Living Our Dream

Suncoast Designers Part Deux

Bushnell, FL - Events of Friday, Dec. 2 to Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2011

Last year we stopped at Suncoast Designers in Hudson, FL to have four of our dual pane windows repaired. Fogging of dual pane windows is a fairly common problem for RVs because bouncing down the highway tends to break the seal between the panes of glass. Once the seal is broken, moisture can get in between the panes. As the glass heats and cools, the moisture condenses on the inside surfaces creating a foggy appearance. The presence of moisture not only is unsightly, but it reduces the insulating value of the window. If left unrepaired, the moisture can also eventually etch the glass making the repair even more expensive because you will then have to replace the glass or possibly the whole window.

Over the past year, we noticed that three additional windows had shown a little bit of fogging at one time or another, so we decided to stop at Suncoast again to have them repaired before settling in at our winter roost at Blueberry Hill in Bushnell.

Last year, we made the trek from Summerdale to Suncoast in two days, a drive of a total of about 10 hours. That is certainly doable, but we usually like to keep our travel days to four hours or less. We have also been spoiled this year with so many short travel days, so we decided to break the drive to Suncoast into three days.

The first night, we stopped in Fountain, FL at Pine Lake RV, which is located about 15 miles south of the interstate and to the north of Panama City, FL. We stopped there in March, 2010 on our way from Bushnell to Summerdale. Pine Lake RV is a Passport America campground with half price camping. Even with the discount, however, our site was still almost $20 even before tax because there is an extra $5 charge for 50 amp that isn't subject to the discount.

The roads at Pine Lakes RV are paved, but the pavement is quite narrow. It doesn't look too bad in the view down the road past our site in the photo below, but there are some tight turns where it is hard to keep your rig on the pavement. Fortunately, the ground is firm so there's no chance of getting stuck, but you do have to be careful of several trees close to the road and a couple of rigs that were parked with their back ends sticking out.

The sites are a combination of grass and sand, and most are long pull-throughs. The sites are a little close together, but the width isn't too bad for a private campground.

Some sites have 30-amp electric and some have 50 amp. Pine Lake has full hook-ups with free Wi-Fi. The Wi-Fi signal was fairly strong, but the connection was way slower than our Verizon 3G and way, waaay slower than the 4G we had gotten used to in Summerdale.

There is some highway noise from four-lane U. S. Highway 231 that passes by the campground on the way to Panama City. There is also a railroad track a few hundred feet on the other side of the highway. Fortunately, there weren't many trains because the one or two that did pass rumbled by very loudly. Fortunately, there aren't any crossings near the campground, so we didn't hear any train horns.

We headed out the next morning and had a drive of about four hours to our next stop at Palm RV in Worthington Springs, FL. Palm RV is another Passport America campground, and the price was $18 a night with the discount. Palm RV consists of about a dozen RV sites in the large side yard of the owner's home.

Palm RV has full hookups, and at least some of the sites have 50 amps. Although the entrance driveway is paved, it is quite narrow; however, there are no obstructions to worry about once you get through the entrance gate, and the gate is plenty wide enough. The rest of the campground is grass except for a few sites that have a small, concrete RV pad. Most of the RVs there were older, and some looked like they were permanent.

The two-lane road that passes by the campground is surprisingly busy (including quite a few 18-wheelers) during the day, so there is some traffic noise. Traffic diminished to almost nothing later at night, and the campground was pretty quiet except for the rooster somewhere in the neighborhood that started crowing about 4:45 AM. Since we had crossed into the Eastern Time Zone, it didn't even start to get light until after 6:00 AM. How do roosters know morning is coming that far in advance?

The drive for the last leg of our journey to Suncoast was a little less than 3 hours, and we pulled into Suncoast shortly after noon on Sunday. Since Suncoast has a limited number of RV spaces and since we were arriving on Sunday when Suncoast was closed with no one there to direct the parking, we wanted to keep our last travel day short so we could arrive fairly early in the day. That was another reason for breaking our trip into three days instead of just two. Some of the spaces face the building. Not only is backing into those spaces a little tight, the sites facing the building are pretty noisy during the work day. Fortunately, we arrived early enough to not only get a space facing away from the building, we also got one on the end so we had a little extra room to open our slides.

Suncoast is an architectural window manufacturer that has also built a niche business repairing RV windows. You can remove the window yourself and drop it off if you are local, you can ship the window to them for repair, or you can stop by and they will remove the window for you and repair it. The price is the same - $250 for large windows (like the ones in the cockpit area of motor homes) and $200 for smaller windows.

Suncoast has about 15 RV sites with water and electric (50 amp only - 30-amp adapters are for sale in the office if you need one). There is also a dump station.

There is plenty of hustle and bustle during the day with workmen removing and re-installing windows, with machinery humming inside the Suncoast building and with delivery trucks coming and going; but that is to be expected because it is a repair/manufacturing facility not an RV resort. Fortunately, it quiets down after 3:00 PM when the workers go home.

On Monday morning, someone came to our door at 7:00 AM to see which windows needed to be repaired, then Paul went to the office to sign the work order to get us into the queue. Workmen came back around 8:00 and removed the three windows that needed repairing and covered the openings with cardboard.

When we were at Suncoast last year, we reported on the process they use to repair the dual pane windows. Click here to read our post from last year and to see pictures of the process.

We planned on spending two nights at Suncoast Designers because they tend to be busy this time of year. Although they can sometimes repair and replace windows in one day, there is no guarantee all of your windows will get done that quickly.

As expected, none of our windows were finished on Monday. The first window didn't show up until about 10:30 Tuesday morning. By the time the guys got the last window in, and by the time we paid our bill, got packed up, and hooked up the toad, we didn't get on the road until almost 2:00 PM. Fortunately, it was only a little over an hour to Bushnell.

Last year, we had a problem with streaks and smudges between the panes of glass in 3 of the 4 windows we had repaired, and Suncoast had to do them over. This year, we are pleased to report there were no streaks and that Suncoast appears to have solved whatever it was that caused that problem last year.

After stopping at Flying J to gas up and to top off our propane tank, we arrived at Blueberry Hill RV Resort in Bushnell, FL a little after 3:00 and got registered and set up on our usual site.

Blueberry Hill has two sections. The front section has paved, pull-through sites that are fairly close together. They usually use the front section for rallies and for people who are staying less than a month. The back section where our site is located has extra-large back-ins that are all grass. The next photo is another view of some of the sites in the rear section.

Blueberry Hill has full hookups with 30/50-amp electric, cable and Wi-Fi. There used to be a fee for Wi-Fi, but now it's free. The campground Wi-Fi seems pretty fast, and there are numerous transmitters around the campground so the signal is strong. We do like to supplement our Verizon usage with campground Wi-Fi when possible because we have a tendency to go over our 5GB limit. Unfortunately, the connection at Blueberry Hill is spotty. It's sometimes hard to get online and we occasionally get dumped off. It will probably get worse once the campground fills up and there are more people trying to use the Wi-Fi, so we'll probably stick to our Verizon Broadband, which we have been very pleased with since we switched from satellite internet back in October.

Blueberry Hill also has a heated pool, a large club house, showers, a laundry, shuffleboard, horseshoes, and a rec center with pool tables, a library and a card room. There is a new activity director this year, and there are already numerous activities on the schedule.

We'll be hanging out here at Blueberry Hill for at least the next three months. We'll be doing a little sightseeing, we'll be working on some projects, and we'll be eating out a few times. Our life will be a little more laid back than it is in summer when we're traveling and doing a lot of sightseeing, so our posts may be a little less frequent; but there will be periodic updates on what we're up to so stay tuned.

Off We Go

Tallahassee, FL to Summerdale, AL

We had planned to leave on Monday about a week or so before our reservation at Blueberry Hill ran out and head for the Escapees Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale, AL. Unfortunately, Paul started coming down with a bad chest cold over the weekend, so we decided to stay put until he started to feel better.

Finally on Wednesday, Paul felt well enough to continue working on packing things up and getting ready to go. We headed out on Thursday morning for about a four-hour drive to Tallahassee, FL where we stopped at Big Oak RV Park, which is where we stopped on our way into Florida last fall.

The main road at Big Oak RV, a Good Sam park, is part asphalt and part gravel. The pads are all gravel and the patios are paved. There are full hookups with free Wi-fi and cable. Some sites have 30-amp electric, and some have 30/50 amp. Last fall, it was cooler, and they didn't charge us for 50 amps even though we had a 50-amp site. We had the same site this time; and since it was warmer, they did charge us the extra $3 for a total of $36. The sites are a little narrow, but they're fine for a one or two-night stop. The photo below shows our site at Big Oak RV.

As the name of the campground suggests, there are quite a few large live oak trees around the campground. Fortunately for us, there are a few pull-through sites that are a bit more open so we could get good satellite reception. The next photo shows some of the many shady sites.

Big Oak RV Park takes its name from the one HUGE live oak tree behind our site in the first photo. It has been dated at over 350 years old. The arching branches create a densely-shaded canopy.

The next morning, we continued west on I-10 toward Alabama and pulled into Rainbow Plantation shortly after 1:00 PM. Rainbow Plantation is operated by the Escapees RV Club, and it has a campground, co-op sites, and deeded lots. Some campground sites have 30 amps, and some have 30/50 amps. All sites have full hookups and Wi-Fi is available for $3/day. The sites are nice and wide, and there are medium-sized live oak trees scattered throughout. On most of the sites, we have no trouble getting satellite reception between the trees.

Quite a few snowbirds spend the winter in Summerdale. Many of them have pulled out, but there were a surprising number of people left. The campground is pretty empty throughout the humid summer months.

We are planning to stay at Rainbow Plantation at least a couple of weeks. We're not sure what sightseeing we might do, but Margery is still searching for some cooler tops for summer, so we'll probably do a little shopping. We also have a project scheduled, and we'll tell you about that in our next post.

OakWood Grill

Bushnell, FL

The weather here in Florida has been beautiful. It's been mostly sunny with highs in the 70s and 80s and lows in the 50s and 60s. Once in a while, we get a few cooler, windy days with clouds, but it usually clears out and warms up again fairly quickly. We've probably had the best weather of the four winters we have spent in Florida.

Even with the nicer weather, we have been staying around the motor home to spend time working on transferring our online blog for our third year of full-timing into book form. We did that with our blog for years one and two, and we were very pleased with the results. We're trying to get the layout done so we can get the book on order in time to receive it before we leave Blueberry Hill.

It seems our campground neighbors this year are more active than ever...a lot of socializing and comings and goings at all hours...and a sharp contrast to how we spend our time here. Many, if not most, residents of the park are snowbirds who leave their northern nests for the winter returning to their homes after 3-4 months of a Florida vacation. They are looking for activities and togetherness. We, on the other hand, travel 9 months out of the year. Therefore, our 3 months at the park are considered 'down' time for us to get some projects done and to cool our heels before we begin our sightseeing travels in earnest. That's the beauty of retirement...flexibility to do whatever floats your boat.

About a week ago, Margery took time off from working on the book to go to lunch with one of her friends from our old church back in Pittsburgh. Margery's friend and her husband retired to The Villages several years ago. The girls met at a restaurant near The Villages called OakWood Smokehouse and Grill. Margery brought part of her sandwich back for Paul to try, and we both agreed it was so good we both wanted to go back ASAP.

A couple of days later we went up to the OakWood Grill in The Villages for an early dinner.

As the name suggests, the OakWood Smokehouse and Grill specializes in smoked meats - beef, pork, turkey and sausage. They have a special every day until 4:00 PM that includes a sandwich (beef, turkey or pork), one side and a large drink for only $6.49. Margery had a beef sandwich when she was there with her friend, and it was delicioius. OakWood also has a blackened blue burger (a burger grilled with blackening spices topped with blue cheese, lettuce and tomato) that also sounded delicious. Since we couldn't decide between the beef sandwich and the blackened blue burger, we decided to get one of each and share them. The photo below shows the blackened blue burger with a side of onion rings...

...and the next photo shows the beef sandwich with au jus and a side of slaw. Notice the pink smoke rings on the outside edges of the beef slices.

Paul couldn't wait to dig in.

The sandwiches were both great as were the sides. We definitely put the OakWood Grill on our list of favorite restaurants.

As we mentioned in our last post, we noticed snowbirds starting to leave the campground around the end of February. The campground never did fill up this year - the back section was never more than 40% full and the front section was usually only 10 or 15% filled. Then a few days into March, something strange began to happen - new people began to show up. In previous years there were always some people who arrived in early March, but not as many as this year. When we rode our bikes around the campground, we noticed the back is now about 75% filled and the front is over 90%.

In the past, most of the March arrivals were younger people who were still working and who had kids that were out of school on spring break. This year, the new arrivals also include lots of people who look like they could be retired. We're not sure what's going on, but maybe some people didn't make reservations like they had done in the past because of the uncertainty of the economy. Then, with all the snow up north, they decided to head south at the last minute for a few weeks. On the other hand, Blueberry Hill did reduce their rates back to 2009 levels this year to try to encourage business since they were so empty. Maybe it's working already.

We still have a couple of other restaurants we want visit before we hit the road for spring. We also have a little more sightseeing we want to squeeze in while we continue to work on our book the next few weeks. We'll tell you what else we found to do in our next post.

Sarasota to Bushnell, FL

Bushnell, FL

After visiting the Ringling Museum then relaxing around the rig for a day or two, it was time to head about 100 miles north to Bushnell, FL, where we are going to spend the winter.

We had previously had three of our dual-pane windows repaired at Suncoast Designers in Hudson, FL. We had to have one of the windows re-done before we left Suncoast because it had streaks and smudges between the panes of glass. When we got to Sarasota, we discovered another one of the repaired windows had similar, but fainter streaks that were also between the panes of glass. We called Suncoast and made arrangements to stop on our way to Bushnell to have the second window corrected. Suncoast said they would expedite re-doing that window to get us in and out in one day.

But there is yet another wrinkle to our window repair saga. While we were parked in Sarasota, we must have had the right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) combination of cold overnight temperatures (it got down to 35º twice) and warm morning sun to make a completely different window fog up with moisture. This window had never been repaired before, and it had never had moisture in it before. Since we we going to stop at Suncoast Designers to get the other window re-done anyway, we planned to ask if they could squeeze in the repair of this newly fogged window, too.

We got an early start to give Suncoast as much time as possible to get our two windows done in one day. We were on the road shortly after 7:00 AM (a new record for us with the motor home) and pulled into Suncoast about 9:15.

Paul went into the office when we got to Suncoast and asked about doing both windows. They said it would be no problem and sent a couple of workers out to our rig as soon as we got backed into a space.

It was late when they finally got both windows done and came out to re-install them. Two workers stayed after their regular quitting time to get the windows back in so we could be on our way.

As they finished up, there was a triple uh-oh moment. The window they re-did looked great, but there were the faint streaks between the glass on the newly-fogged window they just repaired for the first time. Paul went back inside to give them the bad news. By this time there were only two people left in the building, and one was the owner. He came out to check the window and agreed it was not right. Since everyone had left for the day, we decided to stay overnight and have the window done again the next morning rather than to come back to Suncoast another time.

They were back at our rig the next morning at 6:45 to pull the window back out. The window was re-done and re-installed in short order. The shop manager came out to personally inspect the window and make sure we were satisfied. Suncoast offered to reimburse us for any reservation deposit we may have lost because of having to stay the night at Suncoast instead of continuing on to Bushnell as we had planned, but that wasn't necessary since Blueberry Hill just moved our reservation back a day allowing us to arrive a day later now, then leave a day later in the spring.

We were a little disappointed at the problems we had getting our windows repaired at Suncoast Designers. We had to have three out of four windows redone because of streaks between the panes of glass. We don't know if there was some peculiar problem with the way Tiffin manufactured our windows in the first place that made the old adhesive harder than usual to get off, or if we're just fussier than most people. The streaks were pretty faint for the most part, and if we hadn't seen the windows with the sun shining on them just right, we may never have noticed the streaks. However, the bottom line is Suncoast Designers were very responsive and they made everything right in the end. If we ever have window problems in the future, we will probably go back, particularly since their location is very convenient to where we spend our winters.

As a result of the problems we had, the owner said he was going to be reviewing their inspection equipment and procedures. Maybe they can find a way to detect problems right after the cleaning process instead of after the windows are reassembled.

As we said, they had our window repaired and reinstalled in short order. We were on the road to Bushnell by 10:00 AM. After stopping at Flying J to gas up, we pulled into Blueberry Hill about 11:30 and got set up.

Blueberry Hill RV Resort has over 500 full-hookup RV sites. There are approximately 100 pull-through sites in front that have paved pads. The rest of the sites in the rear are all grass and are very generously sized. There is free cable, and Wi-Fi is available for a fee.

The campground had a lot more empty sites than we remembered seeing about this same time in previous years. As you can see from the next photo, some sites are filled, but there are a lot of areas where the sites are still empty. Even with high fuel prices two years ago and the economy deteriorating last year, this year looks pretty sparse in comparison.

Of course, the economy is still pretty iffy, so a lot of people may have have been afraid to make reservations for this year. Margery heard from the hair dresser she went to in Bushnell (beauticians are always up on the latest gossip) that none of the local RV parks are booked up for the winter this year. The real snowbird rush starts right after Christmas, so we'll see what happens. Maybe they will get some last-minute fill-ins.

The weather certainly isn't cooperating to encourage snowbirds to come to Florida. For one thing, there were early snow storms in the north that closed roads and airports. We don't have snow here in Florida, at least not yet, but is sure is COLD. We always hit a cold spell or two during the winter; but not like this, and not this early.

In past years, the cold spells didn't come until January, not in December. We had two nights in the low 20s earlier this week. We also had several days with highs only in the 40s and sustained winds of 15 to 20 mph. Our weather station recorded a maximum wind gust of 36 mph. The ol' motor home was rockin' 'n' rollin'.

The weather is finally starting to warm back up, and the wind has died down, so it has gotten a little more pleasant. Paul got the bikes out of the car, and aired up the tires. We always like to ride our bikes around the campground to get a little exercise and to see how many new arrivals there are. There is also a very nice bike trail nearby.

We usually slow down during our winter stay in Florida, so our posts may be a little shorter and a little less frequent; but we do have some sightseeing and other things planned, so keep looking for our posts.

Sun-N-Fun Resort

Sarasota, FL

We got a late start leaving Suncoast Designers after getting our fogged, dual-pane windows repaired, but as we said in our last post, we deliberately planned only a two-hour drive just in case we got delayed. We pulled into Sun-N-Fun Resort in Sarasota, FL, about 4:00 PM.

Sun-N-Fun is a large RV resort with over 600 sites. There are many amenities and activities like a day spa, restaurants, a pool and hot tub, a doggie bathing area, fishing, a woodworking shop, mini golf, tennis, and more. It reminded us of Ocean Lakes in Myrtle Beach, except without the ocean. The price is fairly high at $44 a night, but they were having a special good until December 15 where you pay for 5 days and get 2 days free. That brought the price down to $30 a night, which is still on the high side, but it's not bad considering how nice the resort is and its location in southern Florida.

There is a good bit of shade at Sun-N-Fun, so in order to accommodate our request for an open site, they graciously placed us on a premium site at no extra charge so there would not be a problem with our satellite dish. These sites are also bigger than the standard sites, which was a bonus.

Our site was close to the 4-lane road that passes the campground, but the traffic noise wasn't bad, and it was primarily noticible only at rush hour. The little privacy fence along the front of the campground must have been doing a good job at blocking some of the sound.

In addition to standard and premium sites, Sun-N-Fun also has deluxe sites. Standard sites are all grass, premium sites are a little larger and are grass with paved patios, and deluxe sites are the same size as premium sites and have crushed shell pads and paved patios and are the only pull-through sites. All sites have full hookups with 30/50-amp electric, free Wi-Fi and cable. The next photo is a view of more premium sites down the road from our site.

Sun-N-Fun also has vacation homes (park models) for sale and for rent.

It wasn't a long drive to Sarasota, but since we got a late start, it was late by the time we got set up. As we went to put our sunscreens on the front windows, we had a double uh-oh moment. Now that we were parked with another one of our newly-repaired dual pane windows facing toward setting sun, Margery saw streaks similar to those on the window Suncoast Designers had to redo. She thought she saw a little haze on the window earlier, but Paul convinced her it was just a little dirt on the outside. On closer inspection, and with sun shining right through the glass, we saw this window also had streaks between the panes. They were less noticeable than on the window we had redone while still at Suncoast, but the streaks were definitely there.

Paul made a call to Suncoast first thing in the morning. They were very apologetic. They said to bring the motor home in anytime we wanted, and they would make time for us and expedite our repair to get us in and out on the same day. We'll stop in about a week when we're on our way from Sarasota to Blueberry Hill in Bushnell where we'll be spending the winter. Sarasota to Bushnell is a fairly short drive, and the detour to Suncoast is only a few miles out of our way. If we get an early start and if Suncoast gets us in and out quickly, we should be in Bushnell in time for our afternoon snack.

Once we got the window repair rescheduled, we headed out to Publix and Walmart for some groceries. With our shopping done and our pantry restocked, we'll be doing some sightseeing. We'll tell you about one of places we went in our next post.

On the Road Again

First of all, we would like to thank all our friends and readers who expressed their condolences about the loss of our sweet dog, Molly. She was such a good traveler, and we'll miss her.

After delaying our departure from Bushnell, we finally hit the road on Thursday. We made an overnight stop at Pine Lake RV, a Passport America campground near Fountain, FL, in the panhandle. In other years after leaving Bushnell, we stayed at Chattahoochee RV located on the Apalachicola River. Chattahoochee is closer to half-way to our destination in Summerdale, AL; but last year, the river was flooded and some of the sites at the campground had recently been underwater. With more rain this year, we thought we would just drive a little farther and try a new campground that wasn't located near a river. The next photo shows our site at Pine Lake RV.

Pine Lake RV is located about 16 miles from the interstate, but there is still some highway noise from four-lane U. S. Highway 231 that passes by the campground on the way to Panama City. There is a railroad track a few hundred feet on the other side of the highway. Fortunately, there were very few trains because the rumble of the few that did pass was very loud. Fortunately, there is no crossing near the campground so there were only a few, distant toots of the train horns.

The roads through the campground are paved, but the pavement is quite narrow. The sites are a combination of grass and sand, and most are extra-long pull-throughs. The site width isn't too bad for a private campground. Pine Lake has full hook-ups with free Wi-Fi. Some sites have 30 amp electric and some have 50 amp. As you can see from the above photo, there are a few trees, but the office was very accommodating in allowing us to move to another site to get satellite reception. In the first site they gave us we could get internet, but not TV. They are on two different satellites, and a tree branch was blocking the TV signal.

In the morning we hit the road at 8:30, which is a little earlier than usual. We pulled into Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale, AL, shortly after noon. It was a good thing we got an early start because we got the last available site. A lot of Escepees spend the winter in Summerdale; and although some had moved on, others (like us) were stopping on our way north from Florida.

Rainbow Plantation is one of our favorite Escapees RV parks. The roads are paved, and the sites are a combination of grass and sand. There are full hook-ups and free Wi-Fi. Fifty-amp electric is available for an extra charge. Sites are nice and wide, and the campground is quiet.

One of the things we like about the Summerdale area is there are lots of things to do and see. Even though our visit to Summerdale was shortened because we extended our stay in Bushnell, we still wanted to see the azaleas blooming at Bellingrath Gardens over in Mobile. Bellingrath is famous for the over 250,000 azaleas that normally bloom around the middle two weeks of March. Unfortunately, when we checked the Bellingrath web site, we found out the unusually cold weather this winter had delayed the blooming by about two weeks. This delay was confirmed by observing the azaleas in people's yards in the area. Only about a third of the blossoms on most of the plants open, and it looked like the azaleas still had at least a week to 10 days to go before they even neared their peak. Therefore, we decided to save seeing azaleas for another time.

One of the other things we like about the Summerdale area is the close proximity to the Gulf of Mexico which means there is a lot of delicious seafood available. Last fall when we were in the area we discovered Shrimp Basket restaurants. Shrimp Basket is a chain of about a dozen restaurants with one in nearby Foley. Paul was hungry for fried shrimp, and the Shrimp Basket has all-you-can-eat shrimp baskets on Wednesdays and Sundays, so we headed down to Foley on Sunday.

 

After spending the weekend at Rainbow Plantation, we hit the road again on Monday. We were heading to Branson, MO, for the wedding of Heather, who is our daughter Lora's best friend and former roommate. We were friends with Heather's parents from our former church back in Pittsburgh, and we were pleased to have been invited to participate in the festivities.

With extending our stay back in Bushnell, our recent travels were a bit less leisurely than normal. We usually plan to travel no more than four hours a day, but this time, we would be traveling 5+ hours a day for a couple of days in a row. Our next overnight stop was at Movietown RV Park in Canton, MS, a little north of Jackson.

Movietown RV is a nice RV park. It has gravel roads and pads with full hookups and 50/30 amp electric. Sites are mostly pull-throughs and are fairly wide with grass between. Even though the campground is conveniently located near the interstate, there is surprisingly little traffic noise - and there are NO trains!

Apparently, the name of the RV park comes from the fact that quite a few movies have been filmed in the Canton area. Canton even has a movie office and a couple of movie museums. Maybe we'll go back some day for a longer visit, especially now that we know a good place to stay.

From Canton, we drove north to Little Rock, AR, in another 5+ hour travel day. We stayed at Maumelle Park north of the city last fall when we met up with our friends Marilyn and Alan. Since that time, Alan took a voluntary layoff when he found out the company he worked for was planning a cut-back, they sold their house, and they are now full-timers.

Maumelle Park is a Corps of Engineers campground located along the Arkansas River. The campground has paved roads and pads and gravel patios. There are water and electric hookups (30 amp) only. As with most COE campgrounds, sites are very generously spaced. The photo below shows our site at Maumelle Park.

We didn't make reservations because we were uncertain about our arrival date and because we thought the campground would be empty in the middle of the week in March. Boy, were we surprised when we arrived and found the campground was almost full! It looked like a lot of families were spending the week at the campground, so we're guessing we hit spring break for the Arkansas schools. There were also some college kids on spring break, and we're pleased to report the group tenting on the site next to us were very well behaved. The next photo is a view down the road from our site and gives you an idea of how crowded it was.

We normally look for a campground with pull-through sites when we make a one-night stop, but we liked Maumelle so much, it was worth unhooking the toad. Not only that, but Marilyn and Alan took us to Larry's Pizza when we were there last fall. Larry's is a chain of about a dozen restaurants around the Little Rock area, and, fortunately, there is one right down the road from Maumelle Park. They have a lunch buffet every day, but they only have the dinner buffet on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Luckily for us, we were there on Tuesday, so we had another good reason to unhook the car. The next photo shows Margery loading up at Larry's. Yum!

Here Paul is toasting Alan and Marilyn for introducing us to Larry's.

The next morning, we headed out for an unprecedented third straight travel day. The distance was a little shorter, and we were only on the road for about 3 1/2 hours instead of the 5+ hours we had been doing. We pulled into Escapees Turkey Creek Campground near Branson, MO, a little after noon.

In contrast to Maumelle Park, the campground in Branson was nearly empty. Late spring, summer and fall are the most popular times for Turkey Creek Campground, and we were a little early. But that was OK because some of the sites are also a little small, so we had plenty of elbow room with the campground almost empty.

Turkey Creek has gravel roads and pads, full hook-ups (there is an extra charge for 50 amp electric), free Wi-Fi and cable. Although the temperature was in the 60s when we arrived, we opted to pay extra for a 50 amp site because the weather forecast was calling for rain and falling temperatures so we thought 50 amp would make it easier to do laundry and use the electric heater at the same time. The photo below shows our site at Turkey creek.

We'll be spending a week in Branson, so we'll have time to relax a little between the wedding festivities. We're also looking forward to seeing Lora and J. Michael. We might even come up with some other activities or possibly a good restaurant, so stay tuned.

 

Hangin' Around Blueberry Hill

It took a little over a week to finish the front TV project, and we (especially Paul) needed a break. We wanted to get in some sightseeing, but we just didn't feel like it. Not only that, the weather turned cloudy and rainy, so we just hung around the motor home.

Our neighbors across the street at the campground had a "get to know your neighbor" happy hour over at their site one afternoon. Fortunately, they picked a day with fairly nice weather. This is their first year at Blueberry Hill, and they wanted to get to know the people around them a little better. They invited everyone along both sides of our road in the campground to bring their own beverage and a snack to share. It was great to put some names with faces of people we wave to all the time and to find out where they are from.

A day or two after the happy hour, the weather turned back to clouds and rain.  When the sky finally cleared after second day of solid rain, we got out our bikes and rode up to the office to check for mail and to drop off the trash. The next photo shows the front of the clubhouse where the office is located.

We stopped in the campground library where Margery took a quick look to see if they had any new books. There are also a couple of tables in the library with jigsaw puzzles. (Click on arrow on picture if you'd like to solve the puzzle.)

The building that houses the library also has a card room and an area with four pool tables. We like to ride our bikes in the afternoon, and we sometimes stop in for a game or two of pool. However, we have been so busy this year we haven't ridden our bikes much. This was the first time this year we have taken time to test out the newly-recovered pool tables.

The next photo shows Paul lining up an easy shot.

 

On our way back from the office, we took advantage of the sunshine and rode our bikes around the campground. We like to check out license plates to see where people are from, and we like to see if there are any empty sites. The campground is finally starting to look full, although there are still about 15% of the sites in the front section unoccupied and at least half a dozen empty sites in the back section. In past years, the campground has been almost filled by the middle of January, and essentially completely filled by February 1; but this year the bad economy is apparently taking its toll, and there are more empty sites than in the past.

We also ran a few errands during our down time, and on the way home from a shopping trip to the Villages, we passed the interesting sign in the next photo posted at the end of someone's driveway.

Also on our way back from the Villages, we decided to stop at Catfish Johnny's Restaurant in Lake Panasoffkee. Lake Panasofkee is off the I-75 exit just north of the Bushnell exit. The restaurant is situated under towering, Spanish moss-draped live oak trees.

 

Carfish Johnny's is known for seafood. We usually get either fried catfish or popcorn shrimp, but this time we both opted for fried grouper. Grouper is a member of the sea bass family. The fish is firm and has a mild almost sweet flavor. It is also low in fat and cholesterol, but the deep frying kind of cancels out that benefit.

During our time of relaxation we also decided to try the new Hong Kong Chinese restaurant located in the little strip mall next to Walmart in Bushnell. There's a real international atmosphere with Little Caesars right next door.

The Hong Kong restaurant seems to be primarily geared for takeout, but it has a few tables so we decided to eat in. Lunch specials are available from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM for $5.25. The specials include a main dish, pork fried rice and an egg roll. Even though it was after 3:00, they allowed us to order from the lunch menu. We knew the dinner portions would be larger and would be much more than we could eat.

We are both big fans of General Tso's chicken, so that's what we both ordered. The egg roll was pretty good - piping hot and not too greasy. The General Tso's chicken was good, but Paul thought the fried rice was a little dry. All in all, it wasn't bad for the price. And we were correct about the portions - the lunch-size meals were more than we could eat, so it's a good thing we didn't get dinners.

Even though we had come to the conclusion that Margery's knee discomfort "is what it is," the outside of Margery's left knee has gotten progressively sorer with a snapping sensation whenever she sits down. The orthopedic surgeon gave the knee joint itself perfect marks just about a month ago, so she knew it had to be something else. It had gotten to the point that it was sometimes becoming extremely difficult to walk. She has been scouring internet sites like WebMD researching for possible causes, and asking God for wisdom to know how to proceed. She concluded that most likely she was dealing with something called liotibial band friction syndrome. It is a form of bursitis on either side, or lateral part, of the knee. Bursitis is the inflammation of a bursa, which is a fluid-filled sac that provides a cushion between a bone and tissue such as a ligament.

Based on her research, that ligament needed to be stretched so she started doing her post-surgery leg exercises with minimal relief. Then, she made a passing comment to a shoe salesman during the above-mentioned shopping trip to the Villages, and the salesman gave her information that has proven to be the most helpful. He had had a knee replacement and experienced the same thing! Don't you just love how God answers our prayers? The salesman shared the information he got from his physical therapist...using stretch bands in two specific stretches. Margery is finally getting some real relief. We share this information in the hope it will help someone else someday.

With some time out for relaxation, we are ready for another project. Look for our next post to see what we're up to.

Bushnell, FL

We had about a two and a half hour drive from the SKP Resort in Zolfo Springs to Bushnell, FL, where we will be spending the winter at Blueberry Hill RV Resort. Blueberry Hill has over 500 RV sites with full hookups. Two hours of continuous Wi-Fi use every day are free, but there is a charge for usage beyond that time. Blueberry Hill has approximately 100 pull-through sites in the front of the campground that are paved, and the remainder of the sites in back are all grass. The all-grass sites are very generously sized and are very popular with the snowbirds. The pull-throughs in front are primarily given to those staying two months or less. The photo below shows our site in the back section.

The next photo shows the view down the row where our site is located.

This will be our third winter at Blueberry Hill. When we stayed here the first year the campground had recently been bought out by a corporation that owns a number of campgrounds around the country. This year, we saw a truckload of new washers and dryers being delivered to the campground laundry, and we noticed the pool tables in the rec center had been recovered. We're glad to see the corporate owners are putting money back into Blueberry Hill to keep things up to date.

One of the things we like about Blueberry Hill is the location. Bushnell is located in central Florida near many sightseeing attractions. While Bushnell is a small town, it has a Walmart (within walking distance of the campground) and a fairly well-stocked Winn-Dixie grocery store. Bushnell is also near Tampa to the southwest and close to The Villages to the northeast. This means there is access to all the national retail chains and restaurant chains.

We needed to run some errands to a couple of the above-mentioned retail chain stores located toward Tampa, so we were able to make a slight detour to take us past a Qdoba Mexican Grill for an early dinner on our way back to the motor home. Qdoba is one of our favorite restaurant chains. Lora and J. Michael gave Paul a gift card for Qdoba for his birthday back in September, and we have been looking forward to being near a Qdoba ever since. We both ordered our favorite - poblano pesto burrito (rice, beans, grilled chicken, roasted poblano pepper pesto, salsa, cheese, and sour cream) served "naked" (without the tortilla). We always ask for a few corn chips on the side in lieu of the tortilla.

Margery has been busy with a few Christmas projects. It was nothing like she used to do when we were in a stix-and-brix house, but it was just enough to be enjoyable. She found a great website where she is able to download patterns and clipart for a nominal fee. After printing, cutting, folding and gluing these Christmas pinch bags, she'll fill them with candy.

Paul enjoys molasses cookies, and today Margery tried a new recipe. They're nice and soft (probably from the sour cream in them). There isn't a very strong molasses flavor, but they're good just the same. The recipe made many more cookies than we can eat, so Margery made up some gift bags to share with our neighbors.

We will be in Bushnell for about three months, so we will have plenty of time to relax. With all that relaxing, our posts may be a little shorter and a little less frequent during our winter stop; but we're still planning some sightseeing, some eating out, and some projects so keep looking for our posts.

Zolfo Springs, FL

Last year we stopped at the Escapees SKP Resort co-op in Zolfo Springs, FL, on our way to our winter stop in Bushnell. We liked the SKP Resort so well we did the same thing again this year. In fact, we liked the Resort so well, we put our name on the waiting list for a co-op site. That's not to say we are planning to quit full-timing any time soon because the waiting list is so long, it will take an estimated 8 to 10 years to get a site. Even then, if and when we do get a site, we are likely to only use it 5 or 6 months out of the year and travel the rest of the time.

If we change our minds about staying on the waiting list at the SKP Resort, we will get our deposit back, and the only thing we will loose is a $25 administration fee and the interest on our deposit, which is negligible in today's economy. We don't know what the future holds, but putting our name on the waiting list seemed like a good way to open up what may prove to be a good option.

The Escapees RV Club has campgrounds, co-ops, and co-ops with campgrounds at various locations across the country. The SKP Resort is a co-op only, but members can put their sites into the rental pool during times when they are not using their sites.

The Resort is nicely laid out with widely-spaced sites and attractive landscaping, and most of the sites have paved pads and patios. There are full hookups and free Wi-Fi. The photo below shows this year's site at the Resort in Zolfo Springs.

And the next photo shows a view looking on down the street from our site.

 

We arrived in Zolfo Springs a few days before Thanksgiving. When we visited last year, we found the co-op members to be very friendly and welcoming, so we though it would be an excellent place to spend the holiday. We signed up for Thanksgiving dinner when we registered for our site. After we got settled, Margery stopped to see the lady who was organizing food for our table to see what we could bring.

The food at the Thanksgiving dinner was delish, and, as usual, there was plenty. We met a lot of new people and had a good time visiting. The next photo shows Margery before dinner talking with some of the new people we met.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, our daughter Lora was having a bridal shower back in Pittsburgh for her best friend and former roommate Heather. Heather moved to the Springfield, MO, area a couple of years ago (we visited with her parents when we were in Branson earlier this year). Since Heather (left) was going to be back in the Pittsburgh area over Thanksgiving, they thought it would be a good time for the shower.

Margery has been helping Lora plan the shower by designing invitations, helping figure out logistics, etc., so she also wanted to be part of the shower. A few months ago, she found a reasonably-priced fare on Air-Tran so she made reservations to fly from Tampa to Pittsburgh on the Friday after Thanksgiving in time for the shower on Saturday.

The airport in Tampa was about an hour and a half from Zolfo Springs, but traffic was light because most people had the day off on Friday. We got there in plenty of time for a leisurely check in.

Lora picked Margery up at the airport in Pittsburgh, and they had a good time visiting. Lora is very organized, and she had everything under control for the shower on Saturday.

The refreshments for the shower were an afternoon tea. The ladies had a good time at the shower with plenty of delicious food and lots of laughs and good conversation while helping to stock Heather's kitchen with gifts from Pampered Chef. Here's Heather appreciating the tablescape.

Heather's other former roommate, Amanda, flew up from Florida, too, for the shower. Here is the bride-to-be with two of her three attendants.

Here are the best friends with their moms.

   

Margery's return flight to Tampa was at 7:00 AM on Monday. Poor Lora had to get up extra early to get Margery to the airport. The Monday after Thanksgiving is traditionally a busy travel day, and this year was no exception. Security at the Pittsburgh airport was backed up, and Margery had to hurry a little to make the flight because it actually departed a few minutes early.

Meanwhile, Paul had a little more traffic going around Tampa on Monday to pick Margery up at the airport because more people had returned to work, but he got to the airport in time for the early arrival of Margery's flight.

We were planning a little sightseeing while in Zolfo Springs, but the weather didn't cooperate. After Margery's return from Pittsburgh, we had several cool, cloudy days and several days of rain. We kept putting off our sightseeing waiting for sunnier weather, but it never came so we'll have an excuse to come back next year. Our next destination is our winter stop at Blueberry Hill RV Resort in Bushnell, FL.

 

South Central Florida Part I: Ortona Lock

We originally planned to meander down through Florida and head for the Keys again this year after leaving Myrtle Beach. We had reservations at Curry Hammock State Park near Marathon Key for four days over the weekend before Thanksgiving, but we got a call about 5 or 6 weeks ago saying they had decided to completely close down Curry Hammock State Park for about a week to replace a bridge to the campground. Unfortunately, that shutdown overlapped two of the four days we had reserved. We had a choice of keeping the two remaining days or cancelling completely at no charge. We didn't think it was worthwhile to drive all the way to the Keys for just two nights (it would have been over 350 miles one way from New Smyrna Beach), so we decided to cancel. We briefly considered staying at a private campground, but the private campgrounds in the Keys charge $70 to $100+ a night so we quickly ruled that out.

To fill the hole in our travel plans, Margery found a reservation opening at Ortona South Corps of Engineers campground near Lake Okeechobee. Since we have never been to the south-central part of Florida, and since the campground got good reviews on rvparkreviews.com, we reserved for five nights.

Ortona South has 51 sites with electric (30/50-amp) and water only. The roads and pads are paved, the patios are gravel, and the sites are widely spaced with attractive landscaping of palm trees, small live oak trees, ornamental grasses, and shrubs between the sites. The photo below shows our site at Ortona South.

And the next photo shows more of the loop where our site was located.

 

Ortona South is located near the town of Labelle, FL, at the Ortona Lock on the Caloosahatchee River. The river is connected to Lake Okeechobee by a canal to the east, and it runs to the Gulf of Mexico at Ft. Meyers, FL, to the west. Ortona Lock is one of several locks that are required because Lake Okeechobee is 15 to 20 feet above sea level.

The campground is very quiet. There are no trains, no interstate, and it is over a mile from State Route 80 that passes by the entrance road. There weren't that many boats, and the boats must slow to produce no wake in the vicinity of the lock, so there wasn't any noise from the river either. Ahhh, there are few places any more where you can find complete quiet! We were in heaven.

The photo below shows the dam at Ortona. The lock is on the other side of the bank to the left, and you can walk across the dam to watch boats go through.

The next photo is a view from the dam. The pilings in the background line the entrance to the lock. Several anhingas were sitting on the ropes that held the warning buoys upstream of the dam.

 

The plants at the sides of the waterway in the photo above are water hyacinths. The plant gets its name from its hyacinth-like blooms.

While the plants are beautiful with their lavender blooms and shiny leaves, the water hyacinth is a non-native, invasive species. The plants are killed by cold weather and are not a problem in the north. In fact, water hyacinths were an attractive addition to the water gardens we had at our stick houses back in Pittsburgh over the years. Unfortunately, water hyacinth is probably one of the worst water plants in tropical climates because there is no cold weather to kill it off, and a colony can double in size in as little as two weeks. Water hyacinth propagates by sending off runners that form new, daughter plants. The plants float on the surface of the water, and the daughter plants can break off and float away to start new colonies. The plants can also reproduce by seeds.

Water hyacinths are native to South America and were introduced into Florida in the 1880s. Water hyacinths form dense mats that hinder boat traffic, slow water flow, reduce the oxygen content of the water, and shade the water to reduce native plant and fish populations. Millions of dollars a year are spent to control this invasive plant.

When we got to the lock, we happened to hit a time when there were several batches of boats going through each way. Unlike most other locks we have seen that pump water in and out of the lock chamber, this one was a little smaller and they just cracked the upstream gate open and let the natural flow of the water fill the lock chamber.

When the water in the lock reached the upstream level, the gate was opened and boats entered. The change in level is about 6 1/2 feet.

 

On the day we went over to the lock to watch the boats, one of the upstream gates was not working. Most of the boats going through were pleasure boats and didn't have a problem - except the catamaran in the next photo. They had to check and double check the width before they allowed him to attempt to enter. As you can see, there was only about a foot or so on each side, but the captain was able to guide the boat through without touching either side.

The crews held lines along the walls of the lock while the upstream gate was closed and the downstream gates were cracked to allow water to drain out of the lock. When the water was at the downstream level, the gates were opened fully, and the boats exited the lock.

 

While we were at Orona South, we needed to restock some groceries, so one day we drove to the Walmart in Lehigh Acres about half an hour to the west. By the time we were done with our errands we were hungry. We remembered passing an interesting-looking barbecue joint in Labelle, FL, with a lot of cars in the parking lot (always a good sign) so we stopped on our way back to the motor home for a late lunch. The photo below shows Skeet and Sara's Log cabin Bar B Q.

Even though it was past lunchtime, there were still a lot of vehicles in the parking lot. Not only that, a good many of the vehicles were pickup trucks, so another good sign. We were greeted by sweet-smelling barbecue smoke as soon as we got out of the car.

 

We both ordered pulled pork barbecue platters which were served with a choice of fries, baked potato or sweet potato. The platters also included slaw and a piece of Texas toast. Because they were in the middle of a shift change in the kitchen, our food took longer than usual, so they gave us each a complimentary cup of turkey noodle soup while we were waiting. Paul isn't usually a fan of turkey noodle soup, but this was delish! It was thick with lots of turkey and lots of flavor.

When our lunches finally arrived, it was worth the wait. The barbecue was smoky and moist and served without sauce. There were containers of sweet or vinegar-based sauce on the table so you could add as much or as little sauce as you want. We both liked the sweet sauce.

After lunch, we headed back to the campground. We still have more exploring to do, so look for our next post.

New Smyrna Beach, FL

Wow! We really dodged a bullet with the remnants of Hurricane Ida. The storm slowed over northern Florida for a while and sent us plenty of rain in Myrtle Beach on Wednesday. Then the low pressure area from the storm apparently drifted back out to sea, regained some strength, and slid up the coast as a "nor'easter." Myrtle Beach missed the worst of the weather, and so did we as we traveled south on Thursday through a little mist and drizzle accompanied by some occasional wind gusts. However, as we watched the morning weather reports on Friday, the storm apparently hit the North Carolina and Virginia coasts pretty hard with strong tidal surges, rain, and 50+ mile an hour winds. Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and New England were bracing for the storm to hit on the weekend.

While what used to be Hurricane Ida was heading north, we were driving south. We had about a 5-hour drive made 10 miles longer by inadvertently entering the wrong exit number in Gracie, our GPS. However, rather than backtracking, we found Inland Harbor RV Park at our new exit in Darien, GA, to be a very adequate substitution. Inland Harbor has paved roads and pads, grass between the sites, and almost all the sites are pull-throughs. Some of the pull-throughs are a little short, but they gave us an extra long one so we wouldn't have to unhook the toad.

Inland Harbor has full hookups with 50-amp electric available available for an extra charge of $3 a night. Since the weather was cool, we told them we only needed 30-amp, so they didn't charge us the additional amount even though the extra-long site they gave us had a 50-amp plug on the pedestal. The campground also has free cable TV and Wi-Fi. Inland Harbor is only a stone's throw from busy I-95, so there is a good bit of traffic noise, but it's still a good place for a one or two-night stopover. The photo below shows our site at Inland Harbor RV Park.

The next photo shows another view of the campground.

The Darien area, we found out from fellow travelers, is an interesting historical old town famous for Scottish Highlanders, great shrimp restaurants, and BJ's Steak and Seafood that's supposed to have a fabulous Sunday buffet. Darien is also on the way to Jekyll Island which we've never visited, so all told it rates being put on our 'need-to-return list.'

We were happy to awake to bright sunshine on Friday morning. From Georgia, we had only about a three-hour drive to New Smyrna Beach, FL, where we stayed at New Smyrna Beach RV Park. We stayed there about the same time last year when we visited Florida's Space Coast. Click the highlighted links to read about our 2008 visit to Florida's Space Coast that includes Kennedy Space Center, More Kennedy Space Center, and The Coast itself.

New Smyrna Beach RV has full hookups including Wi-Fi. The roads are a mixture of sand and gravel, and the sites are mostly grass. The site width is decent for a private campground, and it is fairly quiet with only a few, very distant trains. The first of the two photos below shows our site at New Smyrna Beach RV Park, and the second is a view down the row where our site was located.

 

 

Unlike last year, we didn't have a lot of sightseeing planned. So when Margery picked up a flier in the campground office saying that the La Mesa RV Center located about half an hour away in Orange City was having an open house on the weekend with free lunch, we decided to drive over. La Mesa sells Tiffin motor homes, and we seldom pass up an opportunity to look at Tiffins, especially if it's coupled with free food. Besides, New Smyrna Beach only has a regular Walmart, and we needed some groceries, so we planned to stop at the Super Walmart near Orange City on our way home.

We arrived  about 10:30 AM. La Mesa RV wasn't very crowded yet, so we had the motor homes pretty much to ourselves. In the next photo, Margery is checking out the large, residential refrigerator in a Phaeton.

After looking around a while, we stopped in the office for a nice lunch of pork barbecue and baked beans, then we made our Walmart stop on the way back to New Smyrna Beach.

Last year, not only did we stop at Kennedy Space Center, but our visit also happened to coincide with a space shuttle launch. It was a night launch, and we watched it from the campground. This year, our visit again happened to coincide with another shuttle launch. Since this year's launch was scheduled for mid-afternoon, we decided to go down to the beach to watch.

The beach at New Smyrna Beach is a lot like the beach at Daytona, which is only about 12 miles to the north - it is wide and flat, it is hard-packed, and you can drive on it. The next photo shows us driving along New Smyrna Beach.

As you can see, it wasn't very crowded on a Monday afternoon. After driving along the beach for a while, we parked, got out our chairs and our afternoon snack, and waited for the launch. No, Margery doesn't have a new hairstyle. It was just windy.

As we approached launch time, more cars and people began to appear on the beach. Right on time at 2:28, an orange glow appeared to the south, and the space shuttle Atlantis rose in an arc over the ocean.

We watched until the solid-fuel booster rockets ran out of fuel and dropped off. After that, the main engine took over. Although the smoke and bright flame from the solid-fuel rockets were easily visible, the main engine runs on liquid hydrogen and oxygen; and we couldn't see it anymore because of the bright sun.

As we finished up our snack, Paul accidentally dropped a cracker on the sand. He picked it up and tossed it to a lone gull that was standing on the beach about 20 or 30 feet away. Soon, we were completely surrounded by hungry gulls looking for a handout.

We tossed a few crumbs from the bottom of the cracker box into the air, and a couple of the gulls just soared downwind of us right in front of our faces waiting for more. Notice the lingering smoke trail from the shuttle in the upper left.

When we ran out of crackers, we headed back to the motor home. From New Smyrna Beach, we continued on our way south. Stay tuned for our next post.

Three Years and Counting

July 10, 2009 marks the 3^rd anniversary of our full-time RVing lifestyle. We had initially made a two-year commitment to full-timing, and so it is natural that we would re-evaluate our lifestyle on succeeding anniversaries.

Being retired and having more discretionary time doesn’t make life go any slower. In fact, for us it seems to be going faster. We heard recently that life is like a roll of toilet paper…the closer you get to the end, the faster it goes!

Probably most notable for us is how comfortable we have become with our nomadic life. Getting mail, scheduling maintenance on the vehicles, getting prescriptions refilled, paying bills, getting hair cuts, finding a chiropractor or veterinarian…all of these things we take in our stride. Sure, we have unexpected things happen, but we try to take those in stride, too. Our gratitude for this incredible opportunity continues to abound, and we continue to be amazed at the beauty and diversity of this country and its people.

 After 1½ years of traveling with new knees, Margery feels like she just started full-timing and isn’t ready yet to consider landing someplace.  There are still places we both want to re-visit, particularly in Texas, New Mexico, and southern Utah; and we haven’t yet made it to Michigan, Wisconsin, and New England.

Paul recently mentioned his desire to garden again and occasionally entertains thoughts of settling down at some point. That probably won’t be until at least the five-year mark, and then it’s likely it would only be for part of the year.

 “Settling down” for us would likely be having a place somewhere in the south for part of the year (late fall and winter) and traveling the rest of the time. And, of course, that still presents the problems of being an absentee resident of a permanent residence. However, with the tanking of our economy and its uncertainty in the future, we’re not sure that we would have enough resources to maintain both a permanent residence and the motor home.

Our other option would be to extend our stays in our RV in one location up to 5 or 6 months at a time and travel the rest of the year. This will probably be our transition avenue since it would provide the best of both worlds.

We stayed at the Escapees Resort Co-op in Wauchula, FL, for a week last December, and we liked it. You are permitted to do landscaping with approval, and that might satisfy Paul’s desire to garden again. The photo below shows our site last December at Wauchula.

With an eye on the future, we did put a deposit down to put ourselves on the waiting list for a lot in the Escapees Resort Co-op. This could be an ideal situation. The cost to buy into the co-op is fairly reasonable and so are annual dues; and what makes this option so appealing is that if and when we choose to leave the co-op, we will get our initial investment back in full. Since there is a waiting list, there is little risk of not being able to find someone who wants our spot when we're ready to give it up. The waiting list is quite long; and it could take 8 to 10 years to get to the top of the list, so we'll have plenty of time to decide if this option will work for us. The other good thing is if we change our mind before our name comes up, we get our deposit back in full.

We could also just extend our stay a little longer at Blueberry Hill in Bushnell, FL, where we have been spending three or four months the past two winters and where we will spend this coming winter. Paul wouldn't be able to garden, but there is no long-term commitment. We like the location because it is very convenient to a lot of things in central Florida. The next photo shows our site last winter in Bushnell.

Unfortunately, it’s hard on a motor home to remain stationary for extended periods of time. The engine and running gear should be exercised periodically. When we first started researching this lifestyle, we thought we would trade the motor home for a fifth wheel when we started slowing down. A fifth wheel would be a better semi-stationary unit, but the economy is not good for selling or trading RVs.

So you can see we’ve been evaluating what our options might be. However, for the foreseeable future, we will be continuing and enjoying our full-timing lifestyle. As we said, there are still some locations where we want to return, and there are some places we haven't even been yet. We also have our favorite places where we would like to spend extended periods of time, i.e. the Mobile area in Alabama and the Dayton area and Amish country in Ohio to name just a few.

After slowing down our second year, we have consciously set a fairly ambitious travel schedule for ourselves this summer. That is partly due to Margery's feeling we are starting over with her new knees, but it is mostly due to the fact we are traveling such a long distance all the way to the California coast and to the Pacific Northwest; and we want to see as much on this trip as possible.

There were record high fuel prices in 2008. We withstood that pretty well, but we feel the prices are more reasonable now only because of the poor economy and are destined to rise again. In fact, fuel prices have already increased considerably from their lows of several months ago.

Because of more reasonable short-term fuel prices and uncertainty about the future of the economy, we decided since we were going all the way to the west coast, we better see as much as we can now because we don't know when or if we will ever get that far west again.

We are definitely in “vacation mode,”  having already traveled over 4,000 miles since we left Florida in the middle of April. We recently arrived in Washington State, and we still have to tour Washington and to travel back east by fall. We’re having a wonderful time, but have to admit we’re looking forward to slowing down on our return to the east.

Our average nightly camping costs are increasing, partly because we are staying in the same place for shorter periods, but mostly because we are staying in expensive tourist areas. California was quite expensive. It was there we stayed at a campground that charged $70 a night, which the highest we have ever spent. We are also staying at more full-hookup campgrounds and fewer state parks and Corps of Engineers campgrounds. Because we are out sightseeing almost every day, we find it much more convenient to have full hookups. For one thing, that enables us to do laundry at the motor home in the evening instead of having to find and then sit around a laundromat.

It seems that most full-time or extended-time RVers usually have a “theme” to their time on the road, i.e. following the Lewis & Clark Trail, visiting all the state capitols, or visiting Civil War battlefields.  We have developed our own set of interests which include natural wonders such as those found in our national parks. Even though neither one of us could stand history back in high school, we now both find it fascinating. History really comes to life if you can experience the historic places first hand. We also like gardens, waterfalls, and factory tours. We recently began visiting a number of restaurants featured on the Food Network program Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. That's fun, but hard on the waistline.

So as we embark on our fourth year on the road, we find we are pleased with the decisions we have made that have brought us to this point. Downsizing continues to be a liberating lifestyle and a sound economic principle in these uncertain times. We look forward to revisiting some favorite areas and exploring new ones. 

Mobile, AL Part I: Shrimp and More

After spending four full months in Florida (with the exception of taking three trips to Pittsburgh with a duration of about ten days each), we headed north and west to begin our summer travel adventure. Our primary destination this year will be Yosemite National Park in California, but we will make a number of other stops on the way there. Afterward, we plan to visit northern California, Oregon, and Washington before heading back east for fall and winter.

After we left Bushnell, we made an overnight stop at Chattahoochee RV Resort in Chattahoochee, FL. We stayed at this campground, which is located right along the Apalachicola River, our first year of full-timing. The campground is located just downstream of a dam that forms Lake Seminole. The city of Chattahoochee operates the campground and honors a 50% Passport America discount for stays of up to three days. There is also a picnic and boat launch area adjacent to the campground.

The use of the word "resort" in the name may be a little too hopeful, but it is still a fairly nice campground - especially at a Passport America price of about $8 a night. The photo below shows our site at Chattahoochee RV Resort.

 

If you go to this campground, make sure you use a pressure regulator because their water pressure is very high. Without a regulator, the pressure pegged our 100 psi gauge.

The main road in the campground is paved, but the rest of the roads are gravel. Some sites are gravel, but the ones down over the hill near the river are grass. The sites are all back-ins; but the last time we were there, they let us park down over the hill and just pull across several unoccupied sites so we wouldn't have to unhook the toad for a one-night stop. This year, since they again weren't very filled, we did the same thing except we were at the far end of the upper section of the campground. The sites near the river were still a bit soggy because they had been underwater until a few days prior.

Northern Florida and Georgia have had quite a bit of rain lately. There have been a series of heavy storms passing through for the past few weeks. A storm gave Chattahoochee over four inches of rain the day before we arrived. After we got set up, we walked down to the boat launch and picnic area where we could see the water was still pretty high.

From Chattahoochee, it was on to Rainbow Plantation, the Escapees RV Park in Summerdale, AL, near Mobile. Rainbow Plantation has a transient camping area, leased/co-op sites, and deeded lots. The photo below shows our site in the camping area.

We also stayed at Rainbow Plantation our first year of full-timing; but it was fairly cool because it was the end of December so we didn't stay long and we didn't do any sightseeing. Summerdale is located on the eastern side of Mobile Bay, and the city of Mobile is located on the western side of the bay.

One of the things Mobile Bay is known for is seafood. We did a little research online and decided on a restaurant not too far from Summerdale called Big Daddy's Grill, which is located on the Fish River. Big Daddy's is shown in the photo below.

Big Daddy's has live entertainment on weekends, but it bills itself as a family restaurant. The entertainment usually runs from 3 or 4 in the afternoon until 7 or 8 in the evening instead of late into the night. They even have a couple of piles of sand for the kids to play in. There is indoor seating, outdoor seating in the pavilion shown above where there is a huge fireplace for cool evenings, and outdoor seating behind the restaurant overlooking a small marina. Although is was a weekday when we were there and there was no activity to watch at the marina, we chose a picnic table overlooking the water.

 

Margery had a catfish strip basket and Paul had a fried shrimp basket with local shrimp. Both were excellent. The baskets come with hush puppies, slaw, and a choice of fries or onion rings.

Another thing that showed up in our research for seafood was the fact that the Annual Shrimp Cook-off would be held in Mobile the Saturday we were in town. The cook-off is a fund raiser for an organization called Volunteer Mobile, which seeks to promote volunteerism to solve community problems such as disaster relief.

The admission price to the cook-off is a little steep at $15 per person; but it is for a good cause, and it entitles you to all the shrimp you can eat at no additional charge. Advance purchase discount tickets are available at some of the area banks, but the branches on the Summerdale side of the bay didn't have the tickets because they said they were too far from downtown Mobile.

The Organized Seafood Association of Alabama provides all the shrimp for the cook-off at no cost. The contestants, which are made up of professionals such as area restaurants and amateur teams such as civic groups, submit their dishes for judging. The winners in both the professional and amateur categories receive bragging rights. The teams also serve samples of their dishes to the public.

The event is held in Bienville Square, which is a pleasant, shady park that covers one square block in the downtown area of Mobile.

 

The cook-off runs from 11:00 AM until 2:00 PM. We arrived around 11:30, and some of the booths already have fairly long lines. We developed a system where one of us would stand in one of the longer lines line while the other would walk to one of the nearby, shorter lines and bring two samples back to where the other was waiting. The photo below shows Margery enjoying one of our favorite dishes of the entire cook-off - shrimp in an Alfredo-style cheese sauce. We liked that one so well, Margery went back three times and Paul went back four times.

 

The shrimp cook-off had live entertainment that included a band that sounded pretty good. Miss Seafood, the event queen, and several pre-teen members of her court also sang. They were quite talented.

 

We had fried shrimp, peel-and-eat-shrimp with old bay seasoning, shrimp with pine nuts, shrimp with rice, barbecued shrimp, grilled shrimp wrapped in prosciutto, oriental shrimp, and our favorite shrimp in cheese sauce. By about 12:30, most of the lines were getting quite long, but that was OK with us because we were getting pretty full. We had another sample or two and left a little after 1:00.

Since it was still early in the day and since we were already downtown, we decided to drive several blocks to the Mobile Carnival Museum. Carnival is another name for Mardi Gras. The Mobile Carnival Museum is shown in the photo below.

When someone mentions Mardi Gras, we always think of New Orleans. The celebration in New Orleans is more well known than the one in Mobile because New Orleans publicizes theirs more. Carnival in Mobile bills itself as being more family oriented which may also help account for the greater notoriety of the celebration held in New Orleans.

Mobile claims to have the oldest Mardi Gras or Carnival celebration in what would eventually become the United States dating back to 1703. Mardi Gras literally means "fat Tuesday" in French. It is a celebration prior to Lent when supplies of fat and other foods that the pious would traditionally forgo during Lent are used up. Parades and masquerading typically associated with Mardi Gras and Carnival can be traced back to medieval Italy.

Carnival in Mobile is centered around mystic societies (called krewes in New Orleans and other locations) that sponsor parades, balls, and other activities for members, guests, and the public. The mystic societies are private organizations that grew out of the social and business structure that cotton brought to the city. There are approximately 55 active social societies today. Membership in a society is by invitation only.

The king and queen of Carnival are selected almost a year in advance. The selection is made based on social standing, connections, and money. The king and queen don't necessarily need to be residents of Mobile, but they must have a connection to the city. For example, one past queen was a New York opera star, but her mother was a resident of Mobile.

The debutantes of the season serve as Ladies of the Court. Each lady selects her escort. The societies kick off the season in Mobile with a formal debutante ball held Thanksgiving weekend.

The societies also select their own kings and queens who wear elaborate costumes that include ornate trains to some of the events. The Carnival Museum has many of these beautiful costumes and trains on display, some of which are shown in the photo below.



The photo below shows the trains and costumes of the 2008 Mobile Carnival Association king and queen.



The next photo shows the costumes of the 2008 Mobile Mardi Gras Association (formerly the Colored Carnival Association) king and queen.



The gown and train shown in the photo below are from 1936. Although this train is very elegant, you can see how much more elaborate the trains have become today.

 

Children's page costumes are shown in the next photo. The job of the pages is to look cute and stay out of mischief.

The importance of the king and queen having financial resources can't be overstated. All of the dresses, robes, crowns, scepters, and men's costumes are paid for by the families. Each train is designed to include symbols which are meaningful to the wearer. The embellishments are all hand-sewn and the costumes take many months to complete.

The museum also has portions of a couple of parade floats on display. The floats are made from paper mache. The photo below shows us pretending to ride on a float and to throw Mardi Gras beads.



The next photo shows a decoration from another float on display in the museum gift shop.



And finally, here we are posing as King Felix III and Queen Margery. All Carnival kings in Mobile are traditionally named Felix, and since the current Carnival Association is the third embodiment of the ruling organization, the king is called Felix III. The queen gets to use her own name. We can't seem to pass up those tourist cutouts and statues that you stick your faces through for photos.



It was a fun and interesting day, but there is more to see in Mobile. Look for our next post in a few days.

Pittsburgh, PA and Holmes County, OH

If you have been following our blog, you know we were in Florida, and you're probably wondering why we are writing about Pittsburgh and Holmes County. Well, we made yet another whirlwind trip to Pittsburgh, and during that journey we made time to take a side excursion to one of our favorite places - Amish Country in Holmes County, OH.

When we decided that we wanted to take a southern route to California for our summer travels, we needed to figure out how to arrange for some medical and dental check-ups. With the passing of Margery's dad back in February, we also had some estate business to take care of.

Blueberry Hill offered an additional month's stay for half price, so we decided to extend our stay here in Florida and make a short spring trip to Pittsburgh in the car. The reason we decided to leave the motor home in Florida and make the trip to Pittsburgh in the car was because of the additional travel cost of getting the motor home from Florida to Pittsburgh and back from Pittsburgh to our southern route. Driving straight through to Pittsburgh in the car like we did at Christmas and for our February trip, and staying with our daughter, Lora, and our son-in-law, J. Michael would save a lot of gas. When we're ready to head west, doing so from Florida allow us travel through Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas and enjoy warmer weather.

After our friends, Dick and Barb, left Bushnell, we had the rest of the week to get ready for the drive to Pittsburgh. Paul had the oil changed in the car, Margery caught up on laundry, and we started a list of things we needed to take.

We set the alarm for 2:00 AM and got on the road about 3:15. With a lot of snowbirds now heading north, traffic was a little heavier than it was when we went to Pittsburgh a month ago, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it was just before Christmas. We're also starting to get a better feel for when and where we need to make fuel and rest stops, and that is making our travel more efficient. This time, we completed the trip in just over 15 hours.

In addition to the doctor appointments, Margery found time while in Pittsburgh for tea with Lora and J. Michael's mom at The Uniquely You Tea Room in Cecil, PA. Margery really enjoys her annual tea room "date" with Lora, and sharing it with J. Michael's mom was an added bonus. This was Margery's second visit to this tea room, and it has become a favorite. The food was fresh, delicious, homemade, and plentiful. Harriet, the owner, was gracious; and our server was efficient without being intrusive.

Selecting two teas to share was not an easy task considering there were 12 jars of loose tea from which to choose. The savory sandwiches of cucumber and dill, chicken salad, and egg salad were followed by homemade scones with clotted cream, and topped off with four homemade pastries. 

The Victorian theme of the tea room is carried out in the themed tables with coordinating china, linens, and centerpieces. The decorations around the room included antique ball gowns, purses and hats. It is a total sensory experience well worth the trip to Cecil. Even though Harriet was still recovering from a bridal shower for 47 the weekend before and preparing for a birthday party the next day, our afternoon was leisurely and uninterrupted.

Another thing we had to attend to while in Pittsburgh was to take Margery's dad's cremated remains to St. Stephen's Episcopal Church to be interred in the garden there next to her mom. Margery's mom was baptized in that church, and her mom and dad were married there. They worshiped and they served at St. Stephen's for all 62 years of their marriage. The photo below shows their wedding in 1941.

Returning there brought back many memories for Margery. Here is a picture of a wooden altar table Margery's dad made including the hand-carved flowers in the corners.

Like most of the churches built in the late 19th century, St. Stephen's is majestic with it's large stone columns, a pipe organ, and beautiful stained glass windows. There is something to be said for the reverence that such architecture engenders compared to the more informal/utilitarian-designed churches that are built today.

Here is the garden where the cremated remains of church members are buried. It's a simple plot of grass with no markers, but the church maintains a map showing the locations of the remains. The church and community were such an integral part of Margery's family life, she found it very comforting to bury her parents there.

By Saturday, all our errands and doctor appointments were completed, so we drove to Ohio with Lora and J. Michael to have the breakfast buffet at our one of our favorite restaurants, Der Dutchman in Walnut Creek. The photo below shows the front of the restaurant.

 

And the next photo is the view from the back of the restaurant. There is a panoramic window that overlooks the Amish farms in the valley.

 

We love Holmes County in the spring. New growth was just starting to show on the trees, the grass was greening up, and the farmers were busily plowing their fields to get ready for planting.

After breakfast, we went to the Holmes County Amish Flea Market, which has a new location this year. It is now a few miles west of its previous site near Der Dutchman restaurant in Walnut Creek. The new location is in Berlin, OH and overlooks part of Scenic Hills RV Park where we stay when we visit Holmes County in our motor home. They have converted the former flea market buildings in Walnut Creek to a conference and expo center. The photo below shows the newly-constructed flea market building in Berlin. Note the Amish buggies parked behind the red car coming in the entrance.

The flea market is bigger than it looks in the photo. It is built in the shape of an "H" with the rest rooms and a cafeteria centrally located in the connector between the two legs of the "H." Parking is more convenient than at the old location because it is all on one level instead of being on several terraced levels as it was in Walnut Creek.

It was a beautiful spring day, and it was the opening weekend of the new market, so there was a big turn out. Paul had to wait a while to get the shot below so the aisle wouldn't be too congested, and so he could get a good view of some of the merchandise.

 

The Holmes County Flea Market is mostly indoors, although they have room for some outdoor vendors like they had at their old location. There was a vendor selling plants outside in the space between the legs of the "H," but he was the only one there because it was very windy. The flea market has mostly new merchandise, and much of it has a country or rustic theme. The photo below shows Margery checking out a lamb at one of the booths.

 

We enjoyed our breakfast buffet, the flea market, and driving around the picturesque countryside. We also made a stop at Winesburg Meats to pick up some of Paul's favorite beef snack sticks and at Walnut Creek Cheese for Margery and Lora to get some cooking spices. Walnut Creek Cheese has a variety of merchandise including bulk foods, spices, and candies; cookware; meats and some regular grocery items. They also have a lunch counter, which always seems to be crowded no matter what time we are there, and hard and soft ice cream.

After our side trip to Holmes County on Saturday, we hit the road at 7:00 AM Sunday to return to Bushnell. Northbound traffic was heavy most of the way as snowbirds continue to head north. The Flying J near Wytheville, VA where we like to stop for gas was clogged with RVs. Fortunately, we were in the car and were able to easily zip through the car lanes for our gas.

When we left Pittsburgh in February, it was 3 degrees and it took all the way to Wytheville for the temperature to break the freezing mark. This time, it was 65 degrees when we stopped in Wytheville, and we changed into shorts.

The trip was uneventful except for some heavy rain going through Georgia. We enjoyed some of the beef snack sticks from Winesburg Meats on our way. Our arrival time in Bushnell was about 10:00 PM - just 15 hours from our start time.

As we pulled into the campground, we weren't too surprised to see the front section was nearly empty. Out of almost 100 sites, only about a dozen were occupied. The back section where we are parked is down to less than 50% occupancy. The photo below, which was taken a few days after our return to Bushnell, shows our rig off in the distance near the center of the photo. There is another motor home to the left and a 5th wheel to the right, but there are empty sites beside both of those rigs, empty sites behind us, and empty sites across the road in front of us.

Buds on the trees and shrubs were just starting to become noticeable in Pittsburgh, but from southern West Virginia on southward, spring is very much in evidence. Spring seems to be at its peak around Charlotte. Although we love palm trees, seeing all the dogwoods, redbuds, and forsythia blooming and seeing all the new leaves on the trees made us itchy to get moving again to see some new sights. We will be staying in Bushnell about another week, then we will be off to new adventures.

Back in Bushnell

When we left Bluebberry Hill for our holiday trip to Pittsburgh, the front section of the campground had only a few RVs in it and the back was about 60-70% filled. Now, after New Years, the front is about 50% full (although this section is more transient, and RVs come and go), and the back section is about 80-90% filled as more Snowbirds arrive every day. Interstate-75 is filled with southbound RV's now. There's a steady stream, but the occupancy of Blueberry Hill seems to be running a little behind what it was at this time last year. Maybe the economy has brought about some cancellations, or at least some reduced lengths of stay.

When we went to Pittsburgh last spring, we dropped off Margery's mobility scooter to store for a while. Now that her knees are doing so well, we picked up the scooter during our Christmas trip and brought it back with us to try to sell rather than just leave it in storage for the batteries to deteriorate. When we got back, Paul cleaned it up, made a "For Sale" sign, and parked the scooter in front of our site. We'll see how it goes. The scooter served us well, and now we're hoping it will provide mobility for someone else with difficulty walking.

During our Christmas visit with Lora and J. Michael, we got to sleep on our old mattress. Lora and J. Michael took some of our furniture when we went on the road; and, since the mattress wasn't very old, they have it on the bed in their spare bedroom. The mattress in the motor home was always a little soft for us; and now that it was over three years old, we knew it was getting a little too mushy. However, we didn't realize how mushy until we spent a week on our old, very firm mattress back in Pittsburgh. Ahhhhh.

That prompted us to go mattress shopping when we got back to Florida. A lot of RVs have what are called "short queen" mattresses. These are standard width, but are 4 to 6 inches shorter than a standard queen mattress. Although the shorter length allows more walking space in the RV, it limits the choices for replacement mattresses, and it can also be uncomfortable if you're taller. Sometimes you can replace a short queen mattress with a standard one; but if the bed is part of the slide-out and the slide-out was designed for a short mattress, there probably won't be room for a longer mattress when the slide is in for traveling.

We have a standard queen mattress, so we were able to shop at a regular bedding store. It was a good time to shop - seems there were New Year's mattress sales everywhere. We found a nice, firm, Simmons Beautyrest on sale for a good price at the Mattress Giant store up near the Villages. It was delivered to our motor home first thing the next morning. Wow, what a difference! We have always liked a firm mattress to help eliminate back pain. We both slept comfortably the first night.

We do most of our grocery shopping at Wal-Mart because we feel they generally have the best prices. Here at Blueberry Hill, that is really easy since there is a Wal-Mart right next door. However, Wal-Mart doesn't carry a full selection of grocery items, and we sometimes need to stop at another grocery store for special items. One of these items is chicken hot sausage that Publix Markets usually carry. We took a half-hour drive to the Publix in Inverness, FL. We were able to stock up on the sausage plus a couple of other items. Low-fat products are not abundant in Florida or anywhere else in the south, so we're always happy to find some of our favorites.

The route to Inverness passes through Floral City, which was founded in 1883. Although it only has a population of around 5,000 people today, Floral City was once the largest city in Florida because of phosphate mining in the surrounding area. Henry Flagler started building his hotels and railway on the east coast of Florida about the same time, but Floral City grew faster in those early years because of the mining. The mining was shut down during WWI and was relocated farther south near Tampa after the war.

A beautiful feature of Floral City are the Spanish-moss draped live oak trees that line both sides of County Road 48 heading toward the main intersection in town. The trees run for about half a mile.

 

We gave Molly a bath before our trip to Pittsburgh, but we thought we'd leave her coat a little longer for the cold weather and save grooming her until we got back to Bushnell. Soon after our return, we went about the task of grooming. As you can see from the photo below, she wasn't too happy about it and tried to hide in the bedroom.

 

Trying to hide is typical, but once we start grooming, she is usually pretty good and only gets a little impatient toward the end. She has been getting groomed every few months since she was about a year old, so she's used to it. But for some reason, she really put up a fuss this time. She wouldn't stand still and kept trying to sit and lie down. However, we eventually got the job done (more or less) - she's still a little shaggy in a couple of spots, but we'll fix that next time. The photo below shows Molly in a little better humor after the grooming.

 

We took it easy during our first week or so back to Florida. We got caught up on grocery shopping and a few chores like doing laundry and grooming Molly. We also got a new mattress, rode our bikes around the campground numerous times to try to work off some of those Christmas goodies, and played a few games of pool. We're also investigating interesting things to do and see in the coming weeks. Check back soon to see what we come up with.

Home for the Holidays

It was about a two and a half hour drive from the Florida SKP Resort in Zolfo Springs to Blueberry Hill RV Resort in Bushnell, FL. We made this year's reservations for Blueberry Hill last year to take advantage of a 10% pay-in-advance discount.

Blueberry Hill RV Resort has several hundred RV sites. The sites in front are paved pull-throughs, and the ones in back are grassy back-ins. The sites in front are usually given to those staying less than three months. We like the ones in the back because they are very spacious. The photo below shows our site at Blueberry Hill.

Blueberry has full hookups with 50 amp electric and Wi-Fi. They have plenty of activities if you want them, but there isn't a lot of pressure to join in. There is a pool, shuffleboard courts, bocce, horseshoes and pool tables. There are weekly lunches followed by a bluegrass jam session with Snowbird musicians from all around the area. They also have craft classes, occasional bus trips, and various types of exercise classes.

We were anxious to get settled because we had a lot to do. For the first time since we went on the road in 2006, we planned to go home for Christmas. We would be driving north in the car and staying with our daughter, Lora, and our son-in-law, J. Michael. This would also be the first time in two and a half years we would be traveling without the motor home. We are used to having everything with us, but now we needed to try to think in 70 degree weather of everything we might need to take with us for 20 degree weather. We began by making lists. Then we got our winter clothes out of storage, cleaned out the car, and eventually started to put things into piles so we could figure out how we were going to pack with the minimal luggage we had kept.

Even with all we had to do in preparation for our trip to the Pittsburgh area, there was still time to do some holiday decorating. We did our usual, simple adornment of the motor home - a task that only takes a few minutes. This year, since we would be spending a lot of time in the car, Margery wanted to decorate it as well. We bought a few materials at the craft store and put together a wreath to hang on the grill.

One other thing we wanted to get out of the way before the end of the year was the one-year checkup with the surgeon on Margery's knees. After viewing the X-rays, the doctor said her knees were "magnifico" and she won't need to come back for the next checkup for two years. Margery is also very pleased with the outcome of the partial knee replacements.

We decided to try to see if we could make the drive from Bushnell to Pittsburgh all in one shot, so we went to bed early the Saturday before Christmas and set the alarm for 2:00 AM. This was quite a departure from our usual method of traveling only four hours a day, but we thought with two drivers and being able to make better time in the car, we should be able to make it.

We threw the last minute items into the car, disconnected the water from the motor home, stowed the satellite dish, pulled in the slides to protect the slide-topper awnings in case there was a storm while we were gone, and hit the road by 3:15 AM. Traffic was very light until about sunrise, and we made good time - even on the 2 and 4-lane, non-limited access roads.

As the day went on, traffic picked up. There were lots of Florida license plates heading north and lots of cars and RVs heading south. Traffic was heavy all day, but it was moving steadily and there were no delays.

One of the things Margery pondered as we passed Santas decorating yards was how out of place Santas are in the south. Think about it...the heavy, fur-trimmed coat worn by Santa is way too warm for the south, the sleigh meant to travel on snow is seriously hampered by the lack thereof in the south, the reindeer who pull the sleigh are not indigenous to the south, and Santa coming in through the chimney is not practical in a region where there are few, if any, fireplaces. Hmmm. People don't seem to be very logical when it comes to traditions.

It took us only a little over 15 hours to travel about 1,000 miles. It was a long day, and we were tired when we arrived in Pittsburgh; but making the drive all in one shot wasn't as bad as we had thought it might be.

Since we arrived a few days before Christmas, Margery helped Lora do some cooking in preparation for the holidays. Here they are working on mushroom rolls for snacking.  :)

We went to church with Lora and J. Michael on Christmas Eve, then went to visit with J. Michael's family at his brother's house. We got to spend Christmas morning with Lora and J. Michael. The photo below shows Margery getting ready to enjoy some hot chocolate before we started opening gifts.

The next photo shows J. Michael and Lora in their Santa hats.

Brutus is J. Michael and Lora's boxer. He is having difficulty getting around in his old age, but he still enjoyed opening his gift of doggie treats.

Using the Octapod mini camera tripod, we were able to get a picture of all of us.

Among other things, Lora and J. Michael got us a Pantouch digital photo frame. It will be great to display pictures of family and of places we have been. We have a bulletin board in the motor home, but can only display a limited number of photos at a time. Plus, we have to go to the trouble of printing the photos before we can display them. The digital frame will hold up to 8,000 photos and we can download them directly from the camera or from our computer.

On Christmas afternoon, we went to J. Michael's mom's house for dinner. The photo below shows some of the family just beginning to gather around the table. J. Michael's family is great, and they are fun to be with. We are gratified they are always willing to include us in their activities.

 

On the day after Christmas, Margery and Lora hit a couple of stores to make some exchanges and to look for bargains. Summer tops aren't in high demand in Pittsburgh in the winter, and Margery was thrilled to be able to get a few for $1.40 each.  Over the next few days, we played some games, watched a movie on DVD, went out to a movie, and visited with Margery's dad and Paul's step-mom.

Lora and J. Michael have a Garmin Nuvi 260W GPS unit, and they took it along on most of our outings. We were amazed at how well it worked, so we started investigating GPS units ourselves. We have a GPS receiver that we can use with our DeLorme mapping software on our laptop, but we feel the computer is too big to leave open in the motor home as we travel. The computer takes up almost the whole passenger side in the car. Therefore, although we sometimes use the computer for the mapping software as we travel (even in the car), we seldom use the GPS.

We found the price of portable GPS units rapidly falling, and we found a Garmin Nuvi 750 for an excellent price at Sam's Club. It is similar to the 260W Lora has so she was able to teach us how to use it fairly quickly. The name of the voice we chose to use is Jill, but we renamed her Grace because she is so amazing and hopefully we'll be reminded to have "grace under fire" when needed. The photo below shows Grace as she helps us navigate on our way back to Bushnell.

Garmin also has a series of GPS units called Street Pilot which are geared toward bigger vehicles like trucks and RVs, but there seems to only be one model of Street Pilot currently being made by Garmin. The Street Pilot is also considerably more expensive than the Nuvi series (except for the newest, high-end Nuvi models). We'll just have to be careful about reviewing in advance the routes Grace plans for us when we are in the motor home.

We planned our return to Bushnell for Monday hoping the traffic would be a little lighter after the weekend. By the time we packed up and said our good-byes, we didn't get on the road until about 8:45 AM. Traffic was heavy most of the way - especially for the 200+ mile portion that traverses I-95 through part of South Carolina, Georgia, and northern Florida. There were several unexplained backups on I-95 in South Carolina, and there was also a lot of construction on I-95 through most of Georgia. Although there wasn't any work going on at night, it did make the driving more difficult with narrow lanes and reduced speed limits.

There were lots of southerners returning south and, surprisingly, more RV's returning north than Snowbirds heading south.

We finally made it back to Bushnell about 12:30 AM. Being with family for the holidays and seeing Lora and J. Michael again was great, but It was also good to be back "home."

As we approached the end of the year, we took a little time to reflect. It was a very good year for us, and we were blessed in our full-timing lifestyle in so many ways. Most importantly, we have a terrific, supportive family back home in Pittsburgh. We are happy to have been able to see them several times this year. Lora and J. Michael go out of their way to make us feel at home when we visit.

We started out the year with Margery's knee surgery. Her recovery was a little slow at the start. By mid-year, she was doing well; and now at the end of a year, she is doing great. Her knees are almost as good as they were when she was younger, and they are waaaay better than they were before the surgery. Even the many steps at Lora and J. Michael's two-story house during our Christmas visit weren't bothersome.

We weathered the storm of sky-high gasoline prices of 2008 by slowing our rate of travel a little. We're trusting we will also make it through the current economic crisis.

We got to see so many of God's astounding creations in 2008 - the plains and farmland of Iowa, the mighty Mississippi, the geothermal features of Yellowstone, the Tetons as well as the mountains of Montana and Colorado, the azure blue skies of New Mexico, and South Florida and the Keys. We also got to see our first in-person NASCAR race. And we have met some nice people and made some new friends along the way.

We used to party on New Year's Eve when we were younger. In recent years, however, we just spend a quiet evening at home watching a bunch of rented movies. We struggle to stay awake until it is time to see the ball drop in Times Square on TV. Then we wish each other a Happy New Year and shuffle off to bed. This year was no different; but with our 15-hour drive in from Pittsburgh just two nights prior, it was a little more difficult than normal staying up until midnight.

We are looking forward to our time here in Bushnell. Last year, we got to do some sightseeing; but we spent much of our time with Margery recovering from knee surgery. This year, we plan not only a time of relaxation, but also some new adventures.

St. Petersburg, FL

After our short stay in Bonita Springs, we moved about 100 miles north to the Escapees co-op park called The Florida SKP Resort in Wauchula, FL, west of Sebring in the south central part of Florida. Actually, the Resort is located in Zolfo Springs, but the mailing address is Wauchula.

The Escapees RV Club has numerous camping facilities across the country. Some are campgrounds only, and some are co-ops. Co-ops are described on the  Escapees Website. Descriptions of the other types of parks are available by clicking on the appropriate name in the sidebar on the site. 

The photo below shows our site at the SKP Resort.

 

The Florida SKP Resort is a co-op rather than a campground, meaning co-op members buy a share of the co-op and pay an annual maintenance fee in order to be able to use a site. If you decide you no longer want to be a member of the co-op, you get your buy-in fee back plus the cost of any approved improvements you have made to the site. There is a long waiting list to buy into the co-op, so there is little danger of not being able to recover your costs.

Some co-op members choose to put park models on their sites and some use their sites for their RVs. Those who use their sites for RVs can choose to put their sites into the rental pool during times when they are not using their sites themselves. Those of us Escapees members who are not co-op members can then use the rental sites.

There are a limited number of rental sites and the number drops when more co-op members arrive for the winter (January and February are the busiest months). We intentionally went before the seasonal rush, and there were quite a few open sites.

Site sizes at the Resort are very generous and the landscaping is nicely done. There are a lot of palm trees along the campground roads and most of the individual sites have also had shrubs and flowers added. The Resort has full hookups, free Wi-Fi, paved roads, and most rental sites have paved pads and patios.

While we were staying at the Resort, we went to St. Petersburg, which is about an hour to the west, to visit Sunken Gardens. Sunken Gardens is another one of those places Paul visited with his family when he was a kid.

Sunken Gardens is over 100 years old. It was started by in 1903 by plumber and avid gardener George Turner, Sr. The gardens are built in a 10 to 15 foot deep sink hole, hence the name "sunken." George planted quite a few citrus trees, papayas, and other exotic plants around his home. In the '20s he opened a nursery and began selling fruits, vegetables, and plants. His nursery customers paid a nickel to tour the gardens. In 1935, George fenced the garden and began a charging 25-cent admission fee. In the '50s through the '70s, Sunken Gardens became a popular tourist attraction.

To get to Sunken Gardens, we had to drive over Sunshine Skyway, which crosses Tampa Bay. At 5.5 miles long, the bridge is the world's longest bridge with a cable-stayed main span. The main span of the bridge is shown in the photo below.

The yellow suspension cables and their shadows create interesting patterns.

 

The original two-lane bridge that was part of the Sunshine Skyway was opened in 1954. This was the bridge Paul and his family crossed when they were here in the late '50s. A second bridge that ran parallel to the first was added in 1969 to make the road four lanes wide. The span that was added in 1969 was destroyed in 1980 when a freighter struck a bridge pier. The bridge, a Greyhound bus, and several cars fell 150 feet into the bay. The replacement twin spans that exist today were opened in 1987.

When we arrived at Sunken Gardens, Paul was surprised at how much the area had grown up from what he remembered from when he was a kid. Although it's not right downtown, the garden is in the city. The photo below shows a portion of the well-landscaped parking lot looking toward the entrance building.

The next photo shows the small waterfall and colorful foliage that greeted us as we entered the garden.

Sunken Gardens covers about four acres; but with the way the paths wind around, it feels like it is much larger. The mature, dense foliage does a good job of hiding other paths that may only be a few yards away from the path you are on. For the next photo, the shade from the mature trees was so dense we had to use a flash so you could see our faces. You can also see how thick the growth is behind us.

Throughout the gardens, there are many beautiful, exotic flowers blooming like the one below.

Another flowering shrub that caught our eye was this double hibiscus.

There were also several cages of exotic birds including a couple of different types of parrots and a laughing kookaburra. The laughing kookaburra is a bird from the kingfisher family whose call sounds similar to human laughter. The call of the kookaburra is familiar to most of us because it has found its way into many so many soundtracks that it has come to typify a jungle sound. The kookaburra wasn't calling when we were there, but one of the parrots was. It really did add to the jungle atmosphere.

There was a larger cage with several brightly-colored macaws, which are a type of parrot from Mexico, Central, and South America. Two of the macaws were preening each other. It looked like the one on the left was saying, "Down a bit, a little lower...now over to the left...that's it...ahhhh."

 

Sunken Gardens also has several Chilean flamingos. Most of them were resting with their heads tucked behind their wings, but the one in the photo below was preening itself. We had never seen a bird kneeling this way.

Although poinsettias make most of us think of Christmas and cold weather, they are actually indigenous to Mexico and are tropical in nature. Sunken Gardens had these beautiful poinsettias displayed in the shape of a Christmas tree.

As we finished our tour of Sunken Gardens, we couldn't pass up a tourist photo.

From Sunken Gardens, we drove back across Sunshine Skyway to return to the motor home. During the rest of our stay, we made a Wal-Mart stop or two, did some laundry, and did a little motor home maintenance.

From here, we go to Blueberry Hill RV Resort. Blueberry Hill is in Bushnell, FL, and it is the same place we stayed for several months last winter.

Sanibel Island, FL

We left the Florida Keys, drove north on U.S. 1, then cut west across the tip of Florida on the Tamiami (pronounced tammy-amee) Trail. The road connects Tampa and Miami, and the name is a combination of the names of the two cities.

We traveled the part of the trail from just west of Miami to near Naples, FL. This part of the Tamiami Trail runs along the northern border of Everglades National Park and through the Big Cypress National Preserve. While clipping along at 60 mph and with brush, weeds, and grass partially blocking our view, Margery was still able to catch glimpses of somewhere between 75 and 100 alligators sunning themselves along the banks of the waters beside the road. Paul was able to see quite a few alligators himself, even while driving. Although most of the 'gators were small (2 to 4 feet long), there were one or two that were more like 8 feet.

We pulled into Imperial Bonita Estates RV Resort in Bonita Springs, FL, in the early afternoon. Imperial Bonita has a section for RVs and park models and another section for manufactured housing. The RV section is primarily used for seasonal rentals, but they have a good many sites in the RV section they use for transients like us. The RV sites have full hookups with 50 amp, paved roads, gravel pads, and concrete patios. The photo below shows our site at Imperial Boniva.

 

There is a real mix in the RV section. There was a newer park model on our right and an older, stationary trailer to the left. However, most of the stationary RVs and park models are neatly kept. Most of the more-permanent, manufactured housing in the other section of the park was very nicely landscaped, even though some of the units there were older, too.

The main reason we stopped in Bonita Springs was that it is less than an hour from Sanibel Island. Sanibel Island is located off the west coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico near Ft. Meyers. The island is about 12 miles long and 4 miles wide.

The beaches of Sanibel are world-famous for shelling. The reason the island is so good for shell collectors is due to its geographical location. The Gulf is quite shallow in this area and there are a lot of shells. The island also lies east to west so it acts as a scoop as winds, tides, currents, and storms push shells up from the shallow waters onto the beaches. The photo below is a view of the beach at the eastern end of Sanibel.

 

The beach below Margery's feet was littered with millions of shells.

Most shells are broken, but there are a few nice ones that are still intact. Shell hunters who are there at the right time (usually right after a storm) can sometimes find a shell that is fairly rare.

They have a name for the way shell hunters walk on the beach. It's called the "Sanibel Stoop," and Margery is demonstrating it in the photo below. It's hard on the back, but serious hunters will walk all the way down the beach bent over like that.

Sanibel Island also has a lighthouse on the eastern end of the island right near the beach shown above. The lighthouse tower was constructed from iron in the north, shipped to Florida, and erected on a foundation of iron pilings in 1884. There are also two lightkeepers houses on the site.

We drove the entire length of Sanibel and stopped at another beach a little farther west and took the self portrait shown below.

The western end of the island is said to have larger shells while the eastern end gets the smaller, more delicate shells. The main reason for this is probably because the western end of the island sticks farther out into the Gulf of Mexico and gets a little more wind and stronger currents.

We also drove to the end of Captiva Island, which curves northward from the western end of Sanibel. Captiva has some nice resorts and some VERY large, expensive-looking houses.

We only planned to stay in Bonita Springs a few days, then we will be moving about 100 miles north the Escapees co-op park called the Florida SKP Resort in Wauchula, FL.

Florida Keys Part I: Crane Point

We left Larry and Penny Thompson Park in South Miami for a leisurely two-hour drive to Curry Hammock State Park in the Florida Keys. Curry Hammock State Park is located on Little Crawl Key in Marathon, FL, and is about half-way between the mainland and Key West.

Curry Hammock is a relatively new campground and has 25 sites with water and 50 amp electric hookups. Seven or eight of the sites have ocean views. The roads are paved and the pads and patios are gravel. The sites are widely spaced and have shrubs between. The campground is very well cared for. In addition to the campground manager, there are two volunteer campground host couples who worked very hard. Even the gravel on each site is raked between guests. The photo below shows our site at Curry Hammock State Park.

 

The next photo shows the beach at Curry Hammock State Park. Since it is a state park, the beach is kept in the natural state, seaweed and all.

Most of the commercial campgrounds in the Keys charge $70 a night (or more) for sites, but there are two or three state parks in the Keys that have camping and charge only about $30. The commercial campgrounds are still almost empty because the real Snowbird season doesn't start until January. However, because the state parks are more reasonably priced, they are filled every night. It's hard to get reservations - they are already booked through Thanksgiving next year. We made our reservations only about two months in advance, and we were blessed to find what was obviously a cancellation. There was only one site available around the time we wanted to be there, and it was available for three nights. We knew we didn't have the luxury of thinking about it or looking further, so we grabbed it - and we're glad we did.

The Florida Keys are a string of hundreds of islands that run from the Florida mainland south of Miami in an arc that swings to the southwest. The string of islands ends in the uninhabited islands of the Dry Tortugas about 60 miles west of Key West. There are 42 bridges connecting the mainland with Key West. The longest is 7 miles long and the shortest is about 110 feet.

After we got set up, we took about a 5-mile drive west to Crane Point. It's pretty easy to find things in the Keys because almost everyone gives their location by Mile Marker. Mile Marker 0 is in downtown Key West and the numbers go up as you drive toward the mainland. Curry Hammock is at MM 55.2 and Crane Point is at MM 50.5.

Crane Point is a nature center and historic site. It is a hardwood hammock surrounded by development. As we learned in the Everglades, a hammock is a high point of ground where larger plants and trees grow. Crane Point is also the site of the historic Adderly house, which belonged to Bahamian immigrants George and Olive Adderly. The house is shown in the photo below.

The dining room is shown in the next photo. The kitchen was in a separate building to protect the main house from the possibility of fire.

George and Olivia Adderly sailed from the Bahamas to the upper Keys in the 1890s and eventually earned enough money to buy 32 acres of land in the middle Keys on Key Vaca. George made a living hunting sea turtles, sponges, and making charcoal.

The Adderly house is the oldest house in the Keys outside Key West. It is built in the classic Bahamian style from tabby, which is a mix of sand, lime (made from burnt shells), and rock. The Adderly house was one of several in a little village, but it is the only one that remains. The others were built of wood and didn't survive fires and hurricanes.

In 1949, after the death of his wife, George Adderly sold his property to Mary and Francis Crane, a couple from Massachusetts. The Cranes soon began construction of the first modern house in the area. The photo below shows the back of the house. The front is somewhat overgrown and is difficult to see.

Although the Cranes did some dredging of the waters and clearing of land to build their house and the access road, and although they did plant some non-native plants to enhance the landscaping, they were ardent conservationists and pretty much left the most of area in its natural state. This preserved the habitat and the history of the hammock. The property remained in family hands after the Cranes passed away.

In 1976, the Florida Keys Land Trust was formed to preserve the hardwood hammocks of the Florida Keys. When Crane Point was in the process of being prepared for sale to commercial developers in 1989, the Florida Keys Land Trust stepped in and was able to purchase the 63-acre property and continue the preservation of this culturally and ecologically important site.

Crane Point is one of the few places left where the Key thatch palm grows naturally. The fronds from these and similar palms were used for thatched roofs. The photo below shows Keys thatch palms.

 

Sea lavender is an endangered coastal plant that grows in South Florida, the Caribbean, and Central America. The photo below shows Margery beside a row of sea lavender plants at Crane Point.

 

Sea lavender blooms almost all year round with the peak bloom period in winter. When the tiny flowers open, they are white. As the flowers get older they turn pink, so the same plant will have various shades of flowers at the same time. The sea lavender at Crane Point was just starting to bloom, so the few flowers that were out were all white.

 

Mangroves are trees and shrubs that grow in tropical tidal areas. They have intricate root systems that, in addition to helping the plants survive, provide unique habitat for marine organisms. Mangroves form dense thickets. They are sometimes called "island builders" because their dense roots trap floating organic matter, which decomposes and eventually forms soil. The photo below shows part of a mangrove thicket at Crane Point. As you can see, these roots are doing their job of island building by trapping organic matter.

 

Red mangroves grow roots that are stilts to support the plant. Oxygen is absorbed by cells of the bark.

Black mangroves grow snorkel roots that stick up out of the water to absorb oxygen.

 

The Marathon Wild Bird Center is also located at Crane Point. The center nurses injured and sick wild birds back to health. This brown pelican was one of many birds at the center. As you can see, its left wing is hanging a little lower than it should.

 

On our way back to the motor home, we stopped at Keys Fisheries and Restaurant. Their huge selection is shown on the menu board on the right, and it took us a long time to decide what we wanted. We finally decided to get a half pound of peel-and-eat shrimp and a crab cake sandwich to share.

We got to enjoy our meal on on the waterfront with a sunset. The seafood is all freshly caught and was delish. It was a little expensive - like everything else in the Keys, but not too unreasonable. Our total bill was a little over $20 including soft drinks.

 

After dinner, we went back to the motor home for a good night's rest. We'll tell you about our newest discoveries in the Keys in the next post.

South Florida's Gold Coast Part III: South Miami

We wanted to investigate the area even farther south around Miami before we headed to the Keys, so we left John Prince Park and drove a little less than two hours to Larry and Penny Thompson Park in South Miami. The park is operated by Miami-Dade County.

We traveled on the day before Thanksgiving - the busiest travel day of the year. Traffic was heavy, especially in the heavily-populated Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area; but, fortunately for us, the heavier traffic and most of the slow-downs were in the opposite direction.

There are fruit trees throughout the campground that are the remnants of a grove that used to belong to the University of Miami. The photo below shows our site at Larry and Penny Thompson Park with an avocado tree to the left.

Larry and Penny Thompson Park is dedicated to the memory of Larry Thompson, a popular humorist and columnist for a Miami newspaper and nature enthusiast. In addition to the campground, the park is also the site of the Miami Metrozoo.

The campground has 240 full-hookup campsites with 50 amp electric. Roads and pads are paved. The campground was fairly quiet the entire time we were there even though it was a long, holiday weekend.

The sites are arranged in 11 circles that are called pods, and there are 20 to 30 campsites in each pod. Most of the the sites around the outside of the circles are nicely spaced, but those on the inside of the circles are very close to the RV behind and the outdoor living spaces and are fairly narrow and face the circular road. When we arrived, they had lost our reservation; but we were fortunate to get a replacement site on the outside of a pod.

When Paul was a kid, he used to go on vacation to Florida with his family. Paul remembered visiting a place somewhere around Miami called Coral Castle. We checked the internet, and sure enough, Coral Castle was still in operation and it turned out to be in Homestead, FL, just a few miles south of where we were staying.

In the early 1900s, a man from Latvia by the name of Ed Leedskalnin was engaged to a young girl named Agnes Scuffs. On the day before the ceremony, Agnes canceled the wedding because she said he was too old and too poor for her. Ed was brokenhearted and soon left Latvia. He went to Canada and eventually came to the United States.

Ed worked in various areas of the country and finally settled in Florida somewhere around 1918 to 1920. He bought an acre of land in Florida City for $12.00. It was here Ed began building a monument to his lost love. Ed used native coral from an ancient reef that sits under only a few inches of topsoil in this area of Florida to carve huge sculptures and stone furniture, all of which were surrounded by thick stone walls.

What is remarkable is that Ed, who was only 5 feet tall and weighed only 100 pounds, built Coral Castle single-handedly without the use of heavy machinery. He used only hand tools, many of which were homemade from old car and truck parts. The carvings, sculptures, furniture, and blocks for the walls weigh up to 60,000 pounds each. Ed continued working on the tribute to his beloved Agnes for 28 years until his death in 1951. The photo below shows Margery approaching the entrance to the castle. Ed used to charge 10 cents for tours.

Coral Castle, which was at first called Rock Gate Park, was originally built in Florida City. Ed was a very private person, and when he found out a developer planned to build a subdivision near him, he bought 10 acres in Homestead, FL, and spent the next three years moving all his carvings 10 miles to the new location where it stands today. The photo below is an overall view of Coral Castle to give you an idea of the size of the place and the number of sculptures and carvings there are.

No one knows how Ed originally cut and eventually moved all the carvings by himself. The pieces were seen traveling down the road on a trailer that Ed made from the chassis of an old truck and that a friend towed for him with a tractor, but there are no reports of anyone ever seeing him loading the trailer. He did a lot of the lifting at night.

In the photo below, Paul sits at a table carved in the shape of Florida. The chairs weigh 1,000 pounds each. The depression in front of Paul is full of water and represents Lake Okeechobee. It is supposed to be a finger bowl for the diners.

 

Another table that targeted Ed's beloved Agnes is the Feast of Love table, which weighs about 5,000 pounds. The heart-shaped table has a heart-shaped centerpiece. Ed couldn't afford fresh flowers every day, so he planted an Ixora plant. The original plant has been in place for 40-50 years.

 

In the photo below, Paul is standing in front of a sculpture called the Moon Fountain. There is a crescent moon on the left representing the first quarter, a crescent on the right representing the last quarter, and a round pool representing the full moon.

  

And the photo below shows Paul at age 14 in the same location when he visited Coral Castle with his family in 1958.

 

Back in 1958, Paul also climbed up to the moon while at Coral Castle.

 

You are no longer permitted to climb on the sculptures or on the walls, so Paul sat in Ed's throne in front of the moon instead. As we said, Ed was only 5 feet tall and weighed only 100 pounds, so it was a bit of a tight fit for Paul.

Coral Castle is conveniently located on the way to Cracker Barrel in Florida City, which is where we planned to have Thanksgiving dinner. We always like Cracker Barrel, because we think they offer good meals at good prices, and Thanksgiving is no exception. The Thanksgiving special includes turkey AND ham, cornbread stuffing, cranberry relish, sweet potato casserole, choice of an additional vegetable, biscuits or corn muffins, beverage, and pumpkin pie all for $8.99. It's not exactly like Grandma used to make, but it's very good; and there's no fuss, no mess, no dishes to do, and no leftovers to store in our smaller refrigerator.

We enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner after our visit to Coral Castle, then we went back to the motor home to relax for the rest of the day. Our stops in South Florida's Gold Coast have proven to be among our busiest ever. There is even more to report, so check back soon.

South Florida's Gold Coast Part I: Palm Beach

We visited Florida's Space Coast, which is the area around Kennedy Space Center. Now it was time to check out the Gold Coast of Florida, which is the area of the Atlantic coast farther south that runs from Palm Beach down to Miami. The Gold Coast includes other cities like West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Pompano Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Hollywood. We usually avoid heavily-populated, urban areas such as this, but we were curious about the area and its glamor. We also needed somewhere to stop on our way to the Keys and this was a convenient distance from New Smyrna Beach.

We drove a little less than four hours south of New Smyrna Beach and pulled into John Prince Park Campground where we had reserved a site. We don't like to make reservations if we don't have to; but the Snowbirds are starting to arrive in Florida, and from what we could find out, John Prince is quite popular so we didn't want to take any chances. It turned out they weren't anywhere near filled yet, but we figure it's better to be safe than sorry.

John Prince Park Campground is beautifully landscaped. The photo below shows our pull-through site in the full-hookup section.

It has tent sites with no hookups, tent and RV sites with water and electric, and RV sites with full hookups and 50 amp electric. Long-term camping is permitted in most of the sites (lakefront sites have a 14-day limit), so they do get their share of Snowbirds. Honey wagon service is available for those in sites without sewer. Roads are paved, but they are a little tight in several spots. The pads are paved in the full hookup and 14-day sections and are crushed shell in the other areas. The size of most of the sites is quite generous; however, a few sites on the inside of bends of some of the roads are close to the site behind.

John Prince Park is located a little to the south and a little inland of Palm Beach, FL, in Lake Worth. Palm Beach County operates the park and campground. The park is located on the northern part of Lake Osbourne which is a 338-acre lake popular for freshwater fishing and boating.

One thing we didn't know about John Prince Park is that it is right next to Palm Beach County Airpark. The airpark is primarily for private planes (propeller-driven only, no jets), but we also saw (and heard) helicopters taking off and landing. Our campsite was located right next to a runway, and the planes were pretty noisy when they hit full throttle to take off. Fortunately, there weren't that many takeoffs, although Sunday seemed to be a pretty popular time for flights, as did the evening before we left (which was two days before Thanksgiving).

Speaking of noise, there are quite a few distant trains. The reason there are so many trains is the tracks are part of the South Florida Tri-Rail transit system that runs commuter trains from from Miami to Palm Beach. The tracks run parallel to I-95 on the far side of Lake Osbourne. Usually, we could barely hear the trains; but if the wind was right, they would sometimes sound quite close. Although it wasn't that bothersome, we could also hear traffic on I-95, especially when everything else quieted down at night. I-95 is 10 lanes wide in this area, and it carries a lot of traffic.

While staying in Lake Worth, we took a ride around the area. We parked and walked down to the beach, and we were struck by how much bluer the water is than farther north in Myrtle Beach or even in New Smyrna Beach. In spite of the cool breeze that day, there were a few people on the beach including one or two swimmers, a few surfers with boogie boards (also called a body board - a small, light-weight surfboard used to support the upper part of your body while body surfing), and a kite surfer. The kite is the little crescent at the left of the photo below.

 

We parked near a pier with the intention of walking at least part way out to get a good view of the beach. Unfortunately, except for a restaurant that was open at the beach-end of the pier, the rest of the pier was closed. It looked like they were doing some renovation on some of the concrete pillars for the railings.

Our research of things to do in the area turned up a DivaDuck Amphibious Tour of West Palm Beach. We always enjoy trolley and mini-bus tours of a place we have never been before. Two years ago, we took a Duck tour of Branson, MO, that we also enjoyed. We thought the DivaDuck might be a good combination land and water tour. The water part of the tour travels along Lake Worth Lagoon (also part of the Intracoastal Waterway), which would be a good way to see come of the expensive, water-front properties.

The Duck tours of Branson used renovated WWII amphibious vehicles. The name "Duck" comes from DUKW, which is a letter code used by GM, the designer of the original vehicles. Unlike the WWII Ducks, the DivaDuck is a newly-built, state-of-the-art amphibious vehicle called the Hydra-Terra built by C.A.M.I., LLC in New York. The vehicle is 39 feet long and 8 feet wide - just a little longer than our motor home. It can seat 46 passengers and 2 crew members and has a 300 hp Caterpillar diesel engine. The captain has a Class C (commercial) driver's license to operate the vehicle on land and is licensed by the Coast Guard as a Master Captain to operate the vehicle in the water.

 

We arrived early and had about half an hour to hang around the plaza in downtown West Palm Beach where the tour starts. The plaza is called City Place. City Place is a mall-like area with expensive shops, boutiques, and quite a few restaurants. In the photo below, Margery is heading into the plaza.

 

At the other end of the plaza, Margery is sitting by the fountain in front of the Harriet Himmel Theater for Cultural & Performing Arts. As you can see from the poinsettias in the first photo and the Christmas tree in the second, City Place was all decked out for the holidays.

After enjoying the plaza at City Place for a while, it was finally time to board the DivaDuck. While the tour spends most of the time in the water, the DivaDuck travels on land for several blocks to the boat ramp at Curry Park where it drives into the water of Lake Worth Lagoon. The photo below shows us heading down the ramp. Notice the label on the paddle hanging over the cab where the captain is sitting.

 

Henry Flagler, the oil/railroad/hotel magnate, was responsible for much of the development along the east coast of Florida. Last year when we visited St. Augustine, we learned how he honeymooned there with his second wife, and then built the Ponce de Leon Hotel a few years later. Flagler also bought up a number of short line railroads and formed the Florida East Coast Railway to carry guests to his hotels. West Palm Beach was originally intended to be the terminus of the railroad, but a freeze prompted Flagler to extend the railroad to Miami. The railroad eventually ran all the way to Key West.

Palm Beach was established as a resort by Henry Flagler. In the late 1800s, Flagler began buying up land on the barrier island of Palm Beach and built the Royal Poinciana Hotel followed by the Palm Beach Inn as winter retreats for wealthy northerners. Flagler founded West Palm Beach on the mainland side of Lake Worth (the lake lies between the barrier island and the mainland) as a community for those who worked on the island. Today, Palm Beach remains a place for expensive hotels, fine restaurants, high-end shops, and homes for the affluent. Although West Palm Beach has its share of fine homes and high-end shops, it is more of a bustling, working city.

Lake Worth was once a fresh-water lake. There were no rivers or streams flowing into the lake - it was fed only by ground seepage from the Everglades to the west. Today, the lake is a salt-water lagoon and is permanently connected to the Atlantic by an inlet. When the inlet was created in 1918, the dredging created Peanut Island at the mouth of the inlet. Although the island was originally named Inlet Island, it was renamed Peanut Island for a planned peanut oil operation which failed in 1946.

Today, Peanut Island has a park with campsites, a reef, a pier, and the Palm Beach Maritime Museum. There are no bridges to the island. The campsites are accessed by boat or water taxi. The museum is accessed by a ferry from the museum preview building located in Curry Park on the mainland. There is also a bomb shelter on the island built in secret for President John F. Kennedy, who occasionally spent time during the winter in Palm Beach.

The tour progressed north on the Lake Worth Lagoon past numerous luxury homes. The house in the photo below was owned by Celine Dion, but she gave her mother this house as a Mother's Day gift. Celine is building another one a little farther to the north.

 

The photo below shows a house that now belongs to an attorney but used to belong to the well-known pianist, Liberace. He had a pool in the shape of a grand piano.

 

Other famous past or present residents of Palm Beach include Ann Coulter (conservative columnist), Donald Trump (business magnate), Ivana Trump (Donald's ex-wife), Madeleine Astor (Titanic survivor and wife of John Jacob Astor), the Kennedy Family, E. F. Hutton (Wall Street broker), Rush Limbaugh (conservative talk-show host), Rod Stewart (singer), Vera Wang (designer), Henry Paulson (U.S. Treasury Secretary), Jimmy Buffet (singer) - just to name a few of the names we recognized.

On the tour, we also learned Palm Beach was named for the coconut palms found growing there. Coconut palms are not native to Florida. In 1878, a Spanish ship carrying coconuts from Havana to Barcelona wrecked and dumped its cargo. The coconuts washed ashore and sprouted on the barrier island now known as Palm Beach.

Another interesting fact we dug up was that, although they may survive for a while, it is likely that coconut palms will eventually be killed by cold weather if planted very much farther north of Palm Beach.

On the way back to the boat ramp, we passed a number of houses on the mainland side of the lagoon. These are still quite impressive and expensive, but not quite as luxurious as the ones on the other side of the lagoon on Palm Island. We also passed a large marina. Some of these boats are HUGE and there were LOTS of them! The photo below shows just a few.

 

Some of the celebrities who currently or used to dock their yachts at the marina include Jimmy Buffet, Magic Johnson, and Tiger Woods.

When we returned to the boat ramp, the captain just drove right up onto the land, and we continued on down the road back to where we started at City Place.

Another interesting attraction that turned up in our research of things to do was the Loggerhead Marinelife Center. The Loggerhead Marinelife Center is an ocean conservation organization and a sea turtle hospital and is located north of Palm Beach in Juno Beach. They are adjacent to one of the most heavily nested beaches in the world. Admission is free, but there is a suggested donation of $5 per adult. The photo below shows the entrance to the center.

 

Sea turtles are generally found in temperate and tropical waters. They are highly migratory, but the females return to the beach where they were born to lay eggs. The loggerhead turtle, along with the green, leatherback, hawksbill, and the Kemp's ridley, commonly nest in the U.S. The loggerhead is most common, but all the above species are either threatened or endangered. The leatherback is the largest at about 6 feet long weighing from 500 to 1500 pounds. The Kemp's ridley is the smallest with a shell length of 2 feet or a little more and a weight of 85 to 100 pounds. The Kemp's ridley is also the rarest and most endangered.

Inside the center, there is an exhibit room with facts about sea turtles (especially loggerheads) and beach ecology. There also is interesting information about shellfish, sand, and coral. There is a display of a cross-section of a simulated loggerhead turtle nest. The turtles mate during migration. The female finds her way back to the beach where she was hatched, climbs out of the water, and digs an egg chamber to deposit her eggs. She then covers the eggs with sand and returns to the water. The female loggerhead will repeat the nesting process up to 9 times in a nesting season. The photo below shows the simulated nest with the hatchlings climbing out.

 

As soon as the hatchlings crawl out of the sand, they head straight for the water. They will spend the first several years of their lives hiding within floating plants, such as Sargassum (which is a brown, free-floating seaweed sometimes also called Sargasso seaweed). The young turtles will eventually leave the protection of the seaweed and head for near-shore habitats such as lagoons and estuaries.

The exhibit also includes a replica of the fossilized skeleton of an extinct sea turtle that was found in our "home" state of South Dakota. At a length of over 13 feet, the Archelon is the largest species of sea turtle that has ever been documented. The photo below shows the Archelon replica.

 

Out back of the exhibit building is the turtle hospital. There are exam and operating rooms where visitors can watch through observation windows if there are turtles being treated. There are also tanks where visitors can view recovering turtles. The photo below shows a turtle named Boo.

Boo was brought to the turtle hospital by fishermen who found him offshore and realized Boo had fish hooks in his mouth. Now that the hooks have been removed, Boo is still slightly underweight and anemic. The web site for the Loggerhead Marinelife Center has a listing of all the current hospital residents and what their ailments are. About 70% of their patients recover and are returned to the ocean.

We are enjoying our time on Florida's Gold Coast. We particularly like the lush, tropical landscaping that comes with being farther south in Florida. There is an even greater variety of palm trees and other tropical plants than there is in parts of Florida to the north. The photo below shows bougainvillea. Although light frost will not kill the plant, it will cause all the leaves to fall off. The leaves will eventually regrow, but here in South Florida, there is little danger of frost.

There is more sightseeing to come along the Gold Coast before we move on to the Keys. Stop back soon to check out our next post.

Florida's Space Coast Part I: Kennedy Space Center

As we headed south from Myrtle Beach toward Florida, we made a one-night stop at McIntosh Lake Campground and RV Park in Townsend, GA. Lake McIntosh Campground has fairly widely-spaced sites, full hookups, and cable. Roads are gravel and sand and the sites are grass and sand. The campground is fairly quiet - they are less than a mile from I-95, and, although you can hear the traffic on the interstate in the distance, the noise isn't objectionable. We got a pull-through so we wouldn't have to unhook our toad. Lake McIntosh Campground is a good place for either an overnight stop or a longer stay. They also have an on-site restaurant, The Lakeside, which is nice after a long day of driving. However, we ate in during out stop. The photo below shows our site at Lake McIntosh.

 

Right across from our site was the lake.

 

From Lake McIntosh, we headed down I-95 the next morning to New Smyrna Beach, FL, where we stayed at New Smyrna Beach RV Park and Campground. New Smyrna Beach RV Park has roads that are sand and crushed shells. The sites are mostly grass. There is a good bit of shade from live oaks in the front section, but the back section has mostly palms, which are less dense. They were very accommodating and gave us a site in the back where we could get good reception with our satellite dish.

Site spacing is fairly generous. The campground has full hookups (including cable) in the RV sites, but there are also tent sites without hookups as well as nine cabins. Wi-Fi is also available. The photo below shows our site at New Smyrna Beach RV Park.

The campground is nice and quiet - no planes, no highway noise, and only a few, distant trains. From our site in the back section, we couldn't even hear the cars passing by on the road that ran past the front of the campground.

New Smyrna RV Park will undoubtedly be filled with Snowbirds in another month or so. Quite a few have arrived already.

We wanted to tour around Florida a little before heading to our winter stop in Bushnell. A stop at the Kennedy Space Center was at the top of the list. The area immediately around the Kennedy Space Center, which includes Titusville, Merritt Island, Cocoa Beach, Melbourne, and Palm Bay, is known as the Space Coast.

When we first began to research campgrounds around Kennedy Space Center (KSC) several weeks ago, we were unaware there was a space shuttle launch scheduled for the evening of the day we planned to arrived. When we found out about the shuttle launch, we were delighted to know we would be so close on the day it was scheduled to lift off.

The shuttle mission is to perform several "home improvements" to the International Space Station. The astronauts will install a new recycling toilet, a new galley, and two new sleep stations. The work is part of a long-range plan to boost the station's full-time crew from three to six.

A little while after dinner, we went outside to wait for the launch. Sure enough, right on schedule at 7:55:39 the sky to the south lit up as the rockets ignited. In a few more seconds, we could see the bright light of the rocket engines coming up over the trees. The photo below is a little blurry because we didn't have a tripod to steady the camera for the low-light photo, but it gives you an idea of how the shuttle launch lights up the sky, even though we were about 35 miles away from the launch pad "as the crow flies."

 

The shuttle arced to the northeast out over the ocean. We could see the booster rockets burn out and fall away. We watched until the shuttle was just a little dot of dim light, then we went back inside and watched a replay of the launch on the NASA channel on our DVR.

A few days after the launch, we drove about an hour to the south to the KSC. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created in 1958. In 1962, NASA established its Launch Operations Center on Florida's east coast. The center was renamed Kennedy Space Center in 1963 in honor of the president who put America on a path to the moon.

KSC is located on Merritt Island (it was once an island, but now it's actually a peninsula) and covers 219 square miles. Only about 9% of the land is developed, and the remainder is a wildlife refuge. Since public access to most of the area is limited for security reasons, the wildlife is very much undisturbed. We saw numerous birds while we were there and even a small alligator near a pond along one of the main roads.

Kennedy Space Center has a visitor complex that has numerous exhibits and shows detailing the past, present, and future of space travel. Tickets are expensive ($38 + tax for basic adult tickets); but the visitor complex is so big and has so much to do, the tickets are good for two days, and you certainly get your money's worth. We managed to see what we wanted to see in one day, but it was a very full day. A bus tour of the facility is included in the basic admission price, but there are also extra-cost tours and programs that would take much more time.

The bus tour of the space center is the primary thing we wanted to do, so we went straight to the bus boarding area as soon as we bought our tickets and got through security. Security is tight, but not as unfriendly as it is in airports. Be sure to check the web site for what you can and can't take in if you're planning a visit.

Shortly after the bus departed, we went by the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) where the shuttle (properly called the orbiter) is mated to the booster rockets and external fuel tank and where the whole assembly is stacked onto the crawler that is used to transport the orbiter to the launch site. The VAB has cranes that can position components weighing thousands of tons to within 1/64th of an inch. The low building to the right is the launch command center.

 

The first stop on the bus tour is the Launch Complex 39 Observation Gantry. One of the two crawlers that is used to transport the shuttle from the VAB to the launch pad is stored near the observation gantry. The crawler itself weighs 6 million pounds and has a carrying capacity of another 12 million pounds. The crawler moves on eight gigantic treads, and its speed when loaded is about 1 mph. It takes eight hours to move the shuttle from the VAB to the launch pad.

From the observation gantry, you can see Launch Pads 39A and 39B. The photo below shows Launch Pad 39B, which is where the most recent launch of the Shuttle Endeavour took place. The white dome is the liquid-hydrogen tank with a capacity of 850,000 gallons.

 

The photo below shows Margery reading about the space shuttle rocket engine that was on display at the observation gantry.

Visitors can stay at each stop of the bus tour as long as they want. When you've seen all you want to see, you just get on the next bus that passes by to travel to the next stop. Buses run about every 15 minutes.

The next stop was the Apollo/Saturn V Center, which details America's moon landing program. At this stop, the Firing Room Theater re-enacts the Apollo 9 launch. The simulated control room is set up using some of the original consoles from the Apollo 9 flight. Apollo 9 was the first flight with the Lunar Module on board the spacecraft.

There is also a Saturn V rocket on display. The Saturn V is a multi-stage, liquid-fueled rocket used for NASA's Apollo moon program. The photo below shows the "business end" of the 363 foot long Saturn V rocket.

 

Also on display was a Lunar Rover that was used for astronaut training.

And what would a moon-landing exhibit be without a moon rock? They have a two samples on display including a small slice from a rock that you can actually touch. The sample was brought back from the Apollo 17 mission. Margery said it felt very smooth.

The Lunar Theater depicts the first moon landing (Apollo 11) using taped footage of the flight and scale models that are about a one-third life-size.

The third and final stop on the bus tour was the International Space Station Center. The International Space Station (ISS) is a cooperative effort of the U.S., Russia, eleven European countries, Japan, Canada, Brazil, and Italy. Work on the ISS began with the launch of the first segment by Russia in 1998. Several other modules have been added since that time. The ISS has been continuously manned by various groups of astronauts since November 2, 2000.

At the ISS Center, there are displays of modules that you can walk through. The photo below shows a module with biotech experiments.

 

In the photo below, Margery is looking at a "Waste Management" module with the toilet on the left and the shower on the right. Her facial expression seems to be saying, "Is this what I think it is?"

At the ISS Center, you can also climb up to the mezzanine and look down on actual ISS modules being assembled.The assembly takes place in an ultra-clean environment to prevent any type of contamination. All the workers must wear shoe covers, bonnets, masks, and disposable suits called "bunny suits."

In the photo below, the Japanese are working on their experiment module, Kobi (Japanese for "hope").

The Kobi project is Japan's first facility for manned space activities and aims to conduct astronomical observations of Earth and other celestial bodies. It is scheduled to be completed in time for a 2009 launch.

After we toured the ISS Center, the bus took us back to the visitor center where there was still much to see. Check back in a few days for our next post or you can sign up to receive e-mails of our posts. We have more to share about what we learned at the Kennedy Space Center.

Well, it looks like our decision to winter in Florida this year was a good one. There are several RVer's blogs and several online RV discussion forums that we follow, and there are many people complaining about the cold weather in the southwest. For the most part, the temperatures here in Florida have been in the 70s with lows in the 50s and 60s, but we have had several cool days. Paul and Molly walk the trash to the dumpster almost every day, even when it's downright chilly. :)

We have had a lot of sun, but we have also had a some rain. The rain is welcomed by the locals since the area is in a drought. The photo below shows a rainbow that appeared right after a storm. It was one of the most vivid we had ever seen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we mentioned in our last post, the site we had at Blueberry Hill RV Resort wasn't available for as long as we wanted to stay so we had to move to another site on Jan. 15. The new site looks pretty much like our old site, so rather than bore you with another picture of a similar site, we thought we would show a couple of shots of the rest of the campground. In the photo below, the large building is the club house with the pool area to the right surrounded by palm trees. The horseshoe pits are in the center of the picture.

On Tuesday and Friday, "Bob" brings his truck loaded with a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables to sell at the campground.

The next photo shows the newly built ponds in front of the shower house. Even though all the sites at Blueberry Hill have full hookups and even though almost all the RVs are larger motor homes and 5th wheels, the showers are very nice and are used by a quite a few people.

Since we were only about an hour from the Florida State Fairgrounds near Tampa, we drove down for the big Tampa RV Super Show. We still aren't in the market for a new RV, but we just wanted to see what was new just like last we did last September at the Hershey Show. Our test drive of a motor home on the new Workhorse UFO (Universal Fuel Option) chassis was canceled at Hershey because of electrical problems with the coach, but Paul finally got to drive one at Tampa. He was impressed at the excellent handling and quietness of the coach.

There was more to see at the show besides RVs. Here are sand sculptors working on their projects.

We also signed up for a Spanish class at The Villages. The Villages is a community development about 30 minutes from our campground here in Bushnell. The Villages consists of numerous gated housing plans, each with its own pool and community center. Each plan has areas of homes in several price ranges. There are two major shopping districts in The Villages (Spanish Springs and Lake Sumter Landing), numerous golf courses, a woodworking shop, a polo field, fitness centers, a community garden, an archery range, libraries, schools, and numerous medical facilities including a hospital. The Spanish classes, along with a number of other classes, are sponsored by The Villages Lifelong Learning College. After an initial enrollment period for residents of The Villages, any remaining openings in the classes are opened up to the surrounding community. The class is total immersion which means the instructor speaks in Spanish for most of the class. Paul has a natural propensity for languages and is picking it up very well which makes him a great tutor for Margery who's waiting for the Spanish light to come on...which the instructor promises will happen. We'll see. :)

We have been enjoying our stationary time here in Florida. In addition to swimming, biking, and learning Spanish, we also joined a Tai Chi class here at the campground. Tai Chi is the short name for Tai Chi Chuan (meaning supreme ultimate force), which is based on a Chinese martial art. In the western world, the name has been shortened to Tai Chi, and it is practiced as an exercise for its health benefits and the martial art aspect is deemphasized. It is a slow-motion excercise of various movements which build muscle tone, strength, and balance. It is also supposed to reduce stress, but retirment went a long way toward that for us. Although Margery's bad knees prevent her from doing all the moves, she does those that she can. The photo below shows Paul learning one of the moves for Tai Chi called Parting the Horse's Mane.

Speaking of Margery's knees, we attended an informational seminar sponsored by the Florida Knee and Orthopedic Center regarding knee resurfacing. We decided to schedule an evaluation, and it turns out that Margery is an excellent candidate for partial knee resurfacing of both knees. Her doctor up north recommended waiting until the pain was unbearable before doing anything about her knees but the progressive debilitation has been frustrating. Since partial resurfacing is not as extensive or as invasive a procedure as knee replacement, it opened up new possibilities. Although partial resurfacing has been around for something like 28 years, many doctors don't do it, perhaps because early surgeries had mixed successes. This particular medical practice, though, has been on the cutting edge (no pun intended) of knee replacements since 1983 and improvements in implant design, instrumentation, and surgical technique has given them a very high success rate. Anyway, without getting into all the pros and cons, we decided now was a good time for Margery to proceed with partial resurfacing and the first knee is scheduled for January 29. If all goes well, we will only have to extend our stay here in Florida a week or two in the spring. The second knee is scheduled to be done 4 weeks after the first and she should be well on her way to recovery by the time we get back on the road just before Easter. The possibility of being able to hike some trails in Yellowstone and the Tetons this summer has her really excited.

We wish you all the richest of blessings in 2008.

We took time back in July to reflect on our first 12 months of full-timing and at the start of 2008 we again thought about our travels for the last calendar year. If we had retired when we originally planned, we would be just finishing our first six months on the road. It's amazing to think that with our early retirement, we have been traveling full-time for 18 months now. For us, we're glad the first year is over. Now don't get us wrong, it was a year of amazing adventures and incredible sights, but the comfort level in our nomadic lifestyle is much higher with one year under our belts. In 18 months, we logged 19,851 miles, stayed in 98 different locations and traveled through 24 states. Everything we read about this lifestyle encouraged us to take our time...it's a lifestyle not a vacation. But we couldn't help ourselves! It took us a year to slow down. We now make it our goal (for the most part) to spend a minimum of one week at each stop.

After spending our requisite one week minimum at Lake Louisa State Park to visit Disney, it was only about an hour drive to the northwest to our next stop in Bushnell, FL. Last year, we stayed in Florida only through Christmas because we wanted to go to Quartzsite, AZ for the big RV gathering in mid-January. We also wanted to check out other possible winter locations in Arizona and south Texas because we knew the west was less crowded than Florida and campground prices were generally lower.

After checking out the west, however, we decided we would spend most of the winter in Florida this year. Although we liked the southwest, we liked Florida better as a location where we would be spending several months at a time. Margery was the most reluctant about wintering in Florida but there are a number of things which have changed her mind. Here in central Florida, we're in a rural, agricultural area so it's not crowded and very pastoral. Because there are so many live oaks in this part of Florida, the trees are still green and the Spanish moss make it feel very "southern" along with the occasional palm trees. The pastures here are, for the most part still green, too. Being so far south, even on the shortest day of the year, it still stays light until almost 6 p.m. To top it all off, the local community is already signing up youngsters for baseball. Ya gotta love it!

After leaving Disney last year, we stayed at the Escapees Sumter Oaks Campground in Bushnell. Sumter Oaks is a nice enough campground and the camaraderie of fellow Escapees is always great, but Sumter Oaks is at least 60% shaded. As we have said before, we like sunny campgrounds not only for our satellite, but also for warmth in cooler months.

We drove by Blueberry Hill RV Resort many times last year (it's right next to Wal-Mart), and on the recommendation of fellow RVers we met in Mission, TX in March, we decided to investigate Blueberry Hill further. Well, we liked what we saw and the prices were roughly comparable to Sumter Oaks so we made reservations through February. Because we made reservations at a fairly late date, we unfortunately couldn't get one site that was available for the entire time. Therefore, we will need to change sites in the middle of January. On one hand, that's an inconvenience; but on the other hand, Paul is a little uncomfortable leaving the motor home sit for such a long time. Since we have to pack up to change sites anyway, we just may drive up the interstate an exit or two and exercise the drivetrain of the motor home and maybe stop by the local LP dealer and fill the propane tank if we need to.

Blueberry Hill is right off I-75. That makes it very convenient when we want to go anywhere, but there is some traffic noise from the interstate. However, the interstate is to our west and if there is a breeze from the east (which there is much of the time), the traffic noise is minimal. We are in the back section of Blueberry Hill, which has very wide, grassy sites. The front section of the park has paved, pull-through sites, but they are fairly close together. We heard the reason the rear sites are extra wide is because they were originally intended for park models. While there are a few annual renters with park models at Blueberry Hill, it looks like the idea never really took off and the majority of the sites have RVs on them. The photo below shows our current site at Blueberry Hill.

As expected for a snowbird campground, Blueberry Hill has plenty of planned activities for the winter months. We aren't big joiners, but we have participated in a few activities and we're trying to meet new people. We went to a Christmas carol sing-along and to a white elephant gift exchange. The gift exchange was a lot of fun. It was a good excuse get rid of a couple of things from the rig that were still in good condition, but that we never really used. As your number was called at the gift exchange, you could either choose to open a wrapped gift from the table or "steal" an already-opened gift from one of the other people who had gone before you. If someone "steals" your gift, you can take another turn and either open another wrapped gift or "steal" a gift from someone else. It was fun to see what items turned out to be popular. Some of the items changed hands at least a dozen times. Who knew so many people would want that ceramic cookie jar shaped like a cardinal or that rubber alligator with the bikini! Margery ended up with a wallet and Paul got involved in a series of wild exchanges and ended up with a can of cashews. Yum! :)

Margery also joined the morning water aerobics class. The pool is heated, so the class is held as long as the air temperature is 60 degrees or above by the 10:00 AM starting time. Those who have been around in previous years say it usually warms up quickly enough in the morning that the class only gets canceled infrequently. Water aerobics is a good way for Margery to get some exercise without putting unnecessary strain on her knees. It's also a good way to meet people and to find out some of the latest campground news. The photo below shows Margery in the pool.

Speaking of the weather, it has been fantastic! The normal highs are in the 70s with lows in the 50s. The weather pattern seems to be that a cold front comes through about every two or three weeks and the highs drop to the 50s and the lows drop to the upper 30s for about two days. Then the temperatures pop right back up to the 70s.

When the first cold front was predicted about a week after our arrival in Bushnell, Paul got to work on a little project we had been planning. We picked up some acrylic sheet at Lowe's, and Paul proceeded to cut it to fit the screen door. It is held in place with some little plastic turnbuttons. With the plastic in place, we can keep the door open on cool days and enjoy the extra light while keeping out the cold air. The plastic can be removed and stored behind the couch in warmer weather.

With the door open, we were able to watch these blue birds flit around outside the door.

When the second cold front came through, the weatherman predicted the low might drop to the lower 20s. The citrus growers and farmers really had to scramble to try to protect their crops. Fortunately, the temperature didn't go as low as expected and the farmers' hard work paid off so there was very little crop damage. Here's Paul outside our favorite roadside stand where we get fresh-squeezed orange juice. We stopped the day they were preparing for the predicted freeze.

We spent a quiet Christmas. In the morning, we opened the gifts that Lora and J. Michael had mailed to us. Here is Paul opening chocolate-covered orange rinds - one of "Candyman's" favorites.

Margery got a wine sampler from a winery Lora and J. Michael discovered in Gibsonia. The bottle is actually three smaller, uniquely-shaped bottles that nest together and look like a regular wine bottle.

In the afternoon, we went to the Christmas dinner put on by the campground. They served ham, scalloped potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green beans, with cupcakes for dessert. The price of the dinner was reasonable, there was plenty to eat, and the food was pretty good. We enjoyed meeting a couple from Nova Scotia and hearing about their cross-country adventures on a motorcycle last year before they put their house on the market and went full-time. We didn't realize that Canadians are limited to 182 days visiting the United State each year.

One of the great things about living in an RV is that it's such a small space, we don't need many Christmas decorations. It took us all of 4 minutes to take everything down and put it away. About half that time was spent getting the plastic bin out of and back into the outside storage compartment. The photo below shows Margery packing away our three or four decorations.

In the week between Christmas and New Years, the campground really filled up. On Christmas, probably over one third of the sites were still empty. A couple of days after Christmas, RVs started streaming in. By New Years eve, about 90% of the sites were filled. The campground expects the rest of the sites to fill up during January and, except for a few possible cancellations, they are booked solid for February.

Blueberry Hill sponsored a New Years Eve party that had a live band that was supposed to be quite exceptional, but we held on to our own New Years tradition. For at least the last 15 years or so we have rented a bunch of movies to watch at home. We have our own quiet little party with a few special snacks. We struggle to stay awake until midnight, watch the ball in Times Square drop, wish each other a happy New Year, then head off to bed. This year was no different.

Since the holidays, we have been riding our bikes around the campground fairly often. The campground roads are not only all paved, but they are wide and level, too. After our ride we sometimes stop by the game room for a couple of games of pool. There are four tables that are seldom used so we never have to wait. In the photo below, Margery is lining up a shot.

This is our longest stop in one location, and it is a welcomed change. It's also afforded us the opportunity to research and plot our 2008 travels with renewed enthusiasm...kind of like vacation but at a slower pace. :)

As we left St. Augustine for our Christmas preview at Disney, we had time to reflect on our second Christmas on the road. We are enjoying a simplified celebration with a minimum amount of fuss, and we have found it to be a great opportunity to better understand and enjoy the true celebration beyond the trappings and trimmings of the season. It has afforded us the opportunity to move past the familiarity that contributes to our missing the true wonder and mystery of what God did that first Christmas. We certainly miss spending Christmas with the family in general and Lora and J. Michael in particular; but we don't miss the snow and cold! However, it doesn't matter if you're enjoying warm weather or cold weather, we see the frenzy of the season everywhere. Our prayer is that you, too, will experience a renewed wonder at how and why Jesus entered this world as He did and that your life will be transformed in eternal ways.

It turned out to be a little longer drive from St. Augustine than we thought, especially with getting on the Florida Turnpike going in the wrong direction. After a slight detour, we arrived at Lake Louisa State Park mid-afternoon. Lake Louisa State Park is located about 30 minutes northwest of the entrance to Disney toward Cleremont, FL. Last year we stayed near Kissimmee. Lake Louisa is only a few minutes closer, but it was an easier drive and a nicer campground.

Lake Louisa State Park has paved roads and gravel pads with grass and brush between sites. The sites are very widely spaced and the campground is quiet. Most of the sites have water and electric only, but we got one of the few sites that have sewer. The sewered sites also have paved pads and seem to have been designated handicapped sites at one time, but there are no handicapped signs now and no one asked to see a handicapped permit when we checked in. The only minor complaint from Paul was that some of the back-in sites, including ours, were curved making it difficult to fit a longer RV around the bend.

Last year we purchased The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World, which we highly recommend. Since we hadn't plan to return in the near future and since we are always looking for ways to reduce unnecessary weight in the rig, we had left the book at the book exchange at a campground. So after we decided to return to Disney this year, we stopped in a book store and found Mini Mickey, which is a condensed version of the Unofficial Guide by the same people at about half the price. The information is somewhat reduced from the big guide, but Mini Mickey is smaller making it easier to carry it with us and was more than sufficient for us since we had been at Disney a year ago.

This year, we were more selective in planning our visit. We concentrated on the shows, including some of the street entertainment, and a little less on the rides.

One ride we didn't want to miss was the Safari at Animal Kingdom. Guests (as Disney calls its visitors - employees are called cast members) are loaded onto a safari trucks and are taken right out into the areas where the animals are kept. The means by which the animals are controlled are cleverly camouflaged and difficult, if not impossible, to see. Shown below is one of the safari trucks.

This year, there seemed to be many more animals visible than last year. Maybe it was the time of day or maybe it was the fact that it was cloudy this year that the animals weren't hiding to escape the heat. Unfortunately, since it was cloudy, it was difficult getting good photos. The camera had to keep the lens open longer because of the lower light level and this, combined with the movement of the truck, caused many of the photos to blur. At any rate, we did get a few animal photos including these rhinos...

...and this one of a lioness perched atop a rock.

Photo Album 026: Disney 2007 has more Safari photos.

One show we missed last year was Finding Nemo - The Musical at Animal Kingdom. We had dismissed it as being too juvenile. Boy, did we realize how wrong we were when we saw it featured on a program about Disney on the Travel Channel! The characters in the musical are puppets; but, rather than being hidden, the puppeteers are also in costume and are part of the production. The puppeteers use not only their voices, but also facial expression and body movements to help communicate the story. Unfortunately, since flash photography was prohibited, it was hard to get a good shot since lighting was low and the action was pretty fast. In the shot below, you can just make out puppeteers with coral and sea fans. A few of the main characters are at the left of the main stage and up on the ledge.

We also enjoyed seeing Animal Kingdom's Festival of the Lion King again this year. Festival of the Lion King is a big production musical with large, animated animal characters from the Disney animated feature Lion King. There are also actors in colorful native African and animal costumes. We had seats down on the floor right next to all the action. The photo below shows one of the characters on stilts towering above us.

Photo Album 026: Disney 2007 has more photos of the Festival of the Lion King.

Over at Disney-MGM Studios, we saw Lights, Motors, Action, which is an auto/motorcycle stunt show. They use specially designed and built stunt cars to show how some of the stunt sequences would be filmed for an action movie. There are car chases, motorcycle chases, jumps, falls, gun fights, all ending in a fiery finale.

After the stunt show at MGM, we took in Beauty and the Beast - Live On Stage. This musical is entertaining with colorful costumes as shown in the photo below.

Also at MGM is the Osbourne Family Christmas Light Spectacular. The Osbourne Family (not Ozzy) had a huge light display at their home in Arkansas. As their light display grew, so did the crowds. When legal action threatened to end the Osbourne Family tradition, Disney offered a venue to display the lights at Disney-MGM Studios. The lights are now displayed at The Streets of America, which is a replica of a New York street setting. Stringing of the over 4 million lights begins in August. Needless to say, the light display is very impressive! About every 10 minutes or so, the lights begin to "dance" to the Christmas music. There is even "snow" that falls from the upper stories of the buildings. The photo below shows a view down the main street.

More photos of the Osbourne Family Christmas Light Spectacular are in Photo Album 026: Disney 2007.

On the way to the Magic Kingdom, the monorail passes the Grand Floridian Hotel. We stopped briefly because we wanted to see the gingerbread house in the lobby. The house is covered by real gingerbread and they sell gingerbread cookies out of the back of the house.

As we went around the lobby, we paused for a photo with the Christmas tree in the background.

Then we hopped back aboard the monorail and headed for the Magic Kingdom. Although the Magic Kingdom is generally aimed at a younger crowd, there is still a real charm about it with Cinderella's Castle right in the middle. There are also a number of rides such as Space Mountain and Thunder Mountain for those who like things a little wilder. We generally avoid wet rides, fast rides, rough rides, and anything that has "spin" in the name or description.

This year, we purposely went to the Magic Kingdom later in the day because we planned to stay for the fireworks. Times for the fireworks vary by day from 6:00 to 9:00, so we planned to be there on a day when they would be early. We arrived just in time for the afternoon parade and got a fairly good spot in one of the handicapped sections so Margery could stay seated on her scooter and still be able to see. The photo below is a float featuring Mickey and several of his movies.

Check out Photo Album 026: Disney 2007 for more photos of the parade and of other views of the Magic Kingdom.

After the parade, we walked around a little and then took up a spot at the railroad station for the fireworks. We got there just in time to see them lower the flag in a ceremony where they have several veterans as guests of honor.

The fireworks were excellent as expected. While waiting for the fireworks, we watched the sun go down and the lights come up on Main Street and on Cinderella's Castle.

Epcot is probably our favorite Disney park. Paul especially likes the ride Soarin' which makes you feel like you are riding a hang glider with your feet dangling and with a panoramic view of mountains, rivers, ocean, and other spectacular scenery before you. There is even the smell of pine along a mountain stream and the smell of oranges as you fly over an orange grove. Although motion sickness does bother Margery a little on this ride, she gamely went along to keep Paul company.

Another attraction we really enjoy is Living With the Land. This is an indoor boat ride through the past, present, and future of agriculture. It includes Disney's demonstration greenhouse where real crops are being grown using the latest experimental techniques including various types of hydroponics. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants in nutrient solutions instead of in soil. Disney uses various methods to circulate the nutrient solution including the vertical tube shown in the center of the photo below. The cherry tomato plants suspended from the oval-shaped track behind the tube have exposed roots which can be seen hanging down below the plants. The machine circulates the plants through tunnels where nutrients are sprayed onto the roots.

They also use various methods of soil culture using techniques such as an overhead trellis or intensive planting to increase yields. Many of the crops grown in the greenhouses such as the bananas shown in the photo below are served in some of the Disney restaurants.

For more photos and information on Disney's greenhouse please see Photo Album 026: Disney 2007.

During the Christmas Season, Disney has a Candlelight Processional across from the United States Pavillion in the World Showcase at Epcot that is not to be missed. While a guest celebrity reads the Christmas story from the Bible, a 50-piece orchestra and a 150 member choir intersperse the reading with sacred Christmas music that ends with a moving performance of "The Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah. (There's not "Frosty the Snowman" or "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" to be heard!)

The other show at Epcot that is not to be missed is IllumiNations. This is a spectacular show of fire, water, lights, sound, lasers, and fireworks that is scheduled every night at 9:30 in the Seven Seas Lagoon, which is surrounded by the World Showcase. There are several times during the show when the fireworks are intense enough to read by. We got there early enough to get a front row viewing location and we could feel the heat from the flames.

As we made the rounds of the various Disney parks, we made a point of watching some of the street entertainers. The street entertainers quickly set up and begin performing at various locations. Even though it looks like the performance is spur of the moment, nothing in Disney is unplanned. There are schedules available to find out when and where the street performers will be. The guys in the photo below are called the JAMitors. They push a couple of dumpsters full of trash cans through Epcot and they look like a cleaning crew. When they get to their designated location, they stop, set up their cans, and proceed with an entertaining percussion show.

Then there is the group in MGM shown below called Mulch, Sweat & Shears. They look like gardeners with a pickup truck and trailer full of rakes and plants. They park the truck and next thing you know, there are amplifiers, drums, a keyboard, and guitars and they are singing away.

We also watched a presentation from High School Musical 2 in Disney-MGM Studios. It was obviously a promotion for the Disney movie, but we enjoyed the entertainment. The kids were so talented.

Speaking of the kids who are cast members, we overheard another guest saying they had talked to some of the kids from one of the shows. The kids can be in several performances a day. Between performances, they may change costumes and be in a parade or two. On top of that, they may also change again and be one of the Disney characters (Cinderella, Snow White, Goofy, Buzz Lightyear, etc.) who meet and pose for pictures with the children. They really earn their pay!

We enjoyed the slightly less frantic pace we had at Disney this year. We had plenty of time to see pretty much everything we had planned, including some shows we missed last year and several things after dark. But the Disney complex in Orlando is huge and there will always be more to see on our next visit, whenever that will be. From Disney, it's on to our winter destination in Bushnell, FL where we will spend a few months.

From Charleston, SC, we continued our southward journey stopping at Ocala National Forest where we stayed at Salt Springs Campground. While Ocala National Forest has a number of campgrounds, most have no hookups. Salt Springs Campground, however, has full hookups and is a nice quiet campground with paved pads and numerous trees - mostly pines and live oaks. Still, there are quite a few sites with potentially good satellite reception. With the discount we got with our America the Beautiful Pass, this was a nice place to chill out for a few days at a lower price than some of the tourist areas we had been in recently.

After spending four days at Salt Springs, we headed northeast to St. Augustine on Florida's Atlantic coast where we had reservations at Indian Forest Campground for a week. Indian Forest has gravel roads, packed sand/grass pads, and scraggly grass between sites. Indian Forest is very convenient to St. Augustine; but that means they are located on a main road into town with the accompanying traffic noise, especially since they are very close to the road. Many of the sites are shaded, but the owners graciously gave us one of the sites in the center of the main loop where there was full sun.

St. Augustine is the oldest continuously-occupied, European-established city in America. We had followed primarily British history up until now with our visits to the Historic Triangle of Williamsburg/Yorktown/Jamestown, Charleston, and with last year's visit to Savannah. We had touched on the history of Spain in the New World with our visit to the Alamo in San Antonio and to the Southwest in general, but now it was time to learn about Spain on the eastern side of the continent.

Florida was discovered in 1513 by Juan Ponce de Leon, whose name means Prince of Lions in English. Although there were prior Spanish settlements, they all were abandoned due to hurricanes, famine, and warring native tribes. The city of St. Augustine was established in 1565 by Pedro Menendez de Aviles. This founding date is 22 years before British "Lost Colony" on Roanoke Island in 1587 (when supply ships finally returned 3 years later, the original colonists had vanished), 42 years before the British colony in Jamestown, and 55 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.

The 208' tall stainless steel cross in the photo below marks the spot where Pedro Menendez is said to have landed on September 8, 1565.

As soon as the landing party was ashore, they celebrated a Mass of Thanksgiving and afterward, Menendez laid out a meal to which he invited as guests the native Seloy tribe who occupied the site. The meal probably consisted of cocido, a stew made from salted pork and garbanzo beans, laced with garlic seasoning, and accompanied by hard sea biscuits and red wine. If the Seloy contributed to the meal, the menu could have included turkey, venison, gopher tortoise, seafood such as mullet and sea catfish, maize, beans, and squash.

Although the thanksgiving at St. Augustine was celebrated 55 years before the Puritan-Pilgrim thanksgiving at Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts, it did not become the origin of a national annual tradition. During the 18th century British forces won out over those of Spain and France for mastery over the continent. Thus, British observances such as the annual reenactment of the Pilgrims' harvest festival in 1621 became a national practice. After the U.S. became an independent country, Congress recommended one yearly day of thanksgiving for the whole nation to celebrate. George Washington suggested the date November 26.

In 1863 during the bitter struggle of America's Civil War President Abraham Lincoln established the last Thursday in November as a National Day of Thanksgiving, making it truly a national holiday. The President urged prayers in churches and in homes calling on the "whole American people" wherever they lived to unite "with one heart and one voice" in observing a special day of thanksgiving, and to "implore the interposition of the Almighty to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it...to full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and union." We don't know how football got into it. :)

Last year when we visited Savannah, GA, we learned that Savannah had several forts to protect the new colony from the Spanish. In fact the British colonies of Georgia and Carolina were so worried by the Spanish that they attacked St. Augustine several times. Their efforts to expel the Spanish by force were unsuccessful. After the French and Indian War, the 1763 Treaty of Paris gave Florida and St. Augustine to the British. Florida was ceded back to Spain at the end of the American Revolution in 1783 in recognition of Spain's assistance to the Colonies during the war. A little later, however, Spain was being invaded by Napoleon and was struggling to retain its colonies. Spain turned Florida back over to the United States in 1821.

One of the reasons the British Colonies were unsuccessful taking St. Augustine by force was the strength of Castillo de San Marcos, a fort built by the Spanish to protect the city. For over 100 years, St. Augustine was protected by a series of wooden forts. Construction of a masonry fort which was called Castillo de San Marcos was started in 1672. The Castillo is built from a locally available stone called coquina, which literally means "little shells." Coquina is made up of fragments of billions of sea shells bonded together by time and pressure. It is fairly soft so it is able to absorb the impact of cannon balls without cracking making it an ideal material for a 17th century fort.

The fort is built in a star shape. The bastions projecting out from the corners of the fort provide a variety of angles of fire from the gun deck atop the walls, including the ability to trap anyone foolish enough to try to scale the walls in cross fire.

The entrance to the fort, which is shown below, was protected by a tidal moat and drawbridge.

Inside the fort, the chapel can be seen in the center of the wall which faces the entrance.

In the photo below, the white line just below the horizon and to the right of the muzzle of the cannon is the surf breaking at the mouth of the harbor about 3 miles away. This is just within range of the cannons.

Paul remembers his childhood visit to St. Augustine. The photo below shows Paul at Castillo de San Marcos in 1956.

Here is Paul during our recent stop at Castillo de San Marcos near the same location as the 1956 photo. The fort has changed a little since 1956. Paul has changed a lot!

Castillo de San Marcos is only a small part of what there is to see in St. Augustine. We think a guided tour is in order and will do some research to see which one we like the best.

Blessings of the Season!

This is our first Christmas on the road. Having sold everything, including all the decorations, we were pleased to find this nativity on the wall in the country of Mexico at Epcot's World Showcase, to put on our bulletin board.

We're looking forward to a simplified holiday where we are not exhausted with work, decorating, shopping, wrapping, cooking and entertaining. To be sure, we'll miss the family in general and Lora and J. Michael in particular, but we're not missing the frenzy.

We wish for you some quiet moments to reflect on the greatest gift we could receive...a relationship with our Father through His Son Jesus, that we might enjoy abundant life in Him. May He who is worthy of all our praises bring peace, hope, and love to all your days.

Following our Savannah explorations, we headed for Disney World. Last time we visited was in 1979 when our daughter, Lora, was 6; and at that time there was only the Magic Kingdom. Because this time we were staying about 35 minutes from the park, we opted for 7-day tickets which we used over 9 days.

We had purchased "The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2007" by Bob Sehlinger while in Savannah. It was well worth the $20. In researching for our visit, we found that the addition of Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and MGM, can make a vacation overwhelming.This book was an invaluable tool for strategizing to make the best use of our time and to see everything we wanted to see. It helped us answer the questions: Where can we get the best price for tickets? How to do Disney on a budget? What is the best way to navigate the WDW complex for parking and getting into the parks? What is Fastpass and what is the best way to use it? How can you beat the crowds during each park's busy days? ...and many more we wouldn't have even thought of.

The first week of December is supposed to be one of the "slowest" weeks of the year for visiting Disney. It still seemed very busy to us, and we couldn't believe the number of children who were out of school for a Disney vacation, but we never had to wait more than 10-15 minutes to get on any ride and never needed to use a Fastpass. We kept saying we couldn't even begin to imagine Disney in the middle of summer or during Christmas week.

One of the things we enjoyed the most was the Candlelight Processional in Epcot's World Showcase.

It is a retelling of the Christmas story narrated by different guest celebrities during the season. (Dancing with the Stars' Mario Lopez was the narrator the night we saw it.) A 400-voice choir, joined by a 50-piece live orchestra tell the story of Christmas in words and music. It was a moving performance. We were blessed to have been there.

Everything at WDW is well-done. We found only one or two exceptions to the pleasant, extremely helpful, and well-informed "cast" members. Everything is immaculate EVERYWHERE...including the corners in the bathrooms! They are ingenious in their ability to move large numbers of people and they make waiting entertaining by cast members engaging the crowd ...from skipping rope to playing the Hokey Pokey .

Some of the highlights of our visit were:

MGM - Extreme Stunt Show;

Fantasmic, a production that uses lasers,images projected on a shroud of mis, fireworks, lighting effects and music in stunning combinations.

Animal Kingdom - Safari, Festival of the Lion King and the Tree of Life.

and Epcot - Soarin';  Living with the Land; and Illuminations, the after-dark program of music, fireworks, erupting fountains, special lighting and laser technology.

We enjoyed taking the monorail to re-visit the Polynesian where we stayed in '79. We also wanted to see the The Grand Floridian Hotel first-hand. We had read that it was beautiful.

We concur.

The last day we went to the Magic Kingdom. As much as we enjoyed the other parks, the Magic Kingdom IS the essence of Disney World...and it is still for young and old. You can view more pictures of a Disney Christmas in Photo Album: 010: Disney in December.

Following our trip to Disney, we headed to the Escapee park, Sumter Oaks, in Bushnell where we plan to stay through Christmas. In addition to our Nativity, we have simple decorations which are working well. A quilted Christmas table runner, a wreath hanging on the outside of the motorhome, and some greenery around the bulletin board, and we're ready for the holidays.

The Saturday after we arrived, we were able to see the space launch of Discovery from the campground. Against the dark sky we were able to watch the Discovery rise above the horizon, drop the booster and, continue until it  looked like a bright star. We were amazed that we could still see it three-quarters across the state.

Next week we'll gather with other folks here at the campground for carols and hot chocolate around a campfire and there's dinner on Christmas in the rec room. Contrary to what I always believed about Christmas in Florida ("Seasons Greetings" on a card with pink flamingos and palm trees), Christmas decorations seem to be about the same as in the north... even the inevitable snowman!

On December 28, we'll leave Florida to head out to Arizona for Quartzsite. Held every January, Quartzsite is a small town of 2,000 people the rest of the year but swells to over 1,000,000 over the winter months. We'll be camping on the desert with upwards to 40,000 - 50,000 other RVs. We should have some tales to tell.

We'll post our adventures of our trip to Arizona on the weblog in mid-January. We wish you and yours a happy new year!