Trip to Orlando Area - Loving My New Phone

 

Since we were only going to be gone for two nights, it did not take long to gather what we needed, a little food for Wednesday night and Friday morning, and off we went.  Tuesday I went over to the motorhome and turned on the fridge, and did a quick vacuum job and a few other quick things.  Wednesday Marcia had her second Doctor's appointment of the year at 10 am, which went faster than usual.  Sometimes with this doctor we have had to wait for an hour...Wednesday we got there at 9:40, did the required paperwork, and they called her at 10:05...by 10:30 we were out of there.  Took Marcia home, and I went to get the motorhome filling up the car with most of what we were taking.  By the time I got back it was 1:30, and we were on the road before 2.  First thing, a motorhome bath at Blue Beacon Truck Wash about 35 miles to our northeast.  As usual, we were not the only RVs getting cleaned...

 

This baby here must be owned by a racing enthusiast.   In no time at all we were in the wash, and out.  Next, we got gas at the Flying J...just our luck, the pump I pulled up to did not work, but the other RV pump opened right up and I slipped in over there.  Full tanks, we are clean, it now close to 5 pm.  As was our plan, we drove ten miles south on I-75 and pulled into the rest area for the night.  The ADA site is nice and wide, I pulled as far to the left I could, up against some grass, so that it would leave plenty of room away from any other RVs which might pull in.  I like this rest area because trucks have their own area...but you know how that goes...some truckers come over to the RV area, especially if the truck area is full.  Although it was a bit warm at first, we did get to sleep around 10 pm.  Around 4 am I look out our kitchen window and what do I see?  There is a motorhome right next to us...and when I say right next to us, I mean it was in our parking slot!  I could open the door, but that was about it.  Had Marcia needed to get out into her GoGo, that would have been very difficult.  On top of that, this motorhome did not have ADA plates or placard.  We pulled out around 7:30, and left that motorhome there...I can only hope a Florida State Police came by, they deserved a ticket big time!  And that is a $250 ticket!!!

We made it over to Orlando at 10:15, I picked Marcia's friend up at 10:45, and by 11 we were in LongHorn Steakhouse.  (Yes, the "H" in LongHorn is capitalized).  The ladies had Salmon and I had a Ribeye thinking I would save a little for Bubba...but it was so good, cooked perfectly medium-rare, that I just couldn't save Bubba any.  About 1:15 we left the restaurant, I took her friend back to where she is staying, and off to Sanford we went.  Marcia's brother Dean and his wife Caryl arrived at the Cracker Barrel about 20 minutes after we did.  We all sat and talked in the motorhome until 4, went in to eat, and by 5:30 we were hunkered down for the night and they drove the 20 minutes to their house.  And what a night it was!  Above you can see the storm system that moved through Central Florida last night, hitting Sanford around 12:30 am.  It was way worse over in Tampa where they had a probable small tornado and considerable damage in a few areas, including a construction crane falling across I-275, but thankfully not hitting anyone.  An oak tree landed right on top of a lady's 5th wheel in a mobile home park, but thankfully she was only pinned under the rubble and not seriously hurt.  For us, it was windy for about 10 minutes, and it rained, a bit hard for a little while.  However, there went our nice clean motorhome because the wind picked up dirt and dust and we have massive water spots all over the driver's side of the motorhome.

Bubba did real good on the trip, despite the fact that I forgot his treats!  I think he was hoping that we were headed out to California so that he could see his Uncle Arny and Aunt Sandy...but sorry buddy, that is way off still.  

So I have had my phone for about 10 days now, and I really like it.  Compared to my other Flip Phones, this one is rugged, and it can do things the other Flips could not do.  Here is a list of the goods...

1. As spammers call me, I can quickly and easily add those phone numbers to a "rejection list", so I won't be bothered by that number again.  I 'wish' that I could export and import to that list, but it won't allow that.  I can physically input numbers, but that just isn't worth it.  So far I have 16 numbers in there.                                                                 
2. The phone does have a much better reception, both to and from the phone.  I have talked to mom a number of times and she could hear me fine.  It is even better over the GPS-Stereo-Phone in the motorhome.                                                                              
3. I love the notepad feature on all of Flips, but this one allows me to enter some info and then move down to the next line and enter more info.  This is REAL NICE when making lists, such as shopping lists, or a list of things to take to the motorhome on a trip.  All my other Flips would make me put in numerous spacebar hits until it moved to the next line.  Past Flips had small limits to how much info could be in the notepad, but I have not come close to finding the limit on this one.                                                        
4.  This phone weighs in at 6 ounces...that's twice as much as other Flips I have owned.  But it is real, real rugged....I will have a hard time breaking this one.   The buttons are also bigger than most, and the screen is bigger too.                                                          
5.  This camera is a bit better than my other Flips, and it is the only one which has a flash.  I forgot my camera for the trip, so the pictures at the truck wash and of Bubba were taken with this phone.  Better than my other Flips, but not much better.  If you look at the picture of Bubba, you can see streaks running up and down the picture.  But there was no lights on, this was at 6:30 in the morning, and with my other Flips I could not have gotten any picture...it would be all black.

And there are a few bad things... I am having a hard time getting use to the new phone rings, notifications for texts, missed calls, etc.  There are more choices, but the sounds I was use to just are not on this.  The text messages come into a thread for each phone number that sends you a text.  If you use Facebook Messenger, it is much like that.  I have not gotten use to this yet, and I typically delete threads pretty quick.  The biggest drawback is that I need to charge it nearly every day...it is a energy hog.  Overall, I am very pleased with this phone.