published 24th of may 2022
Even if we currently live "on the street" it is important to us to provide fresh laundry every 8-10 days. Thanks to laundromats, which are widespread in the USA, this is not a problem either.
In Florida, the "Laundromat" - apart from the fresh laundry - have other advantages: it is air-conditioned and there is free WiFi. I'm not really a fan of air conditioning, but I'm happy about it at times. Lennox anyway, it's way too warm for him. And the WiFi makes Seb' the most happy. Thanks to my Simlystore card (Lyca), I'm usually well taken care of but Seb' always needs a hotspot from me.
On this day we use all the amenities.
After that we drove to another park, better said forest, the Tiger Bay State Forest.
Actually, there was never really anything going on in the parks that we had visited so far. But in this one we were actually the only ones. How do we know? At the entrance there was a list in which everyone had to sign in and out. The last visitors had left the park an hour earlier. We parked the bus at one of the so-called recreation areas and waited for the shower. A few minutes later almost all the clouds had disappeared as if nothing had happened. We looked around.
Alsdann gings auf Dschungelerkundung. Die Luft hatte sich dank des Sommerregens etwas abgekühlt und die Regentopfen verweilten noch immer auf den vielen Pflanzen und Bäumen und das grün des Waldes leuchtete wunderschön.
Since we still seemed to be alone, I decided to try out my new acquisition, a "DIJ mini 2" drone. So far I had not dared because there was either too little space, too much water, too many trees, too much wind or just too many people around. I upgraded it and was pleased with how easy it was to use. Lennox and Seb' fled anyway. I was so focused on trying everything that I forgot to turn on the photo or video function, so in the end I have no evidence of my first successful flight minutes. What a pity!
Next we drove to the Aldi to buy groceries. A friend (Paul) had given us the tip that Aldi was the best place for quality and low prices. In fact, shopping in the USA is anything but cheap and it is worth comparing. With a full refrigerator, we then drove to Deland to visit friends of Paul's, who lives in the vicinity of the drop site there. We were warmly welcomed by Rick & Robin and invited to stay as long as we like. We parked the bus on their huge property. We wanted to stay one, max. 2 nights, it ended up being 4 in total.
Lots of time for the important things in life
and the first steps (ever) in my bus!
What a great feeling, folks... I'll tell you! Still, I'll be honest, it's not as easy as it looks. I'm not as sure with the crutches as with the walker, but I only took the crutches with me due to lack of space. In addition, I had a lot of "swell". Not because I was drinking, but because the bus moves when Seb walks around in it. One could now say that he should stay seated, but then who should take the photographic evidence of this historic moment!?
After this training session I was pretty exhausted and was in bed at 10 p.m. when the spectacle started and a storm of the intimidating kind ⚡️⛈️🌩 started. The flashes light up the bus every second, the rumble grew louder and ended in such loud lightning strikes that neither of us had ever experienced before. I have to admit, that was "scary". Lennox was also "not amused". The rain joined the thunderstorm and I feared that our electricity would soon blow up in our faces. We had our converter outside and it was connected to our bus. At least he was covered and Seb' kept an eye on him. Going out and unplugging him during this event was out of the question though... definitely too dangerous! So we waited for things to come. And what came? Rain! And through my roof in the bedroom to my bed. To save me from drowning (I might be exaggerating a bit ) in my own bed, Seb' stuffed a towel into the frame of the emergency exit above me.
It lasted 2 hours before it finally calmed down. The next day, Seb' went in search of the leak in the roof through which the rain had found its way.
He quickly found what he was looking for at the point where two metal sheets overlap; there was an open crevice which he sealed with silicone. He also used this opportunity to replace the silicone joints on both emergency exits on the roof. Paul arrived in the afternoon, he had driven from Fort Lauderdale to Deland (250 miles) with his motorcycle and his self-made micro camper to meet us.
We got to know each other on the internet - a rogue who thinks evil! Paul gave me great advice 2 years ago when I asked Facebook for advice on insurance for the Skoolie (for the US). He is American and has lived in Austria for a long time, so he also speaks German very well. Since then we've talked on the phone every now and then and I promised that we'd meet up when our road trip took place. It was nice to finally get to know each other personally. There was a lot to talk about and the hours and days flew by.
We took turns cooking, we chilled, marveled at Robbin and Rick's many different rides, and we used the pool 😎
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