So we are “snowbirding” in Tampa Bay and plan to start our trek back to Illinois and Indiana in April.

So far Tampa has been awesome and the weather is unbelievable! Here is what we have done so far!

Tampa East RV Park

We have a great spot at the Tampa East RV Park. Everyone here are friendly and extremely helpful. We are close to a lot of resources for shopping and restaurants.

Florida RV Show!

One of the biggest RV shows in the country is right here in Tampa Bay. We spent 2 days at the show and I can tell you the RV business is booming! Outside of the normal indicators and the massive need for RV technicians and specialists, major discounts are hard to come by! It tells me that dealers and manufacturers are doing well and have confidence that it is a sellers market. I tested the waters and talked about getting an “upgrade” and trading in our USS Dutch Star. Long story short, we didn’t come close to our original deal with Mount Comfort RV. In fact, many of the professionals I spoke to said we got an awesome deal and should wait a few years to upgrade.

Patti was happy not to upgrade. She has a sentimental tie to the USS Dutch Star. Go to the “Our Rig” page on this web site to read the story of how we got the USS Dutch Star. I got the deal and bought the rig without her (very risky), however she loved it and felt I did it with her in my heart. She is right, I always do these things with her in mind. So she loves our rig and absolutely wants to stay in it!

One great thing about the show are the various vendors that are there. These vendors either work with manufacturers directly or act as “add on’s” in the RV industry. One vendor I wanted to talk to was MCD. We have automatic MCD shades in our coach and when they work, they are awesome. We can use a remote control to operate any or all shades with just one button. However, sometimes they don’t work and need to be “re-programmed”. Or the motor goes out and I have to replace it.

I found the MCD booth and spoke to Lori about my very sad story. She smiled and explained Newmar just put out a recall on the shades. I can get all of the motors replaced with better ones and upgraded remote controls at no charge. MCD is located in Texas and we were going there in June anyway so I made arrangements to be at their shop to get these motors replaced. I am thrilled and can’t wait. This just gives me more confidence with Newmar and the vendors they work with!

Met with an old high school friend!

Mark Cramer is one of my high school friends that I could always count on! Mark had a great room in his basement and would invite friends for uh… um… get togethers. They would always work out to have an equal number of girls and boys. He was a genius! His folks were awesome and his Dad was president of the East End Little League which I joined and had a great time playing baseball! We lost touch after high school – his family moved to Tampa Bay. He is married to the love of his life and has a great son who works hard and is a great bowler (multiple 300 games). It was great seeing him again!

Florida State Fair

Very close to where we are staying is the Florida State Fair grounds. We strolled thru the fair and didn’t do any rides (just getting too old for that). However it reminded us of some of the Indiana 4H fairs we would go to – sooo many animals! Cows, horses, chickens, sheep etc… everywhere! And of course the food vendors! I had steak tips which were incredible – and filling! We watched pig races and even bears performing different tricks. There was a zoo tent with giraffes! We had a great time!

Magic Kingdom – Again!

Had to spend another day at the Magic Kingdom. We took it easy and only did the rides we really liked. We like going to the various shows with mechanical characters – perfect for old people like us! The Hall of Presidents had just re-opened and we were able to see the new presentation featuring President Trump. It is always amazing and they have all of the presidents on stage and introduce each one starting with Washington. When they introduced President Trump – the entire audience cheered and applauded. It was awesome and for once we felt proud to be Americans!

We ended our day at one of our favorite places – the Grand Floridian. It is a Disney resort and we stayed there many years ago with Tori. We had dinner there and walked around the huge pool. It reminded us of some the great family vacations that we had and I was really missing Tori. Of course, it is very expensive to stay there now but if you can somehow afford it, we highly recommend staying there!

Strawberry Festival

We are 5 miles from Plant City and this has to be the strawberry capital of the world! There are strawberry fields everywhere!!! The festival was like a fair with rides and food vendors. They have great bands performing nightly – example Reba McEntire, Casting Crowns and Brad Paisley!!! We had a great time and went to one of the bigger strawberry shortcake vendors. It was very unique – pay $4 and pick a dish with either shortcake or a biscuit. I picked a shortcake bowl and went to the strawberry station. This was a bowl of strawberries and we could put as much as we like in the dish. Then walk to a huge bowl of whip cream and put as much of that on top of your dish. The next station was a lady with fresh uncut strawberries and she would top of you dish with a huge fresh strawberry! Needless to say my dish looked like a mound of whip cream with a strawberry on top! Patti chose a biscuit dish (reminded her of Granny Lairamore) and just had strawberries with no whipped cream (just so wrong). We had a great time!

What’s next??

Still very busy going to beaches in Clearwater and St. Pete. We are also visiting Patti’s older sister who lives in Arcadia at least once a week. Patti and Cheryl love going to the pool and the hot tub!

We still have 5 weeks to go in Tampa and then we start our journey back to the North!

You can review our 2018 itinerary at Our Itinerary

This year we plan to head west!