting all the mail to the proper address and goes to fetch my mail.  WHEW.  Important Task# 1 accomplished!  Except that it took more than twice the amount of time I had thought it would.

No worries - I had seen a Wells Fargo Bank in the direction I had to go in so onward I trekked and walked confidently into the bank, ready to send more than $95,000 over the wires to buy my new house!  But first - we wait.  A Nice Bank Greeting Guy opened the door for me and...and Greeted me.  He took down my name and the nature of my visit, got me a small bottle of water and bade me sit and wait my turn in the Sitting-And-Waiting-Your-Turn area.  While busily waiting I watched the three Banker Ladies taking care of their clients, and the Bank Greeting Guy running around being Helpful.  I must have waited for close to half an hour before it was my turn and one of the Banker Ladies helped me correctly do the wire transfer.  Wonderful!  I left with a sense of accomplishment, since I had now paid for my new house and was completely prepared for the next day's closing!

But time had gone by and 1pm was fast approaching.  Deciding I could do the dry cleaner and the groceries another time, I hurried back to the RV park to wait for the family.  About an hour passed by and I got a call that Bobby and Heidi would come by somewhat later - Heather wasn't feeling well enough (and besides, she's allergic to my birds).  Well, they did show up and looked the RV over but didn't stay very long.  Can't blame them - Great A'Tuin isn't the most comfortable place to sit around and visit...there's about the same amount of room inside it as...as standing inside the shell of a very large turtle..

Okay, so Friday, the day of the CLOSING dawned early.  Closing was set for 9am and Lori, our realtor came by to pick us up at 8:30.  We once more met the sellers - two very lovely people who were moving to one of the Carolinas to be near their 3 daughters.  They were so sweet that they not only gave us all the keys, clearly labelled, and the garage and gate openers (with explanations of how to use them), they even brought us the names of their gardener, their handyman, and a number of other tradesmen they'd found useful and reasonable.  They had also left manuals to the appliances in the house, and all sorts of other goodies.  The closing was very cordial and friendly and easy, and afterward the sellers just took off in their car on their way to Carolina!  Bon Voyage!

Lori took us into the development (Spruce Creek South) to get our official Welcome Packet, our name badges, and so forth.  She took me around the Clubhouse to see the lovely, large swimming pool and hot tub, the lake with the geese, the ubiquitous oaks festooned with Spanish Moss (they're really quite lovely - I need to go photograph some of them to share with you in a future blog!) and all the other amenities offered at the clubhouse.  After this we went back to the house to look things over.  It was interesting that it looked somewhat smaller to me empty but it allowed us to project what we might put where, and to realize that yes - we've probably got more stuff than will nicely fit into the place.  But it'll all work out in the end.

Afterward, Lori dropped us off here at the RV and I finally went out and picked up some much-needed groceries.  I still hadn't found a dry cleaner and though I had drooled over my new washer and dryer and resolved to take a couple of loads over to wash, I hadn't done so.  Instead, Al and I sat down and started researching our next big "HAVE TO" - what car we wanted to buy.  We're devotees of Consumer Reports, and consulted the website as to which cars rated the best.  While we had been traveling we had considered buying a really small car that would happily be towed behind the RV during our imagined trips however I pointed out to Al that the majority of the time we spent in the car would just be on the local roads because we certainly wouldn't spend more time traveling than not.  Al thought about it and concluded that when we DO go traveling we could just as easily rent a car once we arrived at whatever destination we'd gone to - which would save the gasoline money it would take to haul the weight of a car behind the RV.

With this knowledge in hand we discovered that the top-rated cars had changed since the publication of Consumer Reports' 2012 Buyer's Guide, and spent the rest of the evening deciding between the Toyota Camry Hybrid, the Honda Accord, Nissan's Altima, Ford's Focus (Hybrid) and the Hyundai Sonata.  After literally hours of research and discussion we agreed on the 2012 Toyota Camry Hybrid XLE, and called it a night.

So this morning, Al suggested that we go out and get our hair and nails done - the first time since before the move!!  What a treat!  We were both looking forward to it but first he had to go online to find who had the best price on the car we wanted.  It turned out that nobody within 100 miles even HAD the model we wanted but one guy in a town about 20 miles south of here (Leesburg) suggested we look at the non-hybrid 2012 Camry XLE, two of which he had on hand.  A number of additional hours went by as Al haggled, checked other sources, awaited call-backs, and finally decided on one of the cars.  Then he spent another large amount of time securing insurance for it.  At last we cut a deal ($2000 less than MSRP - a price in line with what Consumer Reports said was fair.  Good Job, Al!!) and awaited pickup by one of their staff who happened to live in The Villages.  We got to the dealership at around 3pm, saw the car (it's quite pretty, actually) and did the deal.  The car only had 34 miles on it when we drove it off the lot.  The color is called "Sandy Beach Metallic" (who thinks up these color names, anyway?  Someone who's surely had too much sugar before sitting down to work!) but to me it looks sort of goldish.  It's pretty.  The seats are beige with a nice white cross-hatch pattern on 'em.  It has a lot of bells and whistles which we have yet to learn but the driver's seat adjusts 9 different ways so Al was able to find a really comfortable position to drive in.  I wrote a big check, they slapped a license plate on it, and it's ours!  Now we own a house and a car OUTRIGHT!  Coolness!

So we drove our shiny, new car back to Spruce Creek, where we still haven't gotten our hair and hails done but instead we tried one of the Japanese restaurants we'd discovered.  It's actually a steakhouse, which means Teppanyakki, of course, and that side of the restaurant was quite busy; meaning the locals enjoy it a lot however we were the only ones who sat at the tiny little sushi bar to see what the sushi guy could do.  It wasn't bad but I gotta admit, it sure wasn't what we were used to.  No uni, no salt water eel, no natto, no Green Tea Ice Cream.  And the sushi man, though he was clearly Japanese, didn't understand Al when he asked for the check in Japanese.  AWWWW.  We've heard of another Japanese restaurant in The Villages that actually had an interesting website so next time the raw fish level of our bloodstreams gets low we'll try the other place.

That brings me to right now - it's 9pm, I'm full, the birds have been fed and put to bed, and I haven't yet found a dry cleaner or gotten any laundry done.

Wish me luck for tomorrow - but  I've got to return the rental car...

Oh well, if that doesn't work, the movers are coming on Monday and I'll have to be at the house anyhow!

We Freeze - We See - We Freeze Again!

Hi, again -

So Al and I spent the day after New Year's Day just relaxing and chilling out and what happened?  Florida chilled out, too!  The last two nights here in the RV Park in Summerfield have dropped down into the 20s!!!  Yeow!  Hey, I'm a spoiled southern Californean - I haven't seen a 20 degree night in decades!  And it's interesting to note that Florida is at a latitude closer to the equator than southern California.  It's just that it's also in a position to "enjoy" the arctic air swirling down from Canada via the Jet Stream once in a while!  Ouch!  Well, all ended happily once the sun came up and melted the water that had frozen in the hoses.  We're told we're now in a warming trend!

So the exciting news is that yesterday Al and I finally saw our new house!!  The realtor who's been working with my sister picked us up at 1 o'clock and took us to the development, which is called Spruce Creek South.  This is a very pleasant, gated community for people over 50.  It's very quiet and serene-looking and we had quite a pleasant time driving through the labyrinthine streets getting lost and trying in vain to find the street the house is on.  See, in Summerfield there's not only a 104th Terrace, there's also a 104th Street, 104th Place, 104th Avenue, and 104th Way.  There might be a 104th Road and a 104th Blvd as well but I'm too new around here to guarantee that sort of thing.  To make things more amusing, the streets are not numbered consecutively, so though you might think you'd go from 105th Place to 106th, no, that's not how the game works.  I haven't figured out how the systems does work but I have a sneaking suspicion that the person who actually laid out the street names was on some SERIOUS medication at the time!

Luckily, we had the Garmin with us, and after pleasantly poking around for a while we turned it on and found the house right away.  And what a lovely house it is!    Heather had taken over 130 photos of it so we certainly had a great idea of what it looked like but seeing it in person was a whole different experience!  The coupling selling it have kept it in PRISTINE condition - the walls look like they were painted last week and the carpet like it was installed maybe a month ago!   We had had some concerns about our dining room and our office furniture not fitting comfortably into their respectively designated rooms but those concerns were put to rest.  The house was originally about 1550 square feet but the open lanai was enclosed, adding another 200 feet to the dimensions.  The layout is very open and airy, and is more or less an  "L" with the kitchen and dining area in the shorter section and the living room leading to the lanai the long section.  The Master B/R is just off the living room, and the two additional bedrooms are on a  wing behind the living room.  The garage has additional storage space and a nice work area, plus a golf cart (a ubiquitous vehicle around this part of Florida) is included with the house.  I think our stuff will fit pretty well in the place; especially since we disposed of so much during the last month before the closing of the house in California.

One thing we do have is a room set aside as a Guest Bedroom, so consider yourselves invited to come check it out!  Do give us a month or two to unpack and get our bearings in our new neighborhood but think about making plans to visit central Florida!

In the meantime, today we're starting to do all the stuff one needs to do - having the electricity and water turned on in our name, trying to rent a car so I can get some other errands done, and of course, trying to get together with my sister and brother in law, who have just returned from a holiday trip to see relatives and friends.

SO many details!  I've got lists of them!  Pages and pages of things to do, people to call, places to locate, tasks to perform!  I'll tell ya - this moving business is NOT for the faint of heart!  

The closing on the house is scheduled to take place early on Friday morning - and the movers are scheduled to deliver our belongings the next day.  I'll certainly keep you posted!

First Day of the New Year - Last Day of the Journey

First of all I hope everyone had a wonderful New Year's Eve, whether you spent it alone with a good book or good companion, dancing at a huge party, having dinner with favorite friends, or just kicking back watching the big globe slide down the pole in Times Square.  How did we long-range travelers celebrate?  Thought you'd never ask.

As you recall from yesterday's post, Al and I did not push down to Lady Lake yesterday but stopped in Lake City, a short way south on Route 75.  It was a nice little place and we pulled into a spot between two big Class A motor homes (the big ones that look like fancy buses - and ARE).  We were also under some lovely, tall shade trees which helped cool us down as the afternoon wore on.

As night descended it began to grow foggy and suddenly we started to hear sounds as though a slow rain was falling on the RV, though on looking outside, I couldn't see any precipitation.  It turns out that the fog was so dense it was condensing in the trees and falling in droplets on the RV (all night long!). Having never encountered this phenomenon before, we were quite surprised by it.

As to our New Year's Eve celebration, we had stopped at the local gas station convenience store for a thing or two and I searched for some Martinelli's but they had nothing so, as I mentioned before, we were determined to toast with water or diet soda.  Actually Al and I have been retiring quite early since this journey began and we were hard-pressed to find ways to stay awake until midnight.  We played computer games, we chatted and joked, we wrote emails etc. and finally we went online and started to stream the Times Square live feed.  Frankly, it was seriously awful - their microphones echoed, the entertainment stank, and the interviews with the spectators were about as interesting as you'd imagine a short chat with a semi-drunk stranger would be.  We turned off the sound and I started proof-reading PAWNS while Al started to watch Transylvania 6-5000.  Aha - but not the neighbors!  I don't mean our camping neighbors - they were quiet on both sides.  Our sites were right next to the fenced-in property of some people who happened to live next door to the RV park.  THEY had a party!  They had a bunch of friends in, and they laughed and joked (and drank) and cursed one another out for a while as they let their kids run rampant from about 8pm onward.  The little ankle crunchers took full advantage.  Now, Al and I are always concerned that our 3 birds might make too much noise and be a bother to our camping neighbors.  HAH.  My cockatoo's loudest trumpet would've been drowned out by these kids' shouting and running and dashing about.  Plus, at about 9pm their dad started setting off the fireworks.  Lucky campers, we were exactly positioned to be able to hear the double blasts and see...nothing. The fireworks took a hiatus after about 15 minutes and we figured he was saving the big stuff for midnight.  Sure enough, we watched on our computer as the big globe in Times Square marked the New Year, and Timothy McVeigh next door went to town.  He kept it up for about another fifteen minutes then let his kids parade around the yard for another half hour blowing horns and generally making a ruckus.  It was about 1:30am when things finally quieted down enough for us to get to sleep. Hey, we cut 'em some slack - holiday, after all.   <Yawn>  Happy New Year.

Okay, so after having slept well despite the celebrations and the dripping from the surrounding trees we woke to a very foggy morning which became a beautiful day for our final drive.  Once off the highway we were surrounded by beautiful farms and ranches.   Here - take a look:

Beautiful area with lovely farms

Fascinating fields

Lovely puffy clouds

paddocks and meadows

and picket fences!

Green like you never see in California!

  With weary anticipation we came down the last 103 miles and pulled into the Blue Parrot RV Park.

But wait - as Robbie Burns so famously said, "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley" **


** 30 cents to the first person who can tell me what poem that quote comes from.


As I mentioned in an earlier post, something I always ask about at RV Parks is whether they provide high speed internet access so Al can work.  Well, we had made reservations at the Blue Parrot RV Park based on a recommendation by one of my sister Heather's friends.  When we arrived there it turns out they only offer a Hot Spot inside their office, on their own computers.  They tried to see if they could fix it so Al could come into their office and use his own business laptop however being that Al has to be on an online business meeting at 6am tomorrow morning they admitted that nobody was going to be opening the office that early, so they couldn't accommodate us after all.  They helped us find another RV Park though - this one actually in Summerfield, the town where the new house is located, and here we sit, happily connected to the high speed internet and describing it all to you.


SO...


Our Great RV Trek is over.  We'll continue to live in Great A'Tuin for another week or two as we inspect the new house in person and probably hire people to paint and re-do floors and those sorts of things one does before moving into a new house.  I'll certainly continue to keep you posted as to our daily adventures, though I doubt I'll be taking many pictures of our new life - but then again, you never know - especially with Al and me!