Howdy, everyone! The last six months have been quite the whirlwind. We did make it through our 3 months of winter (Mid Jan – Mid April) in Sumter, SC and our parking pad host there, Don, could not have been any more accommodating. But our spot, while in town and convenient to everything, reminded us just how significantly sound, especially certain loud ones, can really adversely affect us!

We were both troopers and adapted as we had to, but it was quite the challenge to say the least. We couldn’t sleep in Flygirl like normal since the traffic noise was much too loud to sleep in our wonderful canvas tip out bed. So we opted for having a Flygirl palette party every night and created a sort of cocoon bedroom for ourselves in an attempt to shut out some of the intersection highway noise. Lisa did enjoy her home health patients and a great group of co-workers in Sumter, but she’s ready for a break from home health. It’s a demanding, time consuming area to work in but she definitely gets out in the most rural of areas and changes lives for the better.

So Sumter for us was a different sort of 3 months on many levels. I think I wrote on FB about this chapter being a season for grieving after the passing of Lisa’s mom while we were in Gatlinburg in December, so we stayed put more than usual. But as with every place, there will always be memories from our time there. We did explore a few times and got to enjoy Savannah and Edisto Beach on a couple of outings.

The other huge change that occurred while there was our finding our next Home on Wheels. We ended up finalizing the purchase of it just after we left Sumter in April. That was another time consuming and interesting process that we won’t go into, but it all worked out and we are loving our slightly used, new to us, 24.8 ft. long Winnebago View Motorhome.

We had talked a lot about our need to consolidate everything into a slightly little longer RV, so it wasn’t really a spontaneous purchase. It just so happened that the one we thought was the right one (it was in Winston- Salem, NC) came into our lives during our time there in Sumter. We were really fortunate that before leaving Sumter we sold our beloved little Flygirl and then sold the Scooter soon after getting to Gatlinburg. So with all these transitions, believe you me, we had a LOT of details going on! We made the decision to keep the Chinook and when we have time (which we are hoping is going to be in about a week from now) we will be finding a beautiful spot just outside of the Smoky Mountain National Park and turning the Nook into a sweet little Tiny House on Wheels Airbnb ! So we’ll keep you posted on that as things progress!

We’ve posted a number of times on FB during the past 3 months that we’ve been here in Bonifay, FL for the summer months, so I won’t talk about a lot of details of our time here. We arrived here in late April and a month later I left Lisa here and went on a month long trip to Jackson, Mississippi to do an overhaul of my Belhaven neighborhood house there and transition it from a long-term rental into an Airbnb! So after very much work and incredible generosity & help from my long time Jackson friends, “The Nomad Pad: From HGTV to Airbnb” was up and running the first week of July ! And we’ve had lots of guests already in the first month ! It’s a super cool place to stay, so spread the word for us if anyone is heading that way for anything at all. Here’s the link directly to our Airbnb Listing: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/34595457

It’s been a peaceful place to be here in Bonifay (about 45 minutes due north of Panama City Beach, FL) but our time here ends in a few days … We’re ready to move on to other “pastures,” but it’s been a good stay and we loved having more visitors come see us since we were closer to TN & MS than we usually are! That was a really special aspect of our summer here. I had asked for a warmer summer place than our past 2 awesome stays in the West and boy did I get it! It’s been a HOT one, but we’ve also had some beautiful beach and cool natural springs times … certainly can’t complain about that … and LOTS of incredibly good seafood! Lisa has loved her position here for 3 months as well. It’s always tough to leave her patients that she gets attached to, and to leave co-workers who always love her to the max, but the beauty of our nomadic life is the change we get to have every few months.

So we’re leaving the Sunshine state for a month and heading up to Gatlinburg to stay with Lisa’s dad, have time with our friends in Knoxville and that area, and with her family. We’re excited to get our NOMAD PAD #2 up and running. Looks like we’ll be heading back to a different place in Florida for the Fall months, so we’ll keep you posted about that as well. As most of you know, we recently decided to postpone our 500 mile pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago in Spain until next year. As the time approached, we both felt in our Spirits that the time was not now as we had been looking forward to. So we needed to listen to that and we’re both expectant that 2020 is going to be a much better time for us to embark on that special 2 month journey!

Much love to all of you. And keep up with us on our personal FB pages if you can. For some reason it’s just so much easier to post there on a regular basis … but we’re going to try to do way better here from now on as well !

Cheers – Until next time !

The Two Hot Scruffies in Muggy Florida

P.s. We put this one under “Bucket List Worthy” because we’ve now discovered that in the hot, muggy Florida summers, THE thing to do is to to visit the phenomenally clear, blue, cool, natural Springs scattered around Florida. The beach can be too hot to even enjoy so look at alternatives! Whether you’re in the Panhandle or farther East … google your options! Our favorite in this area above Panama City Beach has been Cypress Springs (accessed by boat only). So put it on your Bucket List !

Karole Sessums