On the Road Again

Monday April 30th 2012

Starting Mileage: 16,646.82

Rick and I embarked today on another extended RV adventure. We expect to be gone for approximately three months, returning home around August 1st. For those of you who followed my blog last summer, welcome back. For those who are new to Rick and Sally's excellent adventures, feel free to scroll back through last year's posts to get a feel for what we're up to. One big change from last year...I've removed most privacy controls, meaning that you should be able to view the blog without being invited. You may still need to log in using an existing google, twitter, or yahoo username and password. If you don't have one it's very easy to set up, and, no, you won't get a bunch of spam. If you elect to "follow" the blog on the right hand side of the page, you will receive an email each time I post an update.

I understand that the rest of the country has had a particularly warm winter. Florida was no exception. Our winter and spring have been absolutely spectacular. Even January and February averaged temperatures in the 60's and 70's. The skies have been clear and beautiful and there has been little to no humidity. Of course, we're in the middle of a terrible drought, but, other than that, we've had nothing to complain about for the past six months or so.

But all that began to change about a week ago. Temperatures have been slowly creeping up into the mid to upper 80's, and the humidity has been increasing. The mosquitoes and "noseeums" have been biting, and we were starting to see the first of the "love bugs." The love bugs appear for several weeks each spring and fall in central Florida. They are non-biting insects who mate in mid-air. And they are everywhere. Every place you go you have to make your way through swarms of insects who are joined in coital bliss as they fly through the air. The real problem is that thousands of them end up plastered to the front of your car (or RV) after a short trip down the road. We appear to have made it out of town in the nick of time with only a few conjoined love bugs on the hood of our RV.

We finally headed out at 1:30 pm this afternoon. There's a lot of planning and prep work before a three month trip. The storm shutters needed to be put up in case a hurricaine arrives in Florida before we return. We needed to cancel the newspaper, drain the hot tub, make arrangements to have the pool cleaned and to have the lawn mowed. One of the biggest challenges is the mail. Most of our bills and bank statements arrive electronically, but there's still an amazing amount of snail mail that clogs my mailbox every day. Luckily there are several "mail forwarding services" that will forward all my mail to me upon request for a small monthly fee plus postage. The challange is to find places where I can receive it. Some of you who will be seeing us this summer may be called into service to receive a mail shipment or two for us at your home addresses.

The first leg of our journey was a short one. We arrived in St. Augustine, FL at about 4:00 pm. We're staying at a very nice, albeit pricey, campground which is just across highway A1A from the beach. We dined on a nice stew which was cooking in a slow cooker which rode along in our kitchen sink as we rolled down the road. After dinner, we enjoyed a nice walk on the beach.