Yes, I have really been slacking off when it comes to blogging and even reading the email lately.  I had been staying up too late and losing sleep.  It’s a bit too late for beauty sleep but, I’m feeling more refreshed these recent mornings.

Aside from looking at houses, we did have a couple nice visits with friends recently.

Bill and Mary Snow, neighbors in Key by the Sea in Marathon stopped in Newport on their way south.  Normally, they would have taken I-95, but the hurricane encouraged them to plan a different, more westerly route. We took them to Big Creek, where they met the famous Spence.  He was furiously blowing leaves off the roadways when we pulled up.  Then, we took them to the second best attraction in the area, Mellow Mushroom for pizza. Here they are in Big Creek.

I was looking at houses on the internet one night when I realized that we probably had been very close to Bob and Marthanne Foster when we were out driving around.  I looked up their address and realized we had been about fifteen minutes from their house.  I called them up and arranged a visit.  Bob and Marthanne were boat neighbors in Solomons, MD one or two summers. Notice that  sling.  Bob recently had rotator cuff surgery. Like a couple of old people, we compared surgery notes.

 

We said goodbye to Lee and Roseanna, our excellent neighbors for two months in Newport, Tennessee.  Ack!  I didn’t get a picture of them.  Maybe they’ll accept my offer of our hide-a-bed for a visit to Marathon this winter. Then, on November 1, we left town at 0907.  We took the scenic route around the park and followed Rt. 411 south through North Carolina and north Georgia.  It is beautiful country.

I was agog when we drove through Madison, Georgia.  Just do a Google image search of Madison, GA and see all those beautiful houses.  It was enough to make me reconsider the Tennessee idea.

Andy had picked out a campground for the night but, then decided to spend the night in the Cracker Barrel parking lot in Perry, Georgia.  That’s fine with me; I’m a cheap skate. We left at 0907, arrived in Perry at 1745 and had driven 307 miles.

On Tuesday morning, we took off at 0840.  Most of the day was on Interstate 75.  We stopped for fuel in Ocala, Florida, just half an hour north of our destination, when a truck driver told Andy that we were leaking oil.  Sure enough, the back of Sao and the front end of the car were both covered in oil spatters. Fortunately, we were at a truck stop and the mechanics determined it was the oil filter. They changed the filter, Andy added some oil and we were back on the road.  We got to Alliance Coach in Wildwood at 1805 after driving  279 miles.

There is an RV washing crew here at Alliance and they washed the car for us this morning.

Here are our surroundings this morning.

Northwestern Florida is magnificent with huge Live Oak trees and Spanish Moss. This view was from behind the motor home this morning.

 

Today, we drove to Conestogas Restaurant in Alachua for hamburgers. An excellent meal!  Then, we drove to Gainesville for Andy’s four-year cancer checkup. All is well.  Andy and Dr. Mendenhall posed for me at the end of the examination.