October 13 - Days 116 - 120 - The End

We departed New Orleans at 8:15 heading East on I10. We quickly passed through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, then it was onto the Florida Panhandle and a long, long drive to Tallahassee. After 390 miles, we arrived at the Tallahassee RV Park and settled in for a couple of days. Our neighbor was Steve from Ft. Lauderdale driving a 45 foot Neoplan bus that he rebuilt - what a sight! Only 9 were built in the 90s. By the way, Steve also has a rather large yacht and some airplanes.

We spent the two days relaxing and visiting a few interesting spots, including the Tallahassee Antique Auto Museum. The museum is off exit 209 of I10 and includes many old and rare automobiles among other things (including outboard motors, some boats, kids pedal cars and the like).

We left Tallahassee on Monday morning and headed East on I10 to I75, then South to The Villages where we spent a couple of days with some very old friends from Ottawa and Florida, Don and Dianne Rioux. We stayed at the Recreation Plantation in Lady Lake. It is a very large RV park, but most of it has be taken over by manufactured homes.

We spend the afternoons and evenings with Don and Dianne. They gave us the full tour of The Villages, and what a tour it was. There are homes from $120,000 to over $1 million and the entire complex is the home to over 90,000 residents at the present time, and ultimately will house over 120,000 and cover a land area 16 miles by 9 miles. Golf carts are the favored mode of transportation on two lane cart paths, but also on the road with licensed carts that go 35 mph!

There are several town centers, each with myriad shops, restaurants and bars. There is entertainment every night. There are too many golf courses to count and loads of recreation centers. There are apparently hundreds of clubs of all sorts and descriptions - whatever your interest is, there is a club. No excuse for not being active in some way.

Tuesday morning I set about to prepare the coach for storage back home. That included a roof wash to start, then all the rest of the coach. The motorcycle was next, then the car. After 4 hours, everything looked pretty good! Suz was getting the inside ready, then we loaded the first load of "stuff" into the car to be transported to the house upon arrival in Palm City.

After another fun evening with Don and Dianne, we said our goodbyes and went to bed. On Wednesday morning, we departed a campground for the last time (for awhile!) and headed South on US27 to the Florida Turnpike and our home in Martin Downs. We arrived around 12:30 having traveled over 12,000 miles in 4 months to the day. We have had a wonderful trip and Suzanne is now a dyed-in-the-wool RVer, she is even talking "full timing."

By 4:00 we had unloaded the RV, and put it to bed - for a few weeks. But not until having washed the front of the coach to remove the "love bugs" that hit us between Kissimmee and Yeehaw Junction. There is no escaping the little *&%$#@*%! But after looking at the work that needs to be done to get our house and yard back in shape, full-timing, love bugs and all, looks more and more attractive!

We are already planning our next adventure, but this time we will sit in each location a bit longer. Where would we love to go again? We loved Helen, Georgia; Lake Toxaway in North Carolina; Bar Harbor in Maine; Mansfield in Pennsylvania; Sturgis in South Dakota; Eastern Oregon; Bryce and Zion and Southern Utah generally; Monument Valley and the Four Corners area - especially Mesa Verde.

We will pass on California and Las Vegas, but New Orleans will get another visit! We also want to have a look at Tennessee and parts of the Deep South. And there is always Ottawa where we have family and lots of friends. And we have only touched the "tip of the iceberg." There are many places we haven't even heard of yet. In other words, we have a lot of places to visit and visit again.

Looking forward to the next trip! Until then, Cheers!

John, Suz and Dixie the Wonderdog