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Should we trade him?

Writer's picture: Ruth McbrideRuth Mcbride

Well after 3 weeks in Florida, we are definitely settling into a nice, relaxing winter snowbird routine!


We’ve been planting new plants in our gardens at the front of the house, as well as at the side of the house too. We’ve had our palm trees all trimmed and now we get more sunshine in the pool.



Bobby, trimming the Spanish moss off an oak tree at the side of our house.


The pool and lanai have been a really nice place to sit out and eat lunch and enjoy some sunshine and the pool on nice days.

We have always wanted to have fresh herbs and a ‘garden’ around the pool, but we were never down here long enough to be able to start a garden! We even have a Meyer lemon tree, in a yellow pot! Let’s hope the tomatoes start to turn red soon!


We added a few new chaise lounges to the lanai too. Facebook Marketplace is definitely a great place to shop for used furniture, despite the 1.5 hour drive we had to take to pick up these beautiful new chaise lounges and cushions!

Nice white wicker resin chaise lounges. We have similar chairs back home in Fort Erie, so we knew how comfortable they would be.


After not being here for 22 months, we’ve definitely found a lot of things to keep up with the maintenance of our home. We’re also preparing for some cooler weather, so we’ve got some inside projects to do as well, such as painting the laundry room, which we never got around to painting before!




We’ve played a few rounds of golf since we’ve been here. I’ve been nursing bad ’golfer’s elbow’ so I’ve finally started some acupuncture therapy which is helping, but I’m trying not to golf too much, to give my elbows a rest, and a chance to properly heal. I’ve also got a medicinal massage booked for later next week too, which should help the elbows too.




I did play in my first ‘Ladie’s Day’ at Lone Palm Golf Club (where we are members), which was a 2 person net best ball, played over 2 rounds. We were supposed to have the second round on Tuesday this week, but the play was called off because it was only going to be 40F at 9am when we normally tee off for Ladies Day, so the play was cancelled for the day. I’m looking forward to finishing that second round of the tournament next Tuesday with my golf partner Doris, as long as we don’t have cool weather again! The women will not golf down here if it is that cold, so I guess they reschedule a lot if its cold!


I was also invited by my pro at Lone Palm to enter the Publix Invitational Golf Tournament in March. The tournament is a 2 day event for amateur women golfers in Florida, which is held at my home course of Lone Palm. I’m looking forward to playing in this very prestigious tournament at the end of March!



Richard and me did go out for a quick 9 holes though this week and it was nice to shoot a good score… finally in the 30’s for 9 holes!


But today we did something we have never done before!



Nope. We are not going to Driving School!


But we are at the Florida State Fairgrounds!



Looks like we are at the 2022 Florida RV Supershow!


And guess who we are meeting at the RV Supershow?!!



St Stephen! and his lovely wife Karen!


St. Stephen arranged for our tickets online which at $10, saved us $2 each on the cost of the tickets. Parking for the show was $8, so not too bad, considering how big this event is.


They definitely have some interesting characters at this show! PEACE OUT!!



There were quite a few vendors selling things at the show - all related to RV’s, Travel Trailers, and 5th Wheels. This sign was quite interesting because of course Jerry is no longer with us. Jerry is in Coombs, Vancouver Island at the automotive wreckers!



Of course we had to go and visit the Newmar section to see how Newman’s new cousins are looking.



A beautiful 2022 Newmar Mountainaire.



The bedroom with the ensuite bathroom at the back of the Newmar Mountainaire. I really do like the lighter cabinetry in this unit! At $754,000 US I think we will stick with our Newman!



Karen and me decided to check out this 5th wheel ‘toy hauler’ to compare it to the 5th wheel that St. Stephen and Karen have in Florida this winter. There is definitely a lot of room in these 5th wheels.



Richard and St. Stephen trying to figure out where to go next. There was so much to see at this RV show and it was a very warm day in Florida to enjoy the outdoors.



We saw more dogs in strollers today than we saw kids in strollers. I guess it is a ‘thing’ to bring your dog to the RV show in a stroller. We even saw one couple that had 3 dogs in their stroller!


For something completely different they had a lot of smaller travel trailers too!

Off roading anyone? I’m not sure I could climb up into this tent at the end of the day!



I really liked this teardrop trailer. There was no kitchen inside, so an outdoor kitchen must suffice! I don’t think this trailer would have worked for us in Fanny Bay with all the rain we had there for weeks and weeks!



This prototype trailer was on display and they were starting to take orders on it.


This trailer was a little ’squishy’ inside with the kitchen inside it.


We really wanted to take a look at the Tiffin Class A diesel motorhomes to see how they compared to the Newmar RVs, since we’ve never been inside a Tiffin before and we’re really only familiar with Newmars.


We wandered over to the Tiffin area and started going through their 40 foot and 45 foot models. After visiting all of the Tiffin models, this is the model that both Richard and me loved!

I didn’t take any pictures of the inside of this model, but I did find some online.



Large King size bed that is motorized to retract so the bedroom appears so much bigger. In the model we saw at the RV show, there was a fireplace with a tv above it, instead of the middle cabinet on the left.

A huge master bathroom with double sinks and a walk in closet!



A beautiful kitchen with a built in dishwasher! This model even had a wine fridge built into the kitchen area!


And the RV show had a fantastic show special price too!

Wow! We liked this Tiffin Allegro Bus better than the Newmar Mountainaire and for the price, it was a great deal!



The price for this RV sure seems to vary depending on where you buy it! $566,667 by the same dealer in Tampa. I guess the ‘show special’ is really not that special at $538,995!


We walked around some of the other buildings at the end of the day to see what the vendors were selling and which RV parks had booths, advertising their properties. At the end of the day all I ended up buying was 2 lipsticks that Karen had recommended which have aloe Vera, SPF and don’t rub off inside my mask! We bought nothing related to RV life at all!




Leaving the RV show there was a ton of traffic on Highway I-4, so we took the back way home to Plant City, stopping at Ace Hardware to pick up our Benjamin Moore paint for the laundry room, some Green Egg charcoal and some more fire logs for the cool nights ahead. Our legs are tired, but our spirits are not dampened because we know that we won’t be trading Newman in on another RV at the Tampa RV Supershow! It was nice to see what else is out there though, but good old Newman is good enough for us…for now!






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