November 30th - December 1st, 2020 - Trip to Florida for the Winter

When we left Perryville at 6:00 a.m. on Monday it was 24 degrees. Glad to get out of Dodge. We took a new route through Birmingham, Alabama, which proved to be a bad idea. About fifty miles from our RV Park destination for the night it started sleeting.  Here is a picture while sitting at a stop light but it didn't come out very well.  

We had reservations at Yellow Hammer RV Park in Clanton, Alabama, for a stop over. I picked this park because it was right off the Interstate and it was a Passport America Park, which makes it half price. When I called to make the reservation I was told that it was under new management and they no longer honored Passport America. I made the reservation anyway because there were no other parks in the area. When we arrived at 3:00 p.m. the office was "closed for lunch" until 3:30 p.m. Really? We waited patiently for a half hour when a campground resident drove up and told us if we had reservations we could just pull into our lot. I told him they didn't tell me what lot on the reservation and he said he thought they did and I should recheck the email i got. I did and it and the lot number was there but I never would have found the lot number if he hadn't told me that. Goofy.

We got set up on the lot and it was only 40 degrees out. RVs are as cold inside as outside so it was about 42 degrees inside Marge. It takes a long time to warm the place up. It remained so cold we went to bed early with lots of covers and slept good.

In the morning this was the temperature.  In past years it has never been this cold on our way to Florida.

The vehicles were covered with a  hard frost. I have ice scrapers but apparently they are at home. I let the vehicles warm up and used a credit card to scrape ice off the side windows. Here are two pictures.

We headed out at 7:00 a.m. for an eight hour drive. I didn't like this new route because there were so many stop lights on the US highways going through towns. I won't take it again.  It became pretty clear that we were not going to get to the RV park until dark, which is really a bummer. It is very difficult to back up a large fifth wheel 90 degrees in the dark. Here are two pictures as we approached St. Petersburg.

We hit rush hour traffic going through Tampa so sure enough it was dark when we arrived at the RV park. They had people there helping with parking. They were very helpful. I don't think I could have done it without them. We thought Marge was level and unhooked. She ended up not being level once unhooked from the truck. This happens sometimes, the truck twists it. I will have to hook up today and put boards under one side to get level for four months.

A problem upon hooking up the utilities was that the kitchen sink will not drain a drop. I can't figure out what that is all about. It is as if a valve is closed but there is no valve. All the other drains work fine. The trap or line can't be frozen after all this time. I will have to take the trap apart today and hopefully find the problem there and not somewhere else. These pipes are not easily accessible. Always something.

My first priority today, however, is to find an urgent care facility. I developed an eye infection just before we left town. I need to get some medicine for it.  It is 47 degrees here this morning so that is an improvement but still cold. I think it is supposed to get close to 70 today. I hope so.