We left Koreshan State Historic Site and headed an hour up the road to Venice, where Rose’s mom, Gloria, had recently purchased a new home at Venice Ranch Mobile Home Estates.  After some negotiation, they gave us a very reasonable daily storage fee for Serenity in the empty lot next to Gloria’s new place.

Serenity’s storage spot next to Gloria’s “Little Shack”

This was somewhat new territory for my mother-n-law: living on her own, sole ownership of a new place, establishing complete independence.  We came prepared for labor since her new “Little Shack,” as she calls it, needed some work, and she had way too much “stuff” for the square footage there.  So we all set to work: moving furniture and sorting out basic maintenance, but also doing one of my favorite activities: selling stuff on Craigslist.  After some discussion, we identified ten or so bulky items; things she just didn’t need and couldn’t reasonably store, and so up for sale they went.  In our short stay there we made five sales, and what didn’t sell she either re-purposed or it ended up at Goodwill.

Another one of Rose’s Cricut productions.

During our visit we were happy to have a couple of visits with Rose’s brother, “Baby” Jerry and our niece Laura and nephew DJ.  Both are working teenagers, finding there way in a world with no small degree of confusion as to job security and future prospects.  Special thanks to Jerry for helping me change out Loki’s leaking head gasket, as well as identifying the source of his coolant leak, since repaired.

Florida’s unpredictable weather altered our plans for a two day visit to MacDill Air Force Base, and instead we extended our stay at Gloria’s, enjoying a plethora of Puerto Rican dishes while we continued assisting her in getting the house in order.  PKM loves Gloria’s new place; she has a screened in lanai that provides out door like stimulation, the yard and bushes are crawling with lizards, and every now and then something truly interesting comes to visit.

This rabbit came every evening we were there.

The wood stork was particularly enjoyable.  It stayed for half an hour, jostling for position with our cat, moving from one end of the porch to the other as kitty pressed up against whichever screen panel was closest to this oversized bird.  We figured that the previous owner fed the thing since it exercised such devotion to this site.

After four days we packed up and headed back south, stopping in Ft Myers for one night before our Sanibel reservation.  Rose wanted to check out Ft Myers beach, so I found a Passport America participant, Groves Mobile Home and RV Park, that fit our needs.  Though our check in customer service was excellent and the park appeared very well maintained, the roads are quite tight, as are the sites.  With some maneuvering we worked ourselves into a nice site with a couple of big trees.

We then made the short drive to Ft Myers beach and found it… wanting.  Granted, there is still some Spring Breaker activity going on, but in general we thought it way to kitchy and touristy.  Crowded and filled with trinket stores, bar after bar, and little else, it reminded me a lot of Cocoa Beach; just not our thing.  Regardless, The Groves was a solid prepositioning point, since we were able to transfer to Sanibel in less than half an hour the next morning.  More on that next post.