Since Orlando is about 2 hours away from where we are currently workamping we decided to take a few days and visit the Universal Studios parks, mainly to see the Harry Potter stuff. One thing that kinda bothered us is that the Harry Potter theme is actually split between two different parks. If you want to see the entire Harry Potter ‘experience’, you HAVE to buy tickets to BOTH Universal Parks. Fortunately, since we are now Florida residents, we were able to get a discount at the parks and at Universal’s Cabana Bay Hotel.

We drove down on a Sunday afternoon after work. This gave us time to check in, eat dinner, and walk to Universal’s City Walk which is about a mile away on the Garden Walk, a nice paved walkway that goes from the hotels to the parks.

The next morning, we took the complimentary shuttle to Universal Studios. Honestly, we had expected something similar to Disney’s Hollywood Studios – and were somewhat disappointed. There were areas that were set up to look like famous cities, like New York and San Francisco, but they were just fake fronts and looked nice, but not ‘real’. At least at Disney, if there was a storefront or something, you could actually go in. We also expected to see attractions that had to do with movies and how they were made (like at Disney), but there was almost none of that. We did enjoy Diagon Alley, which is one part of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

We also caught a street performance by the Beat Builders, who used construction equipment to make music. It was a fun show, and Candi really seemed to enjoy watching for some reason?!?! (Can you say HUNKS!)

The next day, we went to Universal’s Islands of Adventure to see Hogsmeade, the other half of the Harry Potter experience. We definitely enjoyed Islands of Adventure more. In addition to Hogsmeade, other sections of the park include Marvel Super Hero Island and Jurassic Park. We had a great day there and even got to ride some roller coasters!

Of course, any vacation has to include eating! We ate dinner at The Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen at City Walk. The food was good and surprisingly, reasonably priced. They also had amazing looking desserts, but we had already decided to try the famous Voodoo Doughnuts. We stopped there on the way back and got doughnuts to take back to our room. Sadly, we didn’t think they lived up to the hype. They were good (I mean, they ARE doughnuts!) but no better than any other doughnut shop we’ve been to.

The next day it was time to return to Welaka for our final month here before moving on to Texas.

Campgrounds seem to be magnets for stray and feral cats, and Welaka Lodge and Resort is no exception. There are several ‘campground cats’ that have made this their home. Fortunately, most of the campers here love cats and make sure they get fed and get any attention they need. There are also a lot of feral cats in the town of Welaka. Friends of Welaka is a local organization that organizes days to trap, neuter, and return these cats. Once they are treated the veterinarian clips one of their ears so it’s easy to tell which cats have already been fixed.

We volunteered to help transport the cats to and from the veterinarian that takes care of them. We both love cats and would have our own but Candi is allergic and can’t live with them. However, she can be around them for short periods of time and we’ve been feeding two cats and making sure they get plenty of attention! These cats had been part of a previous trap and return so didn’t need to be caught this time. They are both affectionate and would love to come into our camper if we’d let them. Sometimes it’s hard to keep them out! One of them, named Paul, is a lap cat and would happily sit in Mike’s lap for hours. The other one is called Juju and we often refer to her as ‘Princess Juju’ since she thinks she rules the campground. In the last few weeks another one has been hanging around. The third one is easy to recognize since he doesn’t have a tail! We have been calling him Bob. His ear isn’t clipped so we were hoping to catch him.

Friends of Welaka has done several traps in the past so they were very efficient and organized. They had about 30 traps to use. The day they set the traps out they asked everyone to stop putting out any cat food so the cats would be more attracted to the food in the traps. We put a trap near our site hoping to catch Bob. Within about 5 minutes we had captured Paul, who has already been neutered. We let him go and reset the trap. About 10 minutes later Bob was in the trap. Once a cat was caught they were gathered in once place. The cages were covered with towels which helps to keep the cats calm. They were given food and water and fans were setup to make sure they had air flow thru the cages.

After trapping for 2 days, 26 cats had been trapped. We reported for duty (in the wee hours of the morning) and loaded 8 cages in our truck while other drivers took the rest.

We drove them to Flagler Cats spay/neuter clinic in Bunnell where they were attended to and given a rabies shot. The veterinarian also looks them over to make sure they don’t have any other major health issues and clips an ear. The veterinarian called us around 2 to say all of the cats would be ready to be picked up by 3 or 3:30.

We loaded up the cats and brought them back to the campground. They will stay here in their cages for one night where they will be given food and water and then tomorrow, they will be taken back to the areas they were caught and released.

This was an interesting experience and we are glad we were able to be a part of it and give back to the community!!

Someone said that watching a hurricane is like being stalked by a turtle, and that certainly felt accurate with this one! We had been watching the news for days to decide what was the best thing to do. The weather forecasters were up front about saying they didn’t know when it would turn north or how it would impact Florida. When we were planning this journey, we agreed that if there was ever a scenario like this; a hurricane, or some other somewhat predictable natural disaster, we would not hesitate to get out of harm’s way if we had the time. We had pretty much made up our minds that if this storm didn’t change path, we would leave and started packing up on Saturday. When we woke up Sunday morning it had turned into a category 5 hurricane with winds of 185 miles an hour. If we hadn’t already made up our minds, that did it! We left around noon on Sunday and started driving northwest.

A couple that we workamp with, Tim and Laura, had pulled out a few hours before us and we kept in touch with them while we were driving. We happened to mention to each other that our intent was to head North West. They stopped in Macon, Georgia, which is far enough north and west to be safe, so we decided to join them. Ironically, the park’s name is Safe Haven! Once we got there, we looked around to see what there was to do in the area. We found the Museum of Aviation was about 15 miles from where we were staying. According to their website, this is the second largest Air Force museum in the United States, and the fourth most visited in the Department of Defense, and it is free! Even after reading this, it was much larger than we expected! We wound up spending the better part of a day there. Of course, after walking around all morning we had to take a break for lunch. Luckily our fellow workampers also love Mexican and we found a cute Mexican restaurant nearby.

By the end of the day Dorian’s track was more predictable and it was clear that it would head north before making landfall and would only affect the eastern part of Florida. Tim and Laura were going to head north for an early Vacation home that they had planned for later. We decided to head south to be a little closer to Welaka so it would be a shorter drive back. We found a small campground in Old Town Florida that gave a 50% discount to Escapees members and decided to head there. We stayed there for two nights and spent the next day exploring some of the Gulf Coast. Horseshoe Cove is a small town right on the gulf. It is mostly a weekend town and since we were there midweek the town was mostly buttoned up. But we did get some nice pictures and had a great lunch at a cute little stand. Candi had the special which was barbecue and Mike had a hot dog with slaw. Putting cole slaw on a hot dog must be a southern thing, and saying it correctly requires a southern drawl. Even though Mike couldn’t say it quite the same way, he definitely enjoyed it.

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We were keeping an eye on Dorian from a distance. It was off the coast of Florida closest to Welaka while we were in Old Town and was well north by Thursday so we headed back. We were relieved to find out that Welaka had very little effects from the hurricane. Luckily there was no damage and everyone was safe. Hopefully there will be no more hurricane drama for our remaining six weeks here!

The nearest city to where we are currently workamping is St Augustine, which is about an hour drive away. Candi always says that ‘everything is relative,’ and distance is definitely one of them! When we were in Baltimore driving an hour to go somewhere would have taken some consideration, now an hour is considered short!

On the way in to St. Augustine we stopped at the Snowy Mountain Cafe for breakfast. We had driven past this cafe many times and laughed about the name. They don’t get much snow here and there are certainly no mountains around! The owners make and serve all the food and it was incredible. Candi had to get sausage gravy and biscuits since it is one of their specialties and one of her favorites. Mike got chicken fried steak which was their special for the day. We will definitely be stopping here again!

On a previous trip to St Augustine we had stopped at a Visitor’s Information Center and they suggested several ‘must sees.’  The first one we decided to try was the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. The tickets are $25.99 each which we thought was a bit high but we had a dollar off coupon that helped some.

Being from Maryland, alligators is not something we ever gave much thought to. Since we have been in Florida we have seen a few swimming in the St Johns River but, luckily, we hadn’t seen any up close until we got to the zoo.

The zoo is the only place in the world that has every living species of ‘crocodilian,’ which apparently is a fancy word for crocodiles and alligators. They also have an impressive number of snakes and birds. It’s well organized and has a fun layout. We spent about 4 hours there including walking through the bird rookery where we feared for the cleanliness of our hats! We also watched them feed Maximo, who, at 15 feet, 3 inches, and 1250 pounds is the largest animal in the zoo.

It was a fun day and we felt it was worth the drive and the entrance fee. We probably won’t go again, but if we did, we would bring clothespins for our noses, alligators really stink!!

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As of today, we are Floridians! The process was so much easier than we expected. Fortunately, we had a pretty good idea of what needed to be done thanks to Escapees. We had previously set up mail forwarding through them and let them know we would use their Sumter County RV Park as our domicile address.

The Florida domicile guide on Escapees website explains the process and includes links to the necessary forms. Mike had printed and filled out the forms in advance, but we still expected it to be a long, drawn out process. (In Baltimore, going to the MVA is a major task and usually requires at least half a day.)

Since the Escapees RV park is located in Bushnell we decided to drive to the DMV there. We had heard that employees there are familiar with using Escapees as an address and, although it was a 2 hour drive each way, we think it was worth it. All of the county buildings are at one address and we were a bit confused when we pulled in. There is a big, beautiful building in front that we assumed was it (MVA’s in Baltimore are very large!). But as we drove through the parking lot, we saw a small sign on the Tax Collector’s Office that said ‘Drivers Licenses.’ That was it – they do it all! There was no wait and everyone was very helpful. As we had heard, they ARE very familiar with Escapees and even had the address memorized! We were there for about an hour and came out with new drivers’ licenses, vehicle registrations, and tags!!

Wow, we have officially been workampers for one week. That was quick!

We really wanted to write some blog entries while we were clearing out the house but we were so busy we just didn’t have time. It was quite an effort! We spent about 6 weeks getting the house ready. Deciding what to keep, selling off furniture and household items we couldn’t take with us. Thankfully, with Facebook Marketplace you can sell just about anything! What remained was left to College Hunks Hauling Junk (P.S. – according to Candi, yup .. they really are HUNKS!)

Then it was time to leave and head south. The trip was uneventful and a great drive. The first night we stopped at South of the Border on the way down. The true definition of ‘tacky’ … it was GREAT!

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From there we headed on down to St. Augustine and rather than try to get to our next “home” that night, we decided to stay at St. Johns RV Park so we could pull in to our destination fresh the next morning.

Did we say paradise? We pulled into the Welaka Lodge and Resort the next morning and our jaws just dropped. The place here is beautiful, and we love our campsite! It’s a very, very small park – only 18 campsites and 8 cottages. The people here couldn’t be more friendly. It’s a bit remote, the nearest grocery store is a half hour away in Palatka. However, we DO have a Dollar General store nearby (fondly known as the “Welaka Mall”).

We think we hit the jackpot on finding our ‘first gig’ as workampers!

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Okay, so this was NOT an RV trip! We recently went on a cruise from Ft Lauderdale to Key West and Havana, Cuba. Mike is now officially retired and we thought, what better way to celebrate than with a cruise!

The cruise was arranged through Escapees RV Club and was part of their Head Out Program. HOPs are planned excursions with other club members. They mostly involve RVing at popular places and events, but not always. We found out about the cruise almost a year ago and booked it right away. We cruised aboard the Majesty of the Seas, which is one of the smaller Royal Caribbean ships.

We had visited Key West years ago. It was one of our favorite vacation spots and we always wanted to go back. Unfortunately, the day we were there it was pouring down rain all day. We gave a lot of thought to going into town, but decided to just stay on the ship. Everyone that went in to Key West got soaked and the ones we talked to said they really didn’t enjoy it. So, we will have to plan to visit the Keys another time! In the meantime, a relaxing day on the ship, with our Kindles, and our Drink Package … is not a bad way to spend a rainy day!

For the Main Event, the ship spent a day and half in Havana and luckily the weather was perfect. Since we aren’t familiar with Havana we chose to do all of our sight-seeing on Royal Caribbean tours. The first one was a bus tour that stopped at Revolution Square, Colon Cemetery, and Fusterlandia. This tour also included lunch at a really cute restaurant with good food and a great view. We finally had some Cuban Ropa Veija and Candi learned that she did a pretty good job of making her own!

In the evening we went on excursion to Café Taberna to listen to some Latin Jazz music. It was a short walk to the bar and restaurant and it was fun listening to the band while sipping Mojitos.

After a late night we managed to get up bright and early for our final excursion which was a walking tour through the four main squares in Old Havana. Although we would have preferred to sleep in a little bit, the morning light in the square was amazing and made for some beautiful sights. It was fun walking on the cobbled streets and seeing some of the old buildings and cathedrals. After that we took a bus to Salon Rojo to learn how to combine coffee, rum, and cigars. Although I doubt we’ll ever use this ‘skill,’ it was fun to watch the demo!

We were happy to have a day and half on the ship to rest and recover before heading back to Maryland.