Through the Holidays

Lunch in the RV

The holidays are long over. As Craig Ferguson would say, "I know!" But I've either been having too much fun or too busy to write to my blog readers. So, here we go again.

On December 19th we drove from Jekyll to Naples, FL, about 450 miles, all in one hop. We stopped for a long lunch, and I got a short nap, but it was still over 8 hours on the road. We had a reservation at a pricey campground there, a first for us as we have driveway camped until now. But I think it worked better for us and everybody else.

One of the first tasks we had to attend to was getting our dog Thumper to the vet. She was dragging her right rear leg, and the vet diagnosed this as a disc problem. She go steroids and muscle relaxants, and now she is using the leg, but dragging her claws some. I have to help her into the motorhome, and she's nowhere as active, but still likes lots of petting and dog treats.

Naples is the home of Consuelo's sisters and their families. We invited all of them out to see our newer motorhome, and one day we hosted lunch.

Flo playing cards

Of course, we had a couple visits with my aunt Flo, who snowbirds with friends from Wilbraham, Massachusetts, my old stomping grounds. No matter how hard we try, she always beats us at the card game. It's a little depressing.

We had Christmas dinner at Jen and Gabe's town house, which represents a generational shift. There was too much illness going on at Consuelo's sisters homes to do the event. We had to bring our own food (I baked a turkey), chairs and tables, but we had a wonderful time. Jen and Gabe will be getting married in April, and we'll return down there for the wedding.

Titi's 85th Birthday Cake

After Christmas, we convoyed across Florida to Delray Beach, and celebrated Consuelo's Aunt Titi's 85th birthday. Consuelo got to see some of her family who live in the Miami area, which she doesn't get to do very often. She got caught up with Titi and Lolo, as well as their kids and grandkids, and he uncle and cousins. She also got a chance to see her stepmother Sara. I was there, but focused on the football games, which turned out to be a big disappointment.

Consuelo, Uncle Nono, Maria, Carmen

We stayed overnight in Delray Beach, then headed out the next morning to head back to Jekyll. Driving to Delray cut about 80 miles out of the trip back, so it was more manageable.

And we got back to the Jekyll Campground 3 days ahead of our reservation, once again upsetting the campground manager. It's our favorite trick, because we like it here so much.

We've now been back here over 2 weeks. We're getting rain today, which means indoor activities, like blogging.

Thanks... last one out, turn off the lights.

Thanksgiving Day

The final event for the Maine house was to host the kids and grand kids for Thanksgiving. The weather was OK, not perfect, and everybody reported having a good time. We cooked fairly traditionally, turkey on the grill, mashed potatoes, butternut squash. The kids had their own idea of food, and we had the alternates for them, like macaroni and fruit juice. They'll have whole new set of traditions when they grow up.

Amelia & Luna with the Clauses
On Friday, all the moms tripped to the stores to shop Black Friday. The results were mixed to disappointing, specific deals were sold out when they got there. While the moms were shopping, the dads took the kids to see Santa in Rockland, in the rain. Everyvbody except Amelia got on Sants's knee and tried hard to remeber everything they had thought about asking Santa for earlier in the day, but the excitement forced temporary amnesia.

We then travelled but a few miles out to the Transportation Museum in Owl's head, and the kids had a blast building styrofoam airplanes and flying them in a huge empty display hall. The Dad's had fun making airplanes, too, and Grandpa had fun looking around the museum.

On Saturday, we drove down to Pemaquid Point to see the lighthouse, frolic on the rocks, and look for shells. The ocean was a bit angry after the storms that passed through earlier in the week. After dinner on Saturday night everybody (except us) packed up and left for home.

Pemaquid Point Light

We're now left with collecting everything we'll need to take with us for the next 18 months as we cpend the winter in Georgia, travel to Alaska, then winter again in the Southwest US. Plus, we're leaving the house in a condition to be able to rent it next summer, which means packing all our personal stuff away in one bedroom. And finally, setting the house on low to survive the winter.

Consuelo and I have really enjoyed spending time in Maine. We're developing compassion for the local folks who scrape out a living up here, and suffering some of the same injustices that they do, like high fuel oil prices. And the locals are welcoming us to the community, like asking to use one of my photos on their community calendar.

We're almost ready to hit the road again. On to the next leg of travel around the US. We're excited about it.