Roadkraut

We had to take a break from work and the new home and drove right into Lake County, which we were told was not just beautiful but also hilly. Hills in Florida?

We drove to the Green Mountain overlook and were passed by numerous motorcycles and bicycles enjoying the countryside.

And citrus groves up and down the hilly (mountain?) side.

Stopped in Yalaha, FL and found a German Bakery. What a pleasant surprise.

A multitude of different breads, rolls and cakes

And a beer garden with live music on Saturdays and Sundays

What a treat. Fresh bread, beautiful weather, lovely countryside. A pleasant surprise to find all this in Florida not even 1 hour outside of Orlando.

The day has arrived when we will have to part with Charlie, our trusted but not always easy to handle RV. There were lots of ups and downs with this unit, but when I look back at the good times we had, Kirsten reminds me of the not so good times plus she loves our new coach.

And yes, it is a huge step from the old to the new RV but taking into consideration that we will spend 40 – 60 hour work weeks the next 4-5 months it should be something adequate.

Plus with the condo sold, this will be our one and only home the next few years.

Move in day has arrived and of course it rains. Like we will experience over the next weeks staying in Winter Garden, daily rain showers are the norm this time of year. Added to the stifling heat and humidity move in day turned into 3 days!

From experience we knew not to move too far the first few weeks, as there were always little kinks to be ironed out.

When we were finally done moving everything over we moved to our temporary home for the next 5 weeks in an RV Park in Winter Garden, FL.

Made an appointment for 9:00am to go see the RV we had only checked on the internet to see if it would be the perfect replacement for the current unit.

Foremost of importance was the Kirsten could drive it. We had some reservations as the 2018 Ventana does not have adjustable pedals, so could she reach the pedals without completely contorting hereself. An impass we had come to with our current RV which Kirsten drove last sometime in February 2017!!

The drive took us through the heartland of retiree communities. Frostproof, Winter Haven, Winter Garden….

After meeting with and looking at the coach that we had checked out over the internet, Kirsten took the promised test drive. And loved it.

I know, this is not the price category we had ever imagined to find ourselves in, but after weighing the pros and cons we decided to go for it. Life is too short.

Made the deal and now need to wait 1 week to have the pre-delivery inspection and a few items we found done before we can take ownership. Having learned from the last purchase, we booked a campground close by for the next 5 weeks – just in case.

Whilst Key West, FL is the southernmost City, Dry Tortugas National Park seems to be the most out of the way National Park in the United States. 70 miles west of Key West, FL and known for Fort Jefferson, magnificent blue waters and superb coral reefs.

Reachable by boat or plane only, we opted for the 2 1/2 hour ferry service, which included the guided tour of Fort Jefferson and snorkel and fin rental, as well as breakfast on the way over and late lunch on the way back.

The southernmost City in the contiguous United States.

Home to Sloppy Joe’s Saloon, the name encouraged by Ernest Hemingway

The southern most point in the United States

Pepe’s Cafe, where legend has it Harry Truman had his morning coffee.

after having run the country from the Little White House

Ernest Hemingway’ home (overrun by tourist trolleys coming and going every 5 minutes)

The sunset at Mallory Square

and a last few drinks at the Hog’s Breath Saloon

Overall a mix of tourists, interesting architecture and a city that has to be on everybody’s list of places to see.

Whilst preparing for the trip, we read “The Last Train to Paradise” about Henry Flagler’s railroad going south and the hurricane that eventually wiped it out.

The book is very well written and explains Flagler’s and the railroad’s journey from St. Augustine, FL to Key West, FL. The story of how resilient mankind can be when it tries to achieve dreams that other people would not or could not dare to follow.

And the heartaches and troubles that these folks had to go through to fulfill one man’s dream.

It is a definitive must read as the drive down follows remnants of Flagler’s railroad everywhere.

all the way down to the Railroad Station in Key West, FL

We drove the short distance to Key West and were surprised by the destruction and uninhabitable portions of large stretches of land on the way. Debris fields greeted us on both sides of US-1 and destroyed houses, decks and boat slips were everywhere to be seen.

Beaches where the wind forced the sand so high they were still off limits to visitors.

An RV Park completely leveled

And roads still being worked on all up and down US-1

And yet, some areas look as if nothing ever happened

and the Key Deer, an endangered species, are back to normal as well

We planned to spend some time on the Florida Keys and started looking for suitable campgrounds in January. Due to Hurricane Irma that hit the Keys last year, every campground between Key West and Marathon was closed and some are still closed and will not be up until the end of 2018.

We dedided on Jolly Roger as it is right on the Golf of Mexico and “Wheeling It” had done a good video about the campground. It was available for the dates we wanted, at least after some juggling around with dates prior to Memorial Day at which time it was already completely booked. We knew the Keys were not going to be inexpensive, but then we also knew that the chance of coming back was slim.

So we splurged on a site right on the seawall to get the most out of our stay. After all, you only live once and these are the rewards

and were rewarded with some spectacular sunsets

and the occasional rainbow

How do I close this entry? Beautiful views, right on the ocean, Paradise?! All in all a perfect first 10 days and worth the price for the campground.

Stopped here on the way to the Keys so we would not need to travel the whole distance in 1 day. We are just trying to take it slow, why hurry when you have all the time.

It was our first time in an exclusive Motorcoach (Class A only) Resort at Motorcoach Resort St. Lucie West. Easy to get to and from I-95. Large pool, 2 spas and smaller pools with laundry that only cost $1.50 per load to wash and $ 1.50 for the dryer.

The site was nicely located with a small Tiki Hut, seating for 6 and a small refrigerator. Ample room for the RV and the toad and included WiFi, a very important amenity for us and our daily work. All in all it worked like Comcast always does, spotty at times, but up most of the time.

Spent the weekend having Thai for dinner, read and sorted photos and took out the bikes for short trips, as it rained on and off all through Tuesday.

Met the local RV Detailing Service who was working on the neighbors RV and made an appointment to have our RV and the Mini washed and waxed for Friday. Also met the neighbors across from us, Bob and Loretta who spend most their time here and own the lot. The rest of the week we had regular evening discussions about Newmar and their quality.

Just down the road is First Data Field, the spring training facility for the NY Mets baseball team.

Everybody had departed a few weeks earlier and the “season” here was coming to an end as was evident in the Motorcoach Resort.

Friday came around and Chris and his crew spent from 8:30h to 15:30h (with a small break in between) washing and waxing the RV and Mini.

And a perfect job they did.

All in all a nice resort with welcoming and more than interesting neighbors. Found out that most Motorcoach Resorts only allow Class-A RVs, including a 25’ Via but excluding 30’ Dyanamax or Renegade, as these are classified as C+ and not A’s.
Not everything in life makes sense.

Got the RV and Mini done, caught up with all the ALDI shopping (there are none on the Keys) and found out a lot about Newmar RV’s thanks to Bob.

During the 8 1/2 months on the road last year, we were often joking about full time RVing. “Wouldn’t it be…”, “What if…”, “what would the pros and cons be” and back and forth it went.

We knew that we could still run our business from the road. As long as there was WiFi and internet connectivity of some sort, we could survive to afford traveling.

We read enough blogs, follow enough “full timers” on social media and receive more than our fair share of RV related email tips to at least make an educated guess on what it would be like.

We spent a lot of time thinking what we could save if we did not have the monthly mortgage, HOA fee, taxes, insurance payments. Paying for something for 12 months and only using it for maybe 3-4 months every year? How much less expensive would it be?

In true German fashion of debating all the pros and cons and disecting everything until the bitter end, we figured “yes, it would be less expensive” and “of course we can do it”, but still, “could we”, “should we”, “what would it mean”?

We planned our 2018 trip, where we wanted to spent time in the West – New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, all the National Parks out West. And spending time to see them. Not days, but rather weeks, as we need to work 6 – 8 hours a day and still want to enjoy and see where we travel. Experiences we had made last year, where we needed to stop in certain places twice to see it at least once for real and not drive through because we were too busy.

But it would mean a long trip to get there – St. Augustine, FL where we live is a good 2,000+ miles from where we wanted to visit.

Considering the weather north of New Mexico, that would leave us with a window of a few months to see what we wanted to see. OK, so we would need 3-4 years for the West and West Coast….

And then one day the realtor who sold us the condo asked whether she could show our condo to a couple from NY who looked at our condominiums but could not find anything they liked. Low and behold not 1 week later they asked if they could make an offer. We looked at each other and thought “kismet”. Maybe the man upstairs was trying to tell us something.

We hesitated for a week, as it was going to be a big step. But no risk, no reward and so we sold the condo.

That was when the hard part started. We have read enough blogs where people sold everything, others had put items in storage and regretted it. We sat down and tried to figure out what it would cost to replace what we had after say 3-4 years. If it was more than what the storage costs, then that is where it would go – irreplaceable German and Chinese Cabinetry was going into storage, family heirlooms as well, needed items (based on available space) would go with us, easily replaceable items would get donated.

Running your own business produces a lot of paperwork. We checked with our accountant and he advised the IRS would be fine with digital paperwork and we only needed to keep the past 3 years on file. But what do you do with the personal papers, school records, birth certificates, records upon records….

Having Microsoft Office 365 with 1 TB of “free” cloud storage would allow us to place it right there. Weeks and weeks of scanning followed, we ended up scanning everything “just in case”, so we would always have it with us on an external hard drive with a copy in the cloud.

Every item was looked at with the question of RV, storage or donation. In the end it drove us nuts, but became a simple question, if you do not know – donate. Somebody will have a use for it. In our case we donated the majority to the homeless shelter, and equal parts to the Betty Griffin Center for abused women and several other charities.

We then proceeded to book a local campground for the week before closing until 3 weeks later, giving us time to settle before closing
– are there any more items we need from storage? Items we cannot do without?
– make sure after closing that we did not have too much “on board”, items we should add it to the storage and
– have our familiar surroundings for a short time before heading out.

So now, here we are, the shredding company did their job, the local charities are happy – at least they told us so every time we stopped by and dropped off more items -, the neighbors sad to see us leave, the moving company happy they can bill us for the unforseeable future, and we do not know what to expect.

Based on blogs we follow and where we are told the RV crowd is getting bigger by the day, we have booked the next 6 months in advance and set reminders to keep on doing so.

Off into uncertainty…….