Chris Arrives

Chris arrived on Monday for 2 weeks. This is a shot of her WestJet flight arriving, taken from the 11th floor of the Hyatt parkade on top of the main terminal at Orlando International Airport.

Here's a tip for anyone parking and picking up or dropping passengers at Orlando International Airport. A multi level parkade is located across the street from the main terminal. If you park on any of the parkade levels, except the top one, you have to take the elevator or stairs down below street level, cross into the main terminal on foot, and use mobile sidewalks and escalators to get you where you need to go. Pretty time consuming. The last two times at the airport, we have entered the parkade and gone straight to the roof . Once on the roof you can drive over to the top of the Hyatt Hotel and park in that parkade for no additional charge. The Hyatt is located inside the main terminal. I went up to the 10th level and then walked up to the 11th level so I could get a few pictures of aircraft taking off and landing. You then just take the elevator down to arrivals or departures. Exiting the parkade is simpler as well. The first 40 minutes is free parking. All very quick and very easy.

Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries

A trip into Orlando International airport yesterday to pick up Chris for a short visit. She even arrived early. Must have been a quicker flight than normal, likely because she was riding on all that thin, Canadian cold air that the Florida weather guys have been complaining about for the last few days! Like we have any control over the weather! Traffic was bad on the way in and again on the way home but we managed alright. We enjoy taking the scenic highway for most of the return trip to Sebring and staying off I4 and US27. I saw this old Ford on the road on my way into Orlando. Not sure what year it was, but it looked to be in great shape and was hauling this homemade trailer with only a one wheel axle.

Of course we had to make our usual stop at Five Guys before heading back to Sebring. I managed to take a some quick pictures of our burgers. And yes....they were yummy! Two loaded burgers with all the fixings, a mountain of fries and drinks for $20. Not bad. And for those of you wondering, that was both lunch and supper for us today!

Here we see sacks of Idaho potatoes waiting to be consumed. Wonder how many bags of potatoes Five Guys would go through in a week?

Weather is warming up. Back into the mid 70s for the next week or so. Life is good......:)

All Alone.........

We played pickleball for about 20 minutes on Wednesday morning before it started to rain. Our first rain at Tanglewood since we arrived on Nov 5th. Our good friends Travis, Barb and Dennis came over from Thousand Trails in Peace River. They arrived just after 8 am and it started to rain shortly thereafter. We couldn't keep playing because the courts were too slippery but we had a good chat under the covered porch area of the clubhouse. Chris and I had to leave though because she had a flight to catch out of Orlando back to Ottawa.

The airport is less than 2 hours from here. We left early enough so we had plenty of time to stop at the Five Guys restaurant on Sand Lake Rd for lunch. Chris's last fix for 3 weeks.....mine too for that matter. The airport was busy but things moved along well and Chris didn't have to wait long to check in. We have planned it so that she travels with just a carry on bag so that she can get on and off the plane in fairly quick order. Our lifesaver, Kawal, met Chris at the airport in Ottawa and gave her a ride home but not before they stopped at a grocery store for a few staples. Many thanks, Kawal.

I stopped at Camping World for a couple of things. We have a 6 ft ladder at the farm where we stored the motorhome this summer, so I bought a rack for it that attaches to the rear ladder on our motorhome. Many RVers lash a ladder to the back of their rigs instead of stowing it in the storage bays. The other gem I was looking for was Mile Post magazine. I got the last one CW had on the shelf. Mile Post is your basic all encompassing planning guide for a trip to Alaska, which we will be doing next summer with our good friends, Jim and Jane, if all goes as planned.

I also bought a used Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS lens from a fellow in Orlando who had adverised it on craigslist. The lens was a year old, in mint condition and much cheaper than buying a new one. So my lens collection is now complete. All I am waiting for is the arrival of my new Canon 5D mark 2 which I ordered from Henry's before we headed south. Chris will bring it down on her next trip.

I left Orlando/Kissimmee around 5 pm last night and got caught in a heavy downpour. The sky was almost black. It was almost dusk too, so traffic just crawled in places until I reached Hwy 27 at Haines City. I was a little concerned about our awnings with the weather until our friemds Rich and Donna called back to say there was no bad weather in Sebring at all.

So here we are .... just Buddy and I, sitting in Florida while Chris is back in Ottawa, working for 3 weeks. Not sure who got the worst of that deal......Hmm.....! Hint.....not I!

Grabbed the above photograph of Chris at the airport while she was nursing a Star Buck's coffee shortly before heading through security. Already dressed for the colder weather too! Note the jacket under her left elbow. Hang in there babe.

Marmora, Ontario

One of the difficulties of traveling in an RV is not always having an internet connection. We were fine in the USA because we had a Verizon USB modem that worked everywhere we were this past winter. Rock Glen Resort had great wifi available at a paltry cost of $7.00 for the six days we spent there. However, leaving for home on May 15th, we traveled some pretty rural areas along Hwy 7 in eastern Ontario, making it tough to get a cell phone signal at times, let alone the internet. Besides, internet via a cell phone data connection in Canada is, shall we say, extremtly cost prohibitive. Anyway, I digress.........

We awoke to clear blue skies on Thursday morning in Arkona which made for a great driving day. We were on the road just after 9 am and followed Hwys 402 and 401 into London where we topped up with diesel at Flying J. $1.289/litre. That converts to $4.89/US gallon!! Costs keep going up but what a way to travel! After that it was east on Hwy 401 through Toronto. We debated on taking Hwy 407 around the north side of Toronto because it is usually much quicker than the Hwy 401. Hwy 407 is a toll road and we figured using it with the motorhome and toad would add another $40 or so to our trip, so we decided to brave it on Hwy 401. Anyone traveling 401 knows that it can become Canada's largest parking lot in a heartbeat. Well, the RVing gods must have been smiling upon us because we sailed through with only a very minor slow down. Excellent!!!

We continued east, past Hwy 115 to Peterborough, so that we could stop at the Service Centre aka rest area which is on Hwy 401 east of Newcastle. We needed some lunch and Buddy needed that plus his usual "pause for the cause" break as well. We followed Hwy 45 north up to Norwood and then east into Marmora along Hwy 7.

We had made arrangements to see our friends Joe and Jan O'Neill and Garry and Brenda Poirier in Marmora and spend the night. We had met them last year at Fanshawe Conservation Area in London, Ontario and then visited with them again at the Happy Traveller RV Park in Tampa this past winter. We joined them for supper at Bunky's Hideaway where we both enjoyed a marvelous pickerel supper. We overnighted in our RV behind Garry's business which was first class. Water and electricity too! Thanks Garry.

We also got to take in the first classic car show of the season in Marmora. All types of nicely restored cars and trucks were parked on a closed off portion of Marmora's main downtown street. As you can see, I managed to get a few pictures with my cell phone. Pretty impressive and for a small town too! This blue '57 Chevy is Garry's pride and joy!

What a great evening with great friends. We all made plans to get together in Marmora over the summer. Joe and Jan were off to Ireland in the morning. Hope you have a great trip. One more sleep for us in the motorhome. Heading for Ottawa in the morning!

Orlando International Airport

It has cooled off here, and just in time for Sarah and Matt's visit too. It was cool last year when Sarah and Chris went to Florida in April as well. Hmmm.....


We were at the airport in plenty of time to meet them. Their Air Canada flight out of Montreal was delayed about 30 minutes. Sounds like they got out of Halifax and Montreal just before a snow storm blanketed those areas. We had a good walk around the airport before they arrived. Boy, it is huge! All kinds of shops and stores and a Hyatt Regency hotel right in the airport too! Just about all the major attractions had souvenir stores there as well. Even Harley Davidson had a store. Didn't see any bikes for sale, but certainly lots of clothing and bike accessories.

I snapped a picture of the Hyatt and also of this sports jersey hanging in a display window....for obvious reasons.

I managed to get in a quick mile swim this morning before heading to the airport. The air was cool but the water was nice a warm. Had the pool all to myself...go figure! Chris managed a walk with Buddy and also tidied up the motorhome before our guests arrived.



Last night was a little cozy but there is certainly lots of room for company. We bought a small oil filled electric radiator for $40 at Lowe's last week while in Clermont because we knew coolish weather was on the way. We bought one on the advice of our friends Jim and Jane at Peace River, who have one in their motorhome. It heats the whole motorhome with radiant heat and avoids our having to turn on the two heat pumps on the roof which, while effective, are also quite noisy. It is also more economical to use a heater than to run our propane furnace. No point in burning propane if we can use campground electricity at no charge to keep us warm.


Chris 'et al' are off to Florida Mall today while I stay behind at the campground. Hoping to catch up on some reading and to also play some pickleball this afternoon.