Living Our Dream

A Little More Hangin' Around

Bushnell, FL - Events of Thursday, March 6 to Sunday, March 10, 2013

The weather here in Florida had been very changeable lately. Cold fronts have been passing through at least once a week, and each cold front that comes through brings with it clouds and sometimes rain. Although we prefer sunny weather, Florida needs the rain. Not only that, but the clouds can also make for some beautiful sunsets like the one shown in the photo below.

Sunset at Blueberry Hill

It was nice to get out to Bok Tower and Tarpon Springs to do some sightseeing recently, but in between the sightseeing, we are still busy with daily activities, chores and errands. Those things go on whether you live in a stick house or an RV.

One of the things we have been doing just about daily is working with Freeway to reinforce the training from the intermediate obedience classes we enrolled him in at PetSmart in January and February. The most important things he is learning are to sit, stay and come when there are distractions present like other people, other dogs, different sounds or favorite toys. We are also trying to get him to recognize and obey hand signals. We mix his training with play to help make the training fun.

Freeway will come most of the time when we're inside the motor home; and he will come, at least some of the time, when we're playing with him outside where there are more distractions. He's also pretty good with stay even when we add diversions like rolling his ball right past him - as long as we don't roll it too close and too fast. If it gets too close and it's going too fast, excitement sometimes overcomes Freeway and he tries to grab the ball as it goes by.

In the exercise shown in the next two photos, we have Freeway stay then walk in a circle all the way around him several times. Freeway can follow with his eyes, but not with his body.

Freeway, stay!

Freeway practices stay while Paul walks around him

We can see progress because the times he comes are more frequent, and he can stay for longer and longer periods with more and more distractions.

While we're on the subject of Freeway, we have mentioned before he needs frequent combing because he has long, fine hair that tangles easily. He also needs frequent baths, especially now that he is spending more time training and playing outside in the dry Florida grass and loose, sandy soil. We have to make sure we comb Freeway before his bath because any tangles that are starting to form before the bath get much worse when we shampoo him. Freeway doesn't mind the bath so much, and if we happen to catch him in the right mood, he doesn't mind the combing either. Margery usually does the combing and bathing, but Paul volunteered to take on the combing task before one of Freeway's recent baths. Sometimes he fights us when we try to comb him, but the next photo shows what he's like when he's mellow...he just lies back and relaxes.

Paul combing Freeway before his bath

Since the weather was cool, Margery decided to blow dry Freeway rather than let him air dry. Freeway's favorite way to be blown dry is to have the dryer placed on the floor so he can lie down and scoot along the carpet in front of the dryer and dry himself.

Freeway using the blow dryer on his terms after his bath

By the time the weekend was approaching, we realized we had several errands to run in the area of The Villages. Since the Market of Marion is located a short distance north of The Villages and since it is open on Fridays during the winter, we decided to head there on Friday morning and make our other stops in The Villages on our way back to the motor home. That way we could mix a little fun with our errands.

We weren't in a big hurry to get going in the morning, so we didn't get to the Market of Marion until about 11:00. We parked in one of the side lots where there was a vendor making and selling chainsaw carvings.

Chainsaw carvings

Bears are always a popular subject for chainsaw carvings. We thought the expressions on the faces of the ones done by this vendor were especially cute.

Closeup of bear's face

It was a nice day so the market was fairly busy. We waited for a lull in the foot traffic to take the next photo looking down the main aisle so it doesn't look quite as busy as it was.

View down the main aisle of the Market of Marion

Margery liked the purse she got earlier this year at the Market of Marion, and she decided to look for the same purse in a different color. Unfortunately, the vendor she bought from before didn't have a purse in a style and color she liked. She checked several other vendors who had similar purses, but no luck there either. Oh, well...the one she has will do fine, and we saved a couple of bucks.

We did get some produce. The market usually has a nice selection at reasonable prices.

Produce aisle

We got a bunch of asparagus, a basket of tomatoes for our sandwiches, a basket of poblano peppers to make poblano pesto (great on turkey sandwiches) and an eggplant. We found a cool eggplant that had a nose. The eggplant was a little bigger than we needed; but because it was nice and firm and so cute, we took it.

Eggplant with a nose

From the market, we drove to The Villages and made stops at Lowe's, Sam's Club and Kohl's. After making all our stops, we conveniently found ourselves near OakWood Grill, and it just happened to be mid afternoon. Actually, it wasn't a coincidence - that's the way we planned it. The reason we weren't in a big hurry to leave in the morning was so we didn't get to OakWood too early and hit the lunch rush. Also, Margery having to cook dinner on a day we eat lunch out is a definite no-no. Therefore, when we plan to eat out, we usually have "lupper" in mid-afternoon that takes the place of both lunch and supper.

In addition to loving the baby back ribs we had the last two times we went to OakWood, we also love their delicious smoked turkey and beef. They also have pulled pulled pork, chicken and smoked sausage; but the ribs, turkey and beef are our favorites.

Margery had a beef sandwich lunch special that includes a drink and one side for $7.49. She added Swiss cheese to her sandwich and had onion rings for her side. Paul had a smoked turkey lunch plate that included two sides (he chose lima beans and slaw) for $7.99. Our lunches were delish! The meats are always so moist, tender and smoky.

Turkey lunch plate (top) and beef sandwich

Margery and her beef sandwich and onion rings

We headed back to the motor home and relaxed during the evening. Saturday brought more chores with cleaning the inside of the rig and dumping. After church on Sunday, we relaxed some more and watched the NASCAR race from Las Vegas.

Our time in Florida is winding down, and we still have several things we would like to see and do before we leave; but as we said, the weather has been very changeable. There is another cold front and more rain predicted, so we'll have to wait and see if we get a break. In the meantime, Paul has another inside project planned that he can do regardless of the weather. We'll tell you all about it in our next post.

Florida Wrap-up

Bushnell, FL - Events of Friday, March 23 to Monday, March 26, 2012

Staying in one spot for three or four months has its advantages and its disadvantages. The advantages are that it provides some down time when we can relax from our busy summer schedule of travel and sightseeing. It also provides time to work on projects. The disadvantage is we (Paul especially) start to grow roots. This year was especially bad for Paul. All the woodworking he had to do to install the residential refrigerator made him long for a workshop. Also, the winter was mild even for Florida, and there seemed to be more flowers blooming everywhere. That made Paul wish he had a garden. However, once we begin planning the details of the routes to our first couple of stops and thinking about new adventures, and once we start thinking of some of our old, favorite places, we begin to get excited again about hitting the road.

As we spent our last few days in Bushnell, we began preparing for our departure. On Friday, we started putting things away inside the motor home and got rid of a few items from our storage compartments we weren't using anymore. Paul checked the oil in the car and motor home, checked the air pressures in the tires and cleaned the windshield on Saturday. Margery caught up on laundry on Monday.

Another thing we did over the weekend was to make a final check of the travel latches we plan to use for the new residential refrigerator. When he finished the installation, Paul had a couple of different methods in mind to hold the doors closed while we were in transit. The method we decided on was a pair of child-proof locks on the bottom drawer to hold the freezer closed and Velcro around the handles to hold the refrigerator doors closed. We also got some spring curtain rods to use inside the refrigerator to keep the contents from shifting.

We found nice child-proof locks at Walmart that can be disabled by pressing the red button to keep the lock in the open position. Since we don't have kids to worry about, we'll be able to keep them disabled while we're parked so we won't have to remember to press the latches every time we want to open the freezer.

Child-proof latches to hold the freezer drawer closed while in transit

Velcro for the refrigerator doors

The child-proof locks got mixed reviews in evaluations that were available online. Most of the complaints were with the locks breaking or coming off (they are held on with double-sided adhesive), but most of the problems seemed to come when household members forget about the locks or when guests don't know how the locks work try to rip the refrigerator open. Since we'll only be using the locks while we're in transit, we hope we don't have that problem.

On Sunday, Pat and Mike invited us to a farewell dinner at their rig. We had a delicious dinner of Mexican lasagna and plenty of good conversation. After dinner, we all went for a walk around the campground.

Dinner with Pat and Mike

Monday was our last full day in Bushnell, and we finished up a few odds and ends in the morning, then went to The Villages for a late lunch at OakWood Grill. OakWood has delicious ribs and smoked pulled pork, beef and turkey.

OakWood Grill

Margery had a half rack of ribs with slaw and fries ($9.95), and Paul had a smoked turkey lunch platter with slaw and lima beans ($7.99).

Paul is ready to dig in.

Ribs and smoked turkey

The ribs were fall-off-the-bone tender with just the right amount of sweet barbecue sauce, and the turkey was tender and moist. There are hot and mild barbecue sauces on the table, but Paul likes the sweet, smokey flavor of the turkey so much, he doesn't think it needs sauce.

In spite of eating out a good bit lately, we are both doing well with our diets. In fact, after following the Belly Fat Cure Diet for about 6 months, we have both reached our target weights. Paul has lost over 30 pounds, and Margery has lost almost 20. However, Margery is considering a new, lower target.

Now that we have reached our targets, we have begun to replace some of our baggy shorts and jeans and over-sized tops and T-shirts with clothes that fit better. We can't afford to replace everything all at once, so we're doing it a little at a time.

Margery and Paul with new wardrobe

On Monday evening, we took a walk past Pat and Mike's 5th wheel to say our final good-byes. We had a good time getting to know them better and having our friendship grow. We will stay in touch and maybe cross paths with them again during the summer before we all return to Florida in December.

On Tuesday morning we pulled out of Blueberry Hill heading for points north. We'll have an update in our next post.

Winding Down and Winding Up

Bushnell, FL

Our time here in Bushnell is rapidly winding down. Soon we'll be getting ready to wind up to begin our spring and summer travels. We'll be heading to South Dakota this year to renew our drivers licenses, but we'll be taking our time getting there so we'll be sure it will be warm. After South Dakota, we are tentatively planning to go back to Santa Fe by way o Denver and southern Colorado before meandering back east for doctor appointments in the Pittsburgh area in the fall.

In a few more days we'll be joining flocks of snowbirds heading north out of Florida, and we expect the roads to be somewhat crowded. Blueberry Hill is starting to look empty because quite a few people have headed north already. Except for the first week or two of March when there were numerous retirees, families, and several rallies here on spring break, Blueberry Hill was never very full this year. Now as we approach the end of March, we're really getting lonesome.

Although we got to do some sightseeing this winter, we had intended to do a little more. One reason we didn't was because after a fairly hectic summer of travel again last year, we just didn't feel like going out too often. The other reason is we were spending a good bit of time working on putting the third year of our online blog into book form. We finished that up and got the hard copies last week. We're real pleased with the results.

We explained how we published our books is a post last year, but we thought we would touch on it again. We use blurb.com that provides free software called BookSmart that makes it possible to extract the text and photos from most of the popular blog-hosting sites. You can use one of their templates or customize the layout to suit your individual needs and desires. Of course, getting the content downloaded is the easy part. Formatting the text and photos for a custom layout, which is what we do, takes a lot of time. BookSmart can be used to create many kinds and sizes of books. The next photo shows a page layout for of one of our books.

And the next photo is a screen shot taken during a page edit and shows the custom layout process. Boxes are created for text and photos, then sized to fit with each other on the page.

Laying out the book for our third year of travel took longer than the books for our first and second years because we did such extensive traveling and sightseeing our third year, our blog wouldn't all fit into one book. Not only that, but we also have been increasing the number of photos we put into the blog. We wanted to make the photos a nice size so we can see them better when our eyes get older, so we decided it would be necessary to expand to two books for our third year.

As soon as we uploaded our information to the blurb website and ordered the two books for our third year of travel, they sent us a digital coupon for 20% off any future purchase. Since we only order one copy of each book, the books are fairly expensive. (The more copies you order, the less expensive they are per copy.) Therefore, we decided to try to finish the book for our fourth year before the coupon ran out on April 4, especially since we knew the book for our fourth year would also have to be expanded to two books. Margery is working hard doing the main layouts, and Paul with his engineer's eye is making sure all the edges of the text boxes and photos are lined up and straight. So far, we finished Year 4 Part 1, and we're making good progress on Part 2 so we think we'll make it.

The next photo shows the custom-designed cover for one of our Year 4 books.

With the weather warming up (it's been in the mid-80s), Margery decided she needed some new sleeveless lops, and she did some shopping at Kohl's online. Unfortunately, when the tops arrived, some of them were too big. When she went online to order them in a smaller size, they were out of stock already. Therefore, she decided we needed to take time off from working on the book long enough to run up to Kohl's in The Villages to make returns and to see what they had in stock in the store.

Since we have been slaving over a hot computer much of the day recently, we decided taking time off to go to Kohl's would also be a good excuse to go out to eat. We were both hungry for Chinese food, so Margery found good reviews for China Gourmet III. China Gourmet has three locations, one of which is in a strip mall in The Villages near Kohl's.

Like the new Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant near the Walmart in Bushnell that we tried last year, China Gourmet specializes in take out, although they do have a several tables inside. You order from the extensive menu at the counter.

China Gourmet has a lunch special from 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM for $5.25 that includes an entree, soup, and fried rice. Margery had egg drop soup, and Paul had wonton soup for starters.

We both love General Tso's chicken, so that's what we both had for our entree. We also ordered egg rolls which were excellent.

The restaurant is nothing fancy (food is served on plastic plates and in styrofoam cups with plastic tableware and on plastic table cloths); but the food is good, especially for the price, and there's plenty of it. We almost couldn't finish our meals.

With a moderately successful shopping trip to Kohl's and having had a good meal, we headed back to the motor home. We got back just as the rain started, and just as the weather radio went off. That was the start of 24 hours of wind (45 mph gusts), rain (over 7") and weather alerts (severe thunderstorm and tornado watches and warnings). There was some wind damaage (possibly from a tornado) in the area (especially farther south toward Tampa), but we fared well.

The forecast is calling for clearing weather which is what we need to be able to check tire pressures, check oil, and put things away in preparation for our departure. We'll let you know where we end up in our next post.

Freezing in Florida

It's too cold! We're going to Florida. Hey! We're already in Florida! Well, if we're in Florida, how come it's so DARN COLD?

Along with much of the rest of the country (and many parts of the world - a number of people recently died in Great Britain due to abnormally cold weather), Florida experienced colder than normal temperatures over the past two weeks. Records for cold temperatures were broken all over the state. So much for global warming.

During past winters we spent in Florida, we have always hit one or two cold spells with a few nights down as low as the mid 20s. But this year, with the exception of one night when it was about 38 degrees, we have had almost two weeks straight with nighttime temperatures at or below freezing. We had one day when the temperatures didn't get out of the 30s in Bushnell; and there were several nights when it hit 22 degrees.

The farms and orange groves here in Florida are struggling to keep their crops alive. Oranges are OK as long as it doesn't get below 28 degrees for more than four hours. If it gets colder than that, they sometimes spray the trees with water to form an insulating layer of ice. If oranges freeze, they can still be used for juice, but they have to be processed within a few days. When there is a hard freeze all the processing plants are jammed, and they can't process all the oranges in time.

The landscape nurseries, like the one in the photo below, also spray plants with water during a freeze. This photo was taken a little later in the morning after things began to thaw, but ice still clings to the fence and grass in the foreground.

Crops like corn and tomatoes can't stand frost, much less a freeze, and frost can even occur at temperatures above freezing if the air is very clear and still. Fortunately, the vegetable farms are located a little farther south of where we are, but the cold extended all the way down to Miami. There was a story on the news about farmers hiring helicopters to fly over their fields to try to blow warmer air from aloft down onto their crops.

Just as the temperature looked like it was going to start to moderate (we actually hit a high of 60 degrees one day), another cold front came through with precipitation during the day and overnight. The next morning there was even snow and freezing rain almost all the way down to Orlando. Bushnell is a little northwest of Orlando, so we were included in that area. Yes, that is sleet that has collected at the base of our car windshield...

 

...and on the cover for our bikes.

These unusually low temperatures have curtailed our sightseeing, but Paul made good use of our time indoors to do an indoor repair project. He had been wanting to replace some discolored caulk around the kitchen sink. When he noticed a few drops of water under the sink, he realized the seal around the drain in the bottom of one bowl of the sink was leaking, and he decided to repair the leak and recaulk the sink sooner rather than later. As you can see, removing the sink required dragging everything out from under the sink, which made quite a mess in the confines of the motor home.

It's been two years since Margery had partial knee replacements in both knees. The mobility she gained has truly been a blessing. This fall, however, she began to experience pain around both her knees. She knew the knee joints felt good, but was perplexed by the sometimes bothersome pain. A visit with the orthopedic surgeon last week confirmed that all was still well with her knees. The cause of the pain is unknown...bursitis? tendonitis? Bottom line is the knees will never be as good as God made them originally. It is what it is. So we will enjoy her mobility, take it easy as needed, and be grateful for the blessings of each day.

The forecast is finally predicting somewhat warmer temperatures. We have friends from up north stopping by in a few days, so we'll probably schedule some sightseeing with them. Plus, we have another motor home improvement project in the works, so keep looking for our posts.