Florida Vagabonding

By Chris

We expected to be vagabonding in Sicily and Alicante, Spain right now, but we are instead in Haines City, Florida. Although the destination is different, we are still trying out the vagabond lifestyle. We're living in an AirBnb (what we had intended to do) making do with what's there and what we had anticipated we might need that is in our mini-kitchen and mini-office in the suitcase. So, here's a report on some of the the items we've tried out so far:

Travel hangars: Since very few places in Spain or Italy have clothes dryers, we knew that we would be air drying our clothes. So we invested in a set of foldable hangars. Even though we do have a dryer here, we've been using these quite a bit for hanging our shirts to air dry. They are very sturdy and fold up fairly small. Plus, they are really cute colors!

Cutting board and knife sharpener: We took the suggestion from another vagabonder to have a cutting board and knife, since these are not usually in good condition in rentals. That was absolutely correct! I wanted a larger cutting board, but also wanted it to fit in my mini-kitchen and not add a lot of weight. This one fit the bill. I have even used it here in Florida when I needed a larger board then the tiny one in the kitchen. Since we were traveling a good bit by cruise ship and plane, we were hesitant to pack a knife, so John suggested a knife sharpener. We quickly learned that this wouldn't always work, as many knives are serrated. UGH! We bought a cheap knife at Walmart, so if it gets confiscated it won't be a big deal. Being cheap, it has to be sharpened a lot!

Portable office: This was a gift from our daughter Emily, and it is very clever. I have already used many of the items that we decided to put on it: stapler, pencils, sharpener, note card, stamps, pen, binder clip. The latter serve double duty as 'chip clips.' This, along with a banking pouch, contains all the essentials that were on my desk and allow me to keep a calendar, pay bills, manage finances, correspond, etc.

Now, one thing that is different is that I was expecting to be making meals from more fresh foods purchased every 1-2 days. Current conditions don't allow that, and I was a bit hard-pressed to come up with things to cook when there are no casserole or baking dishes in our rental. (And we didn't want to buy a bunch of stuff we just got rid of, we are pensioners after all!) But, one day I awoke, inspired, realizing that I could go 'shopping' for these things in Marina's trunk, as there were a few boxes stored there that were to eventually make their way to Emily in California.

Speaking of cooking, Emily is currently writing a blog about cooking in the time of COVID. Head on over there for some good writing and recipes:
https://cookingduringcovid19.blogspot.com/2020/04/responsibly-conquer-your-fears.html

We are scheduled to be here until May 22. Given the dynamic conditions, we haven't made a decision about where to go next. In the meantime, we are still enjoying the weather, the lanai and the pool.

And here are some of our current 'pets' who hang around our place. That little guy is usually bright green, but he's great at camouflage. Can you see him?