In addition to our Gator Club activities, visits with friends, and checkups with doctors and our dentist, our time in Austin this year was peppered with some new experiences. We volunteered to help the Escapees RV Club in Dallas for most of a week. It is always fun to talk with fellow RVers and soon-to-be RVers, plus we really appreciate the benefits of "Escapees" and feel privileged that they trust us to share their message. That said, the traffic in Dallas is crazy! We were rear-ended while riding in the car of our Escapee friends on the way to the show one morning and sadly, their car gave its life to keep us all safe. It isn't cheap or easy to equip a car to be towed 4-wheels-down behind a motorhome, so that makes it especially painful when you have to replace one.
Once we got back to Austin after the show, Jeffrey got his own maintenance done -- removal of his gallbladder. It had started acting up in early August but we recognized the symptoms from my own gallbladder issue a few years ago. Thankfully we were able to keep it stable until we could get back to our Austin surgeon. Typically it is a relatively simple outpatient procedure but his just didn't want to leave its comfy warm home. Ultimately the surgeon won the battle, but Jeffrey was stuck in the hospital an extra day.
Other than a little physical therapy for Maren's shoulder (overuse from digging out old sealant on the motorhome), our remaining time in Austin was relatively calm. We did manage a few small escapes by plane/boat -- a week on a coastal cruise in California with my parents and a weekend in Florida for a cousin's wedding -- and they made us restless to get on the road in mid-November. Once we got moving, we made the now well-known journey across the gulf to Florida in time to celebrate Thanksgiving with Jeffrey's dad in Gainesville -- even going to the Florida/Florida State football game. The Gators lost, but hearing a stadium full of fans from both schools singing Tom Petty's "Won't Back Down" song in his memory was worth it.
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| Our "Princess" home for a week |
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| Enjoying our nosebleed seats in The Swamp |
Fixes in place, we started our meandering set of visits to the various FL state parks that are near the friends and family we have sprinkled all over the state and look forward to visiting while we are here. As I write this, we are near Sarasota in Myakka River State Park -- well known for its live wild alligator collection. We relocate in a few days up to Tampa to work for Escapees at the huge RV Supershow for a week. When we aren't working at the booth we have full access to see all of the RVs for sale and cool RV gadgets. We should probably leave the wallets locked up in Max while we are there. Hopefully our next blog post won't be talking about some big new purchase ;-)
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| Small Gator collection at Myakka River State Park (and one dumb bird) |
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| Max at Jonathan Dickinson State Park in Hobe Sound, Florida |
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