Lake Louisa State Park Clermont, Florida Nov 11

We left Mike Roess Gold Head Branch State Park around 11 am on Tuesday, November 11th and drove almost 3 1/2 hours to Lake Louisa State Park in Clermont, Florida for a 14-night stay. This is our 5th or 6th stay at this park, since it’s one of the closest to family and friends in Orlando.

As soon as we were finished setting up Nomad we left to go get some gift bags for the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls we bought for Ann and Amber while we were visiting Babyland when we stayed at Bolding Mill back in September. We’d been keeping it a secret by not posting about getting them so we could surprise them during this visit.

Then we stopped and picked up some pizza from Marco’s because it was BOGO and we like their pizza.

Wednesday morning we drove into Orlando to pick up our years’ worth of mail from Amber and give her the Cabbage Patch Kid we had bought for her. For some reason we neglected to take a photo. Then we drove over to Ann’s to do the same thing and remembered to take some photos that time. It was really nice, as always, to see our daughters and grandchildren in person after being away for almost a year.

Happy Birthday Abby!

Thursday morning, November 13th, we drove back in to Orlando to meet Amber and Abby at IHOP (Abby’s choice) for Abby’s birthday breakfast. We also brought what seemed like a year’s worth of Cindy’s luggage to hold her over for her 5-night stay with Amber and Abby.

After breakfast Cindy, Amber and Abby (who was playing hooky from school for her birthday) left for a day at Universal Studios. Actually it was going to be a weekend at Universal, since they would be returning on Saturday and Sunday as well.

While they were heading to Universal, I drove over to Ann’s and took Mikey, Charlotte and Seth to a second breakfast (for me, at least) which gave me a little time to spend with them.

“Batching” or “Baching” It

I’v read it can be either form, so take your pick.

Then, from Thursday afternoon until the following Tuesday, Bella and I were on our own at Nomad. Cindy had kindly made me some meals and desserts so I would not starve to death. And I could keep Nomad as dark and warm as I wanted, lol.

I spent most of those days reading, writing and re-watching this year’s Superman and Fantastic Four movies as well as the first season of Hill Street Blues (because Cindy watched the first episode while we were in Clayton, Georgia and decided she did not care for it) on DVD.

Tuesday morning I picked up Cindy from Amber’s and we took Bella to the vet for her annual exam and shots. Dr. Wolfen gave us a good report in that Bella is holding steady with her stage three kidney failure and otherwise healthy. Bella will be 15 in January and we are so grateful for having more time with her than we thought we would a little less than two years ago.

I also spent the morning at Amber’s reconnecting our travel router so that when we stream on the road it looks like it’s coming from Amber’s (our “home” of record). Somehow the router lost its connection around September when Amber was having issues with her internet cable service. That wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did. I was amazed again (as I was the first time I got it to work this past January) to get it successfully reconnected.

Then Cindy, Bella and I returned to Nomad and it was good to have Cindy back.

Storage Room Shuffle

Thursday I got an early start on getting things together from the back of Voyager and inside Nomad that we were taking to our storage room. I was trying to beat the sweltering afternoon heat and humidity of a Florida November. But it ended up taking me about 4 hours so I was hot, sweaty and tired by the time I finished.

We’re switching out some clothes, as we do every year, and storing some stuff we picked up while on the road. But we’ll also make a little extra space in the storage room because we’re picking up our “poop tote” (so named, though it’s really for the black, gray AND galley tanks) and rack to carry with us in the coming year. Most places we’ll be at for 14 nights and even though it’s just the two of us sometimes the tanks can get almost full or full around the 12th day. This way, we can empty some out into the tote and roll it down to the dump station to dispose of without moving the entire trailer. Or running to the campground restrooms in the middle of the night, lol.

I also ran the portable generator for a while to make sure it is ready when needed. We don’t have any stops planned without electrical hookups, but it’s always good to have the portable generator in case there’s a power outage at a campground like there was at Seven Points Campground in Tennessee this past April.

Saturday we drove back into Orlando to take Ann and the kids to lunch at Chili’s and enjoyed getting to spend time with them.

Then it was over to the storage room where we spent about two hours getting the Christmas decorations and some herbs for incense that Cindy wanted; the poop tote and rack; and then adding the things we brought to put IN the storage room. The storage room is “climate controlled” but I think it must be climate controlled for desert dwellers. We were dripping with sweat by the time we finished.

That night we watched Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman because Cindy was getting in the Christmas spirit.

Wrapping Up Our Stay

Abby arrived Sunday afternoon to spend a few days with us while she was out of school for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Monday we drove back into Orlando for our re-scheduled dermatologist appointments. We were supposed to have had them the previous Thursday, but our appointments were cancelled for an emergency. For the second year in a row. But our exams were good and we both moved our appointments next year to another doctor in the practice so hopefully there won’t be any emergency cancellations next year.

Then we came back to the site and I installed the rack and poop tote on the back bumper of Nomad. It’s only been a couple of years since I had last installed it, but it took me a few tries to get it right. It has to be secure enough that it doesn’t bounce around from road travel and bang against the exterior wall of Nomad. But I knew I had done it right when Cindy inspected it and declared it satisfactory.

The next day, we were off to our next stop. It’s farther away, but still close enough to get to Orlando and other nearby locales without too much of a time investment.

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