Visiting the rellies

We're now in Naples, FL for the holidays, and while here, we're staying with our relatives. My Aunt Flo has a place here in Naples, and we stayed in her driveway last week. Consuelo has two sisters here in Naples, and we're in one of their driveways until January 1st.


Staying with the rellies has its pros and cons. On the plus side, we get to visit with the aunts, sisters, brothers in law, nieces, nephews, etc. And we're not paying the outrageous camping fees that we would at any other campground in Naples. We have the use of a static shower for a couple of weeks.

On the down side, we're limited to 15 amp electrical, not enough to run our AC, and it's been warm here, with temps in the low 80s. With all the kids coming home for the holidays, we're critically short on parking spaces for cars. Finally, when we need to dump our tanks, we have to run out to a campground somewhere.

Naples is also a town with high growth and appreciation. So the zoning laws are written in meticulous detail. For us, this means we need to have a permit to park our motorhome in town for more than a few hours. Two years ago, when we stayed here, we did not know about the permits, and the code enforcement officer provided a free education. This year, Aunt Flo and Consuelo's sister both got us permits before we showed up, so we were legal. Didn't stop one person from trying to make a stink, but we had the law on our side this time. When we move to Consuelo's sister's house, Consuelo posted a "Permit" sign with an arrow to make sure the neighbors knew we were legal.

We also found the dog beach in Bonita Springs today, and Thumper and Consuelo's niece's dog Roxy had a wonderful time romping around in the salt water, off-leash. We spent about an hour there with them, and they had dozens of other dogs, from pugs to labradoodles to a great pyranee to play with. We got to wade in the water, too, which was quite nice.