Safe and social this winter

A perfect day in the sun

A perfect sunset at Myrtle Beach taken
by a photographer that we met on the beach

  We have been on our adventure for 3 years now!! My how time flies!! It sure doesn't feel that long since we retired, and started living in our house on wheels (our fifth wheel camper). So far we've had a mountain home, a lake house, a beach house and a central Florida house!

We enjoyed another beautiful fall in Myrtle Beach. We worked for about three weeks at Belk department store again for Black Friday, and walked on the beach every day. We were excited to find live sea stars on the beach this year!

 After leaving Myrtle Beach, we headed down to Florida, parked the camper at Thousand Palms, and drove on down to the Orlando area for a week of relaxation at a resort hotel. We had a prepaid week to use that was about to expire, so we decided to go and stay socially distanced. It was pretty low key due to covid, but it was a nice change of pace for us (we had a king jacuzzi suite larger than our fifth wheel!) 

We then returned to what feels like our winter home at Thousand Palms RV Resort campground. It was great seeing friends we made last year and making new friends this year! Because we could be mostly outside and avoid large gatherings we have felt "safe and social". There weren't any parties, but that is an easy thing to give up. We still had tons of fun! We had a quiet Christmas by ourselves, which was different, and we missed being with family, but we were all healthy and able to be together on Zoom. The campground did prepare a great Christmas meal for us and delivered it to our campsite. 

 A typical weekday at the campground included Kathy spending some time in the fitness center doing yoga for herself, then we had line dancing class (we wore our masks and kept our distance when we were inside), then depending on the day we either played pickleball or twice a week we had a yin yoga class. And that's just the morning. Afternoons could include taking walks on the campground trails and some pool time when it was warm and sunny. We kayaked the beautiful rivers and springs almost every week with friends from the campground. 

Somewhere in there we worked a bit also. We looked around for jobs, but weren't sure what was safe in the middle of the pandemic.  Our manager from last year at Winn Dixie offered us a few hours a week, in the evening, when the store was less busy, mostly to help work his wine aisle. We gave it a try and felt safe enough with our masks in the uncrowded store, so we spent a couple evenings a week re-stocking and organizing the wine shelves. We were mostly enjoying playing retired people at the campground, but when the store pharmacy started doing vaccinations, the manager asked if we would consider more hours. After giving it alot of thought we decided that we wanted to help with the vaccination effort as long as we felt safe doing it. Kathy worked as cashier in the pharmacy and Mark was an "ambassador". He helped people with the paperwork when they checked in for their appointments and answered alot of questions. We appreciated the opportunity to do a bit of patient care again and have a small part in helping people through the pandemic.

  We've also enjoyed spending time with our Wilmington friends,  Debbie & Jack, and Sue & Jim, when we could safely be outside!

We feel so fortunate to have found such a great winter home with wonderful people to share all the fun activities. We plan to return next winter as well, when we hope to be able to have the larger group activities and parties again. 

The weekend before we headed north Kari and Jess came for a short visit! It was so good to see them!! 

On our way north we stopped to visit Ben and Anthony, and got to meet their kitties, Lily and Leo!!! We were also able to congratulate Ben and Anthony on their engagement!!

It was great seeing our kids!!

While kayaking, we were fortunate to see this beautiful and very 
photogenic roseate spoonbill

Campfires and marshmallows with friends

 

Oranges growing
next to our camper

Music in our backyard with 2 great musicians!

We saw this barred owl on the bike trail in Inverness

Loved the red maples blooming alongside the river

A great blue heron in the campground pond

A great egret and the resident duck in the campground pond

These 2 immature white ibis were hanging out in the
campground one morning

This gopher tortoise lives along the trails behind the campground. 
We enjoy seeing all the wildlife right in our own
"back yard"!

This is a pile of turtles that we saw at Silver Springs

After a short stay in Ohio to visit family, our next stop is Glen Arbor, Michigan (if Michigan will let OSU grads in)! We are looking forward to exploring the area!! Until next time, Be Well and Have Fun!