Keep Smiling in Lakeland 2020

Sunday, 2 February

After resorting it up for another two weeks at Riverside RV Resort, it was off to the next adventure. Since returning to Riverside from the Roadtrek, Sprinty relaxed while Kris and Darrell went for bike rides, kayaking with manatees, and played some golf (duh). They also made a day trip to Fort Myers to attend the Fort Myers RV show.

We spent the last several days at Riverside saying our good byes to the many new friends we made at Riverside. Last night, our next door neighbors, John and Leslie from Pennsylvania, had us over for dinner. A most enjoyable evening with them.

This morning, we broke camp. We had completed the usual trip preps of laundry, fill fresh water tanks, load bikes, etc. over the last few days. The last chore was to dump the black and gray tanks, which we did on the way out.

The trip to the Sun 'n Fun Expo Center in Lakeland was an easy hour-and-a-half. Our goal was to arrive by 11am, which we made with ease.

For the next week, Sprinty is attending the Family Motor Coach Association, Southeast Area Rally in Lakeland. The same rally Sprinty attended two years ago when he was adventuring in Florida. Two years ago, Kris and Darrell were volunteers, and like two years ago, they are volunteering as Seminar Monitors this year. Which is why we arrived three days early to get parked with the other seminar monitor volunteers. Right on time, the seminar monitors who were staged in the waiting area by the appointed time were lead to the campsites for the week, and parked with great efficiency by the experienced parking volunteers.

The other seminar monitors all had large Class As, and Sprinty got waved up to the smaller end site to camp.

Sprinty's designated site was out in the sun, which will be good for the next round of testing of Sprinty's upgraded electrical system. Darrell seems pretty confident as he did not plug in, and we enjoyed our traditional Sunday pizza cooked in Sprinty in the oven on lithium battery power.

Just like two years ago, we spent the evening watching the Super Bowl, just as we did two years ago when we arrived early for the FMCA rally in Lakeland. And we thought back to last year where we were watched the Super Bowl in Twenty-Nine Palms, CA.

Kris was rooting for the 49ers, so it was a somber 4th quarter. Maybe she thinks Kansas City owes her a Starbucks for winning?

Monday, 3 February

A quiet night, but the fellows working the construction at the adjacent airport started early, so we started hearing heavy machinery backup alarms about 7am. Not too bad - later the many sirens could be heard in the distance.

Sprinty is "boondocking" at the Sun 'N Fun Expo center, which is adjacent to the Lakeland Linder International Airport, located on the SW edge of Lakeland. Roughing it, we enjoyed flawless over-the-air television from channel 13, the nearby Fox TV affiliate to watch the Super Bowl last night, 4 bars of Verizon and T-Mobile cell signal, and 2 bars of slow AT&T cell signal. We signed up for a site with power as we had no idea when we registered Sprinty would be Battle Borned - so Sprinty is dry camping to give his new super RV powers a more rigorous test.

With nothing planned for the rally, we did what we usually do. Went out and played golf. We picked the Links of Sandpiper in Lakeland, a course we played three years ago. Like our home course in Soleil back in Canton, the course is surrounded by homes. The course also does not have a driving range. We were just about to start practice putting when the starter said we were on deck.

So with no full swing warmup, no chipping practice and only three practice putts, we were off. We both had decent drives considering. Darrell took an early lead by chipping in from off the green for a par. We both played the front nine very well, with Darrell hanging on to a two-stroke lead, two over par at the turn. The back nine was a bit different for both of us. We still played the course well considering the course layout had been changed a lot so our GPS watches were of no help. We finished the day with Kris taking honors by two strokes.

Less than a mile away was a Starbucks for Kris to pay up.

After golf, we ran an errand, then meandered back to the expo center.

Tuesday, 4 February

The very quiet night was interrupted in the morning by the heavy machinery a few hundred feet away working on an airport project. We were grateful that this project was only working normal work hours - often times, runway and taxiway projects are 24-hour operations to minimize the disruption to flight operations.

We relaxed at the expo center, and watched as rig after rig arrived to get parked. Fran, the head of the Seminar Monitors, gave us our volunteer assignments. She assigned us one seminar on Wednesday to monitor and one on Thursday. Easy peasy.

At 4pm, we gathered for happy hour with the other seminar monitor volunteers.

While we were socializing, our friends Doug and Jan from Lake Placid arrived. Sprinty met Doug, Jan and their Golden Retriever Jake on the Fantasy RV Caravan Sprinty did last summer to the Canadian Maritimes.

And as volunteers, we, along with 350 other volunteers, were treated at a BBQ dinner sponsored by General RV, on the the local RV dealers.

Wednesday, 5 February

Another quiet night. Today is officially the first day of the rally. We managed to run into our friends Jan and Doug at the first-timers orientation. And we met their friend, Lisa.

Then we ran into fellow Roadtrekers, Larry and Libby, from Chattanooga who are attending the rally. We met Byron and Donna from Adventure Caravans. One of Sprinty's goals for the rally was to get signed up for the Lewis and Clark Caravan in May 2022. The tour starts in St Louis, MO and follows the amazing route of the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804. Sprinty is already looking forward to making new friends and seeing amazing places. Mission accomplished.

Our first volunteer assignment was a bust. The seminar was a late add to the schedule, and no one showed up. As a late-add, the seminar lacked the traditional description that many people rely on when deciding whether to attend.

We wandered the exhibitors for a bit and had a quiet day.

The entertainment for the night was comedian Jimmy Travis. He was a hoot, and we enjoyed his show very much.

Thursday, 6 February

Our day started at the coffee and donuts provided by the rally. We called it "breakfast". Darrell attended a seminar on Electrics, Lithium, Solar integration. Miley interesting given what Darrell learned in preparation of the Battle Born project.

While Kris monitored the seminar (which was very well attended), Darrell attended a seminar by Adventure Caravans.

After lunch, we attended the ice cream social which included Dairy Queen Dilly bars. Made us wonder, if we both got our one Dilly Bar, could we trade them for a Bud Light? Dilly, dilly.

After 100 hours entirely on solar, the hazy sun caught up. Sprinty's batteries were nearly 45% discharged, and Darrell got concerned we might cross the 50% depth of discharge threshold before morning. Discharging lead-acid batteries below 50% shortens their life. So out came the 30-amp power word and Sprint enjoyed a full charge of the batteries. If we had had sun like we had on Monday, Sprinty might could have continued on solar only. Oh well - a good experiment that increased the priority on Phase 2 of the Battle Born project, to be completed later this month.

Thursday was the designated block party social, where various groups held block parties for the non-affiliated to meet and greet. We chose to attend the Roadtrek block party. There were about 10 Roadtreks in attendance at the rally. We knew about half of the. From previous rallies.

Dinner tonight was a barbecue brisket sandwich from one of the food vendor.

The evening entertainment was the family-friendly movie "The Art of Racing in the Rain." We were not sure how that would work in a large airplane hanger. It worked amazingly well, and we thoroughly enjoyed the movie.

A major cold front arrived about 11:30pm with gusty winds, tornado warnings, heavy rain. It is the same storm that dropped several inches of snow at home in Canton, GA.

Friday, 7 February

We had an early start as we had a 9am appointment in Fort Myers. By the time we headed out at 7am, the cold front had cleared out and we enjoyed an uneventful and dry drive to Fort Myers. The appointment went very well and we considered the day a major success. The details are in the "Sprinty's Got a Girlfriend" blog post.

As it was 2 hours to Fort Myers, we did not get back to the rally until late in the afternoon.

As we headed over to Hanger A for the evening entertainment, we were treated at an Arizona desert type of sunset.

Entertainment was Crystal Gage, a very energetic singer from Windsor, Ontario. The original entertainment was not able to attend.

Saturday, 8 February

Having completed our volunteer assignments, and having a rally day without anything of interest to us in seminars, etc., we decided to play golf. We picked The Club at Eaglebrooke via the GolfNow app as a course we had not played before, was nearby, and had tee times available in the late morning. With an overnight low temperature of 41 degrees, we wanted the day to warm up a bit before we played.

An easy 20 minute drive from the rally, we arrived early and warmed up. The course had nice practice facilities, especially the chipping area. We were paired up with Doug and Rory from England. Doug has a house nearby and spends 6 months of the year in Florida. Rory was visiting from England.

Both of us made par on the first hole, which was better than the English lads. Alas, we both made a mess of the tricky second hole. Then Kris started making shots, including a birdie on hole 6 to make the turn up by three strokes. She struggled on the back nine, and Darrell caught her to take honors on the day. We both played well considering it was a course we have never played before, and more difficult than average. And Rory and Doug were pleasant to play with, which made up for the very slow play.

We made it back to the rally in time for the dinner and entertainment. Dinner was a BBQ sandwich from Lakeland BBQ, served box lunch style. Originally, the dinner and entertainment was going to be outside, but the coolish (for Central Florida) weather had it moved to Hanger A. Entertainment was The Rogues, a five-piece band that kept everyone hopping with mostly 60s music. A bunch got to practice their line dancing moves as they had been doing the line dancing classes held each morning. We sat with RV friends Jan and Doug and had a most delightful evening.

Roadtrek friends Larry and Libby motioned is over by the hunger door to take a picture of us with the Super Moon in the background.

Sunday, 9 February

The big event today is to travel the hour to Orlando where Sprinty gets a break from camping.

As we stopped from groceries, we saw the Oscar Mayer wiener mobile drive up. The lady who popped out said it was a 2012 version of the iconic classic.

After 10 weeks of camping in Florida, we are taking a break at Marriott Grande Vista, one of the Marriott timeshares in Orlando. As we were not able to use our timeshare in Hilton Head last year, we traded last years week for a week in Orlando this year. Soleil friends Matt and Lori are joining us for a week of golf and other Orlando adventures. Sprinty has a nice parking shot with plenty of sun for keeping the batteries charged for running the refrigerator this week.