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On Monday, we got our washing done and then had a big breakfast before driving across to Orlando airport. We dropped
Andrea off early for her flight back to Germany so that she could get some last minute shopping done. It turned out
that there wasn´t much there except for all the Disney World shops and other attraction shops there! Then we drove
North out of Orlando and stopped at a Wal-mart for the night. At least we always do our shopping there, so Wal-mart
can´t complain that we only go for the free night! In fact we have spent a considerable amount of money there.
On Tuesday, we continued North and after stopping at 3 different visitor centres we finally got a decent map for the
Ocala National Forest. We booked into a large campground for 2 nights to give ourselves time to catch up on writing
our website. We walked around the campground and watched the sunset after playing a game of pool.
On Wednesday we did a 6 mile walk in the forest to a lake and then came back to the campground. That evening we went
to the camp bingo! It was very complicated and completely different to any bingo we have ever played before. Firstly,
there are only 75 numbers instead of 90 and secondly, they play completely different rules. Its not a line or a full
house, they play patterns. For example an X shape on the bingo card - the first to get all the numbers on the X
pattern shouts bingo. Then there is the figure 4, letters T and L, which can also be "crazy" which means any way up
on the card (sidewards and upside down aswell as the correct way up).
Needless to say it took them quite a long time to explain everything to us. There were also screens showing the next
number which would be called about 15 seconds later. The idea was that if your number came up on the screen you
should put up your hand and then wait for that number to be called before shouting out "Bingo".
The very first game had all sorts of lines on it that you could call - diagonal, vertical, horizontal, then an X,
crazy L and T, the four corners, small square and large square and finally the "cover all" which is the American way
of saying a full house. We only bought one card and whilst Kirsten marked off the numbers with felt pens we had
borrowed, Helen kept her eyes peeled for any one of the numerous winning combinations. We only needed one number for
the four corners and then it came up on the screen. So Helen put her hand up as per the rules! But Kirsten got too
excited and shouted out bingo before the number had been called!
Well we managed to tell them that we needed to wait for the number to be called and won $20!! We´d only paid $8 for
the tickets, the least amount you could play for!! I don´t think the regulars were very happy! They certainly take
their bingo very seriously. And all of a sudden we were famous - the ones that dared to win! Well we literally didn´t
dare to win any more and nearly missed filling in one of the games! Some of the wins were a lot of money - $100 was
the most but we were happy with our $20 for the night.
On Thursday, we took advantage of the 2pm check out time to use the computer and get all the cleaning and washing up
done. Then we drove west and went to a Wal-mart where we got an oil change for Winnie. We also found out that we had
some sort of oil leak again! So that was going to be the priority for the next day.
We drove to a garage on Friday where they had a bay to deal with Winnie. We had to make an appointment for 2pm so we
drove back to Wal-mart and got our hair cut while we waited! Back at the garage the guy nearly got Winnie stuck on the
ramp because it was too high and he ditched Winnie, despite both of us shouting stop! (We weren´t allowed to drive
Winnie onto the ramp ourselves!) Fortunately, he´d only hit various compartments under Winnie and not something
important like the petrol tank!
But after all that he couldn´t fix the problem anyway because he didn´t have the right part. At least we found out
that the leak was coming from the oil pressure switch and the leak was only a drip. We would have to drive to a
bigger town to get it fixed and were happy that we could still drive!
As we didn´t have much daylight left, we drove back to Wal-mart and bought a new air filter which we put in. We drove
to a different supermarket car park for the night where it was a bit quieter.
On Saturday, we drove to Manatee Springs State Park and spent a few hours wandering around. We did a 5m walk along
the trails and Kirsten went snorkelling. Unfortunately there weren´t any manatees to see but it was a nice, quiet
little park.
On Sunday, we drove North and went to a campground for the night. It was very windy and we were driving into it which
meant it was slow going for poor old Winnie. Kirsten wrote on the computer for nearly 2 hours whilst Helen drove and
then we carried on using the computer once we got hooked up at the campground. Kirsten also spent hours making
goulash, something we haven´t had for a long time!
