Our RV was safe and sound at Winter Quarters – Manatee RV Resort after our trip down to Naples. As a sign of how great fellow RVers are, our neighbors came over right away and asked if we were ok! They were worried about us and noticed us being gone for a few days. We assured them it was fine and thanked them for keeping an eye on our RV.
Anyhow, we decided to stay for 4 more nights and wrap up the final things we needed to do.
Mimi didn’t like Emerson’s long hair – thinking it got in his eyes too much. Our last morning in Naples, she cut his bangs from ear-to-ear. I trimmed the rest of his head, but it wasn’t a good look. Rather than salvage it by adding layers and needing him to hold still, we decided to give him a buzz back at the RV that day.
He liked the trimmer at first, but cried as it took longer than his patience. He thought he looked hilarious in the mirror after a quick shower.
Back in December, I got a phone call from a Realtor as we were leaving Siesta Beach. I was pretty upset by it – I hate getting phone calls at night from strange numbers. The guy on the other end was really nice and we had a great conversation that night. Karissa had signed ME up for more information on a new housing development she saw on a Facebook ad or something. She didn’t tell me. So I was caught very much off guard.
I had a few more conversations with the guy, Darren, and we had some good talks – mostly about random stuff, not real estate. He’s been following along with the blog since then and saw we were in Florida. We decided to meet up. He invited us to his neighborhood pool to spend an afternoon with his family.
If you need a Realtor in the greater Sarasota area, Darren and his wife run New Home Suncoast and are a great team.
We grabbed frozen yogurt on the way back to the RV. It was a self-serve, make-your-own, and pay-by-weight place. Karissa had never done it before. The kids (and Karissa) had fun picking out toppings for their treats. We got a KFC bucket to have a picnic as our final stop that night.
To round out our time in Bradenton, we visited a few remaining neighborhoods and model houses that we hadn’t seen in the Parrish area. We made a return visit to Grand Palm in Venice, where we had lunch on a river. We had alligator and po’ boys.
We had a great stay in Bradenton at Winter Quarters Manatee RV Resort. We paid for a total of 12 nights there and spent 10 because of the 2-day trip to Naples. It’s a great resort this time of year. At $40/night for a lakefront site, it’s also a great value. The proximity to just about everything is awesome. We’ll definitely be back when we’re in the area.
We’ll now continue to move north. We’ve got 10 days to get home for the 4th of July. With 3-4 days of driving, that means we’ve got about 6 days of fun and exploration. We have no plan. We’re debating between the panhandle of Florida, northern Alabama/Mississippi, and Memphis as our waypoints.