It’s hard to believe 4 years have flown by since we pulled into Sanford, FL as our pandemic shelter in place location.
We knew that COVID wasn’t going away anytime soon, and Sanford felt like the right place to hunker down to ride it out. We’d be near family, friends and have decent hurricane protection being so far inland.
And we’d be in a place that had called us like no other in our years of nomadic travels.
Our first visit to Sanford was in November 2018 – a little side trip off the Great Loop. We arrived with a one-week reservation as our turn around point on the St. Johns River.
We loved it so much, we ended up staying 4 months.
You can refer back to our Oh Sanford – How you Won our Hearts (#sanfording) post for a sense of all that Sanford has to offer – from local restaurants, breweries, live music, theater and non-stop street festivals.
Albeit some things have changed (Willow Tree is now called Hollerbach’s, Eckhard now performs with Nick, Boba Babes is no longer around, the riverwalk was fully expanded, and Lake Monroe County Park now charges $45/night for an RV spot).
All that we originally loved about Sanford continued during our time there, and we nestled into making it our nomadic basecamp.
First, a video good-bye we filmed while anchored just outside the marina:
Basecamp, Not Home
While Y-Not made Sanford home, we used it more as a basecamp.
We stuck around the first year of the pandemic with just short van trips. It was a crazy year for everyone, and ours was compounded with an increased workload running the Mobile Internet Resource Center – with everyone hitting the road to work remote.
But once vaccinated we resumed a seasonal nomadic life with lots of extended cross country RV trips and even some cruising trips up and down the river.
Sanford was a perfect balance for us, that gave us everything we love about having a base for community, logistics and projects – while keeping a mobile life.
As we reached our 50th birthdays, it was time to also shift our work life balance – and having stability around us allowed us to focus on working with our team over at MIRC so that we could step back to part-time ourselves.
That opened up time to focus more on our own health, happiness and fitness. We both got into long distance running and cycling with access to an extensive network of trails right from the marina.
Our time in Sanford was nothing short of awesome. When it started to feel a little less awesome (hello hot sticky summers), we’d go off on other adventures.
Four Years – So Fast!
We never imagined when we pulled back into Sanford in March 2020 that Y-Not would still be there four years later. But it just never really felt like the right time to leave.
- 2021, we were still deep in a pandemic.
- 2022, we needed to focus on shifting into semi-retirement.
- 2023 – an active hurricane season in late 2022 and some medical follow-ups had us shift our intentions to sticking around another year.
With family locally and lots of friends – it’s been difficult to rip the velcro off that has held us in Sanford.
Life is just easy in Sanford with so much in walking distance.
Downtown Sanford Marina (the city brought in a new management company about two years ago and changed the name from Monroe Harbour Marina), spoils us with affordable rates ($685/mo for our boat – inclusive of everything!), great location and an awesome staff. And, they come by weekly with a pump out boat to empty our black tank.
Our Final 3 Months in Sanford
We arrived back to Sanford in late January after our last extended RVing trip. And it’s been jam packed full. Excuse the huge photo dump, there’s a lot to cover in 3 months!
Lots of time with family & friends, lots of boat projects, lots of provisioning, getting caught up on all the annual medical stuff, some major dental work, quality Sanfording time, running, biking and I’m sure there’s been more.
Oh right, a quick trip for the Eclipse was tossed in there too.
So Why Leave?
If everything is so great in Sanford, why didn’t we just settle down there?
Sanford would be tops of our list if we were ready. But we’re simply not. Nomadic life calls us more strongly, and this year – it felt right to pull that velcro off the familiar and get back to our full time adventuring.
So we turned in our notice at the marina back in March, and circled a day on the calendar.
On April 24 – after weeks of preps, provisioning, getting Blooper into storage locally and last visits with loved ones – we untied the lines, and left Sanford in our wake.
There may have been some tears.
But we’re also excited for the adventures ahead of us!
Sanford – thank you for everything. For being just the right nest we needed during this chapter of our lives.
You’ll forever be in our hearts.
PS. Thank you for limiting the midges.
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