Lake Wales, FL – Dec 2023

It’s great to be back at my Florida home base for the holidays.  I’ll do Portal video calls with the kids and grands to celebrate Christmas, and no doubt there will be lots of festive activities to partake in here in the Saddlebag community.  I’m settling in nicely now that I’m here – starting to dig into the list of many projects that await me during my winter hibernation.  The weather has been a bit on the chilly side, but still far warmer than that being experienced by our friends to the north.  So, I guess I’ll take it.  In this edition of the blog besides the normal monthly report of things happening, I’ll also summarize what had been an amazing 6th year of RV travel.  So, let’s get right to it!

What a year it has been

2023, being my 6th year of full time RV travel, will no doubt go down in history as one of the busiest and most wonderful trips to date.  As you can see from the route plan at left, I covered a tremendous amount of territory during this year’s adventure.  I first headed out to the west to pickup where I left off from 2022, then swung around sharply to the east to arrive in my home state of New Hampshire for an Oct event celebrating our 8th grade elementary school 50th anniversary. In total, I travelled upwards of 8,000 miles during this year’s trip – about 2k more than what I had done in the previous year, and making it the longest trip in a single year.  Despite the additional miles, my fuel bill was a bit cheaper in 2023 with me spending about $5,800 for the year – about $1,000 less than I spent in 2022.  I’m hopeful that trend continues in the coming years!

This year’s trip brought me through 20 states – adding 4 new ones to my RV state map (AZ, UT, IA, IL).  At right is the before (top) and after (bottom) views.  So, I’m making progress in getting this thing filled up.  I hope to fill up the rest of the west coast states over the next two years, then I can go back and fill in those others I missed in the midwest and New England areas in the years that follow.

I also made great progress with visiting National Parks this year.  In total, I checked off 13 new National Parks – more than doubling where I was at the end of 2022.  The 8,000 miles trek of 2023 brought me to Carlsbad Caverns, Guadalupe, Saguaro, Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Capital Reef, Canyonlands, Arches, Indiana Dunes, Cuyahoga, and Shenandoah National Parks.  As you can see at left, I’ve now visited 22 of the 63 parks in the NPS system – which is about a third complete.  Clearly, more work needs to be done here!  As I wrap up my visits to the west in the next couple of years, I should be able to add an additional 18 to 23 National Park visits to the list.  Obviously, there are several parks I won’t be able to RV to (Hawaii parks, Isle Royale in Lake Superior, and  Dry Torgugas off the coast of FL), so I guess I’ll just have to figure out another way to get those checked off the list.  But, I’m overall thrilled with the progress made this year, and now have fabulous memories of visiting these amazing wonders.  

Home Base Updates

Soon after I arrived back to Florida, my RV refrigerator started acting up.  It wasn’t as cold as it should have been, and as time went on, it continued to get warmer and warmer.  I looked into all aspects of its operations, tried switching it from AC to Propane just to see if that would make a difference, took the Windows OS approach and even rebooted the fridge.  Nothing seemed to get it cooling adequately again.  When I checked the back of the unit from the outside access door, I immediately knew the issue.  As you can see in the picture at right, bottom left, there is a greenish yellow film all over the rear.  That is indicative of an ammonia leak.  RV fridges operate on the principle of obsurbtion – and boils ammonia to produce cold.  It would appear something ruptured, and all the ammonia spilled out.  Fixing this issue is costly and generally considered prohibitive, so my only recourse was to empty it out, remove it, and put in something new.  I lost a lot of food in this endeavor, but at least I won’t be accused of having years past due expired stuff in my fridge such as other people I know!  😂

As you can see from this Amazon advertisement (at left, top), to purchase the exact same fridge as the one I was removing would set me back close to $5 grand once I’m finished with shipping, taxes, and getting someone locally to install it.  The fact is, I really don’t like this fridge.  It doesn’t really get that cold, often leaving ice cream for example a bit on the soft side.  And since I predominantly do gucci camping (that is will full water, sewer and electric hookups), I didn’t necessarily need the ability to run the fridge on LP anyway.  So, I made the decision replace it with a regular electric residential style model (at left, bottom right).  I used my mini-fridge that I normally keep in the shed to hold extra beer as my only source of cooling until I could order and receive the final replacement.  In fact, I actually had two replacement fridges delivered.  The first one I ordered I did so based on another RVer who has a similar make and model RV as I do, and went through the same issue with his RV fridge quitting out on him.  I liked the fridge he used as a replacement, so I ordered the same one.  On the day it was to be delivered, I decided to double check the measurements of the fridge with the measurements of the opening I had created, and discovered the fridge was several inches taller than the opening.  It turned out the other RVer didn’t have a small cabinet over his fridge as I do, so alas this was not going to work.  When the delivery driver arrived, I simply asked them to leave it on the truck and take it back, and I would reorder a more suitably sized replacement – which I did.  I still have to get the fridge tied down and some sort of trim installed around the edges.  Yet another project to add to my seemingly ever growing list.

Since I’ve been back, I’ve had the opportunity to get together with my brothers a couple of times.  First off, my brother Don came out to my place to pick me up and take me back to his house so that I could pick up my car that he so graciously let me store in his garage over the summer while I was out roaming the country.  So, before heading back, he and I went out to lunch at a nearby restaurant there on Hutchinson Island.  Thanks again Don for the storage facility!  Next, all the brothers gathered at brother Gerry’s place to have brunch with his daughter, our niece, Nicole.  This was Nicole’s first visit here in Florida, and for me personally, was the first time I’d seen her in many, many years.  It was great catching up with her, and also visiting with other brothers and in-laws on a nice sunny late Florida morning.  Thanks for brunch Gerry, and I hope Nicole comes back for visits on a more frequent basis now that’s she’s gotten a taste of this area.

We had a bit of a tragedy here in the Saddlebag community.  Fortunately, no one was injured, but as you can see from these pictures, there’s not much left of the golf cart that was the subject of this fire.  Apparently, this golf cart had just had new and updated set of batteries installed just a day or two prior to the fire.  So, it would seem, something did not go well with that upgrade.  Hopefully, some sort of insurance or possibly compensation from the company that did the battery upgrade will help compensate this owner from their loss.

You might recall from way back in Jun of this year when I visited the Petrified Forest National Park, that I also visited several rock shops in that area, possibly considering bringing back a souvenir.  Well, it turns out I did in fact purchase a 27 lb piece of petrified wood, and had been dragging it around the country in the back seat of my truck until my return here to FL.  It has since found a home in the landscaping of my home base among the many other road trip souvenirs I’ve picked up over the years.  I think it makes a terrific addition to the yard.

The last notable event I have to report on in this edition of the blog was a visit to our little town of Lake Wales by a nationally branded food truck company.  If you happen to be a loyal watcher of the show Shark Tank, you might have seen the episode where a couple of guys pitched the idea of launching a food truck business featuring the Maine delicacy – Lobster!  The two were cousins that grew up in Maine often having lobster boils in their back yard, were together in Las Angeles discussing business opportunities.  It didn’t take long for them to put Maine lobster together with the burgeoning LA food truck craze to come up with their business idea.  They called the business Cousins Maine Lobster and off they went.  In 2016, after having one truck in operation and considerable sales history, they aired on  Shark Tank and got a deal with their target shark, Barbara.  Today they have 20 trucks in 13 cities across the country.  One such truck franchise located in Tampa cruises the surrounding area  bringing their lobster delight to anxious patrons throughout central Florida.  There were FaceBook posts announcing they would be coming to Lake Wales on a particular day, and I was sure to put that on my calendar.  They had a pretty good turnout here in the Tractor Supply parking lot.  A lobster roll, lobster bisque, root beer, and whoppie pie and close to $50 later, I had my meal (pictured left, top left).  To be honest, it was actually somewhat disappointing – particularly when compared to a similarly priced lobster roll and bisque meal I had in NH back when I was there in Oct (pictured left, bottom) – which as you can plainly see, included tons more actual lobster meat.  Oh well, it was a fun day enjoying this New England treat none the less.  But for the price, I’ll likely not be a repeat customer.

Final Thoughts

Well, by the time you’ve read through this edition of the Luv2RV blog, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas holiday, and a terrific New Year.  I wish you all the best in 2024, and I personally look forward to my continued travels and my journaling of the same here in the blog.  It’s hard to fathom that next year will be my 7th year as a full time nomad – where has the time gone.  But I’ve said, and I will continue to say, that living the life of a retired full time RVer has turned out to be the most rewarding times imaginable, clearly exceeding even my own wildest goals and dreams.  I continue to cherish these travel opportunities, and look forward to many more years of similar adventures yet to be fulfilled.  Until next time, happy holidays and safe travels.

I only show a sampling of my adventure pictures here in the blog, and do so mostly in collage format for brevity and ease of reading. If you want to view an album containing individual full fidelity and hi-res images of all my travel pictures related to this specific blog, click the image below. Enjoy!