3/29/07 (Thursday): We're in the home stretch now--we'll be leaving Tiger Creek Preserve on Monday morning, heading for Mag and Wiley's house. We'll stay there through Easter Sunday and leave for Michigan Easter Monday morning. The good folks here at the Preserve are throwing us a going away party tomorrow--a barbecue. We're sure going to miss everyone!

We were back in Orlando last week. We did a lot of work getting our house ready for sale. There's still some more to do (mostly yard work and touch-up painting). It was arduous, but hopefully we'll be rewarded with a little jingle in our pockets. We'll be in trouble if it doesn't sell fairly soon, because we now have a monthly payment to make on our new RV. We'll pay it off in full as soon as the house sells.

I've made an adjustment to my camera that I hope will solve the problem with the too-big pictures. Click on a couple of these and let me know if it's better.

Just before we left, I had a visit here at the Preserve with Dave Almquist, an entomologist. He's the one I've been doing the beetle project for. We had great fun looking at all the beetles I'd found (some of them rather rare). In the picture on the right, he's sifting sand in the area where he found a pygmy scarab beetle, in hopes of finding a female. He also took me and Dot out for a little bug hunting.


I found this cute black and white beetle on the inside of a paw paw bloom. The paw paw bushes are in bloom all over the preserve. They in the fall, they have an edible fruit.


I think this green guy is an anole, but Wiley calls them chameleons. Whatever--I think he looks sort of like Geico's ghecco! Cute!!











This is me and my friend, Dot, at Heron Pond. Did I mention that I'm really going to miss the people I've met here?! Wiley built the wood duck house (in the background) in his spare time.








We see gopher tortoises out on the trail all the time, but this one came right out into our parking lot in front of the office! I think he came to say goodbye to us.









I saved the best news for last! This is us at Leisure Time RV in Winter Garden, where we just picked up our new RV. The folks here were wonderful--we felt so pampered! And the RV was immaculate and in wonderful working order. It was a great experience overall, and I can recommend them without reservation.






We pulled the Prowler right up beside the new Brookside and walked back and forth unloading the old and moving into the new. It was tiring, but it was probably the easiest move I've ever made. It only took about 1-1/2 hours. Everything is more or less put away now--just some shelves to build and hooks to install. We love our new home! I'll post some pictures in the next blog when we have it all set up and pretty. It is a little taller than the Prowler was, but it's the same length. We had no trouble hauling it with the truck.

I hope to be able to do one more blog before we leave, and then we hit the road for Michigan! Our new employers (Betsie River Campground in Frankfort, Michigan) will be there in mid-April, and we start work May 1. We can go a week early to look around if we want to. We'll have almost 3 weeks to get there, and I hope to be able to blog about all our experiences on the road like I did on the trip to Maine. Stay tuned for Joyce and Wiley's Great Adventure Part III--coming soon to a computer near you!

P.S. I almost forgot--just for you Uncle Ed--here's the pic of Julie with the scrub jay on her head. Flattering, don't you thing?!