Florida, Here We Come!

The time had finally arrived for the Big 12 Championship. Through a contact of Steve’s, we had purchased tickets when they were first offered back in March. The plan had been to meet Steve, Patty, John, and Deborah in Kansas City, MO, on Sat., Dec. 6, at Arrowhead Stadium should the Missouri Tigers win the Big 12 North Division and play in the Championship game that night. If it turned out that they wouldn’t be playing, then all figured we’d easily be able to sell the tickets. Well, as you already know, they did win the Division, and we were looking forward to the game, though the prospect of facing the mighty Oklahoma Sooners was a little daunting.

John and Deborah decided not to make the trip, so Steve bought the tickets for his kids who live in KC, and on the way to the hotel, Steve and Patty stopped by the RV for a brief visit. Patty was feeling a little under the weather and had decided not to attend the game but wanted to come by and see us. The day was cold and overcast but at least no rain or snow this week! Russ and I left early enough to catch the Mizzou pep rally at 5:15, and then caught up with Steve, Marci, and Dave before heading into the stadium. Our seats were pretty high up but on about the 20-yard line and a great view.

The wind was blowing as the game began and didn’t stop the entire night. As you can see in the photos, we were well bundled but it just cut right through and our toes were freezing even with layers of socks AND my fur lined boots! There were about 75,000 in attendance and split fairly evenly between black/gold (MU) and red/white (OU).

The game started out somewhat promising with the Tigers only being down 3 points in the beginning of the 2nd quarter, but then it turned ugly. It wasn’t even close. We had held out a slim hope that the Tigers could pull off a win against the Sooners, but it wasn’t to be. In fact, it was pretty much of a blowout. We left shortly after the 4th quarter began, and the score was 48-21. Final score: 62-21. OU does love to run up the score! So Oklahoma will get to play for the National Championship in Miami on Jan. 8. But the Tigers season isn’t over. They will play in the Alamo Bowl in San Antonio, Dec. 29, but we are not planning to attend the game.

Sun. morning we awoke early to start heading for warmer weather and our home for the next 4-1/2 months, Clermont, FL (just outside Orlando). We drove nearly all day, finally stopping at a Wal-Mart parking lot in Batesville, MS, around 6pm to spend the night. The next morning we were up early again driving to Denham Springs, LA, to pick up a U-Haul trailer. Since we really no longer have any ties to Baton Rouge (except for friends), the plan was to get all of our stuff out of the storage unit and move it to a unit closer to where we’ll be in FL giving us the opportunity to eBay some more stuff if we so choose. Russ would tow the trailer behind the RV, and I would follow him the rest of the way in the car. Loading everything into the trailer took longer than anticipated, and about 6pm we filled up the gas tanks and drove about 35 miles down the highway to spend the night in the Camping World parking lot in Hammond, LA. After getting situated, we soon discovered a problem with our electrical system. For some reason our four “house” batteries were not charging, which means we were low on power for running TV, clocks, radio, microwave, basically everything. We checked the batteries and the water level was pretty low, so we filled each cell, but the internal readings were going crazy. We were exhausted so just went to bed. There are two additional gel batteries that operate like your car battery to start the engine so there was no problem there. Just minimal power for everything else. We drove another 480 miles the next day, spending the night at the Wal-Mart in Live Oak, FL. The internal power was even lower than before but fortunately the outside weather was nice enough that we could get by with leaving our bedroom windows open. Wed. morning we hit the road early with another 180 miles to go to our final destination. We arrived at the new storage center around noon with temperatures in the high 70s. Ahhhh…warm weather finally! But some people are just never happy. As we were unloading the trailer, car, and RV (since not everything would fit in the trailer), the sweat boring from our brows, we were wishing for a little cloud cover and cooler temperature! Our home for the next few months, Lake Magic RV Resort, is only a few miles down the road from the storage center, and we finally arrived there about 3pm, hot, tired, and hungry…and without much power even after plugging into the 50 amp service. See, the inverter converts 12 volt into 110 power, and even when you’re plugged into 110, if your batteries are shot, nothing will work correctly. Thurs. morning we drove down the road to Camping Connections, who confirmed our suspicions about the batteries. Fortunately they had 4 of the kind we needed in stock (these things aren’t cheap!), and for $35 they would come to the campground to install them instead of us having to drive the rig there. That was well worth the money!

So now we are up and running again, and can now hopefully start to enjoy our time here in the land of Walt Disney World. In fact Thurs. night Russ and I drove over to the Transportation & Ticket Center, walked onto the ferry that takes you across the lagoon to Magic Kingdom, and after making a couple round trips, watched the fireworks from the ferry boat. You get a whole different perspective seeing them from there and as always, they were quite spectacular.