Walk on Black Creek Trail

Location: Jacksonville, NY (High 74, Low 63)

After all the running around we did yesterday, it’s been nice today to have a little more leisure and recreational time.

We started out this morning with our second run for the week. It seems like forever since we’ve been running, but it’s really been just about two months. We are about three weeks away from our half in Key West.

 

After breakfast, we took a drive back over to Green Cove Springs to pick up a box that came in yesterday after we left. It was pretty cloudy but we were hoping that it wouldn’t rain as we were planning to go for a walk on a trail that we saw nearby.

 

Black Creek Trail looked like a nicely maintained trail. There was also a nice parking area and a restroom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Optimistically wearing our sunglasses, which sadly turned out not to be needed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Would anyone like a palm tree?

 

 

For just a few bucks…

 

It was really getting dark by this point, so we ended up cutting our walk short and heading back after only a little over a mile. We made it back to the truck just as it was starting to rain a bit.

 

It was a nice little find…maybe we’ll check it out again when we are back this way in April. We’re at the end of our short visit in Jacksonville…tomorrow morning we head south to Malabar on our way to Grassy Key RV Park in Marathon for the month of January.

Florida Residents – But Not Quite Done

Location: Jacksonville, FL (High 81, Low 63)

Our main purpose in coming to Jacksonville for this couple of days was to visit our new mail order facility to pick up our mail, get our licenses and register the truck and fiver, and register to vote. Well, we got 75% of the way there.

Florida requires a VIN verification before vehicles are registered. We had been told that we could just go in the truck and an official would walk outside to verify the VIN. (In the picture below, there is a motorhome parked in the street across from the county office waiting for a VIN verification.) We also understood that the VIN on the title could be used for verification purposes, but we do not have a paper copy of our title, as we still have a loan and SD is not a state where the owner holds the title, as we did in NY. So around 7:45 this morning I called the sheriff’s office, and the person who answered the phone stated that someone would come over. We didn’t know how long it would take, but were happy to have an officer arrive in only about thirty minutes.

After the officer left, we headed out to Green Cove Springs. We stopped at St. Brendan’s Isle and they brought our mail out, and gave us directions to the County Courthouse, which was our first stop. This is where we had to go to file our certificate of domicile. We had to have our ID so the clerk could notarize the paperwork, and we paid $30 for the filing.

Then we walked over to the County Office where the licensing department was located. We were given a number and barely had time to sit down before our number was called. We handed over our paperwork – social security cards, two pieces of mail, passport, old licenses and she filled out all the information for our licenses. We had an eye exam and our pictures taken, wrote out a check for $108.50 and voila! we were Florida residents. The clerk also filed the voter registration application as well, so we are now registered to vote.

The one delay came when it was time to do the vehicle and rig registration. We had the lienholder information, which we had been told would be required. What we didn’t know, and found out today, was that the Florida DMV would then request the title and call us when it came in, at which time we would have to go back in and complete the registration process. From requesting the title to its arrival in Florida would take two to three weeks. However, by then we will be down in Marathon and we will not be able to just pop back in to finish things up. So the clerk suggested, and it sounded like the best plan, that we wait and start the registration process when we arrive in Avon Park in the beginning of February since we will have two months there to get the process completed.

But, looking on the positive side…we have our Florida licenses! We are happy to have at least that much done.

Back Where It All Began

Location: Jacksonville, FL (High 80, Low 62)

We woke up this morning to the sounds of the pitter patter of rain on the roof. We knew what the forecast was, but we were hoping that the rain would be of the more occasional variety. However, even though the rain wasn’t heavy, it was steady, and so it was a very dreary start for our traveling day.

We started out on 1-75, and then took I-285 to bypass the city. The trip was pretty routine as we went around the circumference of the city, but when we got back on 75 we did hit a slowdown due to a traffic accident ahead. Even though the accident was cleared up by the time we got there, we still had about 45 minutes of slow-moving traffic.

Once we hit I-16, not only did the traffic become pretty much non-existent, but the clouds also started to clear and we saw some blue sky. The temperatures climbed as well, from 55 when we left our campground in Adairsville to 81 when we arrived in Florida.

For the next two days we are back in Pecan Park RV Resort which was our first stop two years ago when we first started fulltiming. It does not seem like it has been almost two years since we were here!

 

 

Yay for shorts and flip flops!!

 

 

 

  Life is good.

Final Day In Georgia

Location: Adairsville, GA (High 59, Low 50)

It’s been a whirlwind week here in the Atlanta area, where we’ve had some good times visiting with family and doing A LOT of eating.

Yesterday afternoon we went over to my aunt’s house for our belated Christmas dinner.

 

 

My aunt outdid herself putting on a spread which had us all leaving the table stuffed.

 

When it came time to head home, we were counting our lucky stars that we were heading north, because all the traffic was going SOUTH.

 

I started out taking pictures of the changing colors in the sky and ended up trying to get some good shots of the line of traffic in the other lane.

 

 

Let’s just say they were going nowhere FAST.

 

 

Despite the weather forecast, today ended up being a pretty nice day and for the finale to our week, we had lunch at Pappasito’s Cantina.

 

I got a few pictures while we were there, but none of the food…it was just too good and I forgot.

 

We finished the week with one last card game. My mother and aunt duked it out for the win, which went to my aunt – just barely!

 

 

My stepfather, mom, aunt and uncle…

 

It’s been a great week. But it’s time for us to move on. Bright and early tomorrow morning, we’ll be hitching up and heading out for Jacksonville.

Celebrating the Holiday With Family

Location: Adairsville, GA (High 58, Low 37)

After a relaxing morning, we packed up the truck with a few needed items and hit the road to my aunt’s. Harvest Moon Campground is about 50 minutes or so away, most of it on I-75. We were happy to see that the roads were pretty clear of traffic.

We watched the updates for the flight my mother was taking from Albany, NY. No delays!! YAY!! So around 2 we hopped back on I-75 for the ride to the airport.

 

Traveling the highway through Atlanta is a whole ‘nuther experience when you have a driver who knows where they’re going!

 

 

 

 

 

And with it being the holiday, we continued to luck out with relatively quiet roads.

 

 

While we were waiting for the plane to arrive, Harry and I indulged in our first cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee since last August!

Right on schedule, the plane arrived and after a short wait, we picked up luggage and headed back out of Atlanta.

Selfie in the car!

 

We still have some celebratin’ to do, as we are having our Christmas dinner today. Our week here is going fast!

Christmas 2014

Location: Adairsville, GA (High 51, Low 31)

Happy Christmas morning everyone! We have already had a very nice Christmas gift with two solid days of relaxation.

On Christmas Eve we often get some kind of take-out. But with the past season, and last month especially, of eating take-out so much, neither Harry nor I felt like eating it again yesterday. Instead we decided to shake it up and make a nice Christmas Eve dinner.

It’s been a long, long time since we cooked a ham so that really sounded like a good idea for a delicious meal. We pulled out the Nesco Roast-Air Oven that we bought for just such occasions, but have only used a couple times since we got it.

 

 

Harry basted the ham with honey as it was cooking and did it ever smell good!!

 

 

 

And looked just as good!

 

 

Our simple but yummy meal…

I think we will be cooking a little more often in the coming months.

 

This morning the rain has stopped and it is looking like the start of a beautiful day. Harry and I will be going to my aunt’s later this morning and then to the airport this afternoon to pick up my mother and stepfather who will be flying in from NY.

Wishing everyone out there in Blogland a wonderful and blessed Christmas Day!

Relaxing and Getting Ready For Our Move

Location: Adairsville, GA (High 62, Low 38)

After four months of sticking to a work schedule, it’s been nice over the past couple of days to have NO schedule at all.

Yesterday we spent the day just hanging around for the most part. Interspersed with getting a little laundry done and making a pot of spaghetti sauce. The weather was very dreary, and by midday the rain was moving in, so that didn’t lend itself to any outdoor activities. I have so been looking forward to getting back to our running, but so far the weather has not cooperated. I admire those northern runners who get out there in cold snowy and rainy conditions. However, I have discovered that I am NOT a cold weather runner. Even though the high today is expected to be 62, when you throw in the rain….yeah, I’m not planning to run in that. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Watching the weather last night, we saw the severe weather to our west and Harry got out the weather radio and got it set up, just in case. But we were lucky that we just had run of the mill rainstorms with a few rumbles of thunder now and then. Nothing bad.

Harry spent some time yesterday working on the forms we will need for our (virtual) move to Florida. We are going to be stopping in Jacksonville for a couple of days early next week on our way down to the Keys. We have to have a VIN inspection done and then take all the forms over to DMV to get our licenses and registration completed. We hope to be officially Floridians by the end of Monday if all goes well!

Starting to Feel Like Christmas

Location: Adairsville, GA (High 52, Low 45)

You would think that spending many, many hours each week packing people’s Christmas gifts and reading their holiday messages would really get a person into the Christmas spirit. But it really didn’t even feel like we were even close to the holidays until we were traveling along on Sunday and I found a radio station playing 24/7 Christmas music. It really brightened the trip for me to sing along to all the old favorite Christmas songs as we traveled along.

Yesterday I felt even more in the Christmas spirit when we went over to my aunt’s house for dinner and walked in to a bright crackling fire in the fireplace and a beautiful Christmas tree.

 

We enjoyed a wonderful homemade dinner and some great conversation before settling down to a rematch of our card game from last year. We stopped after the fourth round so no winner yet!

 

Today and tomorrow the weather is looking pretty rainy and nasty so we are going to stay put and relax.

And so here we are this morning…Little Miss Ariel and I relaxing!!! She is still sticking pretty close after all those weeks with me being gone so much, but hopefully now that we are done working she will not have to be on my lap every minute that I am home.

We are starting to get settled back in to normal life…

We Now Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming…

Location: Adairsville, GA (High 50, Low 46)

Over the past few days, the saying I used for the blog post title kept running through my head. It’s a weird experience working for Amazon, because it is so time intensive that after a while it does seem like it is reality. And then all of a sudden it ends and it feels like you’ve stepped back into another dimension.

We have been working on getting back to a normal kind of schedule. This morning I didn’t get up until almost 6:30, which was a wonderful feeling. Financially, it was a very lucrative season. We easily surpassed what we made last year so our accounts are now in good shape for the next eight months.

Yesterday morning, we were so happy to be able to hook up and pull out of the Expo parking lot that was our home base for the past month.

 

 

And we started out with a bright blue sky which was also nice.

 

 

We traveled through two states yesterday…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a longer day’s travel than we normally do, about 375 miles. Last year we stayed near Nashville when we left Campbellsville, but this year we decided to just get the trip done in one day.

 

We traveled through a hazy Nashville,

 

 

and by Chattanooga.

We were lucky because the traffic wasn’t bad at all. It seemed pretty busy for a Sunday, but we never had to slow down or encountered any traffic issues.

 

 

We arrived at Harvest Moon RV Park around 4:30 pm and got settled in. It was cloudy but at least it was warmer.

 

We are here for a week and then we will be heading south to FLORIDA!!