Leaving OBX is never easy, especially when we were also saying our “see you later’s” to Jo & Ben. At the same time, I was very excited to see my sister and my parents.

A quick detour allowed us to stop on our way down to see my cousin Teddy and her family in Atlanta. You may remember that I took a trip to Israel earlier this year with Teddy, to see her Mom a.k.a. my Aunt Aura. If you missed that post you can read it here. Teddy had prepared a wonderful dinner for us and it was great to see her, Bruce, and Noam. While I didn’t get a picture of any people, I did get a great one of their cat.

We arrived at Lake Louisa on Saturday, October 28 and settled in quickly before heading over to my sisters. Shannon has always loved decorating for the holidays and Halloween is one of her and Rodneys favorites. They go all out.

It was our first time meeting her new Yorki pup, Remi. Remi joins his older brother, Meeko. They are adorable and full of energy!

Since we’ve visited the WDW parks several times in the past few years, we decided to do something a little different this year: horseback riding! I love horses – they are such beautiful and majestic animals. Bill has been allergic to them in the past, so he took an allergy pill beforehand, and thankfully he did fine.

Just as we returned from our ride, there was a fly-by of airplanes. Rodney got a great video of it!

Since we were in Fort Wilderness already, we decided to go check out the Halloween decorations in the campground. It surprised me that so many people bring these HUGE decorations to set up for a short stay. We all really enjoyed it!

Between horseback riding and checking out the decorations, we were starving. Since we were nearby Wilderness Lodge, and we hadn’t visited there before, it was a short discussion and easy decision to head there for lunch. What a beautiful hotel! Our lunch was really good and we took a walk down to the water afterwards and hopped on one of the boats to take a ride.

While hanging out with Shannon and Rodney at their house, we got to enjoy watching the Sand Hill Cranes that frequent their yard. Check out this short video clip of them doing some type of dance.

It was weird this year, arriving in Clearwater. Our usual RV park, Clearwater Travel Resort, has been for sale for over 2 years now and at one point the property (which is leased by the management company) was sold. Knowing this, I had looked into other places in the area and found Avalon RV Park. I’ll say it up front that it isn’t as nice, but it was $500 a month LESS, so in two months time, we saved $1000! I’m not making this up. Turns out, the sale fell through and the park is still open for business, and even though they had a reservation for us, we could not pass on that kind of savings. So, to Avalon we went. It was very weird and sad passing right by the turn-in, but my budget was a lot happier. We did, however, have a site reserved for storage for late December through end of January, but more on that in a later post.

Bill had an install, but Avalon didn’t have a site for our client, so for the first time, he had to commute to work. It wasn’t far, only about a 10 minute drive, so not too bad at all.

I fell into the familiar routine of visiting with my parents, which I love. Bill joined us as his schedule allowed.

We did take a couple of days to ourselves too. One day we drove north to walk around Tarpon Springs. We’ve done it before, but its always a nice day. Another day we drove south to visit with Gene & Eileen, who we saw at the RV Dreamers picnic last year, but we didn’t get nearly enough one-on-one time. They have suspended their traveing at least for now, and have settled into a very nice community in Venice.

My Mom knows I love all the Christmas markets that pop up, so when she told me about the one in Clearwater, I was excited to check it out. I was so glad I did because I got the girls these great little bracelets with their names on them. I love personalized things, as I doubt we will ever find things with their names (Freya and Arwen) just randomly.

In keeping with routine, we flew up to PA to celebrate Thanksgiving and Arwen’s 3rd birthday! It was a wonderful week of visiting and spending time with family! The girls loved their new bracelets!

My parents generously treated us to a wonderful dinner out for my birthday. We had a semi-water view, threatening rain keeping us from sitting outside. Thanks again!

The Treasure Island Boat Parade is always a fun way to spend an evening, and this year we took full advantage of being Elks members and headed to the Holiday Isles Elks Lodge in Madeira Beach. We arrived early and snagged the last outside table. The bar food that was available for dinner was reasonably priced and tasty. Best part was the front row seats for the parade!

On another gorgeous sunny day, we went to see the Sanding Ovations sand castle contest. The theme this year was “Time.” Below are pics of my favs. There is also a vendor market and people flying kites.

My cousin Howard and his wife Sharon live across the state in Palm Bay. We had visited with them last a few years ago when we visited the Space Coast. We met half way at Kissimmee Lakes State Park. Sadly, my Mom wasn’t feeling well and was unable to join us. We packed a picnic lunch, and afterward we took a walk around the park. It was wonderful seeing them! Thanks guys!

One day, I was just scrolling Facebook on my phone, when a familiar name popped up with a PM. It was one of my besties, Linda Davey. She and Steven were visiting the ranch in TX for the holidays. She asked me, quite innocently, what are you doing on Monday? (this was on Friday) I replied no definite plans, why? Longer story short, she had been goofing around looking at RV Trader and after entering a ridiculous number of criteria for a coach, one popped up. Just one. So, she inquired about it. Everything about it seemed right, so they decided to see it in person. This is where Bill and I and our plans for Monday become an active part of the story – the coach was in Orlando and they were flying in to see it in person. They wanted to know if we would come to look at it with them, help them inspect it. Of course, we said YES! Again, longer story short, they bought the coach, a 2017 Tiffin RED, which she had already named Ruby (Linda names all.the.things)

I had been very excited for Christmas this year because for the first time in a VERY long time, my brother and his wife were coming to spend the holidays. It was supposed to be a surprise for my Dad. Sadly, my brother had a pretty serious motorcycle accident a few days before they were leaving to drive down. He is doing ok but has a long recovery in front of him. I appreciate everyone’s prayers and good wishes for his recovery.

We still went forward with our plan, which was my parents, Bill, and I drove up to Shannon’s on the 23rd and we stayed over. We took a walk around her neighborhood after dinner, which was crab stuffed, and sausage stuffed mushrooms. YUMMY! We watched not one, but two Scrooge movies. It was fun to compare them.

The following morning, we got to work cooking a fabulous dinner of prime rib, mashed potatoes, and veggies. OH! and crescent rolls – which we almost burnt to a crisp! Shannon made not one, or two, but 3 delish desserts for us for dessert. Our early dinner was perfect, since we wanted to return to Clearwater before it got too late. We don’t like leaving Callie home alone for more than one night.

Christmas day itself was a quiet one. I’m always a bit melancholy on Christmas anymore. I miss seeing my kids, but they are busy with their own things now, and that’s ok; and why we make a point of always going for the girls’ birthdays. Michelle called and we had a video chat with her and the girls, which cheered me up a bit. Shannon had sent us home with plenty of leftovers (including desserts!) so my parents came over to help us finish them off! As is our tradition, we watched A Christmas Story before my parents left for home. After, we weren’t sleepy yet so we put on the colorized version of It’s a Wonderful Life.

With the holidays in the rear-view mirror, it was time to prepare in earnest for the next thing – which was our long awaited trip to Cuenca, Ecuador! More on that next time!

Previous Post: Replacing the Microwave and OBX with Friends

Looking Forward To: Cuenca, Ecuador!

Supporting our blog:

We also would love to have you check out our list RV must-haves by clicking the “Stuff You Need” tab at the top. You can also just click the “SHOP HERE” link on the sidebar. Using the links to purchase from Amazon helps pay for this blog and we appreciate you using them to purchase one of our pre-chosen items or anything else you may need from Amazon. Please be aware you can still use your Amazon Prime!

Keeping In Touch

There are a few ways you can keep in touch and we’d love for you to reach out anytime! First, you can comment on any/all posts – we love to hear your thoughts on our posts! Second, you can follow us on Facebook or Instagram for the most up-to-date goings-on! Third, you can always reach out via email: bkamericanodyssey@gmail.com.