We stayed at Suncoast Designers until Sunday Morning as planned. Bill and Nancy, in the Newmar Essex next to us, decided on Friday to also have the large window in their entrance door repaired. Suncoast was willing to do the work but it would not be completed until sometime next week. We decided to keep them company while we figured out where we were going next and made the arrangements. We had struck up a fast friendship with them and enjoyed just sitting and talking. They are from Ottawa, Ontario but have had a mobile home in Ocala, Florida for 25 years. They have a customized 1938 Chevy and are active in the National Street Rod Association (NSRA). They have been RVing in various rigs for a long time, so we had lots to talk about.
Bill and Nancy went out for breakfast to a place nearby that Joe recommended. Breakfast has become our least favorite meal to eat out, unless we can find a Panera, as our menu choices are typically very limited. Linda had researched places to stay in the Florida panhandle and identified several possibilities. None of them were Florida State Parks, as the system was fully booked statewide, and none of them were right on the Gulf, as they were all dreadfully expensive. We selected Live Oak Landing near Freeport, Florida, an RVC Outdoor Destination park. Live Oak Landing was 15 miles south of I-10, which would give us access to everything between Tallahassee and Pensacola. It was 10 miles north of from US-98 which would give us ready access to a stretch of the Gulf Coast from Panama City to the east to Destin to the west. The website said they had openings but Linda called to confirm that and made the reservation.
I worked most of the day at my computer while Linda worked on her counted cross-stitch project. I took a break for a couple of hours mid-day to run some errands. The most important errand was to find the Tires Plus shop in Spring Hill, verify that they could/would fill our bus tires at 9:00 AM Sunday morning, and scope out any access issues. It’s a good thing I did.
Yes, they would be open at 9, and yes they would be glad to put air in our tires at no charge. Getting the bus into their parking lot would not be a problem, but getting out might be. The manager asked me to pull up alongside the end of the building so they could reach the tires with their air pressure hose. From that position I could then back around behind their service bays and pull out of the lot the way I came in; easy enough as long as the car was not in tow. The obvious solution was to have Linda drive the car separately and hook it up after the bus was backed around behind the building.
I stopped at the Publix across the street and the dollar store next door where I found a small bottle of Goo-Gone. Linda called as I was driving back with a short list of items for me to pick up at … Publix. I continued on and stopped at Walmart instead.
The tape that Suncoast Designers used to secure the openings after the windows were removed left a residual glue line on the body and adjacent windows. The Suncoast employees were pushing to get customers taken care of so I decided to just take care of this myself. Linda helped and it gave us something to do in the afternoon. The windows were easy to clean up with a safety razor blade, but getting the glue off of the paint required a solvent, and Goo-Gone is what they recommended. It contains petroleum distillates and citrus extracts, so after it removes the glue it has to be cleaned off the paint with soapy water which in turn has to be rinsed off and dried.
I had sent a TXT MSG to Chuck that resulted in a call back. In the course of the conversation I mentioned that the engine ran a bit warmer than usual on the drive down from Williston. I thought I recalled him telling me that he had his radiator removed and cleaned or re-cored but that was not the case. What he had done was wash it with a garden hose from inside the engine bay. The radiator fan draws (relatively) cool air in from outside, so he figured it made sense to clean it with water sprayed in the opposite direction. He said that cleaning radiator had helped the engine run cooler.
His logic made sense to me, and Suncoast had very conveniently left a hose with a spray nozzle on a reel behind our coach. I sprayed the radiator as best I could from inside the bay and then sprayed it through the lovers from the outside. We would find out tomorrow whether it made any difference.
Early Saturday evening we circled up our chairs again with Bill and Nancy grabbed a cold beverage, and enjoyed a nice chat. Steve and Kathy stopped by for a while and another couple who had just arrived also stopped to chat. They were from eastern Ontario and were native French speakers, but their English was excellent.