Always trying to mix things up, we decided to stop and spend a couple of nights near my sister before hunkering down in Clearwater this year. At the last minute, I was able to snatch two nights at Lake Louisa State Park, which happens to be a short 10-minute drive from her. Score!

It took us about 2 hours to arrive at Lake Louisa State Park. Bill got us parked and we were set up quickly, mostly because we didn’t do more than open slides and let the cat out of her crate. We headed over to my sisters for dinner with her and Rodney.

Shannon was off the following day, having been able to switch her day off with a co-worker. We had decided the night before to visit Epcot. The weather was perfect – sunny and warm. We revisited our fav attractions, including Soaring, Test Track, and Space Ship Earth. We also walked around and visited the countries, stopping for lunch in Mexico. We switched parks for the second part of our day, visiting Animal Kingdom. We were able to ride Flight of Passage and also the safari, where we saw a bunch of animals! I am so grateful to my sister for getting us into the parks – we had such a great day!

It was a short drive day to get to Clearwater Travel RV Resort. We timed our drive to avoid as much of Tampa traffic as possible, as it can be very stressful. Thankfully, our strategy worked and we completed the 88 mile trip in under two hours. We set up on our site, which had a HUGE Live Oak that provided some great shade.

Once we were set up and had relaxed for a little while, we headed to my parents for dinner. We appreciated my Mom having dinner for us; it makes it nice to not have to bother with dinner after a drive day.

Shannon, Mom, and I went to dinner one evening. The featured pic shows a bird, who’s been named George by the staff, who tried to share our dinner. We strongly discouraged him.

While in the area, Bill had a total of three installs. One of those installs was for Tom and Theresa, who was referred to us by our friends and clients Frank and Chris. Upon completion of the install, Tom very generously took us to dinner at Whisky Joe’s. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and beautiful sunset, but the best part was the company!

When Bill wasn’t working, we found some fun things to do. Our friends, Cindy & James were in FL, about 2 1/2 hours north of us and they reached out to see if we could plan a meet-up. Since it had been a while since Bill had been out for a sail, I got Cindy & James on board and planned a day out on a sailboat. When the day came, the wind was uncooperative, so we pushed it a day. The next day the tides were too low, so we pushed it again, but Cindy suggested we meet in Tarpon Springs so they could check out the town, which is known as the sponge capital of the world. There is a significant Greek influence in the town and we enjoyed a yummy lunch at Mama’s Greek Cuisine. We walked all around, checking out all the small shops, even stopping in to see the sponge movie. We also walked to Tarpon Springs Bayou Park where we saw two smaller manatees or their noses at least. Finally, on Thursday, we met at the marina with our picnic lunch and some wine and met with Dimitri and Kathy of Sailing Tarpon Islands. They kept their boat, the Escapade, in tiptop condition. She’s a 40′ Beneteau who’s sailed the Mediterranean (mainly around the Greek Isles) and also in New England, near Boston, Cape Cod, and Martha’s Vineyard. I am still leary of sailboats since our accident in CO back in 2018, but Dimitri’s 40 years of sailing experience won me over. The wind wasn’t fully cooperative, but we enjoyed a warm sunny day relaxing with friends.

I joined my Mom one day for lunch with her friends. Sweet Sage has a lovely outdoor patio in the back and that’s where we found a great table. I had met a couple of the ladies before and enjoyed meeting some new friends also.

Bill and I flew to PA for Arwen’s first birthday, and while there spent Thanksgiving with our son. Our daughter spent the day with her in-laws so it worked well for us to see Billy in Pittsburgh. While we didn’t have a traditional dinner of turkey and the fixings, we spent it with family and that’s the important part. Arwen loved her smash cake, taking huge bites in between smashing. I received mixed results from the girls with the crafts, see pics below. Michelle got me a small cake for my birthday since we were still there for that. Our week there went by very quickly, and the next thing you knew we were heading back to FL.

My Mom and I went to see some Christmas Lights one evening at Largo Central Park. There were vendors set up selling their wares, but nothing was appealing enough to purchase. The lights were really pretty though and it was a beautiful evening.

We stopped in to see Bill’s cousins on another afternoon. I didn’t get to visit with him last year, so it was great seeing Jerry, Pat, and Gigi. Pat ordered a pizza for lunch – YUMMY! Thanks again for the hospitality.

Billy flew down to spend Christmas with us. We had planned our holiday meal at Shannon’s for the Wednesday before Christmas since that’s when she and Rodney were off. I drove up the day before to help with the preparations. It’s a lot of work getting a turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, carrots, and brussel sprouts ready. Shannon made one of her famous Eggnog cheesecakes for dessert. We were all stuffed!

Christmas Day itself was a quiet one. We had decided in advance that after the HUGE meal a few days before, no one felt like cooking again, so we ordered in Chinese food. We put on a Christmas movie and just hung out. My kind of day!

The following day we lifted our jacks and started our journey toward TX. I’ll tell you about that next time!

Previous Post: Time Off Between PA and FL

Next Time: In A Hurray to Get to TX

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