REALLY??? An Accident?!!

Yep. This has NOT been one of our luckier trips! We've had a flat tire on the car, a flat tire on the motor home, and had our satellite antenna ripped off. Yesterday, however, kind of topped everything. We were in a car accident. No one hurt, thank God, but serious "owies" on my car. We were driving on A1A (I was doing the driving), when the car ahead of us suddenly put on its left turn signal and HIT the brakes. I saw it immediately and slammed on my brakes, but I don't think the car behind us even touched its brakes. So there were two big crashes, literally one second apart: Crash! Crash! One was the car behind us hitting us, and then us hitting the car in front of us. It happened SO fast. The car ahead of us got hit hard enough to require towing, but we were able to drive away (albeit, with the hood tied down with a bungie cord!). The lady behind us was fine and was more concerned about her hair appointment than about any of us. The police arrived within about 2 minutes, which was great, and were very nice. The worst part though, was when I got into the back seat of our car to dig my driver's license out of my purse, and Brandi jumped out of the car. She was scared and she went running down the road, crossing the whole line of traffic on A1A and taking off toward some apartments. I was completely shooke up as it was, and that was the last straw-I started crying immediately. One of the cops took off after the dog and Dave grabbed her leash and followed the cop. Poor Brandi had run up the stairway to the second floor of an apartment building across the street and was up on the balcony. The cop went to one of the stairways going up, while Dave went to the other one and squatted down with the leash and called her to him and (...miracle!) she came down the stairs and went right to him. What a relief! So now we have a problem: the car is drivable but the damages are certainly in the thousands of dollars. I looked at the Kelly Blue Book last night and the car is only worth around $6500 so I'm scared to death they're going to just total it. It needs a new hood, new grill, new bumpers and fenders in both the front and back, one new headlight - a LOT of stuff. But we love that car and we would never be able to get the same kind of car if they cash us out. We're hoping we can just wait and deal with it when we get home because it would be SO very hard to do it right now, with us moving to a new location every two weeks! I have no idea how we could put it into a garage and use a rental car when we move so often. We should know more on Monday when we have our first conversation with the insurance adjuster. (I did call the insurance company from the accident scene and the gal took down all the information, but isn't the one who will be working with us.) So if anyone has any good advice for us, please send me an e-mail!

In the meanwhile, I did get the pictures from my Melbourne Tooth Trot and am attaching them. In case you're wondering, the girl I'm standing next to during the little award ceremony is the TOOTH FAIRY! Yep! Anyway, these are the worst pictures in the world but I have no choice but to post them. But I've been running every other day and I can just feel myself getting stronger and faster, so I can't wait until my next 5K, which is on February 18th. And I just talked to Brenda today and she and Arnie are going to be down here on that date and they're going to come to the run! Brenda's going to join Dave and cheer us on, but Arnie is actually going to run with me! What FUN! I know he'll only stay with me for a few minutes because his pace will be twice what mine is, but he'll probably circle back to me during the run. Regardless, it'll just be a lot of fun to share the experience with Brenda and Arnie. Plus it just gives me that much more motivation.

So tomorrow is our last full day here, then we move on to Wekiwa Springs on Tuesday, and Friday I'll be driving my crunched up car down to Fort Myers to meet up with Cindi and Glennda for a few days. Hopefully (!!!!) our little run of bad luck is now OVER and only FUN is ahead of us!

PS - we do realize that the VERY most important thing is that nobody was hurt during the accident and we are very grateful for that!

AVA Walk #8 Cocoa Beach

FINALLY got another AVA walk in! I really like this Sebastian area, but one complaint is that there are NO AVA walks around here. The only one within a reasonable distance (like less than 100 miles away!) is the one in Cocoa Beach, so we did that one a few days ago. But since this is one that I did last year, it's slightly less fun for me. I really like the variety of doing different walks, so when we get up by Orlando (which is next week) I'll definitely take advantage of the fact that there are a lot of walks within a close distance. Anyway - the Cocoa Beach walk is still nice - I think something like 1.7 miles of the 6.2 miles is right on the beach, which is always fun. I just take my shoes off and walk in the sand - LOVE IT! The weather was beautiful, and Dave was able to ride his bike while I walked so we both had a great day. Afterwards we got my bike off the rack and we rode over to a really cute "beach bar" and had a cocktail. It was fun just to sit and watch the people at the bar and on the beach. So that was my 8th AVA walk of the trip. Actually, that's a pretty low number but it's just because I was only able to do one during our 5-week stay in this vicinity.

We are only here until Tuesday, and then we move up to Wekiwa State Park, in Apopka, a few miles north of Orlando. Since we're leaving here I thought I'd post a couple pictures of the park, but it's mostly a campground (although a very nice, big one) so there aren't a lot of things to take pictures of. One thing that is nice about Long Point is there's a bridge that goes over a little channel and leads to an island that is part of the park. It's maybe a quarter mile long, but there's nothing on it so it's a great place to let Brandi off her leash (even though we're not supposed to!). Our stay here has been very nice - we've done lots of relaxing things like going to the beach, going on walks, Dave's ridden his bike like a mad person, he's done a lot of (...mostly unsuccessful) fishing, he's put his kayak in a number of times. But after a while just doing that stuff every day, in the same park, and in the same area, begins to get a little.....dare I say boring? Maybe not boring, exactly, but definitely both of us are looking forward to being at a new place. I guess we're both sort of "restless souls" - we like to keep on the move. And although this area is absolutely gorgeous, we're sort of in the "been there, done that" mind set, just a little. Plus I'm SO excited because when we get up to the next park, I'll only be there about three days before I jump in the car and drive down to Fort Myers to hook up with Cindi and Glennda for four days. I can't WAIT to see them - it'll be SO much fun! And I'm sure that, after three months of being together every day, Dave is probably feeling okay about a few days on his own!

We did do something fun and out of the ordinary (for us) today - we hooked back up with Barb and Dan (our friend Theresa's mom and her husband). We went and visited their place a couple weeks ago, and I wrote about that. So this time they came up here to us and hung out for a couple hours and then we drove into Sebastian and had an absolutely wonderful dinner at this really cool restaurant called Squid Lips. I know - WEIRD name, right? But what a nice place - one of our favorite types of restaurants: an old wooden building, built out on pylons out over the water, with a marina attached to it. Beautiful view across the intracoastal waterway, excellent menu selection (primarily seafood, of course), very good prices. We enjoyed spending time with Barb and Dan again and will certainlty see them this summer after we're all back home in Michigan.

People frequently ask us about one aspect of traveling like we do, i.e. socializing. We really do not socialize very much when we're on our trips. We love it when we can hook up with friends from home, like Barb and Dan. And I can't wait to see my girlfriends next week, and then a couple weeks later Brenda and Arnie will be down in the area for a few days and I'm just DYING to see my daughter! (and Arnie, of course!) But when you're traveling from one campground to another, you are suddenly put in very close proximity to people you don't know at all. Sometimes you meet people and think "gee, if we actually lived by each other, I think I would like to get to know this person better", but other times you find that your "neighbors" wear pretty thin pretty quickly. We have learned that, for US, it's better to kind of keep your distance. Right now, we have neighbors on both sides of us who are from Canada and are down here, literally, in this park, for four months plus. Because we've been here for three weeks now, we've gotten to know them a little better than we usually do and, quite frankly, they're starting to get on our nerves. Nothing major, just little things, but we agreed tonight that we're both glad that we're moving in another four days - it's time! But that's also the beauty of this type of trip - EVERYBODY you meet, whether you like them or not, is just a ship passing in the night. At some point, when we're no longer able to travel freely and easily, we will probably have to make a decision about where we want to live and who our neighbors will be. But for now, it's awfully nice to be able to just keep moving along. And that's another great thing about traveling - you can make your own decisions about how much you want to socialize. There are people who probably leave every park with a list of email addresses and promises to re-connect the following year. But not us. In general, we're pretty happy with our little "family": me, Dave, Brandi and the cats. Thank goodness we all like each other and only SOMETIMES get on each other's nerves!!!! So, by the time I post my next blog update, we'll be on to a new park and new neighbors and new adventures! CAN'T WAIT!

My First 5K!

Boy, I am WAY behind on my blog-my last post was January 30, and a lot has happened since then. In particular we've had two big things that I need to write about - one very good and one pretty bad!. The good one first: I ran my first 5K race yesterday. It was the "Tooth Trot 5K" in Melbourne. I would say there were 300-400 runners - not a huge run, which is one of the main reasons I selected this race. OK, I know some of my followers are athletic, so they'll think my time is pathetic. But I had been timing myself and I thought I was running 5K in around 42 minutes or so. But on Saturday I did the race in 38 minutes 21 seconds. I am VERY happy with that time for my first event. PLUS-I came in third in my age division, which made it even more fun for me. (OK-to be honest-I don't know how many women were actually IN my age division, but it doesn't matter! I STILL came in third!) Dave came with me (and we had to get up at 6:00 to get there, so I was even more impressed that he came along!) It was very fun to have him there cheering me at the beginning and then at the first little loop through the parking lot, and especially when I came across the finish line. I'm just bummed because I didn't even think to bring my camera so I don't have any pictures. But there was a photographer there, taking pictures as each person crossed the finish line, plus he took pictures when the awards were handed out, so somewhere out there should be two pictures of me. When I find them, I'll post them unless they are TOO awful! I had a BALL doing it, and felt GREAT afterward. Plus I did the whole thing without walking one single step-I ran (...OK, maybe it's more of a jog) the entire time.

So now I've picked out my next one - it's a St. Patty's Day 5K up in Jacksonville on March 18th. I think it's really important for me to set another goal immediately, because otherwsie it would be easy to slack off, and I don't want to do that. I definitely want to improve my time by 2 or 3 minutes minimum, which I think should be pretty doable. And then I would love to do the Tulip Time 5K when we get home. FUN!

OK-now the not so good thing that happened. We got big-time ripped off the other day. I don't remember if Imentioned it, but on Jan 10th we bought a new Winegard Carryout portable satellite TV antenna. It's a little satellite dish inside a dome that you just plug into your cigarette lighter and it spins around and around and finds a satellite and locks in. When you move, you just pick it up, throw it in the back seat of the car, and plug it back in when you get set up at the next location. It's absolutely wonderful and I LOVE it! Finally-the perfect TV solution for us. So we are now at Long Point county park, across the inlet from the Sebastian Inlet State Park, and we were only here two nights and when Dave got up Friday morning he looked out the front window and sae that our satellite dish was GONE!!!! Someone came in the middle of the night and CUT THE WIRES and stole it, along with the tripod. The set up was worth around $800-$900. The dish sat on a tripod, and Dave had hung a milk jug filled with sand underneath it using a little S-hook - this was to keep it from blowing over or anything. Well, the bastards just cut the wires, left them laying in the yard, and left the jug of sand. They took everything else, including Dave's S-hook! We were just SICK about it. Dave immediately reported it to the office, and they called the police. The police officer took down the details, but it's absolutely impossible to catch the guys. But then we got some good news!!!! I called the insurance company and found that this is covered under our "personal effects" coverage and there isn't a deductible for that part of our coverage. So all we had to do is buy a replacement and send the receipts to the insurance company for a full reimbursement. So that is good news - but it was still a nuisance to have to find a replacement unit (about 60 miles round trip), and get it set up. Plus we had to order the tripod and will have to make another trip to pick it up next week. But primarily it's just the PRINCIPAL of the thing-what a crappy thing for someone to do! Dave put the new one up on top of the roof and tied it down with a zillion bungee cords - nobody's going to get this one unless they literally climb up on top of our roof! This is the very first time we've had anything stolen in seven years of trips, so the whole thing has been very upsetting to us.

So those are the two big things to report. We did one other fun thing last week - we went about 25 miles south on Vero Beach and visited our friends Barb and Dan. Barb is our good friend Theresa's mother, and we knew they stay in this area for about six months. They had told us to contact them when we got down here, so we did and went over and spent the afternoon and evening with them. They gave us a golf-cart tour of their gorgeous park-Ocean's Resorts, I think it's called. Barb fed us a great supper and we drank yummy wine and admired their absolutely beautiful fifth wheel (...it is REALLY nice!). We had a great day with them and will definitely see them again before we leave the area. Unforunately I didn't take my camera there either (I'm gettting REALLY bad about remembering the camera!)

So, other than that, we've been loving this area, doing lots of fishing, biking, hiking, walking the dog, kayaking, and just relaxing. We really do love it here right on the side of the ocean. I've been to the beach a few times, but the last few days have been kind of rainy and colder and extremely windy, so we're hoping for a weather improvement this week. In the meanwhile, I'm posting one picture of Dave and me, visiting the Barrier Island Sanctuary, and a BUNCH of pictures of some of the mailboxes here on the island. Apparently one of the requirements for living out here on the island is that you must have an appropriate "ocean-themed" mailbox. Cute, aren't they?