Our October time in Austin/Georgetown this year flew by, with less socializing than usual and only a quick trip to Estes Park, CO, to break up the series of annual doctors visits and self-done motorhome maintenance. Leaving Georgetown for Florida, we took a different path this year as the hurricanes were particularly hard on the RV parks on our regular route. The new path avoided recovering areas and, to Maren's delight, allowed a couple of new small zoos. We still stopped near Gainesville to spend a weekend visiting my dad as we entered the state.
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| Wild elk greeting us at the Estes Park condo. |
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| Us on one of the walks we took in Estes Park. |
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| This giraffe wasn't interested in eating lettuce from Maren, so this is as close as she could get. |
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| Saying goodbye to our Georgetown storage unit |
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| Greeted by Sandhill Cranes at the RV Park near dad |
November is a good time to schedule third-party work done on the motorhome as the bulk of RVers in Florida haven't yet arrived for the winter. We always start at Lazydays near Tampa as they let us "full-timers" sleep in the motorhome in the service bay if it takes more than one day to get repairs completed.
We had been getting a dry toilet bowl more and more lately (RV toilets keep just a small puddle of water in the bottom above the seal), so the toilet seal was number one on the list. This year we only had two items on the list and I could have done both, but since we have an extended warranty, why would I? We didn't need to spend a night in the service bay as they had parts on hand, so we moved just next door to their campground. The next day, the toilet bowl was dry again, so they sent the technician over to the campground to inspect his repair. He hit the seal with some lube and called it fixed. We were doubtful, but had to try it.
Our next stop was to have 4 windows pulled and de-fogged. The window shop lets full timers camp in their parking lot, complete with electricity. The windows weren't that bad, but they were only going to get worse and catching the issue early can prevent the glass from being replaced. They pulled the windows on Monday, put them back in on Wednesday, but there was some unacceptable debris between the window panes on two of the fixed windows. So they re-pulled those on Thursday morning, re-worked them and put them back the same day. We let the seals set overnight and planned to be back on our way Friday except we had -- wait for it -- a dry toilet bowl several times during the week.
We called our great service writer at Lazydays and she said bring it back immediately. This was great as we were planning on driving the opposite direction and weren't sure when we would be able to fit another stop to have the toilet reworked yet again. With Covid, RV parts are getting hard to find. Many manufacturers have "almost complete" RVs just waiting to be shipped out except for a few important parts; like toilets. They replaced the seal again, plus the ball flap this time, and set the motorhome out in the parking lot and told us to check on it in an hour and by then the paperwork would be complete and we could go.
60 minutes later -- Dry bowl! Mad hysteria and RV techs and lead techs scrambled to find the issue (as no toilets are available for a complete replacement). But now no one could get the toilet to leak, so we crossed our fingers and got back on the road and got to our original destination just as the sun was setting. We spent Thanksgiving week visiting with my dad and the toilet has been working great 98% of the time. Maybe it needs its own vaccine?
December gets us to Lion Country Safari KOA in Loxahatchee, FL where the lions can be heard roaring all hours of the day and night. And occasionally the gibbons get set off too and sound like car alarms -- WooooOOO! WooooOOO!
As we reflect on 2020, we regret the many friends and family we weren't able to visit on our travels and we regret the difficult year it has been for us all -- but we are grateful we were at least able to flex our plans and salvage some of our reservations. Being able to drive to new places and change the view out our windows helped pass the months, but we'll have to return someday to many of them since we couldn't (or wouldn't) enjoy museums and any other indoor attractions because of Covid19. We are also thankful that I didn't try to fix the toilet myself!
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| Our path in 2020 |
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| The states we have camped in since we started in 2012 |
Below is our official 2020 Holiday letter which provides the cliff notes of our year, though faithful followers of this blog will probably already know the scoop on everything!
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