Wekiwa Springs can get hard to reserve in December, and the week directly surrounding Christmas and New Year especially so.  A couple of weeks in advance I had no difficulty securing five weekday days in mid December, but it was not until our three day stay in Lake Monroe that I was able to extend that another five days through Christmas.  This made possible, of course, via the tried and true “just keep checking the reservation site for cancellations” method.  I find that using the “date range availability” viewing option is the easiest way to spot openings for any Reserve America controlled campground.

Sunday morning we broke camp early in order to get the rig parked in the lot behind Sweetwater-Wekiva market with enough time to set up for the event, which gave us another decent performance.  Shayna, the market manager has worked to add special events to draw in more people, and this week included a puppy parade with free dog treats for all participants.  It’s rather strange how consistent this market is for us:  though it has limited foot traffic compared to the steady stream of people at Deland, the people that show up are much more likely to buy.  Works for us!

From there it was on to the state park just a couple of miles down the road.  We would spend the first five days in the “upper loop” at site #38 and the second half in the “lower loop” in #4.  I mention this because the loops are different in appearance and services.  Both have smooth, hard packed dirt sites with plenty of trees and other greenery, but the upper loop has noticeably more older growth oak and general forestry, while in the lower loop all sites are full hook up rather than power and water only (there are a handful of exceptions in the upper loop with full connections.)

Our ideal site would be in the upper loop in one of the higher numbered sites with full connections, but for those that value their satellite TV, the lower loop is less likely to provide signal obstruction.  Regardless of site, the camping fee pays for the park entry, so anyone staying can enjoy the wonderful swimming area at the spring head.

Somewhere in the midst of all this I picked up Rosemarie’s Christmas gift and hid it in a locked storage compartment and kept the key on me, just in case.  This was insufficient to prevent her from sleuthing it out when she accidentally found and then accidentally read my to do list, which included, of course, picking up her Circut Explore One die cutting machine that is all the rage with the crafters this year.  And then her sister Dolores convinced her that, yes, it’s a nice gift but you really need to have the (more expensive) Circut Explore Air 2.  But of course.  Thanks, Dori.

In addition to our three final markets of the year occurring during our stay, we had a ouple of family gatherings to celebrate the Christmas holidays.  We managed to somehow avoid getting any pictures to prove these events occurred.  Mom and Tim joined us for one night in the park, meeting their “camping” quota for the year.  Jackson and wife Andrea joined Rose, me, Dad and Marcia for an afternoon cookout at Wekiwa Springs on the 23, and Aunt Judy hosted Christmas Day brunch for dozen of us.  This is the only big and consistent Christmas gathering we attend, despite my attempts to force a “gathering of the cousins” each year like we managed in 2016.  Ah well, 2018 will be the year, I’m sure.

Here’s the thing: Lake Monroe Park, located on the Volusia side of the Seminole-Volusia county line, and situated on the St Johns river where it empties into Lake Monroe (natch) is, as far as we know, the best value park for short term stays in the North Central Florida region loosely bracketed by Deland, Lake Mary, Wekiva, and Mount Dora.  Admittedly, that is a rather arbitrarily defined region directly north of Orlando and short of the Ocala National Forest, but it places us in perfect position to visit our CFL friends and family as well as a handful of markets in the vicinity.

It is not our favorite spot in the region; that would be a toss up between Trimble Park near Mount Dora and Wekiwa Springs State Park. But it is affordable, beautiful, heavily wooded, and convenient, and has thus become one of our go to campgrounds, particularly on winter weekends when our other top options are often hard to reserve.

That said, it’s not for everyone.  The reservation system is strictly by phone during regular weekday business hours, and often requires a call back or two.  Unlike many, many county and municipal campgrounds we have visited, there is neither a camp host nor an honor system “iron ranger” deposit box to make payment if you just show up to try and camp in one of the open sites.  They have a one week maximum stay, and a 30 days total stay limit per calendar year as well.

The gate is locked at dusk, so you better have made note of the combination lock contained in your reservation confirmation email if you are out past then.  The trains run regularly and into the night through nearby Sanford, whistles and all.  And there is some sort of industrial plant a few hundred yards away across the highway that produces hours and hours of… a steady sort of blow dryer sound, also deep into the night.

Aside from the noise, most of those issues can be dealt with by planning ahead, and I find the train noises vaguely soothing in a nostalgic sort of way, but your mileage may very.  Regardless, at less than $17 a night all in, we use it regularly, particularly during this year when other favorites have been closed or limited.  So for our return to Central Florida, occurring as it did on a weekend, we locked in a three day stay in advance of our longer, through Christmas reservations at Wekiwa Springs State Park.

This would be a busy weekend.  Just as in November, we had locked in 10 markets for December.  We completed four in Naples across our Sanibel stay, but had six more to cover during the last two weekends before Christmas.  And in addition to the Friday Deland Artisan Alley market and the Saturday Lake Mary event, we also had to get Rosemarie to the airport for another trip up to Virginia to see Linda and the crew.

When we returned to Central Florida in November, our first Deland night market confirmed why we remembered it so fondly (we crushed it) but the following two Fridays had been just so-so.  We were pleased that this mid-December Friday returned to form with a great showing, which we partially attribute to some additional lighting we purchased cheaply at Harbor Freight.  The next day’s Lake Mary market was solid, though not nearly the extravaganza we had experienced in November, but still significantly better than the alternative Saturday event in downtown Sanford.

We did a rapid market tear down after the Lake Mary event ended, swung back by the campground to refresh, and then it was straight to Orlando International for Rose’s flight.  Thankfully it was a weekend and thus we avoided the worst of Orlando’s horrific I-4 traffic, but it was still long ride there and back, where upon arrival I made preps for a complicated move to Wekiwa Springs State Park as well as a market the next day.

With six days left in our Sanibel stay, we crammed in as much as we could, starting with the two Naples markets on Friday and Sunday.  Truth be told, if we hadn’t already paid the vendor fee for the Friday event, we probably would have skipped getting up early and the hour drive for what we suspected (accurately) would be another poor showing.

Fortunately Sunday’s market was very solid, and the experience only re-enforced in our minds the need to pick our vending events in Naples a bit more carefully next year.  Regardless of the money, we always find something worthwhile to buy at these events, usually produce or delicious prepared food.  This month it was the chocolate croissants from Tartine & Tartelette, the Guacamole from a vendor I can’t recall, and the medium heat salsa from Sinful Salsa, though the array of olives was quite tempting as well.

In between events we got to visit with October Rose, who was on vacation from her permanent home in the mountains of India.  She and her sister Barbara joined us for an afternoon on Sanibel.  We returned the visit on Monday at Barbara’s Cape Coral apartment where we enjoyed white wine, vegetable stew, and an unsuccessful attempt to see some manatees at a nearby park near an electrical generation plant that often draws them into the warm outflow channels from the cooling cycle.  The weather was just not quite chilly enough at the time of our visit, perhaps next time.

We also managed to connect up with Key West friends (and geocaching buddies) Stan and Marilyn who were staying with their nephew on Pine Island, the next island inland from Sanibel.  We took a short tour of Sanibel and Captiva with them, spent some time on the beach shelling, and capped the visit off with lunch at Pecking Order (though some people chose to order from Subway next door.)  Given the expense of Sanibel, it was nice to find another affordable joint with top quality food.

The remaining few days were taken up by a whole lot of shelling as Rosemarie sought to improve the quality of her keepers and the volume of her crafting supplies in anticipation of a lot of shell oriented items to be sold at markets throughout 2018.

We keep restaurant outings quite limited on the island, but couldn’t resist a late brunch at Over Easy Cafe where I enjoyed one of the more beautiful versions of Eggs Benedict I have every had.  It used Nova salmon in place of the traditional Canadian bacon, and spiced up with red onions, capers, and sliced tomato.  In our five or so years of visiting Sanibel and Captiva, I think we have dined at fewer than a dozen of the 50 plus eateries there.  Someday we might actual make it to the more well known establishments, such as Island Cow, but for now we are happy with the few price conscious gems we have found and hope to visit again.

For our last afternoon we took drinks and snacks up to Lighthouse Point, and were rewarded with a small pod of dolphins that put on a show with their shallow water, near shore hunting.  Between that and another great sunset, it was a fantastic finish to a great Sanibel stay.

Next post: our triumphant return to Central Florida where we close out the market year strong and enjoy the holidays with friends and family.

One of the great things about our full time RV travel pattern is our ability to return to favorite places without feeling like we are missing out on opportunities to see new ones, and Sanibel is definitely one of those spots.  Along with Key West, we made Periwinkle Park on Sanibel Island a regular destination even before we were full time, back when we were doing weekend trips in The Barracuda. 

Nowadays we try to work Sanibel into our winter itinerary for a week before and after our long stop in Key West.  It’s the most expensive place we RV all year, $58 a night with no weekly discount, but we treat ourselves with the knowledge that for much of the rest of the winter we are enjoying vastly discounted daily rates at the Naval Air Station in The Keys.  And for the second year in a row, we would further offset the Periwinkle costs by participating in a set of Naples markets bracketing our stay.

So Friday, December 1st, would be a busy day indeed.  The morning saw us up bright and early setting up shop at the Bed Bath and Beyond market in Naples that we had done twice in 2016.  Later that morning I returned to the nearby Naples RV resort and broke camp, bringing Serenity to the large vendor parking area behind the BBB.  Once the market ended, we packed up, hooked up, and made the hour plus drive up through Fort Myers and across the causeway to Sanibel to check in and set up at Periwinkle Park.

And then we broke out the bikes for two hours of riding along the bike paths as part of Sanibel’s annual Luminary event, in which miles of pathways are lined with candle, sand, and paper bag luminaries and many of the merchants along the route host various events, often involving wine and hors d’oeuvres.  We had planned our stay around this once a year extravaganza, having stumbled into it last year.  After more than a couple of stops we wisely chose to turn around well before reaching the end of the luminary path, and made a few more stops on the return trip before capping the day off with live music at Huxsters, the market and deli store adjacent to our park.

The next day we began a mixed schedule of relaxation and beach time interspersed with furious activity to prep for, drive to, and sell at markets in Naples.  The original plan, based on the market schedule from 2016, was to do a Saturday and Sunday event each weekend with a six day Sanibel stay in between such that there would be no need to run back and forth between the the island and Naples.  Unfortunately, the Saturday market was moved to Friday, so it was either shorten the Sanibel stay or suck it up and make the drive.  We chose the latter.

So day 2 may have been a day of rest, but day 3 had us back on the road for the Naples market on Pine Ridge, which for two years running has proved a much better vending opportunity than the BBB event.   Given this, we will likely drop the BBB market entirely next time we are in the region; it’s just not worth the time and effort, particularly since we are essentially forgoing an extra day at Sanibel to work it. We had been on Sanibel for three days but only had one full day uninterrupted by sales events. 

Because of that hard running first weekend, by day 4 we decided to extend the stay from a week to 10 days, and before the end of the week we stretched that to 13 days, tentatively moving our Tampa area plans to March of 2018 during our likely meandering exit from Florida.

This gave us the rest of that first week to truly enjoy the island without the looming threat of a complicated “markets plus departure” itinerary.  For Rosemarie, this meant, above all, shelling.  Aside from the joy she derives from it, we had heavily depleted the shell supply stockpile with the sales of so many shell crowns and other items.  While in past years Rose had focused heavily on the stretch of the island between Bowman’s Beach and Blind Cut, this year she spent nearly as much time at the other end, near Light House Point.

The breathing space allowed us to settle into our island time lifestyle; social hour at the pond front deck, frequent sunsets on the beach, occasional trips to the library to take advantage of the high speed internet, and generally comfortable days in our excellent tree shaded site.

During our last trip to Sanibel we had purchased a box of Pencil Sea Urchin Spines from which Rosemarie made and sold a bunch of earrings and pendants.  We finished our first week during this trip with a return trip to the seashell collector in the hopes of buying another box.  Unfortunately he did not have a large selection of the larger spines, so we ended up just getting a select handful, along with a few other items Rose plans to transform into one of a kind jewelry.

Next post: another week in Saniblel, two more markets, and visits from friends.

The Distance:  375 miles, all in Florida as we bounced around the state.   Our mileage for the year is now up to 10,076, and we don’t expect to put more than a few hundred on the odometer in December.   The next three months will be a big mileage slow down for us, but with our Key West plans still unknown, we might be doing a bit more driving than last winter.

The Places:   After a couple more days at Wekiwa Springs State Park we spent a week at Lake Monroe County Park, one of the few places on our Central Florida short list that we could still find weekend openings.  Rosemarie spent a good portion of the Lake Monroe time up in Virginia for another visit with Linda and family.  We then took advantage of a robust Passport America deal with Orange City RV Resort for a six day stay, and finished off our Fall Central Florida time with four days at Blue Springs State Park.  Then it was time to head south to Coral Springs for Thanksgiving and more, where we stayed with Xavier and Joy for 10 days with Serenity parked in their driveway.  Finally, we closed out the month with a one day stop at Naples RV Resort, positioning ourselves for a pair of weekend markets.

We had 7 nights at private resorts, 10 in a house, and 13 at public campgrounds (6 state, 7 county.)   This gave us full hook ups for 9 days, partial (power and water) for 11, no drycamping at all, and 10 days of “it doesn’t matter because we are in a house.”

The Budget:  We really killed it this month, finishing more than 22% under budget.  A combination of ten markets, ten days without campground fees, and only one fill up for Serenity made November a great budget month.  Technically, this puts us in striking range to actually be on budget for the year, though I doubt this will happen even with solid market performances in December; it’s the holiday season and we have a lengthy stay at our most expensive RV resort planned.

The Drama and the Improvements:  Nothing nearly as exciting as last months various problems to report.  I had a bit more electrical drama with Loki’s starter which required me to take apart the battery connection cable and wire brush it thoroughly, we improved our under belly storage on Serenity, and stripped out all of the tracker’s water damaged  carpets.

2017 monthly reports to date:

• October
• September
• August
• July
• June
• May
• April
• March
• February
• January

And here are our 2016 and 2015 annual summaries which include monthly report links.

We departed Blue Springs State Park bound for Coral Springs.  For the first time this month we filled up the big gas tank at the cheapest place I could find generally along the route (thanks Gas Buddy) and headed for I-95.  The mileage and time for this route was about the same as using the Florida Turnpike, with the advantage of not having to drive through Orlando on I-4  nor having to pay the hefty turnpike tolls, and since we were mostly avoiding rush hour timing, the higher traffic density on the interstate would not be as much of a factor.  With only about 30 minutes of construction and accident related delays, we made it to Xavier and Joy’s house in a bit over four hours.

We planned to be here nearly two weeks, which, since they don’t charge us rent, would be one more factor in making November a great month for us financially.  We did, however, have the Thanksgiving factor to take into account:  Even though we are full time in the RV, we have continued our tradition of hosting Thanksgiving as we did back in our beach condo ownership days, only now we co-host it at Xavier and Joy’s, with Rosemarie and I attempting to do all the cooking.

Like in past years I do the turkey while Rose handles most of the sides, and this year our co-hosts surprised us by having a precooked spiral cut ham and a pork shoulder ready to go as well.  Our guest numbers had fluxuated between 7 and 13 during the month lead up to the big day, so at one point this would have been “the right” amount of food.  By Thanksgiving we were down to just six of us, so leftovers would no doubt fill the fridge for weeks what with three main course meats on the table.

As always, I followed a three step process in order to ensure proper taste across the white and dark sections of the bird:  It must be brined over night, it must have butter and herbs worked between the skin and the meat, and it must be spatchcocked.  If you have followed this blog for a year or more you already likely know why this is, but for the uninitiated, allow me to elucidate.  Submerging the turkey in a salt water mixture overnight, along with whatever herbs and spices you prefer, raises the moisture content of the turkey, helping to alleviate dry meat syndrome upon cooking.  This is especially true of birds that have been frozen, which tends to dry them out even more.

Putting butter and herbs under the skin serves sort of the same purpose as basting, but since its under the skin you don’t have to keep basting, particularly if you follow what I consider the most important step.

Spatchcocking.  Which is a fancy word for cutting out the backbone and butterflying the whole turkey.  Compared to a regularly trussed turkey, a spatchcocked on is far flatter, with greater surface area subject to the oven heat.  This means that the dark meat and light meat sections can cook more evenly, and the entire process occurs far faster:  Our 12 pounder was done in than 90 minutes at 350, with a few minutes at 450 just to brown up the top a bit.

Everything came out great, and we had so much left over that we were still eating turkey and ham for two weeks after the big event.  Thanks to Joy and Xavier for letting us continue our beloved Thanksgiving tradition.

With 13 days and no markets, Coral Springs was not just about Thanksgiving and relaxation; we had work to do particularly in the reorganization areas.  We made a trip to our paid storage center in Lauderdale to drop off a full carload of items we had been toting around the country unnecessarily along with a few bulky things we had left with in Joy and Xavier’s garage.  This allowed me to empty and re-stow three of our main underbelly compartments such that our access to frequent use items was far more efficient.

After suffering through a couple of years of difficult t access crafting supplies in a hodge podge of containers, we bit the bullet and purchased some pricey plastic stacking drawers from the container store that will make it much easier for Rosemarie to get at the things she needs.  If they work out the way we think, we will probably do another round of purchases to complete the craft and jewelry reorganization process.  During our outing or this purchase, we also stumbled across the West Boca Moose Lodge, the 21st we have visited in our travels.

Finally, having experienced extensive rain leaks through Loki’s soft top seals to the point that the carpet had a significant amount of mold and mildew, we took decisive action to address the symptoms until we can get the right stuff to fix the cause.  In other words, we tore at the entire carpet and padding, front to rear.  This entailed removing all the seats and the center console.  We are debating whether to Rhino Line the whole thing or just leave it untouched for later new carpet install.

After 13 days it was time for us to move on: we had reservations at one of our favorite parks (Periwinkle on Sanibel Island) and four markets in Naples to attend.  We made the 90 minute drive across the state and stopped for one night in Naples RV Resort, a bit further from our market locations than last year’s naples park (Club Naples RV Resort) but for a couple of extra bucks a night, though still on the 50% Passport America rate, we had a much more attractive place to stay, which may end up being our new “go to” stopping point in Naples.

Next up: Naples markets and an extended stay in Sanibel.

We had managed to snag one of the increasingly hard to come by weekend openings at Blue Springs State Park, just a couple of miles from our last location, Orange City RV Resort.  This would be our last four days in Central Florida before heading down to Coral Springs for Thanksgiving and then over to Naples and Sanibel for the first part of December.

The actual spring at Blue Springs had been closed to swimming due to Hurricane Irma related contamination for the first few weeks after our return to the area in October, so I had not made much effort to secure a reservation there.  Now that the water looked to be clear, they had not bothered to test it because the manatees showed up, which prompts an automatic closure of the spring to swimming as well.  Ah well, it’s a beautiful place to stay and the spring is lovely even if you can’t get in it.

We would not have had a lot of time to enjoy things here anyway as we had three markets to attend during the four day stay.  Our favorite, DeLand, resulted in our worst profit for that market ever, but was still good enough to justify attending.  My theory is that we are not close enough to Christmas to enjoy that rush, we depleted our “new vendor bump” during the first three Fridays this year, and the market is becoming saturated with jewelers (I counted 13 this last market) as more vendors learn of the event.

While on Whidbey Island Rosemarie had added a new item, mermaid crowns, made from shell covered tiaras, to the sales table.  This month she added Christmas ornaments, clear glass globes with a collection of shells, beach sand, and sea glass.  This is only the second holiday that we managed to get out in front of in terms of sale items.

Saturday at the Lake Mary market produced much better results than Deland, and Sunday at Sweetwater-Wekiva was solid as well, allowing us to close out our November market push with ten events ranging from decent to wildly successful.  Ten markets for November is near a peak month for us, so we look forward to a bit of a break from it over Thanksgiving.  We will enjoy eleven day market free stretch then, but we will be right back on the bicycle for another ten events or so in Naples and Central Florida.

Monday morning we broke camp but delayed our southward journey long enough to park the rig down close to the spring and take one last stroll along the boardwalk and nature trail.  Next up: Coral Springs and Thanksgiving.

While weekday stays at our preferred North-Central Florida campgrounds were still available, the weekends were getting quite difficult, and rather than do our normal “check for cancellations every day” routine, we decided to try out a private RV park in the area that offered a generous six days at the Passport-America 50% off rate.  Orange City RV Park was not quite as centrally positioned as Lake Monroe, but it was just a couple of miles from son Jackson’s house and our Friday evening Deland market, so it worked out quite well.

With Rosemarie still in Virginia, I moved the rig to it on Friday in the mid afternoon, which left me just enough time to get hooked up before heading down to Deland for the Artisan Alley event.  The park is quite large (over 500 sites) with a lot of semi-permanent park models and mobile homes.  We had full hook ups, but the positioning of the water and power were awkward, requiring me to back in as far as possible to reach the electrical post, which left me 30 feet from the water connection.  Good thing we carry extra hose!

Many of the spots are quite tight, the foliage and trees are limited (probably to cater to all the satellite TV owners) though the amenities were decent: free working WiFi, a nice pool and hot tub, club house, clean shower house, etc.  At $22.50 a night it is a good deal for the area and season, but it kinda drove home how much more we enjoy the state and county park options in this region.  A final downside: our spot was infested with pavement ants (what some call sugar ants) to the point that every single inch of crack and groove in the large concrete pad had the telltale low mounds and trails, and while we were there they made an aggressive migration into our rig, forcing us to really crack down on food protection.

I worked the Friday night market in Deland solo, so perhaps it was a good thing that sales were so slow, giving us our worst performance there so far.  Despite this it was, as usual, a fun experience with great energy.  During the event Rosemarie was making her two leg flight back to Orlando.  The first leg from Norfolk to Charlotte went fine, then things got ugly.

A laptop battery caught fire at Orlando International Airport, everyone panicked, people running through security without getting checked, etc, and the whole facility shutdown for a while until they could get things under control.  This had a cascading effect on all flights coming into Orlando, of course.  Rosemarie’s flight sat on the tarmac in Charlotte for a while, then pulled back to a gate and deboarded.  After some delays, and in consultation with the pilots, the flight attendants or gate agents told everyone to “check back in at 9 PM for an update.”  So Rosemarie and many others wandered off to get a bite, and when they returned at 9 the plane had already reboarded without announcement and left.  Nice job American Airlines, way to screw the pooch bigly.

Rosemarie and a score of other quite angry passengers from her flight were at first blamed for the problem before the weary booking agents managed to get some of them on the next flight.   Once I got word she was actually taking off, I made the 50 minute drive to MCO and pulled into a very unofficial “cell phone parking lot” just outside the airport, along with what looked like a hundred other cars, and waited for Rosemarie to report she was approaching the pick up area.  I completely underestimated the cramming effect caused by the airport being shutdown earlier and then trying to make up for it with constant arrivals deep into the night: it took me more than an hour to drive the last mile and a half to pick her up, barely creeping along with a thousand other vehicles.  We didn’t get home until 3 am.

Does this mean we slept extra late and spent Saturday relaxing?  No, no it does not.  Rosemarie had to spend time sorting and making jewelry to replace what I had sold during the two events I did solo while she was in Virginia, while I had to do a Veteran’s Day run to a bunch of restaurants offering free meals to all vets.  Over the course of the weekend I had four sit down meals on the house (except for the tip of course) and a few take out options for us to enjoy later.  Thanks to the 98 restaurant chains that participated this year.

We did another Sweetwater-Wekiva market Sunday with decent results, and spent the remainder of our time at Orange City RV Resort alternatively relaxing and trying to be mildly productive as we approached the end of our Central Florida month long stay.

Next up: Blue Springs State Park, our last stop in Central Florida until mid December.

With less than three weeks left in Central Florida we wanted to centrally position ourselves to see friends and family, attend markets, and rein in costs as much as feasible.  In support of that we shifted from the fantastic Wekiwa Springs State Park to Lake Monroe County Park about a dozen miles further north.  At less than $17 a night all in, it is significantly cheaper than the area state parks, particularly when you add in the Reserve America fees.

While Lake Monroe doesn’t have the crystal clear spring or immediate lake front camping of our favorite area spots, it has large power and water sites in the woods near a lake.  The county undertook a significant renovation of the electrical and water connections at the park during the last year, which has significantly improved things for most sites, i.e., previously about half of them had one or both connections on the “wrong” side for most RVs, necessitating either extra long hoses and/or cables, or pulling in front first.  Since the reno, most of the sites have full 50 amp and water on the correct side, and the remaining sites are designated for tent camping only with just a 20 amp traditional plug in available.

The park has a boat ramp and dock, private toilet/shower rooms, group camping areas, pavilions, and direct access to a nice bike path running up to Gemini Springs and beyond.

We had a week long stay there, during which we fit in five markets!  That’s almost like having a job, but we are taking advantage of being in an area where we have lots of vending options, knowing that come January we might not.  We started with our favorite event in the area, Deland’s Friday night Artisan Alley Farmers Market.  Aside from being pretty good for us the one time we attended last year and last week, we enjoy the ambiance, cooler evening environment, and energetic groups of liquored up people wandering through.  This week did not disappoint.

If there is one down side to this event it is the odd method of assigning spots to those that have not yet “earned” a permanent site.  Though the market does not technically start until 6 PM, if you want a spot you need to arrive and sign in with the manager before 5 (ideally 4:30 if you want to be assured of a good spot) and then wait until she starts handing them out at 5:15 by order of sign up, taking a few minutes to discuss with each person their requirements and then walk them to their appointed place.  As this is going on, the permanent vendors are either already there making sales or leisurely showing up to set up once the street is closed off.

Once you have managed to luck into being assigned the same spot three times in a row, you “inherit” it and become a permanent vendor.  This can, we are told, take months, and we don’t anticipate ever getting there.  The net result for us is that what would be a three hour event with maybe half an hour on each end for set up and take down turns into a 5 hour affair, though we make the best of things with a beer at Persimmon Hollow while we wait for assignment time.

I mentioned in our Wekiwa Springs post that we were not happy with our Saturday Sanford market; though we sell OK, it is too long, has too many other overlapping vendors, and doesn’t have a nice “vibe.”  After the October 28 event, we committed to doing the Lake Mary event instead.  This involved a bit of risk and hassle: It is run directly by Seminole County’s Parks & Rec Department, and they have fairly rigid licensing requirements, non-refundable application fees, and up to two weeks to gain approval.

Encouraged by some of the vendors at our Sunday Sweetwater-Wekiva market, we took the chance, paid for the $25 county business receipt, paid the $25 application fee, and were fortunate enough to get approved within days for the first Saturday in November.  The vendor fee is $25 per event for us non-regulars, so our total commitment before even setting up was $75.  We need not have worried: we had a great day easily exceeding our investment.  The manager restricts excessive duplication of vendor types, so we won’t have the option of attending every week, but that day we locked in three more Saturdays between then and Christmas, working around our planned three weeks in SE and SW Florida.

Sunday morning we headed back to Sweetwater-Wekiva for the market, and though foot traffic was quite light (several of the other vendors reported it as one of their worst sales day, with one irate seller suggesting she would not be back without some sort of market improvement) we had our best day of the handful of times we have attended this event.  Go figure.

Monday evening we tried a new one: Audubon Park Community Market in Winter Park.  Our friend Chris from the Wekiva event turned us on to it, suggesting it had an environment that would probably work for our stuff.  We got last minute approval from the market manager and headed down to set up.  One of the aspects of this event that makes it particularly convenient is that if you can get by with 10′ of table space instead of an entire tent area, they supply the tent and lighting.  For us this is fantastic, because our brand new tent from Caravan Canopy is a monster that barely fits in our trusty tracker once all the other items are stowed.  The vendor fee is dirt cheap, and was even waived for our first attendance.

The market itself has a very progressive, neo-hippy sort of vibe, with damn near every food or produce item claiming organic, cage-free, fair trade, vegan, gluten-free, non-GMO status, with price points to match such rigorous production.  E.g., “raw” milk for $10 a gallon.  Fortunately, the Empanada man adhered to no such requiremens, and his product was quite tasty and affordable.  We did pretty well at the market; not great but enough to justify coming.  We are not sure when we will be able to return since they have a glut of crafters and artisans such that those types of sellers are spread out, slotted for one day in every four, and our travel schedule might preclude even that.

The next day Rosemarie headed back to Virginia for another visit with Linda and the extended family, including an overnight trip to Shenandoah National Park.  I stayed with the cat and the rig, hung out with Dad and Marcia a couple of evenings, and spent one with son Jackson and his friends for game night (Dungeons and Dragons, dontcha know, something I haven’t played in 30 years) and prepped to fly solo on a Thursday morning market.

Thursday’s event, “The Springs Market” is run by our Sweetwater-Wekiva manager, Shayna, and is located about two miles down the road from that market.  Like the Sunday one, it does not get a lot of foot traffic, relying on word of mouth, drive by pull ins, and the employee shoppers from the nearby strip mall and business parks.  We did tolerably well, again enough to justify coming, plus I got familiar with our new monster canopy’s set up process.  It may be nearly twice as heavy as our old cheap thing, but it sets up easier and is far sturdier.

So we are off to a great start in November, on track to be well under budget despite a few significant purchases, and having enjoyed a few final days at Wekiwa Springs and a beautiful week at Lake Monroe.  Next up: with limited state and county park weekend availability, we try out a new private RV Resort in the region.

The Distance:  1,670 miles as we made a fairly direct sprint from the U.P. back to Central Florida.  This puts our annual distance up to 9,701.  November should be a low mileage month since we will spend the majority of it at a few parks north of Orlando before heading down to Coral Springs for Thanksgiving.

The Places:   We spent the first week in Munising City Tourist Park before bouncing between Hilltop RV Super Center and the Ojibwa Casino as our repairs got a bit more complicated.  Once all that was taken care of, we spent one final night in Michigan in a Shopko parking lot, then headed south.  We had one night stops at Oneida Casino in Greenbay and Great Lakes Naval Training Center campground in Illinois, then I dropped Rosemarie off at Chicago O’Hare for her trip to Virginia to see Linda and family.

While she was away I continued south via Camp Carlson Army Recreation Area and Arnold Air Force Base Family Camp.  I parked the rig at Dobbins AFB Family Camp outside Atlanta, where I picked up Rosemarie.  The next day we continued south to Wanee Lake Golf & RV Resort for a few days of golf and relaxation, then crossed into Florida for a couple of nights at Grand Lake Golf & RV Resort.  Finally, we moved Wekiwa Springs State Park for the last ten days of October.

We stayed 10 nights at private campgrounds (including four at casinos and 1 stealth camping at Shopko) 16 at public sites (6 city, 10 state,) and 5 at military campgrounds.  We had full hook ups for 11 days, partial for 18 (13 with power and water, 5 with electrical only) and drycamped for 2.

The Budget:  Unsurprisingly, we finished the month 16% over budget.  Despite a handful of modestly successful markets we couldn’t overcome the effects of hundreds of dollars for Serenity’s repairs (our warranty deductible plus all shipping costs and the door lock kit,) three full tank fill ups for the big rig during our run south, and annual license registration for both vehicles.  Considering all that, we were not overly disappointed with the month’s monetary situation, and November will be much better with our limited movement along with a slew of markets lined up.

The Drama and the Improvements:  After waiting five weeks for our new refrigerator, during the installation we encountered additional mechanical problems related to a leaking propane regulator valve that forced us to stay four more days awaiting a part.  We finally escaped Michigan, a bit poorer, but with a new fridge, microwave, awning brackets, and the aforementioned valve.  Then, when I was ready to pick up Rosemarie in Atlanta, the RV door would not open, forcing me to climb out and back in the window with tools.  I eventually had to drill through the lock mechanism just to get it open, and then replace the entire assembly.  If you have a house on wheels that you bounce down the road 10,000 miles a year, you’re gonna encounter these problems.

2017 monthly reports to date:

• September
• August
• July
• June
• May
• April
• March
• February
• January

And here are our 2016 and 2015 annual summaries which include monthly report links.