2018 Summer Adventure July 22- August 5

18 Aug

After our stay in GA, we traveled to Fort Myers, FL to spend a few days with Ken’s Mom.  

On our way to Fort Myers, we planned to stop in Summerfield, FL to visit friends.  It turned out that our friends were unavailable, so  we continued on towards Fort Myers.  We made an overnight stop in Citra FL, near Ocala.  When we pulled into the resort it was pouring rain. We quickly discovered that the office was closed on Sunday and there were no instructions for after hours check-in.   We drove around and found a resident that said we could park near him and check in on Monday morning.  Maybe rainy Sundays are good!  We ended up paying only $14 for the RV site!

Since we didn’t stop to visit our friends, we arrived in Fort Myers a few days earlier than expected.  Ken’s mom was surprised to see us so soon!  

Ken’s mother’s house suffered damage from last September’s Hurricane Irma.  She is still waiting for the damage to be completely repaired. Ken was able to make a few minor repairs as well as contact the insurance company about finishing the roof.  Good News…before we left, the roof, fascia, and soffit were finished!  Needless to say, his mom was very happy!

Ken and his Mom

We were unable to enjoy the beach on this trip to Fort Myers because of the red tide and green algae.  We took a drive through the heart of the Fort Myers beach tourist area and found it deserted.  The parking lots and beach areas were empty.  Restaurants with outside eating areas were empty.  We stopped at Bonita Beach, our favorite beach spot, and walked out to the beach.  As soon as we got out of the car we could smell the dead fish and both of us began coughing.  The water was a nasty brown! Tourism has been greatly impacted!

T stands for Tampa and Turbo!  

At the end of our 10 day visit, we drove North to Tampa.  We had an appointment on Friday morning at the Cummins Service Center to troubleshoot some engine error codes we had been experiencing throughout our trip.  We were hoping for an easy in-out appointment and fix.  However, they determined that our turbo was bad and needed to be replaced.  Of course, the part was not in stock and, since it was Friday, we couldn’t get service until the part was received on Monday. Cummins promised it would arrive by Monday and the work would begin first thing Monday morning.  We kept our fingers crossed all weekend that the part would arrive as promised. Yes, we had to spend the weekend at the service center.  Fortunately, they had RV hookups and provided us the gate code so we could leave as needed. The RV spot was free, but, the Turbo…$5000!

Cummins Service
Center – Tampa, FL

Since we had a weekend with nothing to do, we drove to Summerfield on Saturday to visit with our friends.  We are so happy we got to spend a great day with old friends from our Pittsburgh days.

On Sunday, we drove to Clearwater Beach.  It was such a different scene from Ft Myers.  The water was beautiful and the umbrella lined beach was packed!  

On Monday, we spent the entire day in the waiting room of the Cummins Service Center.  We finally got on the road around 5PM just in time for rush hour traffic.  We spent the night on the road in a couple of rest stops on our drive to Navarre, FL where we had secured reservations.  We were definitely looking forward to a few day of R&R at the beach!