The Distance: 701 miles from Central Florida to Asheville., which brings us to 1,352 for the year. We will be stationary in April, but by late May we expect the mileage to ramp up dramatically. Foreshadowing!

The Places: We started the month with ten days at Wekiva Springs State Park, then headed north to Lake Powhatan in Asheville. We stopped at cousin Robb’s in Gainesville, cousin Marissa’s in Atlanta, and one night in South Carolina along the way. These were all places we have stayed before, unlike last month when we explored several new campgrounds.

PKM in her standard travel position on Rosemarie’s lap. She is clearly pretty stressed by the whole “leaving Florida” thing.

We were in public campgrounds for 26 days (10 state, 16 national,) in families’ driveways for 4, and at a private RV park for 1. We had full hook ups for 19 days, partial for 11, and dry camped 1 night.

Rey & Marissa’s newest creation, baby Elishia.

The Money: 26% under budget, which, given how bad January and February were for our finances, was a welcome relief. The down side is that without the final COVID stimulus checks we would have been significantly over budget. We had an extremely low average daily camping fee (because of the free camp hosting site at Lake Powhatan, free street parking with relatives, and a cheap Passport America night) but other expenses pushed the budget. Stocking up for travel and gas for the big rig were part of it, but most of our unexpected costs came from a couple of urgent “repairs” discussed below.

PKM loves Lake Powhatan. So many lizards and moles and other tasty things! She loves spending time outside, blending in with the natural surrounding.

The Drama & Improvements: Rosemarie had been nursing a tooth ache for some time, and once we were settled in Asheville it was time to deal with it. She had a bad abscess under a tooth she had root canaled in Mexico a few years back, and had to have the whole thing extracted. She experienced immediate relief, but because the removed tooth was a big molar, she really needs to have something other than a gap there. So as part of the process the dentist also did the prep work (bone grafting) for a future implant, which can’t be done until months later.

But also, its nice to have humans that prepare your sleeping accommodations properly.

Additionally, I managed to drop my phone out of the golf cart during a high speed turn and then run over it, which completely shattered the screen, rendering the entire device unusable. It is 2021, we can’t easily live without our phones, so an immediate replacement was needed. Fortunately I don’t need a top of the line, latest generation phone (such tech would be wasted on me) so I went with last year’s mid tier (A series) Samsung Galaxy, which is working quite well, thank you very much. While this was not an expense we needed or expected, I had been nursing the previous, six year old phone along for some time. The charging port was broken, the speed was heavily degraded, and the battery life was abysmal, but I had hoped to make it last through 2021. C’est la vie.