The occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.
“a fortunate stroke of serendipity”
One of the greatest things about our new lifestyle is that we have the opportunity and time for events to unfold in fun and surprising ways. We spent two weeks in Milton, FL just east of Pensacola. We had lots of business to take care of (more on that in the next post about setting up domicile), but also a lot of down time while waiting for things to happen and if you just let events unfold you never know what might occur!
One of the items on our to do list was to meet with Jonathan’s family attorney, John Bordelon, to update our wills. In our first meeting with John he asked which RV park we were staying at and his eyes lit up when we mentioned Avalon Landing RV Park in Milton. After we had spent an hour or so working out the details of our wills and directives, John turned to us and asked if we would do him a favor. “Ummm yes,” we said, not sure what he had in mind for us to do. That’s where serendipity took over. John replied that he owned Avalon Landing and asked if we would be his “Mystery Campers” (like the old Mystery Shoppers). Though we had know John for several years, we did not know that he owned the park where we were staying. He wanted to have an insiders view of his business by someone who was experience at RV life. We agreed to do it and spent the next week walking the park looking for ways he could upgrade the facilities, talking with the staff, and doing an overall review of the business. Now the great thing is, Avalon is a wonderful little park. It has all of your basic necessities, they are perfectly located just off I10, and they are close to all the Pensacola attractions. Plus, their staff is exceptional – they even cut down tree branches as we were pulling into our site as they would have damaged our RV. The park is ten years old so it is time for some upgrades. When we met with John to sign our wills, we spent several more hours going over our findings, things like updating his bathrooms, putting in a dog park, etc. We also had dinner with John and his wife Alyce before leaving the area and we spent several more hours chatting about RVing and the campground. Just by chance we picked his park and we were able to give him some valuable feedback which he can use to improve his business.
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We love to get out and hike so while waiting for meetings we took a hike along the Blackwater River but the mosquitoes cut that hike short. We also rented a pontoon boat from Key Sailing on Pensacola Beach and spent a day cruising the Intercoastal Waterway from Fort Pickins to Portofino. Now again Serendipity took over. Even though we lived in Pensacola for many years we had forgotten that the first week in July was Blue Angels week. It just so happened to fit into our schedule after selling the house and that it was the best week for coming to Florida to set up our domicile. And we happened to pick a day when the Blue Angels were practicing for their big airshow to spend a day on the water, and we had just anchored off Portofino so Joanna could take a swim when we realized the turning point for the show was directly above us! We were able to watch the entire show with no crowds and at the perfect point to see the planes up close.
Blue Angles flying high
Letting go the smoke
They fly so close together!
Perfect formation
Captain at the helm
A day on the water
Pensacola Beach Bridge
Pensacola Beach Bridge
Joanna’s swim to shore
Gulf Island National Seashore
We even had a school of manta rays cruise past the boat!
Another adventure in Pensacola was a trip to the ball park. We love going to minor league baseball games as we did in Kansas City last year. The Pensacola Blue Wahoos (AAA Cincinnati Reds) were playing the Mobile Baybears. It was a match up of the two top teams in their league and by chance we were able to get first base line seats (for $12 a piece!!). It was a great game going down to the 9th inning when the Baybears loaded the bases twice but the Wahoos pulled it out in the end to win 2 to 3.
Stadium is right on Pensacola Bay
Perfect night for a ball game
Beautiful park along the water
Amazing sunset during the game
Minor leagues have so much fun doing things like the cockroach race!
And the Silver Wahoo Cheerleaders!
It was not all fun and games while we were waiting for meetings. We had a recall notice on the Jeep which we were able to get it taken care of at the local Jeep dealer and we had the check engine and DEF lights on the coach come on just as we were pulling into Pensacola. We were able to get into the Freightliner Service Center in Pensacola for them to check out the system. Unfortunately, they couldn’t find the reason the computer decided to show the lights and it cost almost $400 for them to do so! Hopefully, it was just the heavy rainstorm we drove through just as the lights came on and we will not have the problem in the future.
As you can see we have updated the format of the blog. In between meetings, sitting at dealerships, and boat trips we spent some time working on the site. It has been a year since we started this adventure so it was time for a bit of a refresher to keep things current. The pictures have all been adjusted to fit the new theme and hopefully the new magazine style will make it easier to view the posts. We have also added a hamburger in the upper left hand corner that has a search function to more easily find post topics. Let us know how you like the new format!
We are now in Tallahassee visiting with Joanna’s family and hope to finish setting up our domicile in the next week. After that our schedule is open and serendipity will take over once again!
the mosquitoes cut that hike short. We also rented a pontoon boat from Key Sailing on Pensacola Beach and spent a day cruising the Intercoastal Waterway from Fort Pickins to Portofino. Now again Serendipity took over. Even though we lived in Pensacola for many years we had forgotten that the first week in July was Blue Angels week. It just so happened to fit into our schedule after selling the house and that it was the best week for coming to Florida to set up our domicile. And we happened to pick a day when the Blue Angels were practicing for their big airshow to spend a day on the water, and we had just anchored off Portofino so Joanna could take a swim when we realized the turning point for the show was directly above us! We were able to watch the entire show with no crowds and at the perfect point to see the planes up close.
