Juno Beach to Naples

Tuesday the 17th

This is a travel day but since we had to pick up our new hide-a-bed mattress around noon there wasn’t any rush to get started. Once the dogs were walked and fed Tina and I had our breakfast then started putting things away for travel.

At 10:30 AM La-Z-Boy called and said the mattress was in so we fired up the coach, loaded the bikes and hooked up the trailer. I pulled out and went around to park on a slight downhill slope to help the loading of the car on the tow dolly.

With safety chains ready and the tire tie downs out Tina drove up onto the car dolly and it swung up into position just the way it was supposed to work. I positioned the locking pins and attached the safety chains while Tina secured the tire tie down strap on one front wheel. We put the other wheel tie down on and we cinched up the straps, checked that we were road ready then went in and washed our hands. By 11:00 AM we were headed south on US-1.

We planned to follow the same route as the other day so we got to La-Z-Boy store in Wellington Shopping Mall by noon. Tina had already removed the old mattress so we went in and got the new one, rolled it to the coach on a small dolly, took it out of the box, stuffed the old one in the box and rolled it up to the disposal area. Elapsed time, fifteen minutes.

While we were sitting there, Tina made us a couple of sandwiches so we ate lunch in the parking lot before continuing our journey. After lunch we pulled out of the parking lot onto SR 441 for the 30 mile drive to the Sawgrass Expressway. This is a toll road so before getting on we had to go through a toll booth. Unfortunately this one was unmanned and required exact change to continue.

While Tina searched for our laundry quarters I tried to read the amount due. Two problems cropped up, 1) I was too high up to read the LED reader and too far away to just drop a couple of quarters in the grill. Tina found some quarters and I tried to toss them in one at a time. It felt like I was on the midway at the Island County Fair trying to win a stuffed animal. I probably threw six quartes at the grill before two quarters fell in and the light turned green. Fortunately there was no one waiting behind us while my quarters were flying everywhere but into the machine. Tina was laughing so hard she almost fell out of her chair – heheheheh!!

Once on the Expressway, also known as Alligator Alley, we made good time over to I-75 passing several alligators, some Armadillos and lots and lots of birds. There were a couple more toll booths but they had staff to take our money. So we didn’t have any more coin tosses. I-75 took us through the Everglades across the southern part of Florida. Very flat, lots of water and covered with sawgrass.

Leaving I-75 at exit 101 we headed for Naples. Six miles later we pulled into Rock Creek RV Resort. With help from a staff person we dropped of the car, got the tow dolly disconnected and backed into our new site. This is our new home for the next two months.

Once we were set up and connected to power, water, cable and sewer it was time to take the kids for a walkabout. We stopped and talked to lots of other pet owners on our walk, people seemed very friendly. I think we’ll enjoy our time here.

Returning to the coach we installed the new mattress in the Hide-A-Bed then I grabbed the car keys and we drove into Naples. Tina was too tired to cook so we went looking for a small café where we could get some dinner. We found an Olive Garden and had a very good dinner, bringing enough home for another meal.

After dinner we got a few things out and decided to just kick back and veg out.

No photos today.

Distance for today, 160 miles. Distance for the trip so far, 4,014 miles.