Summer Travel Map

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Uh, isn't it supposed to be sunny and warm in Florida?

January 3, 2010
Orlando, FL

We had a great visit with Barbara & Jim over in Brandon, and have now headed to Orlando. No Mickey this trip; we're here to have the alignment and ride height set on the coach. It's always something, but this is more routine maintenance.

We left the coach behind on the 31st and headed to Brandon, near Tampa. Barbara and Jim are friends from when we lived in New Jersey; they lived in the same townhome complex. They had rented a place in Boca Raton where we visited them a few years ago, but decided to settle on the Gulf Coast. Since December 31st is Barbara's birthday in addition to New Year's Eve, we made the trip at the right time for a party.

They told us that we could park the coach in front of their house but, since we hadn't been there before and checked out the streets, tree limbs, etc., we decided to leave the motorhome in Wauchula and plan to spend the night. They have a big house with many guest rooms, so that wasn't an issue.

Having Merlin as company was more of a concern, but things went pretty well on the pet front. They have two poodles. Satin Doll is roughly Merlin's age (11+) and they essentially grew up together, so they were happy to see each other (dogs do seem to remember). Maya Lynn and Satin compete for alpha position at times, but everything was OK until they all got treats at the same time. Their younger dog, Tootsie, is a barker and protector, but she settled down after a while.

Barbara made one of all our favorites, Chicken & Brie (easy to make - a good idea if you're making your own birthday dinner). We had a good time, we watched the ball drop (first time in the eastern time zone - real time - in a while), and slept well. We'd planned to head back to the coach on New Year's Day, but our arms were twisted (hard, right?) to stay another day as they had a dinner planned for 14 family and friends. We had a great time catching up with people we hadn't seen since NJ, and finally hit the hay after 1:30 AM - late for us.

While New Year's Eve was relatively nice (we ate outside on the patio), it was cloudy and/or cold ever since. We had quite a bit of rain during the day on New Year's, and it turned downright chilly overnight. We had freeze warnings back in Wauchula today. Ouch! We expected cool but comfortable, but this 27-29°F stuff is hard on the system. Our blood is pretty thin after a couple of winters in Arizona. :-)

We checked out of the Escapees park this morning and made a leisurely drive up to Orlando, following US-27 to US-17, through Kissimmee and up to our destination right near the Florida Turnpike and Bee Line Expressway. We're parked at Josam's, an alignment shop that specializes in truck and motorhome chassis. We stopped here in the summer of 2007, so we're not "due" for an alignment per se, but we were so close it only makes sense to stop. They check the alignment of all three axles (if the drive or tag axles are out of alignment, it causes tire wear and lowered fuel economy). Since I've changed the steer and tag tires to a larger size, some adjustment to the ride height in the air suspension might be in order, as well. We'll see.


Anyway, we're parked in their driveway and settling in for the night. Since the low temperature is supposed to be 27°F, we'll leave the furnace on overnight. It'll be a "set the alarm night", since they open at 7:00 AM (ouch!)... :-)

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