Highways and Fairways

Happy Halloween from the road!

On Wednesday we opted to begin our trek west.  Unfortunately we had to make a pit stop in Ocala at a Freightliner to have the noisy brakes and alignment issues looked at, yes, on the new rig.  When we realized that wouldn't happen that day we hit the road again squeaking as we drove off.  We spent the night at a Walmart in Perry and ordered a pizza from the Dominoes across the parking lot from us.  I drew the line at having them deliver when we could walk the 50 steps to pick it up!

On our way to Destin, FL, we found Andi and Wayne's town...

We chose the slower road, HWY 98 vs Interstate 10.  This is why...

We ate Oysters (well Mike did) in Apalachicola (love saying that name!) at Papa Joe's.  We were told they were the best in the world.  I would say they were close to the biggest, but oyster snob Mike said they weren't even close to the best. 

We made it to Destin by Cosmo time and thanks to my good friend Kaye, we were hooked up with a fabulous campground at an Air Force Base Recreation Area on the water!  Here's a pic of our place this weekend: 
Yesterday we went across the bridge to Shalimar Pointe for a round of golf on a tough Pete Dye course.  If the slope and rating wasn't tough enough, 72.3/123 (72.7/132 for Mike from the tips), they had just overseeded the greens, so it was a tougher than normal putting experience.  Although Mike promised at the onset to let me win as an anniversary present (it was our 5th), he just couldn't bring himself to play worse than I did.  He found his drive and played great.  I think he likes golf again!  He found his dream home (again) just off the 9th green but this one just sold a couple of weeks ago.  Bummer!
The Bay on one side, the course on the other, AND a course we could play unlimited rounds for $120 per month-- it doesn't get much better!

After Shalimar, we checked out Regatta Bay, one of the nicest courses in the area.  It's much like Barefoot in that they count on visitors to help keep the costs low for the members and it is a spectacular resort with incredible homes, many on the water.  What they do offer that we only wish Barefoot could match, is a trail fee allowing members to drive their own carts. 

We're heading out today with a realtor to see what's available in the area.  When we hooked up the coach, a neighbor immediately made friends with Mike, told him how much he loved the area, that he had just bought here, and gave us his realtor's card.  Then Jay asked my permission to take Mike for a drive.  Of course I said "yes" (or maybe it was "get the hell out of here", I can't remember).  Without knowing a thing about Mike, Jay took Mike about a mile down the road to a fresh seafood market (Sexton's) that had the best fish Mike had ever seen--yes, this from the fresh fish snob.  Mike is sold on the area now!

We are having a great weekend here, even had a home cooked meal, thanks to Kaye and her friends Tim and Rhonda.  Tim makes the BEST chicken Spaghetti, which I call chicken pot pie pasta.  Here's a pic of Kaye and Mike's new best buddy (he wants to trade 100 lbs of dogs for this 5 lb cuddler)...
Besides Halloween, our 5th anniversary, we also celebrated Rhond'a birthday this weekend.  Mike picked out the perfect cake for the occasion...

That's about all to report.  We're headed toward New Orleans tomorrow.  Any suggestions on golf communities or places to go/eat in that area would be most welcomed!

Have a safe and FUN Halloween!

Juanita

Forgot one more cool thing about Plantation Bay

This photo was taken at one of the driving ranges at Plantation Bay.  The balls hit fairly true and yet they float!  Mike actually cleared the water on one of his drives--something none of the locals practicing while we were there had ever seen!

Back online and on fairways!

It has been so sweet to have a reliable form of transportation and housing--and then the laptop crashed!  We found a "Hal" in Daytona who got us up and running after a couple of days.  Here's what you've missed.  After 8 painful days without golf, we stopped at the Golf Hall of Fame in Jacksonville on Sunday.  

We didn't have time to play the course there but we did have the opportunity to play #17 Sawgrass (well, faux Sawgrass).  Mike stuck the green on his first shot and would have birdied had he been able to sail over and putt.  After we took in the sights and smells of this golfer's hallowed ground, we set off to a campground in Ormond Beach.  We watched the Steeler/ Viking game as we barreled down I 95 at 70 mph.  That has to be one of the coolest parts of this new rig!  Once we checked in to the campground we played 18 holes of mini golf in the park.  Between the one shot on the faux Sawgrass 17 and the mini golf that day, I had to accept that as my golf fix. 

Yesterday it was time for REAL golf.  We played the LPGA International Champions course in Daytona.  It was a long fairly wide open well kept and reasonably priced course with tough Bermuda greens.  But being a public course and somewhat of a tourist attraction, it took 5 hours for the 2 of us to play. I enjoyed watching a few professional women working on their game...wow!  I also picked up a few practice ideas for the putting green.  Mike shot a beautiful 39 on the front, but when it came down to paying up at the 19th hole, he was buying.  Well, he was supposed to until the president of the local Budweiser Distributorship dropped in for a drink and paid our tab.  Mike has a way with some people, I guess.

Between the two of us and 4 rounds of golf we've only had one birdie!  Can you guess who got it?

Today, thanks to a buddy of Lester's, we toured Plantation Bay homes and then were comp'd a round of golf on one of their 2 and a half courses.  Homes range in price from $200,000 to $12 million.  We looked at a GORGEOUS home that was listed 2 years ago at $1.6 million and is on sale today at $850,000.  That is still out of our range, but it was a trip to tour!  We both thoroughly enjoyed our round and would be happy to have Plantation Bay as our home course--but we have more to see!  The beauty of a private course is we felt as though we were the only ones out there.  Even with Mike playing a couple of balls each shot, we still finished in just under three hours.  Anyone doing the kind of search we are, I would highly recommend that they check this one out.  They are also one of the few private courses we've seen that allows a trail fee in lieu of cart fees.

It was 88 degrees here today.  Geesh, what must it be like in August???  

We're out of this park tomorrow but not sure yet where to.  We're going to have to start moving toward CA shortly but we'll be back to check out more of FL in the winter. 

Thanks for all of the comments!  We miss everybody a ton!

Juanita

On the road again!

We have crossed another state line!  We are in Jacksonville, FL, at a state campground on the beach.  Choosing a campground is not easy but I thought I made a great call.  I have been studying up on all of the acronyms in my Woodall's Campground directory but was sure that "Disc Golf" meant they had a discount golf program.  Oopsy, it means they offer frisbee golf!  So they have no golf, but they did a beautiful beach which made for a wonderful walk with the dogs as the sun waned.  After dinner we walked through the campground and even Mike, who has done the RV thing before, said he has never come upon a scene as is here in late October.  There was a large group enjoying their outdoor big screen projection TV watching the Mississippi game. 

Walk a few more steps and you'll see a screened in porch off an RV complete with a lamp that is straight out of my grandmother's den. 

Directly across from our quiet abode was a Karate Team, 45 of them, enjoying their annual camping trip which included one of our favorite past times-corn holing! 

Today was moving day so it was another day without golf.  But it was also a day without any RV issues!  Yippee!

Juanita

We saw fairways today

I promised not to blog until I could speak of fairways.  We visited Savannah Quarters Country Club today, a private course in a beautiful community 10 minutes from historic Savannah, and 4 minutes from the Campingworld that has been our home since Monday. The course is partly owned and recently redesigned by our friend Greg Norman.  We didn't have time to play but we did get out of the car long enough to see the island green signature hole.  They have reduced their membership fee from $22,000 to $5,000, a sign of the times, so it is in our scope.  And we both fell in love with a couple of homes.

We had horrible news on Tuesday about the condition of our home, so after some soul searching and tough negotiating we worked out a deal.  See the attached photos for the before and after pics of our decision.  The first two are before and the last two are the after.

 

 

And yes, that is duct tape holding a blow dryer on the roof of our "before" home.  After hearing our choices to repair the Beaver, we decided, even at the risk of no more 7th grade jokes, to retire the "Beav".  It's Friday night and we are finally moved in to the new Winnebago Tour.

It's been a long week with no golf, though I did find a driving range on Wednesday and hit until I was numb.  Then I found Savannah Quarters while searching for a Walgreen's so Mike and I went and toured while Campingworld continued to prep the new home for us. One more night in Campingworld, but we are in our new digs.  The dogs seem to really enjoy the extra space, as do we.  The ceiling is high enough for me to pull out my Wii Fit Yoga!  It's been so long since I've "wii'ed that I expect a full dressing down from my wii fit coach. 

Our next stop is Jacksonville, and thanks to a couple of friends we have places to see/golf (shout out to Jed, Lester and Sue).  We probably won' t make it to TPC Sawgrass unless Mike can get us on for less than the published $750 for two (I suppose I could play alone--I mean why waste it on someone who hates golf?!)  We also have a community in Jacksonville and the LPGA International in Daytona to play. 

It amazes me how once you cross over from SC/GA and into FL, the homes change dramatically from Southern charm style with big porches and tons of wood trim to Stucco and swimming pools encased by small batting cages.  I am definitely drawn to the southern charm.  Not so my other half.

I hope to not let this go for so long in the future.  Trust me, I want to regularly update y'all with golf course information and our various shenanigans...not more RV repair horror stories.

Warmly (it's been in the high 70's this week),

Juanita

 

No highways or fairways again today...

The good news:  we made new friends and got a free night of stay at the Savannah Camping World. Cecelia and Terry are from the Ft. Lauderdale area, traveling for a couple of weeks with their three dogs.  Between Dirty Harry, Dillon, Duke, Peanut, and Pepper, we turned the Camping World parking lot into a large paved dog park.  Cecelia and Terry are also golfers so they gave us some great recommendations for golf courses to check out in FL in exchange for our Key Lime Pie Martini recipe.

The bad news: the leaks were caused because one side of the coach is separating from the roof.  Punt!

So, we'll be here awhile.  Mom & Amelia, we'll still be in CA for Thanksgiving even if we have to hop on a plane to get there.

When I finish crying like a big fat baby (JK, mostly) I'll go out looking for a driving range nearby.  Dave MacPherson who runs the World Am offered to ship golf balls to us if I tell him where we'll be playing ahead of time.  The safest bet is to send them to any Campingworld, Dave. 

Two weeks down and 50 to go.  Next blog will come only when I can write about fairways again.

Until then, we'll try to stay dry.

Juanita

The Divorce Open is over and we never filed!

As many golfers know, playing Alternate Shot is aka the Divorce Open.  I did retain an attorney on the 6th hole when Mike insisted on teaching me how to chip out of heavy rough which resulted in a nasty skull (just let me do it MY way!).  When he started to bitch about it I reminded him that it wouldn't have happened if he could just hit ONE green in regulation!  (See why the name?!)  We actually played OK and had it not been for the blow up triple bogey on the last hole we would have tied or won our flight.  Although I kidded him about losing it for us (two of his shots found the hazards in that dreadful hole), I contributed greatly to our poor performance on the other 17 holes.  Somehow we took home $200 in prize money (sure wish we could have gotten Campingworld script unstead of script for more golf crap we don't have room for!).

Enough about our experience...several of our pals won big money!  Henry and Kathy took their flight in the senior division.  Lea and Shawn shot a two day score of 141 (huge) to tie for the overall lead in the Champion Division.  We won't talk about the shoot out in the dark.  Andi and Wayne also won money in their flight, Cathy and Evan won some dough, and our new friends, John and Sarah kicked our butts to win our flight.

So much for the promises for nice weather for our weekend of golf.  Kathy, Theresa, and I endured non stop rain during the practice round.  The husbands did too, I suppose.

 

It was a beautiful course, and although it was long, it was open enough to keep it fun and interesting.  Some found Hampton Hall to be unmemorable but I would be happy to play it on a regular basis--which is good because I found a dream home along the golf course that is priced well.  But we'll keep looking.  As much fun as this RV repair shop tour is, the search will continue to find somewhere with fewer bugs and warmer Octobers.

We had such a fun weekend.  In addition to hanging with the Barefoot pals, we hooked up Saturday night with our Rock Hill/Greenville/Inman buds at their home in Old Fields--another awesome golf plantation with all of the southern charm you could ask for.  But those folks are crazy...a very good kind of crazy.  We happened upon them during a chipping drinking game played from their backyard over a pond and bunker to the pin.  Mary always takes care of me at these tournaments and once again took us in and fed us--with help from Chef Cecelia and all of the other crazies.  Between Mary and Bill/ Dick and Jody, we may very well end this journey back in Rock Hill and join their affordable club!

Now sitting at the Campingworld in Pooler, GA.  From here we will head to Jacksonville, FL to another hopefully nice trailer park RV Resort & Yacht Club.  God, I hope that's today, but given all of our leaks and the recently discovered problem furnace, it may not be.  Any recommendations of courses to play in the Jacksonville/St. Augustine area will be greatly appreciated.

Later gators,

Juanita
 

Room with a View

After our new BFF left, we bolted out of the Hardeeville campground and moved, in the pouring rain, to a beautiful site on HH Island.  I took this picture through the window where I am sitting to type this.  As long as no other camper takes the site across from us, we will continue to have a fabulous intercoastal view.  When I see a potential camper slowing down to consider it, I "accidentally" let Pepper go charging out the door in full attack mode (at least ankle snipping mode).  JK.

Our BFF fixed the leak causing our carpet to stay soaked.  Apparently our ice maker (that we hadn't activated) was leaking and created that problem.  However it was raining while he was working and the fact that our home was leaking like a sieve, he said we needed to go to the nearest Camping World (Savannah) and have them do the roof leak repairs.  He's not my BFF anymore.

It's not raining today and rain isn't called for until next week so we made an appt for Monday (after our big tournament in Bluffton). 

Our Barefoot friends (they were wearing shoes) arrived last night!  We ate at the Oyster Factory and it was such fun to talk to someone other than Mike and the dogs!  I think he liked having a larger audience for his stories too.  We'll have a chance to catch up with them as well as our new Rock Hill friends this weekend as all are in town for the big Couples Championship.  I couldn't get Mike to golf today since we will be playing the next three days in a row.  I don't see the problem?  He recently confessed to me that he HATES golf.  Uh oh--we have a year long golf extravaganza planned!  I may have to replace him.  I'll be taking applications.  Non smoking, non whiners will be given preference. 

We spent the morning with a local realtor/surfer/chef/bartender/web designer.  He was fabulous and took us to see some incredible deals in Moss Creek and Long Cove.  We think we fell in love with the Long Cove golf course, at least all of the holes we could see from the street.  So far all are meeting our financial expectations (to save money on golf over what we're paying now).  He's taking us to see a few homes in Hampton Hall in the morning before our first of three rounds there.  He thinks we'll be happy there, but he's not pushing.  He's green with envy of our year long trip in search of the perfect golf community.  What realtor/surfer/chef/bartender/web designer wouldn't be?

We took him to lunch at the restaurant at our trailer camp.  Imagine our delight when we saw things like Osso Buco, beef tips, frog legs, sun dried tomato pesto stuffed mushroom, grilled sea scallops on the menu!  At a trailer park!

Will post again after the tournament, probably while sitting at Camping World on Monday.  Thanks for listening.

Juanita

Good stuff

We've ruled out Tybee Island as a potential new home.  This is an island just off the coast of GA near Savannah.  We were told the only thing to do there is drink, which we did.  The only golf course there recently closed.  See the attached photo and you'll see the last reason.View this photo
We explored Savannah some more and saw much of the charm we'd expected.  We flirted with the idea of eating at Paula Dean's restaurant but the mob of folks waiting outside to eat fried green tomatoes and shrimp n grits killed that notion.  Besides, no one can match Kim's Shrimp n grits so we would have left disappointed anyway.

Today we golfed!  Yippee skippy!  We spent some time at a private club on Hilton Head Island, Bear Creek, and afterward they invited us to play their course.  We loved the set fee per year and then no cart fees, no tipping, no range ball fees.  Like many clubs they are trying hard to get younger folks and they have made the cost to join VERY appealing to kids like us (under 55).  It was a challenging course, longer than I'm used to at home (Barefoot).  I shot an 84 which isn't great but it was good enough to win a night without cooking.  It appeared to us that there was a 2:1 ratio of maintenance workers to players.  They limit their club to 250 members and they don't "do" tee times.  That didn't seem to be a problem.  We played quickly and when we were held up by a foursome they immediately allowed us to play through.

Tomorrow our new BFF will be here to work on our leaks (both from the ceiling and now the floor).  We're hoping he will finish up by noon and then we will move camps to the resort on the intercoastal on HH Island.

Until then, thanks for listening!

Juanita

Hilton Head

View this photo
What a beautiful day we had in Hilton Head.  We toured Hampton Hall in Bluffton and scouted out a new RV park along the intercoastal waterway.  We found a perfect outdoor cafe/sports bar, Reilly's, for Sunday brunch and to watch the Steelers squeak by the Lions (through no help of Roethlisberger if you ask Mike).  Then last night we stayed in and Mike cooked salmon on a cedar blank!  Also, for the side dishes, cooking on the propane stove is 1000 times better than cooking on our electric stove at home.

Our new BFF (Jed and Theresa: that means Best Friend Forever), the RV repair guy, is making a house call tomorrow morning to check out our leaks and other problems.  Too bad another storm is hitting this afternoon.

We'll move to Hilton Head Island on Wednesday and play golf there that afternoon.  I'd hoped to play Harbour Town but the money that was earmarked for their higher end green fees is now going to our new BFF.  We'll find somewhere else, more affordable, so I can get my fix.

It's been one full week now since we pulled out of our driveway in North Myrtle Beach...it seems like sooooo much longer.  Mike promises me that the fun stuff is coming.

Weather permitting we'll check out Tybee Island today.  We have a few golf communities to check out as well while we're here this week.  There is so much we like about this area: weather, water, golf, stuff to do, history.  But there is one thing we abhor...Noseeums (sp?).  For my family and friends in CA, these are blood sucking bugs you can't see (duh) until you have an itchy welt on your skin that seems to have appeared out of nowhere .

Until tomorrow...

Juanita