Our Winter Refuge

With a series of cold fronts last week bringing heavy rains, wind and cold temperatures, Alea and I sought refuge at the home of her sister Jean in Oviedo, FL.  In addition to saving us from many hours in the tiny cabin of our teardrop camper, it also gave us the opportunity to get our taxes and other financial affairs in order and to take care of other business that would have been more difficult on the road.

When we stay with Jean we camp in her garage.  It assures us of the good night's sleep that we experience in our camper, and it minimizes the amount of things that we need to temporarily remove from the camper.  That means there are fewer things that we can forget to take with us when we leave.  It also gives Lana refuge from Jean's pets and fostered animals.

Our Oviedo campsite.

With so many tax forms found online today, having access to Jean's high speed wifi and printer was a big benefit.  Lately we've been exceeding the monthly data limit on our AT&T MiFi, so being able to download all those forms likely will save us from going over our limit for this month.  

After a week here, Lana has finally learned to play with Kess, Jean's rescued Chihuahua, though doing so comes at the price of a bit of jealousy from her Lhasa Apso, Trip.  Lana is still unhappy about the five fostered Dachshund puppies, likely fearing that we might take one home with us (not a chance - they aren't yet house trained, and life is complicated enough on the road with only one dog).  She'll soon be relieved of that fear, as they are nearly old enough to go up for adoption.

These are smart puppies.  They constantly try to find a way to get through Jean's cat door, which gives them access to the people in the house.

We'll  be spending the coming week near Flagler Beach, at Gamble Rogers State Park.  When we've checked there in the past for available campsites it has been 100% booked, so we suspect we lucked into a recent cancellation.  We also suspect that the reason that it is so popular is that is has very long camping pads - thus very sought after by the motorcoaches with towables or the big diesel dualies with their oversized 5th wheel trailers (we are likely to be the runt of the litter there).  For us it means not having to travel as far from Oviedo to find a campsite, and with the park being farther south than other available campgrounds and being next to the Gulf Stream, it should be a bit warmer there as well.