From St. Cloud, FL

Well, a lot of time has passed and a lot of activity.  Les and Sue arrived as planned and we spent a lot of time with them and the Mohr's from the other side of where we were parked.  We took boat rides into the St. John's River counting alligators and enjoying the scenery and company.  We ate dinner most days together either at one of the homes or various favorite restaurants.  Also did some sightseeing trips in the area and most evenings included Joker games.  Ron had a partial knee replacement and was somewhat limited in his activity for a short while but he had an amazing recovery.

Both Les and Ron play various musical instruments and sing, so I or we accompanied them to various jam sessions.  One every Wednesday evening was at Lou's Ponderosa near Pomona Park - a few miles away.  Those were always enjoyable and attended by 5-15 entertainers.  Several evenings they had guest entertainers at Lou's including 2 couples from Tennessee and one musician from North East, PA.  

In addition to shopping trips to Palatka, Loretta had to have blood samples taken 2 times at Quest Labs there.  Her medication has been reduced slightly which I assume is good news.  She just had a sample taken today at Quest Labs in St. Cloud and will get results in a few days.  After about a month in Satsuma, we moved to Lou's Ponderosa just a few miles away.  While there I assisted Lou with some computer networking problems, however we were not able to make the network operate as desiried.  Possibly due to fact that his desktop runs Windows XP and the laptop operates Vista?  I also assisted with a few other chores and he joined us for supper a few evenings.  Very enjoyable time there, but we did have to move on to visit friends from near Jamestown here in St. Cloud.

We left Pomona Park last Wednesday under good weather conditions.  I made a wrong turn in Sanford and while getting back on route, discovered smoke coming from near left rear wheel.  I stopped as soon as I could but traffic wouldn't allow me under that side of truck so we moved to a parking lot.  There was no smoke when we got there but the guard ofer the brakes was very hot.  As I was concerned about the possibility of a defective rear axle oil seal, took it to an International Dealer in Orlando.  After parking the trailer I took it inside where I decided to have it serviced also.  After servicing the truck, the mechanic removed the wheels on the left rear side.  He found no trace of oil leak and also checked the brakes.  Then while putting air in the tires broke a valve stem on the Right side.  So he removed the wheels on that side too and while waiting for a tire service to come and make repairs, checked that side too.  We were over 4 hours at that facility so it was after 9:30 when we arrived at Dick and Gladys' place here.  So we only visited a short while after parking before calling it a day.

Since our arrival here, Dick and I worked on one of the work lights on truck that was out.  Broken wire, but we managed to damage the bulb before we finished.  I have been having trouble with the stabilizer jacks on rear of trailer hitting ground and getting bent which required a lengthy repair each time.  So I ordered new mounting brackets which arrived while in Satsuma.  I moved them a bit ahead so they shouldn't strike the ground now and Dick assisted me some with that project.  Their daughter Jane arrived to visit also and we all went to The Catfish House for dinner.  We had eaten there a few times before and as usual had a great meal.  

Weather near Palatka had been good a few days and freezing some nights.  We had a couple of chilly nights here, but daytime temperatrues are now getting into upper 70's.  More like we expect here.  

Not much more to add, so will close for now.

GOD Bless

Andy and Loretta

Andy@W2UCZ.com

Loretta@W2UCZ.com

http://RVTravel.blogspot.com