One Adventure Ends as Another Begins

It is now official – we have concluded our full-time traveling adventures and have now fully moved into our new home in a 55+ community in Florida. Our community is called Walden Shores – in Lake Wales – and our address is 2309 Thoreau Drive, Lake Wales, FL 33898. We look forward to reconnecting with friends now that we are stationary in one place.

It took us about 10 car loads to get everything moved from the rv to our house. Our streets are pretty narrow, so we didn’t want to try to bring the rv here and have it sitting in the road while we unpacked. I’m doubly glad we didn’t opt for that version of moving because my stamina would never have lasted through one push to get it all at once! Alex gave up two of his days off to take trips with us, so we could fill his car, too. We are still working on where we want to put things – it’s harder figuring it out when you are spread out so much more! I think I have moved things in the kitchen at least 3 times while I figure out the best layout!

Our last summer/fall in the rv was wonderful – we enjoyed revisiting favorites in New England and our RV caravan was a great way to end our travels. We listed our rv for sale and within 2 hours got some inquiries, but nothing has panned out, yet. We are still waiting for the clear title to get mailed to us and we are getting the windshield replaced on the 8th. There is an rv show in Tampa that we will go to on the 12th or 13th, so we just might end up trading it in for something smaller that we can store here in our community and take out for a few days at a time. We have fingers crossed that we can get everything finished by the 19th of November, when our reservation for the rv, ends in Dade City.

Our community is already everything we hoped for – lots of very welcoming people and lots of activities to choose from when we want to venture out. We had a lovely visit with a couple that acts as the welcoming committee. They went over lots of information for us and gave us a directory of everyone in the community. We have already checked out shuffleboard, water aerobics, hand and foot game, Mexican train, mahjong, and the weekly community breakfasts. Wayne is hoping to learn pickleball and join Bean Bag Baseball. We are going to try a new card game for us – Euchre, and they do card bingo on Sunday afternoons. They offer lots of day trips, dances, and supper clubs so we will certainly be as busy as we choose!

Wayne is slowly uncovering his new workshop – it was so packed with stuff that it has taken him days to figure out what is out there and begin to get it organized for his use. I am itching to get my hands in some flower planting, but have waited until we were here full-time to begin. We have several projects for updates to small things, but are in no hurry to begin them, yet. We are still adjusting to the fact that we aren’t going anywhere – we are here to stay for many years. We had to get a cell signal booster for our phones so I can talk in the house without losing a call! We are still deciding on TV and internet options.

We have some busy few months coming up – We are hosting Alex, Kristin, and Zooey for Thanksgiving in our new home, we are getting all the kids and grandkids together the end of December in Tennessee, and we have our 10 day Panama Cruise with 2 other couples in January. Our friends, Jim and Patti, are now settled in their RV resort, less than an hour from us, so we foresee lots of game playing days with them.

This will be my last blog – I’m not really into documenting daily life when it is just a normal routine. I have gotten many comments over the years from people saying how much they enjoyed following our adventures. We are glad we could take you all along, but now it is time to go out and find your own adventures! We are truly blessed to have had 5 years of seeing so many places in this country – but have also realized how much more there is that we didn’t see! I will end this blog with a list of some statistics from the entire 5 years. I lost some of my early data, but this will be fairly close. We hope we hear from any of you that venture down to Florida. We don’t have any extra beds in our house, but have lovely porches for visiting and are always up for a day trip if you are close by.

5 year Retirement Adventures Statistics:

49,168 miles in RV; 6,807 gallons of diesel fuel

65,463 miles in car

46 states

256 total campgrounds

9 National Parks, overnight; 118 different stamps for our passport book

30 State Parks, overnight; numerous other ones we visited

43 military installations, overnight; numerous other ones we just visited

We didn’t keep track of the museums, but there were definitely hundreds!