Frosty palms and Sunny beaches

My palms felt icy as I tried to disconnect the frozen hose from my 
RV this morning after a low of 26F overnight. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to bring my skis instead of my bathing suit?
At least my air conditioner won't wear out as fast!

I'm extremely grateful I'm missing the heavy snow falls we hear about further north.

water hose thawing in the sun, frosty palms warming up

Sunset rays

When I arrived at the Sunset Isle RV park in Carrabelle, FL yesterday, I felt like I was home for a visit, this being the first experience with RV camping I had last April. Not only did the staff remember me but I ended up camping right next to where I was in April. Since then  I have learned a great deal about RV living and continue to do so.
 Carrabelle is on the Florida panhandle, on the gulf coast, and very different from the rest of Florida because of being less touristy and commercial. The reason for that is probably that it's cooler here than in more southerly areas.
The staff have been extremely helpful. Becca took me for a drive to a beautiful beach about 3km from here, where we went for a walk on the sand, by fishermen waiting for schools of fish to swim by.
She then bought me mocha almond fudge ice cream which is my favorite and unable to resist. So much for trying to lose some weight!
We then tried to get my TV going. I had spent all afternoon yesterday checking the manuals and trying to figure out how to program universal remote I got (I wasn't supposed to get the TV when I bought this RV but they left it, the remote missing)
Becca then helped me try it today with no luck. Tomorrow I'll go searching for a techie as it would be fun to watch TV given they have cable here.

Before coming here, I was camped at James Island State Park that Carol told me about. It's in Charleston, South Carolina and a wonderful place to be. I met Carol there and we spent 2 fun days exploring Charleston and enjoying the special Christmas lights festival they have at the park every year. We felt like excited children taking a ride on the train around the park at night, passing by thousands of lights : fairy tale characters, a penguin sliding down an iceberg, tunnels of lights to pass through, stars, trees covered in lights....We also walked around, stopping to roast marshmallows over a communal fire, taking a ride on the merry-go-round, and watching the sound and light show. After that they celebrated 25years of the festival of light by one of the most spectacular fireworks shows I have ever seen, with a finale that took my breath away.
We both left that park, heading in different directions and hoping to meet up again, perhaps in Alabama.
I drove toward Carrabelle, along route 95 and bypassed Savannah, Georgia ,following the GPS which usually takes the fastest route. After that it took me on a shorter route directly to Valdosta, Georgia rather than go south to Jacksonville ,FL then  west.As a result I ended up on smaller country roads which were paved but had trees with low branches over the road and luckily they were high enough so I could just barely pass under. My RV is 10ft 5in high and needs 12 foot clearance, something my GPS doesn't take into consideration and I need to pay more attention to. 
After some misgivings, I did make it to Valdosta and stopped at a Cracker Barrel restaurant for dinner and a free night of "boondocking" in their parking lot. It's good to have a list of places to stay for free since that helps quite a bit financially but it can't be done for too long because of those tanks that need dumping or refilling.
The next day I drove past Tallahassee and on to Carrabelle, initially seeing more trees covered with Spanish moss then more palm trees.
It was a heavy rainy day and I was happy to see I had no water leaks. 

reliving childhood!

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, milkshake in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming WOOHOO , what a ride!" 
                                                                                 Source unknown