Lake Wales, FL – Jan 2026

On the one hand, I’ve been as busy as I’ve ever been.  Yet on the other hand, there doesn’t seem to be much to report here in the blog.  So, this one will be a bit on the shorter side – probably a welcomed change based on some of the earlier marathon blogs I’ve published of late.  During the past month I’ve celebrated Christmas via an all-day video call, wrapped up my 2nd year playing in the family fantasy football legue, took care of a few projects, did some 2026 trip planning, and spent time helping out with the battle against the sand mine.  All the exciting details follow.

Family Fun

If I can’t be there in person to celebrate Christmas with the girls and grands, the next best thing is to celebrate with them via a video call.  The Portal video conference devices I purchased for all of us over 8 years ago as I began my nomadic adventure, have certainly paid for themselves many times over.  I’m fortunate that I have fairly regular video calls with the family which I throughly enjoy.  I especially enjoy pretty much having an all day call with them on Christmas day.  We start early in the morning as the grands find their way to the tree and all the presents left by Santa, to watching them play with all these new found toys.  We even take breaks together to cook up and enjoy some traditional cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  This year was especially good in that one daughter had their Christmas early in the morning, while the other daughter had her Christmas in early afternoon.  This limited the chaos that was present openning to a single family and was much easier and enjoyable to follow that way.  So all in, I started the video call about 7:30 in the morning, and finished for the day sometime nearing 5pm.  It was a long day, but an absolute joy to watch and interact with all the kidos as they enjoyed their Christmas blessings.  Thanks all for a an absolutely wonderful day!

Fantasy Football

Well, it was my second year playing fantasy football with my family, and I had an amazing season.  I started out the season doing really well.  Of the ten teams participating, I pretty much held first place honors for more than half of the season.  However, towards the end, I hit a slump and lost something like 4 or 5 games in a row.  I finished in third place overall for the regular season, but in doing so, was one of the top 4 teams moving forward to the playoffs.  It’s a double elimination process over two weeks of NFL play to determine final rankings.  My fantasy team pulled a rabbit out of their hat and delivered a couple of amazing performances that allowed me to win both weekends, and hence the championship.  Besides the monetary reward that comes with the win, I also get bragging rights and possession of the family fantasy league trophy (at right, left side) for the next year.  This will be especially fun for me in that I get to drag the trophy around with me on this summer’s Rt 66 trip.  So you can expect to see it featured in some of my photos in future blogs.  Congrats to all the league players for a really fun and challenging year.  Already looking forward to next season’s draft!

Home Projects

Never a shortage of things that need to get done around the home base.  One of those things was my TV antenna (at left, bottom right).  It stopped working and was basically giving me absolutely no reception.  For example, here at home I would normally pickup 80 to 100 digital channels – but now, none.  I checked a few things both internally and up at the antenna and my best guess was that the antenna head itself had failed.  This was based on the fact that I could no longer see the LED light that appears on the antenna when it is receiving power.  This, despite using several different methods to deliver power to it.  So, a new antenna head was ordered.  When I went up on the ladder to install the new antenna, I discovered a break in the coax cable that led to it.  Hmmm – guess its more likely that this is the issue and not the actual antenna.  Oh well, I had already purchased the replacement so I might as well install it.  So, I fixed the coax and installed the new antenna.  Now mind you, I was doing this with the antenna folded down so that it was easier to reach.  After I got everything done and the ladder put away, I raised the antenna, pointed it in the proper direction, and started a channel scan on the TV box.  Voila!  All the digital channels came back.  A perfect fix!  Well, that is until I happened to look up at the roof a few days laster and realized that the antenna was not pointing correctly.  Apparently I had put it in backwards. So, now a new project on my list to go back up there and turn it around.  Maybe next month!  Speaking of antennas, I also managed to finally get up one of my other antennas.  This one is a combo scanner and HAM radio (2 meter and 70 CM bands) antenna known as a Discone.  Hopefully I’ve got it hidden enough in the back of the RV so as to not attract too much attention.  I’m not quite sure of the HOA rules regarding non TV antennas.  Guess I may find out.  Lastly, after I had returned from a trip, I got home to the RV to find dead batteries in my keypad lock on the door.  But no issue, I had kept an emergency spare key in the truck as a backup.  Well, at least I thought I had.  I did find the backup keys, but alas non of them would open the lock.  So I grabbed a hammer from the shed and started pounding on the lock in an attempt to break it off.  No luck – it was made of metal and not budging.  So, I got my drill and proceeded to drill out the cylinder lock that is used for the deadbolt.  That worked!  The deadbolt retracted and I was able to open the door.  $120 later on Amazon and I had a new keypad door lock the next day.  Got it installed, and this time, verified that I had the proper backup key stored in the truck.

Several years ago when I had just started the fulltime RV adventure, I had purchased a map and listing of all the then national parks.  I framed it and was placing star stickers on the locations as I visited them.  Well, a few new national parks had been added since, and frankly the stars and framed map really didn’t look all that great.  So, while I was on my adventure last year, I came across this new and improved model that I picked up.  It’s a map of the US made of carved wood, with all 63 current national parks noted, each having a tree cutout that is filled with a little green tree once you have visited that park.  This was a much improved way to display my park visit progress. So one afternoon I commenced to glueing in the trees to the 35 parks I have visited during my retirement travels.  That’s just about 55% completion – not bad!  I’m hoping I can get to a few more before winding down my RV travels.  Guess we’ll see.

No Sand Mine

So the other activity that I’ve spent some of my time with has been the battle with the proposed Sand Mine.  I obviously can’t say too much related to plans or strategy for fear that the opposition might stumble across this blog.  What I can say is the the community has an amazing group of highly dedicated and committed residents that have formed a communications team that is taking the lead to get the word out, and to solicit support from the surrounding community.  This includes having setup a dedicated URL that points to their facebook page (NoSandMine.org), setting up a letter writing program that sends hundreds of letters on various topics on a weekly basis to county commissioners, setting up an informational booth at the downtown Lake Wales Farmers Market (pictured at left), engaging downtown businesses with door signage, and reaching out to practically any and every business and organization up and down the Rt 60 corridor.  I have helped peripherally with techie type needs, but a group of these folks have pretty much dedicated their entire days and nights with research, writing, community engagement, and the like.  It’s really impressive to see this level of commitment, and I am in awe of their work.  Sadly with all my other community commitments and other responsibilities, I don’t have the bandwidth to participate anywhere near what many of them are doing.  But, I do what I can and hopefully make some meaningful contribution to the cause.

2026 Trip Planning

Well, I’ve made some very good progress with my 2026 trip planing.  As you may be aware, 2026 is the 100 year, or centennial anniversary of Route 66.  I learned that this was the anniversary year several years ago, and had at that time, decided that would be the year that I took the tour.  Many folks, including one of my brothers, will run the Route 66 tour in the year they are 66 years old.  Technically, I was 66 for 28 days in this year, so maybe that counts?  Anyway, I’ll be doing the run as a 67 year old and enjoying what I hope will be a special festive year.  I had always assumed I would take the traditional route by starting in Chicago then travel along the highway through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona before reaching the end in Santa Monica, California – covering the route total of 2,448 miles.  But when chatting about the trip with my brother Gerry, he suggested that I really could start on either end.  That of course got me thinking about things like travel times, weather issues, and the like.  In the end, he was right.  I could start anywhere, so I decided to change my start to California.  So, my plan is to leave early in May and make a mad dash along I-10 all the way to California, making mostly minimum 2-night stays along the way.  That will get me to Santa Monica a month later where I will begin my Route 66 trip.  My actual run along the route is made up of 16 stops, spending a full week at each stop.  I will explore about 75 miles east and west along the route, then move to my next stop approximately 150 mile up the road.  Rinse and repeat for all the 16 stops.  That affords a full 16 weeks to explore all there is to see along the route.  I know of folks that spend a few weeks, or at most a month doing this trip so with my 16-week plan, I will be taking it slow and have more than enough time to see all that there is to see.  Similarly, after my last stop in the Chicago area, I’ll make several 2-day stops heading south returning back to the Florida Home Base – getting back in early Oct.  Figuring the one week stops would be the most difficult to arrange, I have already got those reserved and paid for.  Now I just need to finalize the reservations for the trip out to California, and the return from Chicago and I’ll be all set.  That will get done in the coming weeks.  Once everything is finalized which should be in time for the next blog, I’ll share the exact route, stops, and dates.  This is definitely looking to be a really epic trip!

Final Thoughts

As a final thought, I wanted to give credit where credit is due.  Since January is my birth month – which in Florida also corresponds to when your drivers license or vehicle registrations would expire, and I had initially established legal domicile here in Florida 8 years ago, it was now time to renew my drivers license.  I went through quite the ordeal 8 years ago when I first got my license due to vision issues (the telling of that long story perhaps another day).  The vision hasn’t improved any, but at least I’m now aware of what needs to be done to get through the maze that is the motor vehicle department.  Kudo’s to the Polk County Tax Collector – or as you may know them, the DMV.  They use an appointment system to keep things manageable, rather than people just showing up for services willy nilly and possibly spending hours waiting on their turn.  I had made a 2:00 pm appointment for my license renewal several weeks prior.  I arrived at 1:50, checked in, and got my number.  I was called back at 2:06 to begin the process.  I handed them my current license, and a DMV form completed and signed by my eye doctor to address the vision issues (something I new I needed from my previous encounter).  A few signatures and a credit card charge later, a new picture was taken, and soon thereafter I was walking out of there with my new license in hand.  It was now 2:17.  That’s what I would call efficient!  I’m now set until January 2034.  Well done Polk County DMV!  Next, our friends to the north sure have had their share of cold snowy weather this winter.  As seen here, just know that we Floridians have been doing our part to help!  Lastly, with all that’s been going on this month, I was not able to wrap up the year in review stuff from last year’s trip.  So, that will have to wait another month.  Till next time, be well 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!