Expenses, Housework & Touring Around

February Expenses

Campgrounds (incl Electricity) - $339.21

Groceries (includes wine) - $300.57

Laundry - $20.50

Entertainment/Parking/Restaurants - $155.97

Truck Fuel - $372.94

Propane - $0.00

Repairs/Service RV/Truck - $144.34 (includes labour for installation of microwave & truck service)

Internet/TV/Cell/Insurance - $351.52

Medical/Dental - $0.00

Gifts - $0.00

Misc - $343.78 – The largest items were my new hard drive and getting my hair done – other amounts just misc expenses

Total - $2,028.83

We did much better on groceries this month however since we started traveling at the end of the month our fuel expenses are higher. Our electric bill for Fulton Oaks was $85.50 which was rather high but we had quite a bit of cold weather so the electric heater was running 24 hr/day for several days as well as during the nights for a lot of days as well. It’s still cheaper than buying propane!

We were supposed to have rain and thunderstorms after midnight last night and continuing all day today and tonight. I woke up early as I’ve been getting up early the last few mornings because we were traveling so got up and Gordon and I went for a walk since it hadn’t started to rain yet. We found the beach which is accessible through the campground as is the Audubon bird sanctuary. The beach is not a ‘walking’ beach with mostly loose sand and the clouds were looking very heavy so we headed for the bird sanctuary and took the swamp trail when it started to rain a bit. We headed back to the RV. I made a stop to get some quarters for the laundry at the office and the rain stopped so I continued walking around the park. It was 65F (18C) and very humid.

This morning I did a couple of loads of laundry and vacuumed. Gordon went out to the bird sanctuary to take some photos but I decided to stay behind and rest my back for a while. Vacuuming and standing around always kills it and I stood for quite a while talking to a couple from Indiana when I was doing the laundry.

Around noon I checked the temperature and it was 80F( 27C). It was sunny but the skies were fairly dark. I had heard from someone this morning that the thunderstorms were passing north of us but with the humidity it feels like we might get some sort of action in that regard. We actually had the air conditioner on today. We had tornado watches for much of the day as well.

This afternoon we did some driving around and walked around another birding area but the birds haven’t arrived yet. This area is apparently a migratory stopoff for most birds and in a couple of weeks it will be teeming but unfortunately we can’t stay that long!

We also drove back to the west end of the island and saw the devastation that two hurricanes in less than ten years have caused the housing on the island. There are no trees or anything to shelter the houses. There’s a photo below of one of them.

We stopped at the local tourist office and obtained some information on the island. Behind the tourist bureau there are several camellia trees. Here’s a photo of one of the flowers. Very beautiful!

By the way for anyone watching the weather in this area, a tornado did hit Enterprise, AL but that’s about 300 miles from where we are – 13 people were killed including some kids in the local high school whose roof collapsed while the kids were inside. Devastating!