Finally, we arrive.

We left our soggy campground on Tuesday morning, and the sun came out as we were leaving. Of course! We drove towards the south east, and the scenery was changing with more water and lush vegetation. We pushed on further than we had planned, and ended up at the Walmart in Live Oak Florida. This was not the most pleasant Walmart we'd been at, with homeless people and their dog lounging around, and two nasty old ladies selling kittens, which I'm sure will meet a nasty fate if not sold. Some idiot parked his car right in front of us, and crawled in the back and went to sleep. Luckily he moved before us in the morning.

Wednesday we had a short hop to our next Walmart at Bushnell, Florida. Got lucky, arriving before noon, and grabbed the prime spot, with our own little patch of lawn, and a tree! The place rapidly filled up, and I counted 27 RV's in the lot in the morning. Seems like a lot of people had December 1st reservations at their RV parks. From Bushnell we rolled on down to our final destination in Bradenton, Florida. We are staying at Arbor Terrace because they offered us a great deal for December.. just $280 including power and water. In January the same lot will be $927. As with all these places the RV's are jammed in close together to maximize profits. There are lots of people from the northern states, as well a from Ontario and Quebec. Haven't run into any Albertans, or other westerners, yet.

Yesterday we went to a flea market, but there was nothing but expensive junk. Then we went to Target, to purchase a microwave oven to replace our defective Emmerson. Just put it in, in July 2009, now it is dead. We picked up a GE, figuring a brand name might last longer. Too bad that it was larger than the previous oven, and installing it required 4 hours of cutting, sanding, drilling, and cursing as I lifted the damn thing up and down time after time. Happy to report it is installed and operating, and only cost me one burn and three cuts.

Last night we BBQ'd a nice London Broil (half of a 2.5 lb. piece that we paid $10.24 for) served with mushrooms, baked potatoes and pickles and tomatoes. All accompanied by a fine Spanish wine purchased for $3.97. Grocery prices are higher here than last year in Arizona. Looking forward to hearing from Veronica on food costs in Lake Havasu this year.

Today we went to another flea market... more junk. We also went to get the feel of the area, and visited the beaches on Anna Maria island, about 15 minutes drive from our RV park. We found lovely white sand, set off by the gorgeous blue tones of the Gulf of Mexico. We also spotted a flotilla of little boats fishing in a frenzy just off one stretch of beach. They were casting nets, and thrashing around each other. It looked comical, and I shot a couple of long range pics, which are posted here. Also posted pictures of us at Bushnell Walmart, and a couple of shots of other RV's there too. And a shot of our trusty old Georgie Boy set up in Bradenton, Florida. After some 3448 miles, we are here.