May started off with pleasant weather. Days in the mid-80's, nights in the 60's. We've
been "beaching" as much as possible and Barrington Hills Resort has a wonderful pool which we use often. Don's brother Ray, Dot, and nephew Ricky came to Hudson for a visit prior to their leaving to go back home to Connecticut. We drove to Howard Beach in Tarpon Springs and enjoyed a meal a Mama's Greek Cuisine.
All that changed around May 6th. In Florida there are over 200 wildfires covering over 80,000 acres slowly burning out of control and the air quality was very poor. They even closed I-75 on May 7th. Some of the local beaches were closed due to windy conditions which causes harmful air quality. When the air isn't hazy with smoke it's because the wind changed directions. One
of the worst cities is Lake City. We will have to pass through it on our departure in order to
reach Interstate 95-north.
Jennifer and Brandon visited us on May 14th. We spent five days having such a blast. We
went to Clearwater Beach and ate seafood at Crabby Bill's. Brandon had his first ex-
perience with the ocean at Howard Beach, we went to the Tampa Aquarium, and spent the
last day just "vegging out" in the motorhome and swimming in the pool. Brandon's new nick-
name is "parrot" because he repeats everything we say. His new favorite phrase is........
"it's important."
We left Hudson, Florida on May 22nd, and headed to Gaffney, South Carolina for scheduled maintenance on the coach. Leaving the Freighliner with the maintenance completed, we headed to Greenville, Virginia for a four day stay at Stoney Creek RV Resort. (Our anticipated arrival date for Connecticut was June 1st.) All that could have been posponed when our motorhome broke down just as we entered the campground. To make matters worse, it was the 3 day Memorial Weekend and there were no towing companies open. So we sat there and made the best of it until Tuesday morning. We visited Walton's Mountain Museum in Schuyler, Virginia, the town that Earl Hamner, Jr. had based his series on. We traveled on parts of the Blue Ridge Parkway and even found a geo-cache at the top of Spy Rock which was a three mile, round-trip hike up a mountain trail.
Needless to say, the repair was minor and we arrived at Hammonasset State Park in Madison, CT a day early on May 31st.
