~Friday, May 6, 2022~
Day 691
Got up at 5:50 a.m. to try my luck at nabbing a campsite at Anastasia State Park in Florida. As luck would have it, we got a spot. There were only a handful of sites left that would fit our trailer, of which I researched the day before. So by the time 6:00 a.m. came around our time (8:00 a.m. East Coast), I’d be ready to hit that button. We’re both really shocked that “we’re in” since it seems near impossible to get a spot in any state park in Florida these days. Such high demand. This gets us to the Spring of 2023, mid-April specifically, with the exception of our Washington state booking on our way back from Alaska. From Florida, we make a B-line for North Carolina to begin a big chunk of time reacquainting ourselves with the area we love so much, to see if it’s really where we want to be. Since our last time visiting the Asheville area, we’ve added a few other contenders, so we’ll see. We are so fortunate that we’ve been able to see so much, allowing us to narrow down areas we want to live.
The stopover in Carbondale is certainly making an impression on us. Carbondale and the town of Glenwood Springs, that we passed through yesterday, are beautiful locations. The area is very desirable for retirees, with plenty of outdoor activities, gorgeous scenery and home to the world’s largest hot spring. The minute we’re impressed with a location, I immediately head to real estate websites to see if it aligns with our budget. Sadly, it does not. In fact, I’ve already reached out to a local agent. To get out of the median price range of $750,000 in Glenwood Springs, we’d have to go west of the Colorado River corridor. Colorado is definitely on our radar but so far with the areas we like, it doesn’t seem to align with our budget quite like the Carolinas do. We still have more time in “Colorful Colorado”, so we look forward to seeing what else is out there….particularly the Fort Collins/Estes Park area.
Since it’s been go, go, go lately, the to do list has piled up once again. How does that happen so quickly? So we crossed a few things off our list with Jeff cleaning the heavily dusted solar panels and vent covers on the roof. With all that desert dust lately, things are looking pretty scary. Having full hookups certainly helps in tackling most of our maintenance/cleaning tasks since we generally use more water. To clean the vent covers thoroughly, you have to remove them. As we suspected, those UV rays have taken a toll, making them very brittle. It looks like before the trip’s over, we’ll likely have to replace the two.
I worked on cleaning the shower and dusting the interior, then had a few errands in town. What a cute town Carbondale is, especially the old town section. The city has a population of 6,500, and is only about 30 miles from Aspen, close to all that world-class skiing. We’re hoping to do more exploring on bike while of course checking out the brewery scene.
With the sun setting later,
we seem to be having later dinners….funny how that works.
Definitely ate European time tonight after spending an early evening down by the river with Sadie. She had such a good time. I just hope we weren’t disturbing the fly fishing 😳🎣