Living Our Dream

Hangin' Around Summerdale

Summerdale, AL - Events of Saturday, May 5 to Monday, May 7, 2012

We don't have a lot to report on this week. The weather in lower Alabama has turned hot and humid, and along with the humidity came a chance of showers. We had two days of almost solid rain (over 2 inches) with several days of partly to mostly cloudy weather, so we haven't gotten out to do any sightseeing.

Saturday was one of the nicer days of the past week, but we don't like to go sightseeing on the weekend if we don't have to. However, we did drive down to Bon Secour on Saturday to pick up some fresh shrimp at Billy's Seafood.

Billy's Seafood

As we have mentioned before, Billy's Seafood is a packing house that ships seafood caught by the local fishing fleet to locations all over the United States. They also sell retail to the public.

The town of Bon Secour is located along the Bon Secour River just before it empties into Bon Secour Bay, which is in the southeast corner of Mobile Bay. We always like to see the picturesque fishing boats tied up along the river.

Fishing boats along the Bon Secour River

We had the shrimp for dinner that evening prepared our favorite way. Margery sautés the shrimp in a little butter and garlic, then she adds a splash white wine and a bit of Old Bay seasoning to the skillet as the shrimp cook for the last few minutes. We eat the shrimp dipped in melted butter. Yum! Tastes like lobster.

Other than going to Billy's to buy shrimp and running a few other errands, we have just been hanging out at Rainbow Plantation. Paul finished a few chores like polishing our aluminum wheels and cleaning the carpets in the motor home, and we have just been relaxing, reading, surfing the 'net and watching TV.

We try to take Freeway for a walk every day after dinner, but we had to skip several days because of rain or the threat of rain. On Monday, the temperature and humidity were down a little, and the sun was peeking through the clouds, so we stopped by the new dog park here at Rainbow Plantation to let Freeway run and play.

Freeway loves to chase his tennis ball. Even in the motor home, he'll drop the ball, or some other toy, at our feet and bark until we throw it. Then he'll race to the back of the motor home to get the toy and start all over. We usually get tired before he does.

We took his tennis ball to the dog park. However, someone had left a golf ball there, so we played with that instead. Paul picked up the golf ball and threw it. Freeway chased after it, but when he got to it he was a little wary because the golf ball was smaller, harder and denser than the tennis ball he is used to.

Freeway was a little wary of the golf ball at first.

It didn't take Freeway long to figure out the ball was OK to play with, however, and he picked it up and ran it back to Paul.

Freeway playing fetch with a golf ball

Margery got into the act throwing the golf ball for Freeway.

It seemed like Freeway would have chased that ball all night, but after about 20 minutes, we could see he was getting warm so we let him sit to cool off a few minutes before heading back to the motor home.

Freeway cooling off after playing fetch

We have noticed lately that the co-op sites and the campground here at Rainbow Plantation have been emptying out as the weather warmed up. When we headed down the road toward the motor home on our way back from the dog park, we could see how empty our row was.

Empty sites at Rainbow Plantation

We only have a short time left at Rainbow Plantation ourselves, but we still have a few things we want to try to squeeze in. Stay tuned.

More Good Eats

Summerdale, AL - Events of Sunday, April 22 to Tuesday, May 1, 2012.

Margery's birthday was a week ago Sunday. To celebrate, we drove down to the Shrimp Basket in Foley for lupper. The Shrimp Basket is a chain of about a dozen restaurants in southern Alabama and in the Florida panhandle. They serve a variety of seafoods that are available steamed, grilled, blackened and fried.

The birthday girl had fried clams and Paul had fried shrimp. We both had potato salad and cole slaw for our sides.

We celebrated Margery's birthday at the Shrimp Basket.

We had fried shrimp and clams.

The seafood at the Shrimp Basket is good, and it is reasonably priced. Sandwiches are $6 to $9, baskets are $9 to $14, and dinner platters are $11 to $13. There are all-you-can-eat specials for popcorn shrimp, fried fish and steamed shrimp on certain days of the week. The baskets and platters include hush puppies, slaw and a choice of potato. Not only are the entrées good, but so are the sides. The slaw has tiny shrimp in it, the new potatoes are served swimming in melted butter, and the potato salad has bacon.

Later in the evening, we enjoyed some cake we had purchased at Walmart when we stopped there on the way home from church. Some of the bakery items at Walmart are pretty good, and they have a few selections available as single servings. The slice of cake we bought was big enough for us to share.

Later in the evening, we shared a piece of birthday cake.

Several days later, we had some errands to run, and we conveniently finished up in time to stop for a late lunch at L.A. Barbecue, which is located on the main highway (US 59) in Summerdale. When we first noticed L.A. Barbecue a few years ago, Paul wondered what anyone from Los Angeles would know about barbecue. However, we soon realized L.A. in their name meant Lower Alabama, not Los Angeles. Alabama isn't as well known for barbecue as North Carolina, Memphis or Kansas City; but most barbecue places in the south know how to make good pork barbecue, so we decided to give them a try.

L.A. Barbecue doesn't look like much from the road, but it is a lot bigger inside than it looks.

L.A. Barbecue has sandwiches from $4 to $7, lunch platters from $6 to $8 and dinners from $9 to $13. They also have barbecue and ribs available by the pound and side dishes by the pint, quart and gallon. We both had a chopped pork lunch platter. Paul had lima beans and potato salad for his sides, and Margery had cole slaw and potato salad.

Chopped pork lunch platter at L.A. Barbecue

Margery about to dig into her chopped pork barbecue

The pork had a hint of smoke, and it was moist and tender. There were bottles of sweet and tangy barbecue sauce on the tables. Paul liked the tangy, which had a little vinegar in it, and Margery liked a mixture of the sweet and the tangy. There were also several different types of sauces (including North Carolina, mustard and 4-alarm hot) available on a serving table near the order counter.

The following Monday (April 30), we had a real hankerin' for a sandwich at Panini Pete's, so we headed over to Fairhope. After a brief stop on the way at a health food store to look for some low-sugar/low-carb spaghetti sauce, Margery, who was driving, commented the car seemed a bit sluggish like the parking brake wasn't fully released. Uh, oh. That is the same symptom we had back in January when we had the problem with the front brake caliper hanging up. We stopped, and Paul got out to feel the temperature of the wheels. They were all just warm to the touch - nothing out of the ordinary, so we drove on the last few miles to Panini Pete's. On the way, we started to smell hot brakes; and when we parked, the same left front wheel that was a problem before was now noticeably warmer than the others.

Since it was after 1:00 PM, we realized time was of the essence if we wanted to try get the brake fixed before the repair garages closed for the day, so we decided to skip lunch and head for a Pep Boys repair shop a few miles away. We drove slowly to avoid overheating the brake, and we even stopped for a time to allow the brake to cool a little.

Pep Boys

We're used to seeing Pep Boys as large auto parts stores that also have service bays. Pep Boys recently bought out Big 10 Tires in this area, so they have a bunch of locations that are service only.

To make a long story short, we drove away from Pep Boys with a new left front brake caliper, a new left front brake line, a resurfaced left front brake rotor, and a $365 charge on our Visa account.

The first time we had the brake problem when we were in Florida, the shop we stopped at there rebuilt both front calipers. The theory was the phenolic piston in the left front brake caliper had absorbed moisture from the old brake fluid. The moisture caused the piston to swell and hang up which caused the brake to drag excessively and overheat. The other front caliper was rebuilt as a precaution. Rebuilding the calipers gave us all new pistons, and bleeding the brakes got rid of the old brake fluid.

Unfortunately, there was obviously something more going on than just moisture absorption (like corrosion in the bore of the caliper where the piston rides), so replacing the entire caliper this time should resolve the problem. The other thing that can sometimes happen is the interior of the flexible brake line that goes from the frame to the wheel can delaminate and block the release of pressure in the line and cause the brake to drag. Therefore, replacing the brake line will insure that potential problem has also been eliminated.

Fortunately, we detected the problem quickly this time so no real damage was done to the brake pads or the rotor, and they didn't have to be replaced. The shop just resurfaced the rotor just in case it had been warped by the heat.

It was almost 5:30 when they finished. The repair itself didn't take long, but the shop had to wait for the parts to be delivered from the other side of Mobile, which took almost 2 hours because the parts truck was already out on another run, and they had to wait for it to get back before they could send it out with our parts.

We went back to the motor home hungry and weary, but grateful we dodged a bullet a second time with the brakes. Both times we were near a repair shop instead of out in the boondocks where we would have had to be towed in for repair. We're also grateful we were able to get parts both times so the car wasn't tied up overnight, and we're really grateful the brake didn't hang up while we were towing the car behind the motor home. If that had happened, we wouldn't have known about it and the brake could have overheated to the point where it could have started a fire.

We still had a hankerin' for a sandwich from Panini Pete's, so we gave it another try the following day with much greater success. We found a good parking spot on main street just down from the restaurant. We like the quaint, thriving downtown area of Fairhope with all its boutiques and beautiful flowers at various locations along the streets and on every corner.

Beautiful flowers along the streets of downtown Fairhope

We know we've shown pictures of the patio at Panini Pete's before, but this time the picture was taken by Pete himself. He happened to be walking by just as Margery was taking a picture of Paul, and he offered to take a picture of both of us.

Paul and Margery on the patio at Panini Pete's

We love going back to Panini Pete's because we know we will get a good meal every time. This was one of the best, maybe because we were all juiced up the day before and we came up short due to the problems with the car.

We both had the house-roasted turkey panini. It has mozzarella cheese (also house-made), baby greens, roasted red pepper and Dijon-garlic aioli on fresh-baked foccacia.

House-roasted turkey panini

We have been eating out quite a bit, but we are still doing well with our low carb/low sugar diet. Paul is maintaining his target weight very well, and Margery is still loosing about half a pound or so a week.

We have about another two weeks in Summerdale. We know we'll come up with some more things to do, so look for our next post.

Motor Home Project Part II: Reupholster Dinette Chairs

Summerdale, AL

As soon as we finished reupholstering the valences, Paul started in on re-covering the dinette chairs. We have two upholstered chairs we use every day and two wooden folding chairs we store under the bed and only use when we have company.

Upholstered dinette chair before

Although the upholstered seats on the folding chairs still looked new, the two everyday chairs were pretty worn.

The seats on the chairs we use every day had started to look dull compared to the folding chairs we only use occasionally.

The first part of re-covering the chairs was to remove the old fabric. Like the valences, there were hundreds of staples; and like the valences, Paul wanted to preserve the pieces of material so he could see how they were cut, fit and folded when it came time to put on the new fabric.

Paul removed hundreds of staples from the old fabric on the chairs.

Paul had prepared a detailed cutting chart for the material for the chairs just like he did for the valences. He used the old pieces of fabric to double check his sizes and then proceeded to cut all the pieces of new material using the ¼" plywood on the bed as a cutting table.

Then came the assembly. Paul put the new fabric on in the reverse order of taking the old fabric off.

One of the last items to be assembled was the band around the bottom edge of the seat. Margery sewed up new welting for the top edge of the band using her trusty Singer Featherweight, then sewed the welting to the material for the band.

Margery sewed welting for the chair trim on her Singer Featherweight.

Paul cut the trim band to length after stapling it to the chair seat.

The band gives the chair a little more detail and a more finished look rather than just wrapping the fabric for the seat down around the bottom and stapling it underneath.

We simplified the seat back and eliminated the sewn ribs because we would have had to sew through both the fabric and the foam. We were confident the Featherweight had enough power to penetrate through both the foam and the fabric, but we didn't think the Featherweight be able to feed the thick foam through the presser foot.

Dinette chair after

Folding chair after

Our final task was to make new throw pillows for the sofa. We had ordered enough of the fabrics we used for the valences to make two pillows. The pillows have the solid color on one side and the tropical leaf pattern on the other. Margery sewed the pillows on her Featherweight leaving an opening big enough to get her hand inside to stuff them with polyfill. After the pillows were stuffed, she sewed the opening shut.

Stuffing one of the pillows with polyfill

The stuffed pillow was a little hard to handle to get the opening sewn shut.

Finished pillows

The upholstery project took us about two weeks to complete working off and on between doing other things. We're pleased with the results.

Finished valences, chair and pillows

Now that we have finished our big upholstery project, we need a little relaxation. However, we also have a couple more restaurants we want to hit and a little sightseeing we want to do while we're in Summerdale, so stay tuned.

Motor Home Project Part I: Reupholster Valences

Summerdale, AL

We finally finished the project we have been working on for the past couple of weeks. Since we were working on it between doing other things, we didn't know how long it was going to take, so we just held off reporting on it until it was done.

Last year, we started to realize our dinette chairs were starting to look a little worn, and we also thought our valences looked a little dated and faded. There is a fabric outlet in Summerdale, AL, so when we were at Rainbow Plantation last fall, we checked out their upholstery fabric.

In order to do the upholstery project, we wanted to get three coordinating fabrics - a pattern for the horizontal tops of the valences, a matching solid color for the vertical legs of the valences, and a coordinating geometric pattern or texture for the dinette chairs. When we didn't find fabrics we liked at the fabric outlet in Summerdale, we looked at Joann Fabrics in Pensacola. Finding nothing there either, we began to search for fabrics online

After we requested numerous samples from several online companies, we found a pattern we really liked for the tops of the valences. However, we still needed the two coordinating fabrics to go with it, so we kept looking.

When we got to our winter stop in Bushnell, FL, we finally found the other two fabrics at Joann Fabrics in The Villages, but they didn't have enough in stock to meet our needs. Therefore, we ordered what we needed for the coordinating materials from Joann Fabrics online store, and we also ordered the pattern we liked for the top of the valences from the other online company.

We were so busy in Florida this year with the refrigerator project and all, we never got to the upholstery project. We stored the long rolls of fabric along the bed, and Margery has been tripping over them since January.

Since we're going to be in Summerdale for a while, we figured it was a good place to redo the upholstery, so we got started shortly after we arrived and worked on the project over the period of a couple of weeks between other activities. We started with one of the smaller valences on the end of the living room slide. The next photos show the valences before and after.

Valences before

Valences after

To replace the fabric on the valences, we first had to remove all the old fabric. There are hundreds of staples in each valence. Removing them was tedious, especially since Paul wanted to remove the fabric from the first valence carefully so he could preserve the pieces in case he needed to know how they were cut and folded.

Each valence had hundreds of staples.

Paul began to cut the new fabric right after he removed the old. Even though we ordered a little extra material, Paul wanted to be sure we could get everything we needed from the amount of fabric we bought, so he had a detailed cutting chart showing the size and orientation of each piece.

Paul used a piece of ¼" plywood on the bed as a cutting table.

After the fabric was cut for the first valence, Margery sewed decorative braid to the bottom edge of the top piece.

Margery sewing decorative braid for the valences

Then Paul began the assembly. Part way through the first valence, Paul's stapler quit working. He spent the rest of the day trying to fix it without success. The following day, we went to Lowe's (with a stop at Panini Pete's for lunch afterward) to buy a new stapler.

Paul's old stapler was an Arrow T50, which is a reliable, tried-and-true design that has been around for years and years. However, the T50 does require a fair amount of pressure on the handle to get it to fire, so Paul bought a T50 Elite at Lowes. The T50 Elite has a design similar to the T50, and it uses the same staples; but it is supposed to have an improved, ergonomic design and new firing mechanism that makes it easier to squeeze. Since there were going to be so many staples required for the upholstery project, Paul thought a stapler that was easier to squeeze was an excellent idea.

The T50 Elite was a little easier to squeeze, but it unfortunately has one major design flaw as well as a couple of minor ones. There is too much play in the handle so when you squeeze it, the handle can move sideways and hang up on the frame causing the staple not to fire. Paul checked, and all the T50 Elite staplers in the store were the same. Having the stapler not fire a staple when you need it is a major problem, especially with an upholstery project. When you get a piece of fabric stretched and positioned just the way you want it and then you don't get a staple, it is very frustrating. By the time you reposition your hand on the stapler so the handle isn't being pushed sideways when you squeeze it, you lose your grip on the fabric with your other hand. The nose of the T50 Elite stapler also has a slight reward taper making it impossible to get staples close to an inside corner. The third problem with the T50 Elite was that Paul thought it was more difficult to load staples into it than the old T50. Paul returned the T50 Elite the next day and bought a standard T50 just like his old one. It works much better than the Elite.

With the new T50 stapler, Paul was able to continue on and finish all the valences over the next week or so, and you can see the results in the after photo above. We're really pleased with the results. We love the tropical-looking foliage, and we think it adds a fresh, new look to the motor home. Stay tuned, and we'll show you how we reupholstered the dinette chairs.

Freeway Gets Clipped and Snipped

Summerdale, AL - Events of Monday, April 16 to Wednesday, April 18, 2012

On Monday, we decided Freeway was long overdue for a haircut. We had him groomed the first two times at PetSmart at their discounted rate of $16 for puppies under 5 months of age. Now that Freeway is a little over 5 months old, we would have to pay the full price for grooming, which starts at $40. Therefore, we bought a new cordless dog-grooming clipper so we could groom him ourselves. We used to groom our previous dog, Molly, so we figured we could learn to do Freeway as well. The clippers even came with a DVD showing how to groom different parts of the dog and how to groom different breeds. We will probably stick with a puppy cut for Freeway, which is the simplest type of cut where the dog is essentially clipped to the same length all over.

Freeway's coat is very fine, and it tangles easily. The tangles eventually turn into knots, so we need to brush him often. Grooming starts with an extra-thorough brushing so the clipper doesn't hang up on the tangles.

Grooming starts with a thorough brushing.

A short time ago, we ordered an arm to mount to a table to hold Freeway still for grooming. We found it works well for the thorough brushing as well.

When we had Freeway groomed at the PetSmart in The Villages, the groomer mentioned using a slicker brush, which we have, to help get out tangles. She also advised getting a metal comb. The metal combs that are available for dog grooming have smooth, round, metal teeth. Unlike plastic combs, the metal comb glides through Freeway's coat. What a difference! The metal comb really makes it easy to keep the tangles out.

The brushing was followed by a bath to remove dirt and grit in Freeway's fur that could dull the clippers. After blow-drying Freeway, Paul started clipping.

Paul grooming Freeway

The hardest part of grooming Freeway for the first time ourselves was deciding how much to take off. The clippers come with several comb attachments that make it easier to maintain an even cut, and we used the longest one for Freeway. We finished up trimming Freeway's face with scissors. That part is going to take a little practice because he fidgets a lot, especially when you stick a pair of scissors in his face. It was hard to get his face trimmed evenly, but we thought he looked pretty good for our first try.

Freeway's first home grooming

Freeway got clipped on Monday, and he had an appointment at the vet to get snipped on Wednesday. When Margery was a little girl, her family always had female dogs, and our first two dogs were females. All the females were spayed. This is our first experience with a male dog, and Paul was feeling a little uneasy about having freeway neutered. However, we had no plans to breed Freeway, and we want to be responsible pet owners to help reduce a pet population explosion. Neutering also eliminates potential problems with aggression and marking in males.

Finding a vet in an unknown area is almost as challenging, if not more so, than finding a hair dresser. Our first year on the road, we had to take Molly to the vet numerous times. In all, we visited at least 6 vets between Pittsburgh and California. Each visit included the first-visit exam (at the going rate for new patients) in addition to diagnosis and treatment of her problem (which ended up being a deep-seated bladder infection). It was a very expensive first year! About a year before Molly died, we discovered Banfield Veterinary Services which is a national "chain" available at most PetSmart stores. Now, Freeway's records are available at any Banfield in the country. It makes the continuity of care from one city to another so convenient...and cost effective. We also took advantage of the Puppy Early Care Plus Wellness Plan. For $39/month, we get unlimited office calls/exams, vaccinations, diagnostic testing, and neutering services. We don't know if we'll continue a plan after Freeway's first year, but it has been definitely worthwhile for his first year. 

We had to have Freeway at the vet before 8:00 AM, and we dropped him off a little before that time. We took advantage of the early hour to stop at Panini Pete's for breakfast after we dropped him off.

Although breakfast paninis are available, we wanted to try Panini Pete's beignets. As you may know, beignets are fried doughnuts that Café du Monde in New Orleans is so famous for. We had heard a lot about the beignets at Panini Pete's, and we have been wanting to try them; but they only serve breakfast until 10:30, and we haven't been able to in gear to get to Fairhope in time. Having to have Freeway at the vet so early was a perfect excuse to stop.

It was a cool, cloudy morning, so we ate inside for the first time.

Panini Pete's indoor seating

Foggy windows on a cool morning

Panini Pete's version of beignets is a little different from the ones in New Orleans. Panini Pete's beignets are light and airy like a cream puff except without the cream filling inside. Like the biegnets in New Orleans, they are smothered in powdered sugar on the outside. Panini Pete's also serves their beignets with a wedge of lemon. Lemon juice squeezed onto the beignets combines with the powdered sugar adds a hint of lemonade flavor. We initially ordered one serving of four beignets to share. They were so good and they went down so easily, we just had to order a second serving!

Beignets at Panini Pete's are served with lemon.

Yum!

We made a few quick stops on the way back to the motor home from Panini Pete's. After lunch, we got a call from the vet saying Freeway did fine with his surgery, and we could pick him up after 4:00 PM.

We knew our schedule on Wednesday would be a little uncertain and possibly hectic, so we decided to have an early dinner at a restaurant on the way to pick Freeway up. We were both hungry for Chinese, so we stopped at China Wok in Fairhope, which wasn't too far out of our way. The restaurant is located in a strip mall.

We both love General Tso's chicken, and we rarely order anything else at a Chinese restaurant. China Wok had General Tso's chicken on the menu, but they also had a buffet. Chinese buffets are very popular, but we usually don't like them because the breaded coating of General Tso's chicken usually gets soggy sitting on the steam table at a buffet. However, China Wok's buffet looked like it had a good selection of food (including General Tso's chicken). At $5.99, the buffet was cheaper than ordering General Tso's chicken from the menu for $6.75, so we decided to have the buffet.

Paul at China Wok

We were disappointed in our meal at China Wok. The middle of the afternoon isn't a great time to hit a buffet because business is slow at that time of day and there isn't much turn over in the food. Many items were dried out; and, although the General Tso's chicken had good flavor, the coating was soggy as we feared it would be. Some of the other items on the buffet (like the egg rolls, the spicy shrimp, the honey chicken and coconut shrimp) didn't have much flavor.

Most importantly, the steam tables weren't doing a good job of keeping the food warm. Food safety rules say hot foods should be above 140ºF and cold foods should be below 40º. We didn't have a thermometer, but we're sure the hot food wasn't anywhere near 140º.

We didn't know if Freeway would be glad to see us or not when we picked him up, but he was. We expected him to be groggy like he was after his eye surgery, but he was bouncing off the walls by the time we got him home. We are supposed to keep him quiet for a week following the surgery, which isn't an easy task for any 5-month old puppy, and we figured it was going to be impossible the way he was acting. He was running around the motor home, jumping up and down, and trying to get into anything and everything. At first, we thought he was trying to get even with us, but we later found out that the anesthetic sometimes has the side effect of making the dogs hyperactive, disobedient, and downright ornery. Fortunately, the side effects wore off by the following morning.

We still have the job of keeping a young puppy calm and quiet, but we feel we have a fighting chance without the side effects of the anesthetic. We'll be staying around the motor home for a while to keep tabs on Freeway and to work on the project we have mentioned a several times now. It's a fairly big project, and we're working on it in between doing other things so it is taking a while to get it done. We expect the project to be completed soon; and when it is, we'll tell you all about it.

Good Eats

Summerdale, AL - Events of Friday, April 13 to Saturday, April 14, 2012

On Friday, Paul needed to replace a tool he was using for a project we are working on. We'll have more on the project in an upcoming post. We decided to go to the Lowe's in Spanish Fort for the tool instead of the one in Foley so we could stop at Panini Pete's for lunch.

Panini Pete's, which was featured on the Food Network program Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, is located behind a couple of shops along the main street in downtown Fairhope, which isn't too far from Spanish Fort. There is a sign along the sidewalk, but the walkway to Panini Pete's (through the iron gate) is easy to miss if you've never been there before.

Entrance to the walkway to Panini Pete's

Along the walkway to Panini Pete's

Panini Pete's is at the end of the walkway on a nice patio courtyard they call the French Quarter. Indoor seating is available, but we always like to sit at one of the outdoor tables on the patio.

Margery on the patio at Panini Pete's

Panini Pete's is only open for breakfast and lunch. For lunch, they have a nice selection of paninis, burgers and hot dogs that run around $6 to $8 and include home made potato chips, fries or pasta salad.

Margery had a house-roasted turkey panini with baby greens, roasted red pepper, Dijon mustard, garlic aioli and house-made mozzarella on fresh-baked foccacia. The turkey panini is also Paul's favorite, but this time he tried the muffaletta panini. It features Italian meats and cheeses with olive salad on Italian bread. Both paninis were delish!

Muffaletta panini (foreground) and turkey panini

On Saturday, we took another break from our project to drive across the bay to Mobile for the 9th Annual Shrimp Cook Off. The Shrimp Cook Off is a fund-raising event sponsored by HandsOn South Alabama, which is an organization that promotes volunteerism. It is held in Bienville Square in Mobile and features samplings of dozens of shrimp dishes. 

We attended this event back in 2009, and this is the first time we have been here at the same time the Cook Off is held since then. 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 cost. Advance purchase discount tickets are available for $10 at some of the area banks. In 2009, the bank branches on the eastern side of Mobile Bay didn't have the tickets available, but this time they did so we were able to save a little money. We're glad we did save money - read on, and you will see why.

We arrived shortly after the event opened at 11:00 AM. It was already fairly crowded, and it got even more so as time went on.

The Shrimp Cook Off was already crowded shortly after they opened the gates.

We made our way around the park sampling as we went. One of us would stand in one of the longer lines while the other went to a shorter line and picked up two samples and brought them back.

Paul with skewers of grilled shrimp complete with little umbrellas

Silly costumes at one of the booths

This hula girl must also be a plumber.

There were far fewer samples available this year than there were when we went to the Cook Off in 2009, but we managed to find a few dishes we liked. In addition to having fewer samples, we also thought the overall quality and variety of the food was down from three years ago. Back in 2009, there were numerous dishes we thought were very good, and we found at least three or four dishes we thought were outstanding. In fact, there was shrimp in Alfredo sauce that we went back to sample three or four times.

This year, although there were several dishes we felt were good, there wasn't anything we thought was worth standing in line a second time for. At least half of the groups at this year's Cook Off made some version of shrimp gumbo that all tasted very similar. Gumbo is the easy way out because they could make it ahead of time, then just keep it warm in a big pot instead of preparing their dishes fresh right there at the Cook Off. Back in 2009, the entrants in the Cook Off were made up of amateurs from civic groups and local charities as well as a few professional chefs from local restaurants. This year, we didn't see any restaurants represented, and all the entrants seemed to be civic groups or charities. Overall, we were disappointed with this year's Shrimp Cook Off.

We left Mobile and headed back to the motor home where we resumed work on our project. We'll have a report on that soon along with some of our other activities.

Pine Mountain, GA to Summerdale, AL

Summerdale, AL - Events of Wednesday, April 4 to Sunday, April 8, 2012

We originally planned to make the journey from Pine Mountain, GA to Summerdale, AL in two days traveling a little over three hours the first day and about an hour and a half the second day. However, when we thought about it the evening before we left and realized it wasn't that far, and when we realized we would gain an hour traveling from the Eastern Time Zone into Central, we decided it didn't make a lot of sense to split the travel into two days. Therefore, we switched to Plan B and decided to drive straight through and arrive in Summerdale a day early.

However, when we got up Wednesday morning and checked the weather radar, there was a large, ominous-looking rain storm just offshore in the Gulf of Mexico that looked like it was heading directly for Mobile and Summerdale. We could only think of the videos we saw on the news the day before of semi-trailers being tossed through the air by tornadoes in the Dallas area, so we started to think switching back to Plan A and stopping for the night before we got to Summerdale to avoid driving through the rain storm wasn't such a bad idea after all.

When we pulled off the interstate for fuel at the Flying J just south of Montgomery, Margery plugged our Pantech modem into the computer and brought up the weather radar. To our surprise, the rain had remained mostly out over the Gulf, and Summerdale's weather report showed it was overcast with only a few light showers. We went back to Plan B of driving straight through. We checked the radar again a little later while we were on the road (something we could not have done with the satellite internet service we used to have), and there was still no major rain around Summerdale, so we drove on.

We hit a couple of very light sprinkles, and it got a bit breezy for the last 25 or 30 miles or our journey, but none of that was interstate driving so it wasn't that bad. We pulled into Rainbow Plantation around 1:45 Central Time.

Rainbow Plantation has a campground, co-op sites and deeded lots. The campground has full hookups. The roads are paved, and the sites are widely spaced and are mostly grass, although many of the sites have live oak trees under which the grass is pretty sparse. Even with the sparse grass, we usually prefer a site with some shade given the heat of the Alabama sun. The eastern end of the campground has 30-amp electric and the western end had 30/50-amp electric. Wi-Fi is available for a fee. Summerdale is close enough to Mobile that the the Verizon Broadband service is 4G.

We usually end up getting one of the same two sites every time we stop at Rainbow Plantation, and this time was no exception. We got set up in short order and settled in to relax for the rest of the day.

Our site at Rainbow Plantation (two days later after the sun came out)

Looking down our row at Rainbow Plantation

The campground does get its share of winter residents in spite of the fact southern Alabama can get many nights below freezing during the winter. However, by the time we usually arrive in March or April, the weather has warmed up considerably. Most of the winter crowd has left so there are plenty of sites available.

We ran some errands on Thursday, and we hit Walmart on Friday to restock the fridge and pantry. On Friday afternoon, Paul washed the motor home and the car while Margery caught up on laundry. It had really piled up after we spent a week at the state park in Pine Mountain with no sewer hookup.

On Saturday, we did our weekly cleaning inside the motor home in the morning and then we drove down to Bon Secour to Billy's Seafood to pick up some fresh shrimp for dinner.

Billy's Seafood in Bon secour, AL

Bon Secour (French for good security or safe harbor) was originally a French fishing village dating back to the 1800s. Bon Secour is the home of several packing companies that buy shrimp and fish from the local fishing fleet and ship the seafood all over the United States. We found out they also sell fresh seafood at retail last fall when we visited the Swift-Coles House in Bon Secour. The Swift-Coles House was built around 1900 by lumber magnate Charles Swift. Click here to read about our visit last fall to Bon Secour and the Swift-Coles House.

Billy's Seafood has shrimp in many different sizes. We bought about a pound and a half so we would have enough for dinner that evening plus some left for another recipe Margery wanted to try a few days later.

Many different sizes of shrimp available at Billy's Seafood.

We have several ways we like to eat our shrimp, but our favorite, which is the way we had them on Saturday, is to just quickly sauté the shrimp in oil with a little garlic, then add some Old Bay seasoning and white wine for the last few minutes as they finish cooking. Margery drains off the liquid and serves the shrimp with melted butter. When dipped in the melted butter, the shrimp taste almost like lobster. Yum!

Sunday was Easter, and Paul was up in time to catch a beautiful sunrise.

Easter morning sunrise

Although we didn't make it to the sunrise service, we did attended the 10:00 AM service at the Church on the Eastern Shore in Fairhope. The Church on the Eastern Shore, or COTES as they call themselves, is where we worship when we are staying in Summerdale. It was a beautiful service with great worship and a meaningful Easter message.

Rainbow Plantation had a pot-luck Easter dinner in the afternoon, but we decided not to sign up because we felt like we wanted a quieter dinner after the sightseeing and traveling we had been doing in the past two weeks, so we went to Cracker Barrel for an early dinner. Margery had fried catfish, and Paul had a more traditional Easter dinner of country ham. The food, as is usual for Cracker Barrel, was delicious.

On Sunday evening when we were taking Freeway for his evening walk, we met up with Darrell and Judy. Darrell and Judy have a co-p site at Rainbow Plantation, and we originally met them through their blog. They told us about the new dog run that was just installed behind the RV storage area at Rainbow Plantation, so we all walked over to check it out. It is only about 3 weeks old, and it is great. Is is very large and completely enclosed by a fence. We will be stopping there often because it is a safe place to let Freeway run and a good place to use for training.

Freeway, sit. Stay.

Freeway, come!

We will be staying at Rainbow Plantation for several weeks. We have some projects scheduled, we have some sightseeing we want to do, and we have several favorite restaurants where we want to eat while we're here. We'll let you know what we're up to in our next post.

Hills & Dales Estate

Pine Mountain, GA - Events of Tuesday, April 4, 2012

Hills & Dales Estate is the home built by Fuller and Ida Callaway, who were the parents of Cason Calloway, founder of Callaway Gardens. Hills & Dales is located about half an hour from Pine Mountain in LaGrange, GA. The estate was named for the sunny hills and shady dales in the area. Tuesday was our last day staying in Pine Mountain, and we drove to LaGrange to visit Hills & Dales Estate.

Mike and Gerri told us about Hills & Dales when we met them for lupper a few days before. Hills & Dales turned out to be a hidden gem. The home is lovely, the tour is excellent, the staff is friendly and hospitable, and the gardens are beautiful. For some reason, even though the estate has been open to the public since 2004, it's not even listed in the AAA Guide Book. We would have never found out about it if it hadn't been for Mike and Gerri.

The home, which is a blend of Italian and Georgian styles, was completed in 1914, but the history of the gardens goes back to the 1800s. In 1841, Blount and Sarah Farrell returned to LaGrange from Florida to live on property that belonged to Sarah's parents. Upon their return, Sarah expanded a garden begun by her mother in 1832. Sarah's garden was officially named The Terraces, but it was commonly called Farrell Gardens. By the 1870s and 1880s, the gardens had grown in size and had won wide acclaim throughout the southeast for its beauty.

Sarah Farrell welcomed visitors to her garden, and one of the frequent guests was Fuller Callaway. Late in her life, Sarah encouraged Fuller to purchase her property. Sarah Farrell died in 1903, and Blount Farrell died in 1908. A few years later, Fuller and Ida Callaway did buy the property where they planned to build a new house. First, however, they set about restoring Sarah's then-neglected gardens.

There is a very well-done video with the history of the Farrells and the Callaways and of the gardens and the home. After watching the video and exploring some of the displays at the visitor center, we rode the tram to the house.

The tour starts at the east portico, which is the main entrance to the house.

We had an excellent tour conducted by a very informative, knowledgeable docent. We were the only ones on the tour and had plenty of opportunity to ask questions. We learned many interesting details about the home, its history and about the Callaway family.

Unfortunately, as is frequently the case, photography isn't permitted inside the house, but we can tell you a little about the history and show you the gardens.

The house was designed in 1914 by the noted Atlanta architect firm of Hentz & Reid. It is built on a hill overlooking the gardens on the site of the original Farrell cottage. The 13,000 square-foot house has over 30 rooms and is constructed from stucco and Indiana limestone with a tile roof. Construction took 15 months and cost $125,000. That doesn't sound like much, but it is the equivalent of almost $3 million in today's dollars.

Fuller Callaway died in 1928. After Ida passed away in 1932, Cason's younger brother Fuller, Jr. moved into Hills & Dales along with his wife, Alice, and their children. Following the death of Fuller, Jr. in 1992 and that of Alice in 1998, the estate was bequeathed to the Fuller E. Callaway Foundation and opened to the public in 2004 according to the wishes of the Callaways. The home is displayed with original furnishings and family heirlooms, and it looks much the same way it was at the time of Alice Callaway's death.

After the tour of the house, we were free to roam the gardens and the greenhouse.

Alice Callaway converted part of what used to be the Callaway family vegetable garden to create the Ray Garden where she grew roses, ornamentals and annuals.

The Ray Garden

Entrance to the herb garden

The greenhouse, which was originally constructed in 1916, was remodeled in 1949 by Alice and Fuller Callaway, Jr.

Greenhouse and herb garden

The greenhouse is maintained to look much the same as it did in Alice's time. It is filled with tropical plants and orchids.

Some of the many orchids in the greenhouse

To the south of the greenhouse is the Church Garden, which is the oldest part of the gardens where Sarah Farrell first did her planting in 1841.

The Church Garden

Margery in the Church Garden

We walked the terraces of boxwood and magnolias behind the house listening to the birds and enjoying the peaceful shade. There are numerous azaleas in the garden; but like most of the azaleas at Callaway Gardens, the flowers were done. There were, however, splashes of color here and there from pansies and violas.

Colorful pansies and violas brighten the garden.

Also from the terraces, you can get splendid views of the house itself with more splashes of color from snapdragons.

View of the house from the southwest

View from the southeast showing the main entrance at the east portico

At the southeastern corner of the garden is the Bird Gate. This wrought-iron gate was commissioned by Alice Callaway.

Paul and the Bird Gate

From the Bird Gate, it was a short walk to the tram stop where there is an intercom for guests to call to request the tram for a ride back to the visitor center. However, there is also a nice path, and it's only a 10-minute walk to the visitor center. It was such a beautiful day, and we were enjoying listening to the birds so much, we opted to walk.

Our visit to Hills & Dales brought us to the end of our stay in Pine Mountain. We highly recommend a stop at Hills & Dales if you're going to be in the vicinity of LaGrange, GA.

We also loved Callaway Gardens. Even though the azaleas were past their peak, there were still some azaleas in bloom for us to enjoy, at least until the rain hit on Friday night and Saturday. We enjoyed just walking the peaceful woodland paths and listening to the birds. We also liked the Birds of Prey show, the Day Butterfly Center and the Sidley Horticultural Center.

After we left Hills & Dales, we drove back to the motor home and started packing up and preparing for our departure. We headed out for Summerdale, AL the following morning. We'll have more info in our next post.

Callaway Gardens Part IV: More Walking Trails and the Day Butterfly Center

Pine Mountain, GA - Events of Sunday, April 2 and Monday, April 2, 2012

It rained all night Friday and most of the day on Saturday. Except for doing our weekly cleaning on Saturday morning, we just snuggled in, watched TV, read and played on the computer Friday evening and all day Saturday.

We weren't planning to go into the gardens over the weekend because of possible crowds, but Sunday was so beautiful and sunny after the dreary weather on Saturday, we couldn't resist going back, especially since we had annual passes. If it turned out to be too crowded, we could just leave with nothing lost except the few minutes it took us to drive over to the gardens.

We visited the Azalea Bowl on Thursday, so we decided to check out the second azalea area at the other end of Callaway called the Overlook Azalea Garden. It is the older and the larger of the two main azalea areas. However, when we drove past part of it on Thursday, we could see the azaleas there were farther along than the ones at the Azalea Bowl; and, even though there was some color left, most of the azaleas at the Overlook Garden were well past their peak.

Unfortunately, the heavy rains on Friday night and Saturday just about completely destroyed any blooms that were still there when we drove past on Thursday. By Sunday, there were only a few azaleas that looked pretty from a distance, but when we got close, we could see the flowers were limp and starting to turn brown. Most had no flowers left.

Only a few azaleas still had flowers after the rain.

After we walked part of the trail through the Overlook Azalea Garden, we headed back to the car and drove up the road to the Holly Trail. There is a relatively large parking area there where they have a farmers market on spring and fall weekends.

The market didn't have much produce this early in the spring, but there were things like breads, honey, soaps, candles and crafts.

Farmers market at the Holly Trail parking lot

While we were parked there, we walked the relatively short Holly Trail, which features a collection of Asian and American hollies. Since dogs are allowed in all the outdoor areas in Callaway Gardens except for the swimming beach, we took Freeway on the walk with us.

Margery and Freeway on the Holly Trail

Freeway takes a break

As you can see from the photo above, so far-so good with Freeway's surgery for cherry eye. All the swelling and redness have disappeared from both eyes, and we're hopeful there will be no recurrence.

At the end of the Holly Trail, we encountered a relatively large garter snake. Margery made sure Freeway didn't get too close while Paul snapped a picture.

Garter snake at the end of the trail

From the Holly Trail, it was a short drive to the parking area for the Rhododendron Trail. Although it normally would be way too early for rhododendrons, even this far south, with the mild winter and warm spring there were some rhododendrons just starting to bloom and a couple in or near full bloom.

Some rhododendron buds were about to burst forth.

We had large, beautiful rhododendrons blooming every spring at our starter home, so they are special to us. In fact, we had the same colors as these two.

A few rhododendrons were in full bloom.

The Rhododendron Trail parking area is located at the Day Butterfly Center, which we also wanted to see. However, it was a little too crowded since it was Sunday, so we headed back to the motor home to watch the rest of the NASCAR race from Martinsville and saved the butterfly center for the next day. Gotta love the annual passes.

The Day Butterfly Center is a glass-enclosed conservatory containing tropical plants and as many as 1,000 butterflies representing up to 50 different species. We headed back there on Monday morning.

Day Butterfly Center

As you enter the center, there are displays of butterflies emerging from their cocoons. Butterfly eggs hatch as larvae (caterpillars). The larva will usually undergo several stages of maturity called instars. At each stage, the caterpillar will molt its outer skin. When the larva is finally mature, it will stop feeding and seek out a suitable site for pupation, usually the underside of a leaf. The larva will undergo one last molt after it attaches itself to the leaf and will be then it will become a pupa or chrysalis. The pupa may appear dormant, but there is a lot going on inside. The pupa is being transformed into a butterfly. As the butterflies emerge, they must pump fluids through the veins in their wings and wait for the wings to expand and dry before they can fly.

Butterflies emerging from their cocoons

Inside the conservatory, hundreds of butterflies freely flit about. Because of their seemingly erratic flight pattern, they are very difficult to photograph when in flight. When they did land, most of them kept their wings folded so the bright colors on the upper side of their wings were hidden.

Common Morpho butterfly from Central and South America

The Common Morpho butterfly pictured above has wings with intense blue color on the upper side. We both took dozens of pictures attempting to catch those bright colors, and the two photos below were the only ones that either of us was able to capture.

Common Morpho butterfly flits past Margery

Common Morpho butterflies in flight

As we mentioned earlier, the conservatory is filled with a variety of tropical plants and flowers. These were a lot easier to photograph than the butterflies.

Tropical flowers fill the Day Butterfly Center.

We spent the better part of an hour in the Day Butterfly Center, then headed back toward the motor home. When we were in town a few days ago, we saw a second barbecue restaurant called the Whistling Pig Cafe. In fact, we almost mistook it at first for the Three Lil' Pigs where we met Mike and Gerri for lupper. Since we find it hard to pass up barbecue, and since the Whistling Pig had a lot of vehicles parked outside when we passed it (and a lot of the vehicles were pickup trucks - usually a pretty reliable indicator of good barbecue), we decided to stop at the Whistling Pig for a late lunch. They are only open until 3:00 PM, so we couldn't go for lupper.

Whistling Pig Barbecue

We both had pulled pork sandwiches. Margery had a regular ($2.85) and Paul had a jumbo ($3.75). There is a combo for $7, but we ordered our meals à la carte and split a large order of fries ($2.85) and a small slaw ($1.75).

Paul enjoying his pork barbecue sandwich

The pork barbecue was nice and smokey, and the sauce had a delicious sweet-sour tang. The fries were homemade and crispy, and the slaw was good, too.

Our time in Pine Mountain is winding down, but we had one more thing we wanted to see before we left. Stay tuned

Callaway Gardens Part III: Discovery Center and Sibley Horticultural Center

Pine Mountain, GA - Events of Friday, March 30, 2012

Even though it was mostly cloudy on Friday with a chance of rain, we went back into Callaway Gardens because we still had a lot we wanted to see. One of the things Paul wanted to see was the Birds of Prey show at the amphitheater behind the Discovery Center.

We were a little early for the show, so we stopped as we passed through the Discovery Center to check out the sculptures of wildflowers made from thin, copper sheet and wire by artist Trailer McQuilkin. The metal is painstakingly cut, shaped, soldered together, and the assembled flowers are then painted with oil paints. Natural materials such as stones, sticks, pine cones and leaf fragments from other plants are included to create a life-like scene. The sculpture is so realistic, there are brown spots on some of the leaves and occasional holes in the leaves as though some insect had taken a bite. Each sculpture takes approximately two months to create. In order to create the sculptures, McQuilkin researched each subject extensively.

The collection at the Discovery Center, which was commissioned by Dean Day Sanders of Atlanta and donated to Callaway Gardens, contains 42 sculptures. The flowers pictured below are plumleaf azaleas, which are the emblem of Callaway Gardens.

Life-like sculpture of Plumleaf Azaleas made from sheet copper

Display of tools and materials used by the artist to create wildflower sculptures

After seeing the wildflower sculptures, we headed to the amphitheater for the Birds of Prey show. In the show, they bring out about half a dozen different raptors so the audience can see them up close and personal. These birds have all been injured in some way, and although most of them can fly, they could not survive on their own in the wild. The owl, for examlpe, is partially blind in one eye as the result of being hit by a car. Without adequate depth perception, it would not be able to hunt.

Great Horned Owl

Red Tailed Hawk

When we said you get to see the birds up-close and personal, we weren't kidding. Not only did the handlers walk through the audience with the birds perched on their glove, they released the birds to fly back and forth over the audience. The handler at the back of the amphitheater would release the bird to fly to piece of meat placed on a perch, branch or rock by the other handler at the front of the amphitheater.

The Red-tailed Hawk swoops low over the audience.

After the show, we stopped on our way back through the Discovery Center to see the art exhibit. Margery loved the intense colors of the landscapes featuring azaleas.

Margery admiring some of the landscapes on display in the Discovery Center

After seeing the art exhibit, the mostly-cloudy sky was starting to brighten up a bit, so we decided to drive over to check out the Sibley Horticultural Center, which is an indoor-outdoor conservatory and garden featuring tropical and sub-Mediterranean plants as well as perennials and annuals.

Outdoor flower beds at the Sibley Horticultural Center

Opened in 1984, the Sibley Horticultural Center has 26 floor-to-ceiling glass doors that measure 24 feet tall and weigh 1,600 pounds each. These doors can be opened to allow the indoor and outdoor gardens to blend together. Because of Georgia's mild winters, the doors are open much more than they are closed.

Massive doors open to allow the indoor gardens to blend with the outdoor landscape.

Another view of some of the glass doors

More glass doors

The indoor and outdoor landscapes blend together so well you sometimes have to look up to see the ceiling supports to remind you if you're inside or outside.

Tropical palm trees, bananas and ferns thrive in the conservatory.

This rock wall with Mediterranean plants was part of a 2003 rennovation.

A 22-foot waterfall cascades into a pool below.

Some of the beautiful flowers at the Sibley Horticultural Center

After we toured the Sibley Horticultural Center, we headed back to the motor home for a while. Later in the afternoon, we met a couple who follows our blog and with whom we have been corresponding by email for quite some time for a late lunch/early supper (lupper) at Three Lil' Pigs barbecue restaurant in Pine Mountain.

Three Lil' Pigh Barbecue in Pine Mountain, GA

Mike and Gerri are fellow bloggers and former full-timers who now live in nearby LaGrange. They love Callaway, and they gave us some very valuable tips when we were planning our visit.

Three Lil' Pigs has a half a dozen picnic tables outside and about half a dozen smaller tables inside. We opted for an inside table because it was starting to spit rain just as we arrived. It later turned into quite a downpour, and we got about 1.5 inches by the time the storm system moved out of the area the following afternoon.

We all had chopped pork barbecue sandwiches, which were delicious.

Mike, Gerri, Margery and Paul at Three Lil' Pigs

The sandwiches are $6 and come with slaw and chips. The portion size is very generous.

The chopped pork was piled high.

We had a good time getting to know Mike and Gerri face to face. We chatted for a long time, but eventually the restaurant started to fill up with the dinner crowd, so we had to vacate our table and say our good-byes.

There is still more to see at Callaway Gardens, so look for our next post.

Callaway Gardens Part II: Victory Garden

Pine Mountain, GA - Events of Thursday, March 29, 2012

After we left the Azalea Bowl, we headed for another section of Callaway Gardens known as Mr. Cason's Vegetable Garden. This 7.5-acre demonstration garden was the last major project initiated by Cason Callaway before his death in 1961. This garden was used for several years as the southern setting for taping portions of the PBS program Victory Garden. Paul hasn't watched Victory Garden for quite some time, but he used to watch religiously, and he learned a lot about gardening from the program.

On our way to Mr. Cason's Vegetable Garden, we passed the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Trail, so we stopped. At the beginning of the trail was a log cabin that was relocated to Callaway Gardens in 1959. The cabin was built around 1830 in nearby Troup County from hand-hewn, longleaf pine logs.

Log cabin c.1830 

Interior of the log cabin

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Trail displays native plants from coastal, meadow, bog, and forest areas of Georgia. Many of the species are rare, threatened or endangered.

A few of the wildflowers along the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Trail 

After walking the wildflower trail, we continued on our way to Mr. Cason's Vegetable Garden.

Panoramic view of Mr. Cason's Vegetable Garden

Tomatoes, swiss chard, lettuce and cabbage in the kitchen garden

Paul remembers seeing this barn many times on Victory Garden.

Flower garden near the barn

Cardinal in the flower garden

By the time we finished visiting the Azalea Bowl earlier, then walked the wildflower trail and visited the vegetable garden, it was mid afternoon. We decided to call it a day and head back to the motor home. There is still plenty to see at Callaway Gardens. We'll tell you more in our next post.

Callaway Gardens Part I: Azaleas

Pine Mountain, GA - Events of Thursday, March 22, 2012

The main reason we went to Pine Mountain, GA was to see Callaway Gardens. We arrived in Pine Mountain on Wednesday, and we headed to the gardens on Thursday morning.

Callaway Gardens entrance

Cason Callaway was the founder of Calloway Gardens, which opened to the public in 1952. Cason made his money in the milling of cotton. He and his wife Virginia acquired land in the area of the present-day Callaway Gardens to build a weekend retreat from their home in nearby LaGrange, GA. They originally named the retreat Blue Springs.

As Cason's brother took leadership in the family cotton mill in the late 1930s, Cason continued to acquire more land around Blue Springs and began farming. He initiated new methods of restoring the eroded, worn-out soil in the area and pioneered improved food processing methods. People came from all around to learn. Cason Callaway, the industrialist, had become Cason Callaway, the farmer.

Then, in 1948, a heart attack forced Cason to scale back his farming, so he turned to gardening. He felt the garden was so beautiful he wanted to share it, so he opened Callaway Gardens to the public in 1952. Cason callaway died in 1961, and the gardens have been run by family members through the Ida Cason Callaway Foundation, which was named for the founder's mother.

Since Cason's death, the gardens have undergone numerous expansions and additions. Today, there are two golf courses, an inn, a lodge, cottages, a horticultural center, a butterfly center, several additional garden areas, a bike trail and more. In 2004, Callaway Gardens began selling home sites, so you can now live on the property. There are also many special events.

We had difficulty planning our visit using the Callaway Gardens web site. Some information seemed a little vague to us, and other information was buried and hard to find. However, we knew the gardens were large (the entire property covers 13,000 acres), and we knew there was a lot to see and do. We figured we would probably not be able to see everything in one day, especially since we didn't want to leave Freeway alone all day. Daily admission during special events (such as during azalea season when we were there) is $25 a day ($20 for seniors 65 and over). Since annual passes cost $45 ($40 for seniors), we opted for annual passes since the cost was the same or less than it would have cost us for daily admission for two days. The passes allowed us to go into the gardens and see whatever we wanted at a more leisurely pace, especially since the campground was located only 10 minutes from the garden entrance, and it also gives us the option of visiting Callaway when we are on our way south in the fall.

We stopped at the Discovery Center pick up our passes and a map. Although azaleas are scattered everywhere in the gardens, they are concentrated in two main areas. We headed for the Azalea Bowl, which was the closer of the two azalea areas.

At Callaway Gardens there are numerous walking trails, but the gardens are too large to be able to see everything on foot. There is ample parking at many convenient locations, and there is also an extensive bike trail around the gardens. We drove everywhere rather than unpack our folding bikes from the back of the car.

The Azalea Bowl, which was opened in 1999, is one of the latest additions to the gardens. It encompasses 40 acres and has 3,400 hybrid azaleas and 2,000 trees and other shrubs. The walkways meander down a gentle slope toward Falls Creek Lake.

Start of the trail at the Azalea Bowl

Within a fairly short distance, we came to a split in the trail. We followed the left fork toward the Ida Cason Callaway Memorial Chapel. There weren't many azaleas along this particular path as it skirts the upper part of the Azalea Bowl, but we did enjoy seeing some of the other plants and trees and listening to the birds as we walked along the woodland trail.

Woodland stream along the Azalea Bowl Trail

Cinnamon fern

Paul with Japanese Cedar tree

We arrived at the chapel, which is built mostly from native material. The Ida Cason Callaway Memorial Chapel was dedicated in 1962 and is the site of organ recitals and many weddings.

Ida Cason Callaway Memorial Chapel

Interior of the chapel

After visiting the chapel, we headed toward the lower part of the Azalea Bowl along the lake where most of the azaleas are located.

Azalea season at Callaway Gardens is supposed to be March 22 through April 22, but the winter was so mild and the spring was so warm, many of the azaleas bloomed much earlier than usual. Knowing the azaleas would be early, we timed our visit for the early part of the season, but many of the azaleas were already past their peak by the time we arrived. Fortunately, there are many varieties of azaleas at Callaway Gardens that have differing bloom times so there were still some azaleas in full bloom and even a few that still had unopened buds. We may have missed the peak by a week or so; but there were still some beautiful blooms to see.

After walking the trails at the Azalea Bowl, we headed for another part of the gardens. Along the way, we passed an area where artists had set up their easels to paint.

Artists trying to capture the beauty of the azaleas

Stay tuned for news about our next stop on our tour of Callaway Gardens.

Bushnell, FL to Pine Mountain, GA

Pine Mountain, GA - Events of Tuesday, March 27 to Wednesday, March 28, 2012

On Tuesday morning we planned to hit the road about 9:30 AM and head north, but by the time we got everything packed up and said good-bye to our neighbors, we didn't get out of Blueberry Hill until after 10:00. Northbound traffic on I-75 was heavy, but not heavy enough to cause any delays or slow-downs.

It was about a 4-hour drive plus a fuel stop plus an extra potty stop for Freeway, so we didn't pull into our overnight stop at Wanee Lake Golf and RV Resort in Ashburn, GA until after 2:30 PM. We are usually set up by 1:30 at the latest, so that is fairly late for us.

Wanee Lake has about 25 or 30 sites, all of which are long pull-throughs and all of which have full hookups with 30/50-amp electric. The roads are gravel, and the pads are a mixture of dirt, grass and gravel. The grassy sites are fairly widely spaced.

Our site at Wanee Lake Golf & RV

The campground wasn't very full when we were at Wanee Lake.

The campground is about 5 miles off I-75, which is not far enough to be inconvenient, but far enough that there is no interstate noise. The traffic on the two lane road that passes the campground was light, and there are also no trains. Therefore, the campground was nice and quiet, especially at night.

The web site for Wanee Lake RV says they have free Wi-fi, but it didn't show up on our computer's list of wireless networks. Maybe it is only available in the vicinity of the clubhouse, or maybe it was down when we were there. We did have a strong Verizon 3G signal.

Wanee Lake is a country club, and there is also a golf course, driving range, swimming pool and tennis court. Our site was near the first tee of the golf course. The golf course was surprisingly busy in the evening given the fact Ashburn is the only town close by and it is relatively small.

First tee of Wanee Lake Golf Course from our window

Wanee Lake RV is a nice campground, especially for the Passport America rate of $15 per night plus tax. Unfortunately, there isn't much to do in the area unless you golf. Wanee Lake is a membership country club, but campers at the RV park can golf at members' rates.

We got an earlier start at about 9:30 the following morning for the next leg of our journey. Since we had a drive of a little over three hours, we arrived at F.D. Roosevelt State Park in Pine Mountain, GA shortly after 12:30. We wanted to arrive early because, although we had a reservation, the reservations at Georgia state parks are not site specific. Since the selection of the actual site is on a first-come, first-served basis, we hoped arriving earlier in the day would provide us with a better selection of sites.

F.D. Roosevelt State Park has about 140 RV and tent campsites with water and electricity. Some sites have 20/30 amps and some have 20/30/50 amps. Many of the sites are relatively close together for a state park. The campground is heavily wooded, but now that we have Verizon Broadband, we don't have to rely on our rooftop dish for satellite internet. Therefore, we can go to a more wooded campground and use a tripod for satellite TV.

Pads and patios at F.D. Roosevelt are gravel, and the all the roads in the campground except two small side loops are paved. However, most of the roads are quite narrow with some sharp turns and with trees close to the pavement in some places and drop-offs a foot or more deep on one or both sides of the road in other places. We saw a phone number for a towing service posted on one of the bulletin boards, so it's probably not uncommon for people to get stuck.

Although we wouldn't call F.D. Roosevelt State Park campground big-rig friendly, you can get around in a larger RV if you're careful to watch for the trees, drop-offs, tight turns and low branches. About one quarter of the sites will accommodate big rigs, but we wouldn't advise arriving late on a Friday night in summer with a 40' motor home and expect to find a site. Big rigs can't fit in a smaller site, but smaller rigs can and do take the bigger sites. We saw tent trailers, Class B van campers and even tents on 50 or 60' long, 50-amp sites. Also, many of the sites slope front to back. That may be OK for a trailer or 5th wheel, but not for a motor home.

There were a good many sites that would have fit our rig when we arrived on Wednesday. We found a long, level pull-through with some shade and with a hole through the tree branches big enough that we could still use our rooftop dish for TV. Not only that, but we had a view of the lake from the front window. Unfortunately, the site we found didn't have 50-amp electric, but it was only supposed in the low 80s while we were there. We figured the partial shade we had would help keep the rig cool enough we probably wouldn't need to run the air conditioner, and we almost certainly wouldn't need both air conditioners.

Our site at F.D. Roosevelt State Park

Distant view of our site showing some of the neighboring sites

View of small, lake-front sites across from our site

Lake-front tent site

The campground was nice and peaceful when we first arrived, but it started filling up on the weekend. On Sunday afternoon, a lot of people left. However, the local schools must have been closed since it was the week before Easter, and a bunch of new people arrived so the campground stayed pretty full.

We're happy to report the new residential refrigerator traveled well. The doors all stayed shut, nothing spilled inside, and the fridge didn't break free from its mounting bolts when we hit bumps or stopped short. The Samsung refrigerator is pretty energy efficient, so the motor home's alternator had no problem keeping the batteries charged while the inverter powered the fridge as we drove down the road.

Freeway is an excellent traveler. He is content to be in his crate and nap when we're driving. He can also go a relatively long time between potty breaks, especially considering he is only about 5 months old. And we sure are happy he doesn't get car sick.

Pine Mountain, GA is the home of Callaway Gardens, and that will be our main interest for the next several days. We'll tell you all about it in our next few posts.

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.

Freeway's Surgery

Bushnell, FL - Events of Tuesday, March 20, 2010

We had to get up fairly early on Tuesday to drive to Largo near Tampa for the surgery to correct Freeway's cherry eye. We decided to have both eyes done even though the gland had only popped out on one eye because the ophthalmologist said the gland on the other eye was also showing signs of swelling. We dropped Freeway off around 9:00 AM and picked him up later around 1:30 PM.

We're happy to report the surgery went well, and Freeway had no problems. He was a little groggy when we picked him up, but he pretty much bounced back to his old self by early evening. He was was trying to paw at his eyes when we picked him up, so they sent him home with an Elizabethan collar, which Lora calls the "cone of shame."

Freeway looking unhappy with his Elizabethan collar

It didn't take Freeway long to figure out how to get the collar off. We put it back on a couple of times, but when we saw he was no longer trying to rub his eyes, we were able to leave the collar off, much to Freeway's relief.

There is still a little swelling and redness in the corners of Freeway's eyes, but the cherry eye is gone. There is a slight chance it could come back in a few weeks after the sutures dissolve, but we're trusting it won't.

We had a few hours to kill after we dropped Freeway off. We had researched things to do in the area and came up with the Florida Botanical Gardens right there in Largo. The Florida Botanical Gardens are operated by the Florida Botanical Gardens Foundation. The gardens are located in a Pinellas County park. Admission is free.

Adjacent to the botanical garden is Heritage Village, which is a collection of over 20 historic buildings from the 1800s and early 1900s that have been relocated to the 21-acre site. Admission to Heritage Village is also free. Heritage Village was closed when we were there, which was just as well because we would have probably felt compelled to see both the village and the gardens, and we didn't need the stress of rushing to try to do two things in a somewhat limited amount of time. A leisurely stroll through the gardens turned out to be a perfect stress reliever.

The gardens straddle McKay Creek. The visitor center, the main parking lot and the cooperative extension office are on the western side of the creek. Behind the visitor center is an herb garden, a patio garden and a tropical fruit garden.

Herb garden

Patio garden

Banana plants in the tropical fruit garden

Bananas grow on long stems, usually only one stem per plant. The ones on the plants above are small bananas that are growing more compactly around the stem than we have seen before.

What is commonly called the flower of the plant is actually an inflorescence, which is a group of flowers. The flowers in the photo below are yellow. What look like red flower petals are actually bracts, which are specialized leaves whose function it is to attract insects to the flowers. The red bracts curl up one or two at a time as the yellow flowers bloom.

Banana inflorescence is a group of flowers.

Papayas in the tropical fruit garden

There are two bridges over McKay Creek to the eastern side of the garden. We took the northern bridge over the creek. Along the way, we took a side path through a wooded area.

Along the woodland path

Palms are Paul's favorite tree, and he enjoyed seeing the different varieties planted in the Palm Garden on the eastern side of the creek. One of the most interesting was a fishtail palm from India. It gets its name from the fact the fronds are split and look like a fish's tail.

Paul with a Fishtail Palm

There are also several courtyards, a wedding garden, a bromiliad garden and several walking paths on the eastern side of McKay Creek. Unfortunately, we couldn't see much of the wedding garden because they were preparing for what looked to be some sort of TV broadcast, but we did enjoy the rest of what we could see.

Margery on a butterfly bench in one of the courtyards

Water feature in the bromiliad garden

There were signs like the one below throughout the garden along the banks of all the ponds and along McKay Creek. We didn't see any 'gators, so we're not sure if there really are any or they just wanted to keep people out of the water; but since just about any body of water in Florida (including swimming pools) can attract alligators, we weren't taking any chances and stuck to the paths.

Alligator warning

Large pond on the eastern side of McKay Creek

Anhinga drying its wings along the banks of the large pond

Great Egret stalking lunch among the lily pads in the pond

Some of the tropical flowers at the Florida Botanical Gardens

We had a very enjoyable, relaxing time at the garden. Before we knew it, it was time for lunch. When we drove along Indian Rocks Beach a couple of weeks ago when we first took Freeway to the canine ophthalmologist, we drove past Keegan's Seafood Grille, which was featured on the Food Network program Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. We checked them out online, and even though their prices were a little high, the food looked good and they were close by. The restaurant was busy when we arrived about 12:15, but fortunately, there were still a few tables left.

Keegan's Seafood Grille

Keegan's Seafood Grille is well known for their blackened grouper sandwich as well as a fairly creative menu of other fresh seafood. They also have a long list of appetizers, several types of burgers and a complete dinner menu. Sandwiches run from $8 to $12 and include one side (choice of fries, slaw or pasta salad). Dinners run from $16 to $20.

Paul had the "famous" blackened grouper sandwich with slaw, and Margery had crab salad in a pita pocket with fries. The food was good, but we were a little disappointed in the small serving sizes given the relatively high prices. However, we do have to remember that both grouper and crab are expensive ingredients and that Keegan's is located right along the beach, both of which are major contributing factors to the high prices.

Lunch at Keegan's 

Just as we were finishing lunch, we got a phone message that Freeway would be ready to pick up in about half an hour - perfect timing to finish our lunch and make our way to the vet. As we said, he was a little groggy, but he was still happy to see us.

Our time in Florida is almost over. We have a few more things to do before we leave, then we plan to head north to Calloway Gardens in Georgia. Stay tuned.

Graduation and Barbecue

Bushnell, FL - Events of Saturday, March 17, 2012

In our last post, we promised an update on Freeway's surgery for his cherry eye, which is scheduled for Tuesday. We also said we would let you know if anything else popped up in the meantime. It turns out Saturday was Freeway's graduation from puppy class.

The pups played for a while at the beginning of the session, then Terry, the instructor, handed out evaluation forms for the class, and she answered any of our final questions about training. The puppies then donned their graduation caps.

Terry congratulating Freeway

Freeway and proud mom 

Proud papa displays freeway's diploma

The graduating class

Freeway has made a lot of progress in his training. He has mastered sit, stay, down, and come very well for his tender age of less than 5 months. Our viewpoint may be slightly biased, but we think Freeway was the star pupil of the class. Terry frequently used Freeway to help her demonstrate the lesson to the class. He does pretty well with drop it and leave it unless it is something he really wants. We really need to keep working with him, particularly on those last two items, so it all becomes second nature to him. Those last two commands could save his life if he is going after something dangerous.

On Saturday afternoon, we decided to drive a few miles south of Bushnell to Brooksville for a late lunch with Pat and Mike at the Deep South BBQ. We drove past the place dozens of times over the years because it was on the way to the chiropractor we sometimes go to when we have an ache or pain that won't go away on its own. We were always curious about their food, but we never stopped before. 

Deep South Barbecue

The Deep South Barbecue got lots of good online reviews, so we decided it was time to go, especially since we are almost at the end of our stay in Florida. The place has a lot of character. The business was started by a former Marine who is a Vietnam veteran, and we thank him for his service. The restaurant is decorated with politically incorrect signs that we thought were a hoot, and we thank him for those, too. Below are just a few examples.

Sign over the rest room door

A few examples of the dozens of bumper stickers

that customers have brought from all over the country

Redneck wind chimes - beer cans and shotgun shells

The restaurant is now run by the son with help from his sister. They serve a variety of delicious barbecued meats like pulled pork, beef brisket, ribs, chicken and smoked sausage. Most of the meats are available as sandwiches ($4.95), sandwich combos ($7.95 - includes two sides) and as dinner platters ($9.95 - includes two sides and a roll).

Our group enjoying our meal

All of us loved the meals we chose as well as the sides. Pat had a beef brisket platter, Mike had ribs, while Margery and Paul ordered sandwich combos and shared a pulled pork sandwich and a beef brisket sandwich. Margery had onion rings for a side, and Paul had cole slaw and fried green tomatoes. The ribs, beef brisket and pulled pork were all tender and juicy. They were served with just enough barbecue sauce, although there is more sauce available on the tables if you want it. The food was great, and the service was prompt and friendly. We'll definitely be back.

Outside in the parking lot, we saw a red-bellied woodpecker hunting for insects in an old live oak tree while we chatted a little longer before driving back to Bushnell.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

We'll be heading to the canine ophthalmologist in Largo, FL on Tuesday. We'll report on how Freeway's surgery went at the end of the week.

More Freeway News

Bushnell, FL - Events of Thursday, March 8 to Monday, March 12, 2012

A couple of weeks ago, Freeway developed a condition known as "cherry eye." Some reptiles, fish and birds have a third, semi-transparent eyelid that is used to protect the eye while maintaining visibility. Dogs only have the vestage of a third eyelid, but it contains a gland that can become inflamed and pop out into the corner of the eye. The inflamed gland looks somewhat like a cherry, thus the name. The condition usually isn't serious, although it can sometimes be uncomfortable for the dog, and it can block the dog's vision if it becomes large enough. It can also lead to dry eye later on.

Cherry eye is a congenetical defect that occurs most often in breeds that have saggy eyelids such as such as Bull Dogs, Cockers, Beagles and Bassets. It also occurs in dogs with short muzzles and/or rounded, protruding eyes like Pekinese and Chihuahuas. We didn'r see either of Freeway's parents' breeds listed as commonly having cherry eye, but both the Cavelier King Charles Spaniel and Bichon Frise do have short muzzles and round, somewhat protruding eyes. As in Freeway's case, cherry eye usually shows up when the dogs are puppies.

We took Freeway to the vet, who gave us some antibiotic ointment to prevent infection and to sooth the inflammation. The vet said cherry eye sometimes goes away by itself, but often requires surgery. He recommended contacting a canine ophthalmologist if we would decide on surgery.

After several days of using the ointment, we saw no reduction in Freeway's cherry eye so we decided we should have an ophthalmologist check it out. Margery did some online research and found Tampa Bay Veterinary Clinic in Largo, FL (near Tampa) that had an ophthalmologist on their staff. When she called, we were able to get an appointment within a couple of days.

Dr. Miller, the ophthalmologist, was able to pop the gland back into place. This sometimes provides a permanent cure; but unfortunately for us, Freeway's only stayed in place a couple of days before it popped back out again over the following weekend.

Freeway's cherry eye

The cherry eye doesn't seem to bother Freeway, but we want to get it corrected so he doesn't have a problem with dry eye in the future, especially since the surgery is a relatively simple procedure that consists of suturing the gland into place. Recovery is quick, and in most cases, a followup appointment is not even necessary. By the time the sutures dissolve, the hope is the swelling of the gland will have gone down sufficiently so it will stay in place on its own.

On the Monday after Freeway's gland popped back out, we called the Tampa Bay Veterinary Clinic and were able to get his surgery scheduled for the middle of the following week. We'll post an update a day or two after the surgery to let everyone know how it went.

In the meantime, the veterinary clinic was located a short distance from Bahama Breeze in Tampa. We had a coupon for $10 off any $20 purchase, so decided we wanted to stop again even though we were just there a couple of weeks ago after visiting Ybor City with Pat and Mike. The only problem was it was too early for lunch, so we decided to drive a short distance to the west to check out some of the nearby Gulf beaches.

There is a causeway to Indian Rock Beach due west of the clinic. We were greeted by some very impressive private homes located right along the Gulf.

Private beach-front homes (above and below)

A little farther to the south, the private homes gave way to small condos. There were roads between the condos that had free parking and public access to the beach. We turned down one of the roads, parked, and walked the short boardwalk over the dune to the beach.

Paul and Margery at Indian Rocks Beach

It was a nice, warm morning, so there were a few of people sitting and walking on the beach.

Indian Rocks Beach

Condos on the beach

After our walk on the beach, we drove toward the north to Clearwater Beach. Clearwater Beach seems to be a bit more commercial with large condos, hotels, marinas and beach-front shops. It reminded us of Myrtle Beach and is definitely a vacation destination.

Beach-front condos and hotels in Clearwater Beach

By the time we drove through Clearwater Beach, it was around noon, so we headed east across another causeway over the Intracoastal Waterway then across Gulf to Bay Causeway over the northern part of Tampa Bay to Bahama Breeze.

Entrance to Bahama Breeze in Tampa

Since it was the height of lunch hour, the parking lot was fairly full, and we had to drive around twice before we found a shady spot for Freeway. We thought about eating outside, but all the shady tables on the deck were taken, and it was pretty breezy anyway. Fortunately, there were still plenty of tables available inside.

After we had a delicious appetizer of Firecracker Shrimp, Margery had her favorite - almond encrusted talapia. Paul had fish tacos. The talapia was delicious as always; but this was the first time either of us had the fish tacos at Bahama Breeze, and Paul was a little disappointed. The piece of fish on each taco was pretty small, and the tacos were served with plain lettuce, a small amount of mashed avocado and pico de gallo. Fish tacos that we have had at other restaurants and the fish tacos Margery makes are topped with sweet-sour cabbage. The sweet-sour flavor provides an interesting contrast to the fried fish, and the cabbage provides a nice crunch to the soft taco shell. Unfortunately, the pico de gallo lacked the zing that the sweet-sour cabbage provides, and the lettuce didn't provide any crunch.

Paul had fish tacos.

It seems like we can't get out of Bahama Breeze without having a Chocolate Island for dessert. A Chocolate Island is a tower of rich chocolate mousse topped with whipped cream sitting on a fudge brownie base. The island is floating in a swirling ocean of chocolate sauce and vanilla anglaise. Candied, roasted almonds are sprinkled over everything.

Chocolate Island Dessert

Later that evening back at Blueberry Hill, we were treated to a beautiful sunset as we settled in for an evening of TV.

Blueberry Hill sunset

We don't have anything newsworthy scheduled for the near future except for Freeway's surgery. As we said, we'll have an update on that next week, and we'll let you know if anything else pops up.

Return to the Market of Marion

Bushnell, FL - Events of Friday, Feb. 24 to Thursday, March 1, 2012

Shortly after we arrived in Bushnell last December, we went to the Market of Marion, which is a flea market located a little to the north of The Villages. Paul needed a new pair of reading glasses, and we remembered from the previous year there was a vendor there who had a nice selection of good quality glasses at reasonable prices. Fortunately, that vendor was still there this year, and Paul was able to get his new reading glasses plus an additional pair as a backup.

When Paul was working on the installation of the residential refrigerator, instead of using his eyeglass carrying case, he put his reading glasses into his pocket. He forgot they were in there and stuck a tool into his pocket scratching his glasses. Fortunately, he had the second pair he could fall back on; but since he had to use his backup pair much sooner than he thought, he wanted to get another pair before we left Florida.

Since the flea market is open on Fridays (they are open Fridays during the winter in addition to being open Saturdays and Sundays year round) and since the market is a short distance north of where Freeway's vet is located, we made the appointment for Freeway's rabies shot for 9:00 AM on a Friday so we could go to the Market of Marion afterward.

We were hoping to take Freeway into the market with us using his carrier, but there were signs that said "no dogs." Even though the market was fairly busy, we had no trouble finding a nice shady parking place to keep the car cool for Freeway for the short time we planned to be in the market.

Main entrance to the Market of Marion

We headed for the eyeglass vendor where Paul found two more pairs of reading glasses. The same vendor has a big selection of sunglasses, and we had a good time trying some of the novelty shades.

Margery tries on flamingo sunglasses

Paul went for the parrots - it's 5 o'clock somewhere

Most of the area flea markets have plenty of nice produce for sale, and the Market of Marion is no exception.

Just a small portion of the produce aisle at Market of Marion

We picked up a red pepper, several nice beefsteak tomatoes, cauliflower, leaf lettuce, a pint of Plant City strawberries, a couple of lemons and a couple of limes before heading back to the motor home.

On Saturday, we had Freeway's puppy class. The previous week's class was postponed because Terry, the instructor, was sick. In this class, we worked on leave it, drop it and down. "Leave it" is used when your dog is eyeing something or going after something you don't want him to have; "drop it" is for when he has something in his mouth you want him to let go of; and "down" means to lie down.

Terry teaches Freeway "down"

Terry has some very good training techniques. With a small class, she can easily run through the commands with each dog in turn to see the individual response, then give the owners specific tips for success based on their dog's reaction. Freeway seems to want to please and he responds well to praise even more than he responds to treats.

Speaking of Freeway, he gave us quite a scare on Monday evening. Margery went to the bedroom to fold clothes from the dryer, and we got both distracted for several minutes back there trying to get the TV tuned to the Daytona 500, which had been postponed for about 36 hours from Sunday because of rain. Partway through the process of fiddling with the TV, we decided Freeway was awfully quiet and that someone should check on him to make sure he hadn't gotten into any trouble. When we went to look for him, he was nowhere to be found. We came to the conclusion the screen door hadn't been properly latched the last time someone came in, and that Freeway had gotten out while we were both distracted with the TV in the bedroom.

We grabbed flashlights and ran outside squeaking his toys to try to attract his attention. We used our flashlights to look under the motor home and under neighboring rigs. Our neighbors, Gary and Pam, joined the search.

To make a long story short, after about half an hour, Margery found Freeway in the bathroom where she had stopped on her way to fold clothes. Freeway is so small and so fast he can frequently scoot through a door without being seen. When Margery opened the door to exit the bathroom, Freeway darted in without her seeing him, and she closed the door behind her trapping Freeway inside. Needless to say, we were happy he hadn't gotten out. We have been trying to make sure the screen is latched ever since we got Freeway, but we are now making doubly sure we check it every time we go in and out. Paul even adjusted the latch a bit to make it easier to close.

Freeway has been getting a little shaggy-looking lately, so we started thinking about grooming. We used to groom our previous dog, Molly, ourselves. However, Molly was at least 5 or 6 years old when we started grooming her, and she was very used to being groomed because we had taken her to professional groomers up until that time. Therefore, we thought it might be a good idea to have freeway professionally groomed, at least for the first time.

PetSmart, where we take Freeway for his vet appointments and for puppy classes, does dog grooming so we made an inquiry when we were there recently. Regular grooming at PetSmart starts at $40, but they have a special price of $15.99 for puppy cuts for dogs under 5 months of age. That sounded like a good deal to us, so we made an appointment for Freeway.

We dropped Freeway off, and then ran a few errands. Although they say to figure on three hours for grooming, we got a call in about two hours saying Freeway was done. Freeway's groomer, Alice, said he was a very good boy.

Alice brings Freeway out for his big reveal

We were thrilled with the results. We have seen puppy cuts where the body was clipped too short making the puppy's head look way too big for its body. But Alice did a great job. Freeway still looks like Freeway - just neater.

Freeway before

 

Freeway after

 

Alice said Freeway had some tangles in his fur, but she was able to brush them out with a little extra effort. We had been brushing Freeway fairly regularly, but he doesn't like it so we slacked off. We need to be a little more diligent because he should be brushed fairly often since he has long hair.

We were originally scheduled to leave Bushnell on March 6. With the refrigerator project taking up so much time, we hardly feel like we have been in Florida at all except for the fact it has been nice and warm most of the time. Therefore, we extended our stay here at Blueberry Hill until late March. We plan to relax a bit, do a little more sightseeing, eat out a few more times and take some time to work on our summer travel plans.

Even before gasoline prices started to skyrocket, we were thinking we would slow down a bit this summer meaning we would travel a little less and stay a little longer at many of our stops. That plan is looking better and better every day as gasoline prices approach $4 a gallon ($5 in California) and threaten to go even higher.

After leaving Florida, we plan to go to Callaway Gardens in Georgia where we are hoping to catch the azaleas at their peak. After that, we'll head to the Escapees Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale, AL for several weeks. Then after stopping in New Orleans, we'll begin to drift northward along the Mississippi. We then plan to meander back toward the east ending up in Pittsburgh in the early fall for a family visit and doctor appointments. Even though we'll be moving a little slower, we have planned what we hope will be some interesting stops.

Ybor City

Bushnell, FL - Events of Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012

Ybor (pronounced EE-bor) City was established in 1885 by Vicente Martinez Ybor as a location for his cigar factory. Ybor City was originally an independent town, but it was annexed by Tampa in 1887.

We decided to take a drive to Tampa to check out Ybor City with Pat and Mike. The entire neighborhood has been designated as a National Historic Landmark District, so our intention was to first tour the Ybor City Museum and learn a little about the history, then walk around the area to see some of the historic buildings.

Even though Ybor City is located in an urban area, there is plenty of free, on-street parking. Most of it has a two-hour limit, but there seem to be a lot of spaces available, so you can just move your car to a different location if you need more time. There are also several city lots where you can park longer, but there is a fee for those.

The museum is part of an urban state park and is located in the old bakery that was operated by the Ferlita family. It is supposed to open at 9:00 AM; but when we arrived around 11:00, it was closed. The museum store in a separate building next door was open, and they said they were trying to find out why no one had shown up yet to open the museum itself. We later found out the ranger had car trouble.

While we waited to see if the museum was going to open, we decided to walk down the street toward Centro Ybor. Centro Ybor an entertainment complex with a movie theater, shops and restaurants that is adjacent to Centro Español de Tampa, which was a Latin club that was a cultural, recreational and medical center for early Spanish immigrants.

Centro Ybor

Since the museum wasn't open, we were at a little bit of a disadvantage because we were counting on picking up some of the history of Ybor city at the museum before we walked the streets. Fortunately, there is a Chamber of Commerce Information Center at Centro Ybor where there were a few displays on the history of the area and about cigar making. The lady at the information center also told us about some of the things we should see at that end of town like the Ybor cigar factory. While we were at the information center, we also found out the ranger had gotten to the museum and that it was finally open.

Ybor City Chamber of Commerce Information Center

Vicente Martinez Ybor, who was born in Spain, traveled to the Spanish colony of Cuba in 1832 where he opened a factory that produced world-renowned cigars. Because of his support for Cuban independence, Ybor was forced to flee Cuba for the United States in 1869 where he opened a new cigar factory in Key West.

Ybor had difficulty keeping workers at his factory in Key West because Cuba was so close, the workers could easily return home if they decided to. Also, Ybor also had difficulty with frequent strikes in Key west. For those reasons, Ybor bought 40 acres of palmetto and scrub pine flats in 1885 near the then small town of Tampa on the west coast of Florida.

Statue of Vicente Martinez Ybor

The deep-water port at Tampa was suitable for ships bringing in tobacco from Cuba, and he could obtain enough land to enable him build a company town that included inexpensive housing for his workers so they would not be as likely to return to Cuba. By the time Ybor arrived in Tampa, Henry Plant had also built railroads along Florida's west coast that would enable Ybor to ship his finished cigars north.

Ybor also encouraged others to open cigar factories in his town. This greatly enhanced the vitality of Ybor City because more employers brought in more workers and more workers made better business for everybody. Even though there were other cigar factories, Ybor made sure his was the largest. In fact, the Ybor factory was the largest in the world and covered an entire city block. Since Ybor's factory was only about two blocks from the information center, we headed to the factory before going back to the museum.

Entrance to Ybor Cigar Factory

The cigar industry peaked in 1929. The market crash and the Great Depression that followed reduced the demand for cigars and weakened the cigar industry. The rise in popularity of cigarettes in the 1920s and 1930s didn't help either. As young men headed off to war in the 1940s, cigar making and Ybor City declined even further.

Ybor's factory remained active until after WWII. Then after sitting vacant for a few decades, it was used as gallery space for artists, a festival marketplace, office space and a restaurant. In 2010, the Church of Scientology bought the entire complex, and they currently offer tours to the public.

Paul, Margery, Pat and Mike in front of a tobacco press in the Ybor Cigar Factory

After touring the factory, we walked up East 7th Avenue, which is the main thoroughfare through Ybor City, where we enjoyed seeing the early 1900s architecture. We were hoping for some unique shops, but there are mostly restaurants, night clubs and a few tattoo parlors.

East 7th Avenue in Ybor City

The original residents of Ybor City were primarily from Spain, either directly or by way of Cuba. Soon, however, immigrants from Europe saw opportunities and began moving to Ybor City. Germans were involved in the stone lithography process used to print cigar boxes, a few examples of which are shown at the top of this post. Jews came from eastern Europe and Germany and Sicilians came to learn cigar making or to open other businesses. The bakery where the the State Park's Ybor City Museum is located was owned by Sicilians. 

Ybor City Museum located in the old Ferlita Bakery

Francisco Ferlita built the first bakery on the site in 1896. The original wooden building was destroyed by fire in 1922 and was replaced by the current brick structure. The bakery, which produced 35,000 loaves of Cuban bread a week at its peak, operated until 1973.

Some of the historic buildings in Ybor city were lost to urban renewal in the 1960s and 70s. The remaining residents wanted to preserve their heritage, so they requested a museum. Through a bureaucratic blunder, the fire station where the museum was originally to be located was bulldozed on the very day a celebration was being held in a nearby restaurant to commemorate the designation of the fire station as the new museum. The city fathers substituted the Ferlita Bakery building across the street from the destroyed fire house as the location for the museum.

As we mentioned earlier, one of Ybor's problems at his cigar factory back in Key West was his workers frequently decided to leave and go back to Cuba. In Tampa, Ybor turned to the idea of home ownership in order to give his workers more of a reason to stay. Ybor was able to provide a small house called a casita that the workers could purchase at a reasonable price. Most of these wooden homes were lost to urban renewal, but the state park rescued several casitas and relocated them adjacent to the museum.

We got back to the Ybor City Museum just as the ranger was beginning a tour of one of the casitas.

Cigar factory worker's casita

The casitas were modest shotgun houses one room wide by four rooms deep. Families were large with numerous children and probably grandparents living under the same roof. Small back yards had gardens, chickens and sometimes a pig or even a cow.

Parlor of the casita

After the very interesting guided tour of the casita, we walked through the garden that is between the casitas and the museum.

Ybor City Museum garden

A quick game of checkers in the garden

The museum has an excellent video on the history of Ybor City. After watching that, we checked out some of the displays.

Margery learning about the history of Ybor City

Cigar workers sat at row upon row of benches hand rolling cigars all day. Many factories had up to 1,000 workers, but the Ybor factory had as many as 4,000 at its peak. There was no air conditioning back in those days, and work went on year round. In order to help reduce boredom and increase morale, the factories had readers who sat on a raised platform and read books and the newspaper to the workers.

Cigar workers hand rolling cigars

After our visit to Ybor city, we drove a few miles to the Bahama Breeze in Tampa. Bahama Breeze is one of our favorite chain restaurants because the Caribbean atmosphere and island menu make us feel like we are on vacation.

Bahama Breeze in Tampa

Everyone except Paul had almond-crusted talapia that was served with cinnamon sweet potatoes and a vegetable. Paul had grilled chicken with cilantro crema that was served with mashed potatoes and roasted corn. We shared an appetizer of firecracker shrimp and a chocolate island dessert.

Lunch at Bahama Breeze

It was a great day. We were happy to learn some interesting Florida history, and we enjoyed sharing the day and a delicious meal with Pat and Mike.

Tarpon Springs 2012

Bushnell, FL - Events of Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012

You will notice a new feature in this blog post - captions for the photographs. The ability to add photo captions was just introduced by Typepad, the host of our blog. It is still in the beta stage (meaning it may still have some bugs and inconsistencies), but we decided to try it out. We hope you like the new captions.

Tarpon Springs is one of our favorite places in Florida. It is located along the Anclote River a few miles upstream from the Gulf of Mexico, and it is only about an hour away from where we spend the winter in Bushnell. We always make a point of going to Tarpon Springs at least once while we're in Bushnell, because we love the quaint atmosphere, the interesting shops and the delicious Greek food.

This year, we went to Tarpon Springs with our friends from Pittsburgh, Pat and Mike. This is their first year of full-timing and their first winter in Florida, and they have never been to Tarpon Springs.

Tarpon Springs was originally a location for winter homes back in the 1870s, but when the sponges began to be harvested from the Gulf of Mexico in the 1880s, sponge divers from Greece were recruited to help bring in the bounty. The industry thrived into the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. The waterfront has several historic boats with sponges festooned around the decks just like it would have been back in the day.

Tarpon Springs waterfront

In 1947, a red algae bloom all but wiped out the sponge beds in the area, and many of the sponge boats switched to fishing or shrimping. Today, commercial fishing boats dock across the river.

Commercial fishing boat in Tarpon Springs

The sponge beds have recovered, and there is still some commercial sponge diving going on, but man-made sponges and things like paper towels and micro fiber cloths have largely replaced natural sponges. Tourism is now the primary industry for Tarpon Springs. The quaint shops and Greek restaurants of Tarpon Springs draw visitors from all over.

Many of the shops specialize in sponges. We stopped to look at a few.

Margery checks out sponges

The morning started out cloudy, but it cleared up by the time we got to Tarpon Springs. Since it turned out to be such a nice, sunny morning, there were quite a few shoppers on Docecanese Blvd., which is the main street along the waterfront.

A few of the shops along Dodecanese Blvd.

We usually walk to the Sponge Factory at the eastern end of Dodecanese Blvd.

The Sponge Factory

The Sponge Factory has a good movie that gives a history of the sponge industry in Florida. This year, they have updated the movie and added some more recent footage.

The Sponge Factory also has nice displays of Greek-themed gift items that includes olive oil lotions and soaps and also nautical and marine items such as starfish and seashells.

Margery checks out a sea fan inside the Sponge Factory

Since we planned to be gone most of the day, we took Freeway with us. He got to tour all over Tarpon Springs in his carrier mounted on the shopping cart we bought about a month ago at the RV show. Paul and Freeway took a little break to watch the world go by from a bench outside the Sponge Factory.

Paul and Freeway take a break

The Sponge Exchange is a collection of shops and restaurants located toward the western end of Dodecanese Blvd. where the sponge clearinghouse used to be. We stopped there after leaving the Sponge Factory.

Mike and Pat at the Sponge Exchange

By the time we walked to the Sponge Factory and back and then visited the Sponge Exchange, it was almost 1:00 PM. We were all hungry, so we headed down Athens St. to Costa's where we like to have lunch. Tarpon Springs is a pet-friendly community, and we were able to take Freeway into the restaurant in his canvas carrier. He was a good boy and just napped most of the time.

Costa's Restaurant

Like most of the restaurants in Tarpon Springs, Costa's specializes in Greek cuisine. We ordered a flaming cheese appetizer called saganaki. A slab of cheese is placed on a little iron skillet (like the kind they use for fajitas in Mexican restaurants) and put under the broiler. When the cheese is all bubbly, they bring it to your table, douse it with brandy, set it on fire and serve it to shouts of "Opa!" Opa is a Greek exclamation that seems to mean about the same thing as "hooray" or "yeehaw." The cheese is melted inside and has a toasted, crunchy crust outside. Yum!

Flaming saganaki appetizer - opa!

We all ordered gyros (pronounced YEE-ros) and Greek salad. We also enjoyed baklava for dessert. As usual, the food was excellent as was the company.

Enjoying our gyros

After lunch, we let Freeway stretch his legs along the sidewalk near the restaurant before heading back to Bushnell.

Freeway takes a walk

Freeway is really doing well on walks as long as you keep moving briskly. As soon as you slow down, he thinks it's OK for him to stop altogether. Once he stops, he wants to pick up in his mouth anything that is lying around - cigarette butts, stones, sticks, chewing gum, leaves, you name it. As we mentioned in our last post, we are looking forward to having him learn the "leave it" command in our next puppy class.

Back at Blueberry Hill, we took a few days to relax. Look for our next post to see what we found to do next.

Good Boy, Freeway!

Bushnell, FL - Events of Saturday, Feb. 4 to Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2012

Now that we have finished the refrigerator project and have some time to relax, we figured it was time for an update on Freeway, our new Cavachon puppy. A Cavachon is a hybrid between a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a Bichon Frise.

We picked Freeway up on January 7th from Royal Puppy Palace in Odessa, FL when he was 8 weeks old. When we first got Freeway, he weighed just about 3¼ pounds. He is now 3 months old, and he has more than doubled his weight. His final weight will probably be 12 to 15 pounds, so he still has more growing to do.

We enrolled Freeway in a puppy class at PetSmart near The Villages. We still remembered some of the training we had done with Molly, our previous dog, although some of that trainer's ideas were a bit strange to say the least...don't motivate with food and a once-a-year bath is adequate...but we happened to meet one of the trainers when we had Freeway at the vet (Banfield, which is located inside PetSmart). The trainer, whose name is Terry, seemed to be very caring and very knowledgeable, so we decided a refresher course with Terry would be a good idea.

Dog training classes are really somewhat of a misnomer. Unless you pay big bucks for specialized, personalized dog training, most group classes are really intended to train the owners. Since the owners spend 24/7 with their pets, they are really the best ones to do the training in the first place; but knowledge is required to do that successfully.

Freeway's class is small. There is a total of only three puppies which makes for lots of individual attention and lots of opportunities to ask questions. The first class was mostly a "get acquainted" session where Terry outlined the basics of the training that would take place. We started working on getting the puppies to sit. Terry also allowed the pups to play together to get to know each other. That's Trixie on the left. she is a toy Fox Terrier. Abbie is on the lap of her owner in the red shirt. We're not sure of her breed, but we think she is a Shih Tzu.

Our homework consisted of continuing to work on the sit command. Even though sit is one of the most basic commands, it is not as easy as you might think to teach it to an active puppy who wants to explore everything in sight. Terry said for puppies this young, sitting for 5 seconds at a time is considered to be a success.

Freeway's potty training is coming right along. He can easily go all night, and he can frequently go several hours at a time. He even sometimes asks to go out; but not always, and he hasn't gotten the hang of ringing the bell to ask to go out either. Therefore, we need to be diligent and watch for the signs he needs to go. His successes always result in enthusiastic praise of "good boy, Freeway!"

We also sometimes watch Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, and we have a couple of his books. One of the things he emphasises is the importance of exercise for dogs. He usually begins his training sessions with walking the dog to burn off excess energy making the dog more receptive to the training. The benefits of exercise were really brought into focus following our first puppy class. During the class, the pups romped and played with each other for about 45 minutes. Freeway was so tuckered out after class, he had little energy left over to look for ways to get into trouble. He usually gets a little hyperactive after dinner, but the evening after the first class, all he wanted to do was nap.

According to Cesar Millan, walking is not only is good exercise for the dog and the humans, it is a natural pack activity. Wild dogs and wolves travel together under the alpha dog's leadership to look for food, and walking helps solidify the humans' role as pack leaders.

Because of the importance of exercise for dogs, we were happy the primary lesson for the second class was walking on a leash. We had been working with Freeway to try to get him used to a collar and leash, so he did fairly well in class. The dog's natural tendency is to pull back and resist the leash, so the important thing we learned was how to encourage him to keep walking by praising him and by stooping down to encourage him when he lagged behind. The instructor also said a little peanut butter on the end of a spoon also would help, but Freeway seems to be doing well without the peanut butter.

After walking the dogs around the PetSmart store, we had a little time for the puppies to play. Terry is great, and you can tell she really loves dogs. She gets right down on the floor with them to join in the play.

We are looking forward to the third class. It will cover the "leave it" command. We have been using that for several weeks already, but we have had only limited success.

Earlier, we mentioned how much Freeway has grown. His weight has more than doubled, and his size has also increased correspondingly. Since we see him every day, we don't notice his size increasing that much, but it was really demonstrated to us the other day when the temperatures took a dive into the low 30s and mid 20s for a couple of nights, and we got out the coat we bought Freeway about a month ago. It had been fairly warm, so we haven't had to use the coat we bought him for the past few weeks. The photo below shows how the coat fit when we tried it on in the store...

...and the next photo shows how it fits now. The coat only goes about half way down Freeway's back, and it looks more like a vest. The Velcro strap under his chest is barely long enough to get fastened.

As another comparison, look at the next photo of Freeway and his size compared to that of his toy the day we picked him up at 8 weeks of age...

...and contrast that to his size now at 3 months of age compared to the same toy.

Another example of his growth is this photo at 8 weeks on the steps of the motor home. We were thrilled he could make it up the first step.

The next photo of Freeway on the steps is at 3 months of age. He can now bound up and down all the steps. We had to work really hard to get him to sit still long enough for a photo.

We'll end this post with Valentine's Day. Since our daughter Lora was a young girl, Paul has given her a pink rose each Valentine's Day. It is a tradition he has continued even though she is now an adult and is married. Sending her flowers now that we are on the road has been a challenge because there aren't any florists near their home, and Paul had a lot of difficulty getting anyone to make the delivery. This year, J. Michael graciously offered to pick up Lora's rose for Paul at a florist near where he works. J. Michael dropped it off in Lora's car after lunch so she would find it after she was done teaching that day.

Margery has always been fond of cut flowers. Paul didn't send her flowers often, but when he did (usually on Valentine's Day), she was always thrilled. One solution to sending flowers while we are on the road is Pro Flowers. They are an online florist that sends flowers by UPS. In the early afternoon, Paul made up an excuse to go out so he could stop by the campground mail room on his way back to see if the flowers had arrived. Sure enough, they were there. Pro Flowers does a nice job of packaging the flowers. They are carefully wrapped to prevent damage, and the stems are in wet Oasis floral foam. Margery was delighted.

We didn't go out to dinner for Valentine's Day. We had plans for the following day to do some sightseeing that included eating out, and we didn't want to cheat on our diet two days in a row. Speaking of our diet, we are going well. Paul is nearing his goal with a weight loss of over 25 pounds, and Margery has lost about 14 pounds.

We did have a special dessert on Valentine's day. We picked up some delicious, no-sugar, double strawberry ice cream at Walmart. We're happy to report the freezer of the new Samsung kept the ice cream hard as a rock. Paul had difficulty scooping it out with a regular spoon, so we'll be looking for a sturdy ice cream scoop in the near future.

As we mentioned, we have plans to do some sightseeing. Stay tuned.

Motor Home Project: Install a New Residential Refrigerator

 Part 4 - In Goes the New

Bushnell, FL - Events of Friday, Feb. 3 to Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012

In our last post, Paul had finished cutting all the maple lumber for the new face frame for our refrigerator cabinet. After test fitting the parts, Paul began the assembly. The face frames of most RV cabinets are assembled with pocket screws. With this technique, holes are drilled at an angle in the back of one piece of wood to accept screws that fasten to the adjoining piece of wood. This joint is not as strong as some cabinet joints; but it is strong enough, and it is easy to do (especially with the dedicated pocket screw equipment the RV manufacturers use).

Since Paul doesn't have access to fancy, dedicated pocket screw machines, he bought a Kreg Jig Mini at Lowe's that is designed to be used with a hand drill. There are also more elaborate versions of pocket screw jigs available that simplify the setup and clamping to the workpiece; but at $20, this basic version is the least expensive. Since this is a tool Paul is not likely to use much in the future and there weren't that many joints to make, Paul was willing to take the extra time to set up the basic version of the jig for each joint to save a little money.

The jig is plastic so it will not mar the wood, and it has a metal insert to guide the drill bit. The jig is firmly clamped to the workpiece at the proper distance back from the edge according to the thickness of the wood being joined, then the pocket hole is drilled with the special drill bit provided in the kit. The position of the stop collar on the drill bit is also determined by the thickness of the wood.

Paul was impressed by the professional-looking results.

After assembly of the face frame, there was another test fitting. In spite of the fact the joints fastened together only with screws and have no glue, the joints stayed tight while Paul maneuvered the rather large, awkward frame into the motor home. Pocket screw joints are typically assembled without glue, but glue could be used along with the screws for maximum strength. However, Paul chose not to use glue in case modifications to the frame were required now or at a later date.

After Paul was sure the new frame fit properly, he sanded it and applied three coats of Minwax Wipe-On Poly finish.

With the new face frame for the refrigerator cabinet complete, Paul removed the false floor that he had temporarily installed so he could put in the modified support for the new drawer that is going under the false floor. This step had to wait for the new frame because the sides of the support attach to the frame.

Throughout the process there were a number of components that had to be installed in order for other parts to be fit, then the first components had to be removed in order to work on something else. Sometimes, the same components had to be installed and removed several times.

Paul devised a way to attach the face frame to the cabinet after the new fridge was set into place by using screwing blocks along the inside edges of the frame. Installing the frame after setting the new fridge into place would prevent any possible damage to the frame when lifting the tall, heavy refrigerator in the narrow hallway. Therefore, the face frame had to be removed again. Then Paul re-installed the false floor for what was to be the final time.

There were a few more details to tend to such as reducing the height of the water line and installing an in-line water filter for the ice maker.

Paul used a Shark Bite ball valve to connect to the existing PEX water pipe. The valve he bought has a Shark Bite connector on the inlet to connect to the existing PEX tubing and ½" female pipe thread on the outlet to connect a threaded adapter for ¼" tubing for the ice maker filter. Shark Bite is a brand name of push-on plumbing fittings. The same fitting will work copper, PVC and PEX tubing (or any combination thereof). The fittings are a little expensive, but they make plumbing a breeze. Just push them on and you're done. There is no soldering, no threads to tighten, no glue, or no crimping. And there were no leaks on the first try!

Then it was finally time to shut down the new Samsung and move it into position in the cabinet opening. We unloaded the food from the Samsung and put it into our own and into several borrowed coolers. After Paul removed the doors and the freezer drawer, Gary and Leroy came over to help with the lifting. Surprisingly, the Samsung with the doors removed seemed a good bit lighter than the old Norcold without its doors.

The next photo shows the Samsung in place. Notice the temporary support under the center of the false floor in front. This was to hold the false floor at the proper level until Paul could get the face frame into place. The frame has a piece of angle iron running across the front to support the floor.

After the new refrigerator was in place, Paul installed the maple frame on the cabinet. Then he re-installed the refrigerator doors. This was a little tricky because with the top of the fridge almost all the way up to the ceiling, it was impossible to get a screwdriver in to install the top screws. Paul tilted the top of the fridge forward while Margery steadied it so he could reach the screws.

We then plugged the fridge back in, started it up and loaded the food back in. In the following few days, Paul hooked up the ice maker, bolted the refrigerator to the floor and made some spacers for inside the cabinet to reduce any tendency of the refrigerator to want to tip as we are making a turn while driving.

With the new refrigerator securely fastened down and operational, Paul went to work finishing the new drawer underneath. During this entire project, Paul missed his table saw so much, he built a make-shift table saw by drilling some small holes in the base plate of his 7¼" circular saw and using some flat-head screws to mount the saw upside down with the blade sticking up through a piece of ½" plywood. He set the plywood on the saw horses he bought and clamped a straight piece of 1 x 4 to the plywood to use for a fence to guide the work piece. It doesn't have near the precision of a good quality table saw (or even an inexpensive table saw for that matter), and the setup for each cut was a bit tedious, but the cuts were more accurate and more repeatable than they would have been holding the circular saw by hand.

The home made table saw was invaluable for making the pieces for the drawer because for the drawer to fit together properly and to operate smoothly, the cuts had to be fairly accurate. The next photo shows Paul in action with his home made table saw getting ready to make a dado cut in one of the drawer side pieces where the drawer bottom will fit. That was something he couldn't even attempt to do with a hand-held saw.

In addition to finishing the drawer, Paul re-installed the furnace vent below the fridge and installed the plastic trim piece at the bottom of the fridge. The next photo shows the completed job.

The installation was a lot of work, but we are very pleased with our new residential refrigerator. One of the best things is the Samsung makes ice much faster than we can use it. We haven't tried ice cream yet, but the frozen food is hard as a rock. Another good thing about the Samsung is it only weighs about 20 pounds more than our old Norcold. Of course, the Samsung will hold a lot more food, so we'll have to be careful not to overload the fridge when we're on the move. Even when the Samsung is relatively full, everything is easy to find. Margery LOVES the deep vegetable fresheners since we always have plenty greens on hand for salads.

With the big job of installing the new refrigerator done, we're looking forward to some relaxation and recreation. We still have to devise a way to hold the refrigerator doors and freezer drawer closed while we're driving; but we have an idea for that, and it can be done later at a more leisurely pace. Enough work for now.

Motor Home Project: Install a Residential Refrigerator

Part 3 - Making Modifications

Bushnell, FL - Events of Sunday, Jan. 29 to Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012

There were a lot of details to tend to before Paul could install the new Samsung residential refrigerator. The first thing he tackled after removing the Norcold was to run a new electric line from the inverter.

We only have two 6-volt house batteries, so we won't be able to run the refrigerator for very long on the inverter, but that isn't a big concern since we don't boondock anymore. However, with the alternator of the motor home charging the house batteries, we're hoping to be able to run the refrigerator while we're driving. If it turns out we can't, it's not that big a deal because we usually only travel less than 4 hours a day. We'll just leave the fridge off because it won't warm up very much in that amount of time. If we have a longer drive, we can always run the generator for a while to make sure the fridge stays cool. Even if we end up not running the fridge while we're driving, Paul still wanted to run the wire from the inverter now while he had easy access to the area behind the fridge because there is also the possibility of adding a second pair of batteries sometime in the future if we decide we want to do that.

There is a receptacle connected to the inverter below the dash. This was a very convenient location to connect a wire to run to the refrigerator area because Paul found a small opening in the firewall right behind that outlet that was sealed by foam. He tapped into the inverter outlet, ran the wire out the opening and under the floor of the motor home along side several other wires. He then found a place where a furnace duct ran up through the floor under the kitchen sink and pushed the wire up along side the furnace duct. Once the wire was under the sink, it was fairly easy to run it behind the cabinet to the refrigerator area.

After he got the wire in position, Paul climbed back under the motor home to zip-tie it into place so it wouldn't sag or rub on anything.

The next job Paul took on was to close off the old refrigerator vents. The back of Norcold needed to be open to the outside air because of the cooling requirements for the coils and because of the fact is has the capability of running on LP gas. The inside face of Norcold was sealed to the cabinetry with weatherstripping to prevent hot or cold outside air from infiltrating into the RV.

Residential refrigerators have cooling fans that draw room air over their coils for cooling and don't require outside ventilation. Leaving the old vents open would have allowed outside air into the motor home since the Samsung would have air space around it and would not be sealed to the cabinetry, so Paul closed the vents off by constructing a box from foam insulation board and foil tape. He attached the box to the inside of the access cover.

The next photo is a view of the cover in place from the inside. Paul later added weatherstripping to cover the small gap around the perimeter of the cover. This arrangement will allow easy access to the plugs and water connection behind the refrigerator from the outside. Also visible to the right in the next photo are the new inverter/shore power electrical outlet (bottom) and the relocated outlet that is for shore power only.

Paul covered the inside opening of the roof vent with another piece of foam board.

Just to be absolutely sure no rain could blow in under the vent cover up on the roof and leak inside, he fashioned a cap out of aluminum flashing to put right over outside of the vent opening. The photo below shows the roof vent with the cover removed.

And the next photo shows the aluminum cap. The cover went back on over the cap.

While we're on the subject of closing up holes, Paul noticed when he was removing the LP gas line that the opening in the floor that the line passed through had not been completely sealed up at the factory. There were several air gaps in the foam sealant down to the storage compartments below. Paul bought a can of spray foam insulation to closed off those gaps. He also used the foam to seal the opening beside the furnace duct and the hole in the firewall where he had run the new electric line from the inverter.

With most of the secondary work done. it was time to determine the exact location for the false floor that the Samsung would sit on. The location is critical because not only did the new refrigerator have to fit properly in the space above the floor, we wanted to maximize the height of the storage drawer below the refrigerator. After many measurements, a lot of calculations and numerous sketches, Paul put in the supports for the new floor.

The old floor was made from treated plywood to resist rot from possible water leaks either from the water line to the ice maker or from an overflowing condensate pan. Paul liked the idea of using treated plywood, so he bought a new piece because the old one was covered with unsightly black adhesive and sealant. The old one was also a little warped. Paul cut the plywood to size and temporarily screwed it into place.

Once the location for the floor was established, Paul could get to work on the new face frame for the refrigerator cabinet. We picked up some maple lumber a few weeks ago at Hardwood Lumber & Millwork down in Lakeland, FL. That was the day we had the brake problem, and the owner of the lumber store even stayed a few minutes late so we could get back to pick up our lumber after getting our brakes repaired.

Hardwood Lumber & Millwork has a fairly large warehouse full of cabinet-grade hardwoods in various thicknesses. They also make custom millwork. There aren't many sources for hardwood lumber in central Florida, and if you need some, Hardwood Lumber & Millwork is a good place to go.

Since picnic tables aren't provided at Blueberry Hill, Paul needed something for a work table so he purchased a pair of inexpensive, lightweight saw horses and used the piece of plywood he bought for the false floor as a table top. The photo below shows Paul setting up to make a cut...

...and actually making the cut.

This is the type of project that causes Paul to really miss his workshop, especially his table saw. He bought a new, carbide-tipped blade with finer teeth for his 7¼" circular saw. The new blade helped make smoother cuts, but doing finish cabinet work with a hand-held 7¼" circular saw still requires a lot of extra sanding and other hand work.

After all the pieces of maple for the face frame were cut, Paul took them inside for a test fit. After some adjustments, the parts were ready for assembly. We'll cover the assembly of the face frame and the installation of the new refrigerator in the next post.

Motor Home Project: Install a Residential Refrigerator

Part 2 - Out with the Old

Bushnell, FL - Events of Friday, Jan. 27 to Saturday, Jan 28, 2012

The morning after the Samsung arrived, Paul began the process of removing the Norcold. The first step was to remove the doors. Not only did this make the refrigerator lighter, but it was necessary so the Norcold would fit out the door of the motor home.

It was raining earlier in the morning, but fortunately it let up enough so Paul could go outside and unhook the water, gas and electric from the back of the refrigerator. Not only did Paul disconnect the LP gas line from the refrigerator, he disconnected the hose from the manifold in the outside storage bay below the refrigerator. He plugged the outlet and tested for leaks with a solution of dish detergent. The disconnected hose was later removed entirely.

There were also a couple of screws in back of the Norcold holding it down. After taking those out, Paul removed the trim and retaining screws from the top and bottom of the refrigerator on the inside. Watching the technician remove the refrigerator last year to replace our cooling unit was a big help.

With the Norcold unhooked and all the screws out, Paul was then able to begin prying the old refrigerator out. He checked the weather online, and since there were no more showers on the radar, he continued sliding the Norcold forward. Once it was sticking out several inches from the wall, it was time to look for some help. We rounded up Mike, Ken and Drew.

The work had to be done in tight quarters, especially with the new refrigerator sitting right nearby.

But we managed to wrestle the Norcold to the door and maneuver it down the steps. The fit was tight, but not as bad as the Samsung was going in. The Norcold is only 24" deep without the doors, and our motor home door opening is 24 5/8".

We are going to try to sell the Norcold. After all, it is a working RV refrigerator with a cooling unit that is less than a year old. The cooling unit alone costs about $1300 just for the part itself.

Rather than clutter up our site with a refrigerator wrapped in a tarp, we decided to rent a small storage unit down the road from the campground for a month to store the Norcold while we try to sell it. Mike had volunteered his truck to haul the Norcold to storage. We hoisted the Norcold into the bed, tied it down and hauled it away.

When we got back, Paul got to work. The next photo shows the empty space.

There was foam weatherstripping on the sides and a baffle at the back that was used to direct the air flow over the Norcold's coils that had to be removed. The false floor that the Norcold sat on had to be removed in order to lower it to accommodate the taller Samsung. Tiffin used a very tough sealant all around the floor. This had to be cut before the floor could be removed.

After the screws holding the false floor in place were gone, Paul could begin to pry the floor out.

Removing the floor revealed the tangle of wiring and plumbing that runs through this compartment behind the drawer that was below the refrigerator.

One option for installing the Samsung was to eliminate the drawer below the refrigerator entirely, sit the Samsung on the floor, and install a filler strip above. While this would have been easier, the presence of all that wiring and plumbing precluded sitting the Samsung on the floor. Besides, we need all the storage space we can get, so Paul will lower the false floor and build a new drawer that is lower and wider.

The next step was to remove the wood strips from the side walls that supported the false floor and to remove the old drawer supports. Then Paul removed the face frame around the cabinet opening. It was screwed to wooden frames inside the walls from the inside out. In other words, the face frame was installed before the wall panels were attached, and the heads for the screws that held the face frame were inside the walls. That meant Paul had to pry the face frame off and rip the screws out. Since he was going to replace the entire face frame anyway, it didn't matter if the face frame got damaged, which it did. Fortunately, he managed to get the face frame off without damaging the side walls. The next photo shows one of the screws that held the face frame in place...

...and the next photo shows the refrigerator opening with the face frame and everything inside the opening removed that has to be removed.

Pulling out the old Norcold and the demo work on the cabinet took two days. From here, things will slow down a bit as Paul measures, plans and builds all the new parts required to finish the cabinet and get the new Samsung installed. We'll update the progress in our next post.

Motor Home Project: Install a Residential Refrigerator

Part 1 - The New Fridge Arrives

Bushnell, FL - Events of Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012

RV refrigerators are gas absorption type while most refrigerators used in homes operate by means of a compressor. We won't get into the mechanics of how each type of refrigerator works, but gas absorption RV refrigerators, especially the larger ones, are notorious for not cooling well. The reason gas absorption refrigerators are used in RVs in the first place is they can operate on either 120V electric or LP gas (some models also operate on 12V electric) whereas standard residential refrigerators in the U. S. require 120V alternating current.

Our motor home came equipped with a 12 cubic foot, 4-door Norcold RV refrigerator.

Some newer motor homes offer residential refrigerators as either standard equipment or as an option. Because of all the problems with RV refrigerators, many owners of RVs that originally came with an RV refrigerator are replacing them with a residential model. Over the past year, several of the RV forums in which Paul participates have had topics on the subject of replacing an RV refrigerator with a residential refrigerator.

We have not been happy with the cooling of our Norcold ever since it was new. It was slow to make ice, and it never kept ice cream hard. The shelves inside were close together making it hard to find anything. As we found out last spring when our cooling unit failed, RV refrigerators are expensive to repair.

Norcold has also had a good bit of trouble with their 12 cubic foot RV refrigerators. There have been several recalls over the past few years because of fires. The new cooling unit we had installed last spring came equipped from the factory with the latest recall sensor already installed, but the control box for the sensor failed after only about a month, so we had to have the box replaced.

Even though we installed a new cooling unit less than a year ago and even though our Norcold was protected by the latest fire-prevention recall device, we finally made the decision to replace our 12 cubic foot, 4-door Norcold with an 18 cubic foot, French-door Samsung RF197 residential refrigerator. Because our refrigerator is located in the hallway, we needed either a French-door or a side-by-side model so we could open the doors fully.

We chose the Samsung for several reasons. First and foremost, it is a counter-depth model that we calculated would fit through the door of the motor home with the doors of the refrigerator removed. Every other model we found would require the removal of a side window or even the windshield to get the refrigerator inside.

The second reason for choosing the Samsung is it would fit into the same space where our Norcold was located. The Samsung is 6½ inches taller than the Norcold, so the height of the space had to be increased, but we determined the width and depth of the Samsung would fit quite easily. Also, because the Samsung it is counter-depth model, it would not intrude as far into the hallway as some of the other models would.

We don't boondock anymore so we don't really need to run the refrigerator on the inverter, at least for long periods of time. However, it would be nice to run the refrigerator on the inverter for short periods if we wanted to. The Samsung will operate on a modified sine wave inverter, which is the type of inverter our motor home came equipped with; and that is the third reason we went with a Samsung. Without getting into a lot of technical details about different types of inverters, let's just say most other residential refrigerators would have required us to replace our modified sine wave inverter with a pure sine wave inverter in order for us to have the ability to be able to operate the refrigerator on the inverter even for short periods.

We ordered the Samsung RF197 from Lowe's near The Villages right after after New Year's. We chose the silver platinum version (simulated stainless steel finish) over real stainless because the simulated stainless shows fewer fingerprints. The original delivery was estimated at about 5 weeks, but it arrived in about 3½ weeks. Waiting for the refrigerator to arrive and doing some of the prep work for the installation is the reason we have been just hangin' around so much lately.

We got a call on Wednesday scheduling our delivery between 10:00 AM and 3:00 PM on Thursday. The truck showed up around 2:00. The delivery guys knew the delivery was to an RV park, but they were apparently hoping it was going into a park model or mobile home. They were a little chagrined they were going to have to squeeze the fridge into a motor home.

The first thing they did was measure the motor home door. After they measured the fridge, one of them announced it wouldn't fit. Our door is 24 5/8" wide, and the Lowe's web site said the refrigerator was 24½" with the doors removed, so Paul knew it would be tight. However, on the back of the refrigerator there was a plastic box covering the water connection for the ice maker and a metal grill that provides access to the coils and compressor that stuck out an additional ¼" from the back of the refrigerator making the total depth 24¾. Uh oh.

Paul tried to convince the workers the fridge would fit if they would remove the plastic cover and metal grill from the back. More measuring and much discussion took place.

Paul watched patiently from the tailgate until they finally decided removing the rear covers was worth a try since they had driven so far to deliver the fridge in the first place.

They removed the covers from the back, rechecked the dimensions, then unloaded the fridge and began removing the doors.

We were all hopeful as we carried all the doors and bins inside and stacked them around the motor home.

With the doors off, the workers wheeled the fridge over to the motor home on a dolly and got it lined up with the door opening.

In it goes. We're committed now!

Almost in.

Phew, they made it!

Even with the covers taken off the back of the refrigerator and the doors removed it was still a tight fit. There were little plastic clips on the front that hold the bottom grill in place that got hung up on the door frame just as they got the fridge almost all the way in. The lesson learned is to check the dimensions of the refrigerator yourself (including any clips, covers or extra projections) before ordering if possible. The problem was this model is a special order and is not stocked anywhere, and since we had to go by the dimensions provided, we almost cut it a little too close.

Fortunately, the delivery guys didn't give up, and they eventually made it work. If it hadn't fit, Paul would have probably had the guys leave the fridge anyway. He then would have had to pull out the side window and get several of our neighbors to lift the refrigerator onto the back of someone's truck. We then would have had to slide the refrigerator in through the window.

Once the guys got the fridge in, they removed the tape and packing materials from inside and put the doors back on.

After the delivery guys left, we plugged the refrigerator in. While we waited for it to cool, Paul checked the current draw with his Kill-a-Watt meter (a Kill-a-Watt meter is an electrical meter that measures electrical current and electricity usage, among other things) and found the maximum reading of about 3.5 watts when the compressor started and less than 2 watts while the compressor was running. He also disconnected the motor home from shore power and plugged the refrigerator into an electrical outlet supplied by our 1000 watt inverter. He was pleased to find the inverter had enough output to start the refrigerator compressor and continue to run the refrigerator even while the inverter was powering the TV, DVR and computer at the same time.

The refrigerator is quite large standing there in the middle of the motor home. It will be a little inconvenient, but we'll have to work around it until Paul gets the old Norcold out and gets the cabinet modified so the Samsung will fit in.

It took the refrigerator about 2½ hours to cool down to the temperatures recommended by Samsung (38º for the fridge and -2º for the freezer). After dinner we transferred the food from the Norcold to the Samsung.

The next step will be to get the Norcold out and to begin modifying the cabinet. We'll tell you how that went in our next post.

Still Hangin' Around

Bushnell, FL - Events of Tuesday, Jan. 17 to Friday, Jan 21, 2012

Paul always likes to pull the motor home off the site once or twice during the winter and take it for a drive to get the motor up to operating temperature and to get all the lubrication flowing. We decided to do that last week. Paul does all the motor home driving when we're traveling, but Margery took the opportunity of last week's more leisurely drive to practice her motor home driving skills. She has only driven the motor home a few times, but she really has the hang of it.

Before we left on our short drive, Paul took a few photos in the morning sun of the parerwhite narcissus (or is that narcissi?) that Lora and J. Michael gave him for Christmas. They came as a kit preplanted in a decorative container. All Paul had to do was water them and put them in a bright location to get them going.

Paul used to force several types of spring bulbs to bloom in the dead of winter when we had a stick house up north so it would seem like we were having an earlier spring. Most spring bulbs have to undergo a period of about 90 days at temperatures below 40º in order for them to bloom. Paul used to pot up hyacinth and daffodil bulbs in the fall and put them in the spare refrigerator in our garage. Starting in January, we would take a new pot out of the refrigerator about every two weeks so we would have an almost constant succession of blooms indoors all the way until the spring flowers started blooming outside on their own.

Paperwhites are an exception and don't need the cold period, so they are perfect for us since we have no spare refrigerator and since we spend our winters in Florida where it is warm. The paperwhites Paul got for Christmas bloomed in only about three weeks, and their heady fragrance fills the whole motor home. Leave it to our thoughtful daughter to think of a perfect gift for her dad.

Speaking of Christmas, RVs have been steadily flowing into Blueberry Hill since we returned after spending Christmas in Pittsburgh. There are some empty sites, but the occupancy rate is higher than last year. People may be getting used to the "new normal" of high unemployment rates and are wanting to get on with their lives. Reduction of prices at Blueberry Hill to 2009 levels seems to have helped, too.

When we returned from Pittsburgh, we learned that Blueberry Hill had been sold to new owners, Sun RV Resorts. Although the sale won't be final until sometime around the end of January, the early word is that Sun is not planning any major changes. Sun also operates numerous manufactured home communities, but they reportedly want to increase the number of RV parks they own. It's possible they may bring in a few park model RVs (there already are several of those here), but we think they will keep Blueberry Hill pretty much the way it is. The old owners of Blueberry Hill, Morgan RV Resorts, caused a lot of bad feelings because there were so many inconsistencies in their policies, so we're hoping new ownership will be a change for the better.

A couple of weeks ago, we wrote about the brake problem we had with our car and about how the brake shop diagnosed a long-time, off-and-on whistling noise we had been hearing from somewhere under the car. The brake shop determined the noise was coming from the carrier bearing for the rear drive shaft for our all-wheel drive. They sprayed lubrication into the bearing, and the noise stopped. As they said it might, the noise came back the very next day, so Paul made an appointment to have the bearing replaced even though the noise quit again the day after that.

Chevrolet is doing the repairs on Saturns now that the GM has discontinued the Saturn line, so Paul called the closest Chevrolet dealer, George Nehaus Chevrolet in Wildwood, FL. Since our Saturn Vue is all-wheel-drive, and since very few of the smaller SUVs sold here in Florida are all-wheel-drive, Paul was surprised they had the bearing in stock. Unfortunately, they had to send the drive shaft out after they took it off the car to have the old bearing removed and the new bearing pressed on, so the repair ended up taking two days.

Paul was pleased to find out Nehaus Chevrolet has a courtesy car and driver who does little else all day but shuttle customers back and forth. The driver took Paul back to the motor home and picked him up again the next day after the car was done. The repair was expensive, but now we don't have to listen to the annoying whistling noise, and we don't have to worry about the bearing seizing up somewhere down the road. Needless to say, two expensive repairs within a few weeks ensures we'll be keeping the Vue a little longer.

We've really enjoyed having Pat and Mike as neighbors at Blueberry Hill this year. This past Friday, we went with them for an early dinner at Catfish Johnny's which is a few miles to the northwest of Bushnell.

Mike and Margery had catfish fingers (strips of fried catfish) while Pat and Paul tried beer batter shrimp, which is a new menu item. We all enjoyed our food. Although the shrimp was good, we thought the batter coating was a just a little too thick. 

We have several irons in the fire. Look for our next post to see which one gets hot first.

Just Hangin' Around

Bushnell, FL - Events of Friday, Jan. 13 to Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012

Since Paul finished repainting the front air conditioner cover, we've just been hangin' around and doing a little bit of this and that.

On the Friday after the RV show, we went for a late lunch with our friends, Pat and Mike, at OakWood Grill near the Villages. They had gone to the Tampa RV show the day after we did, and we were anxious to hear their impressions. They said they had a good time looking at RV accessories, and they had some questions about their rig for the factory reps from Open Range, which is who made their 5th wheel. They also spent time at the Open Range display talking to prospective customers and telling them how much they liked their Open Range 5th wheel.

A warning light came on in their truck on the way back from the Tampa show, and Pat and Mike had dropped the truck off at the nearby GMC dealer while we were at OakWood Grill. After a good meal (Pat and Mike had ribs, Margery had a blackened blue burger, and Paul had a smoked turkey sandwich) and plenty of great conversation, we dropped Pat and Mike off at the GMC dealer. The shop ran a 70-minute diagnostic program and couldn't find anything wrong with the truck, so they just reset the computer and told them to bring the truck back if it happened again.

On Saturday, Blueberry Hill RV Park had its annual yard sale. Anyone who has any items they want to get rid of can set up a table in front their site. We usually don't participate in the yard sale, but this year, we had a couple of larger items we wanted to get rid of plus a bunch of small items we had cleaned out of our cupboards and storage bays. We tend to accumulate way too much stuff, and it was time to eliminate some excess weight. The next photo shows Paul with our sale table.

It was a cool morning, but the sun was warm. There was a fairly good turnout, including several people who stopped who were from other campgrounds. We sold one of our large items (a propane heater) and quite a few of our smaller ones for a grand total of $39. That's not a lot of money, but it's not bad for things we would have given away anyway.

We have been having a lot of fun with our new puppy, Freeway. He is rambunctious as puppies usually are, and we have had to "puppy proof" the motor home.

He was 8 weeks old when we first picked him up, and we were very excited that he could make it to the bottom step of the motor home the first day. By 9 weeks of age, he was able to go up ALL the steps.

Freeway's favorite toy this week is his knotted rope. He likes to chew on the soft ends, and he also likes to play fetch. If we throw it down the hallway of the motor home, he will go get it and bring it back. He is fun to watch because the rope is almost as big as he is. If he grabs it near one end, he has to hold his head as high as he can so he doesn't trip over the other end of the rope.

A nap almost always follows Freeway's play time.

Freeway went to the vet a few days before we picked him up from the Royal Puppy Palace, so he was all up to date on his immunizations. However, we wanted to take him to the vet ourselves to get a baseline exam of our own. We also had a few questions about feeding, training, future immunizations and neutering, so we made an appointment for Sunday after church. Since the weather was perfect (not too hot and not too cold), we were able to leave Freeway in his canvas carrier in the car while we were at church.

When we had our previous dog, Molly, we discovered Banfield Pet Hospitals. Banfield has facilities all over the country (located mostly in PetSmart stores), and they can transfer records electronically between locations. This is ideal for full-time RVers like us, so we are going to take Freeway to Banfield as well. They also have wellness plans that are like pet health insurance that not only cover office visits, but also include things like immunizations for puppies and neutering, which we will be doing in a few months.

The closest Banfield to Bushnell is in the PetSmart in The Villages. The vet pronounced Freeway to be in good health, and he also answered our questions. We made an appointment for his next round of immunizations, then we looked around the PetSmart store.

Poor little Freeway has been shivering on cool mornings and evenings when we take him outside to go potty, so we wanted to get him a sweater or doggie coat. We tried on a sweater, but decided it would too hard to get it onto a squirming puppy if we were in a hurry to get him outside, so we ended up with a doggie coat with Velco on the straps. As with most males, Freeway wasn't too happy about trying on clothes.

The next photo shows gives you a better look at the coat.

The coat fits Freeway perfectly now; but at the rate he is growing, it will probably only last a month or so. He gained over 3/4 pound his first week. Unfortunately, the next larger size was way too big, so we're hoping there will be an end to the cool nights and mornings by the time he outgrows the coat.

We spent the rest of Sunday relaxing, at least what passes for relaxing for us now that we have a new puppy. Stay tuned for more from Bushnell.

Motor Home Project: Repainting the Air Conditioner Covers

Bushnell, FL - Events of Thursday, Jan. 13, 2012

When we were in Summerdale, AL back in October and November, Paul repainted the radii at the edges of our roof due to peeling clear coat. Unfortunately, we had the same problem with our air conditioner covers. Like the roof edges, the clear coat was probably not applied heavily enough or wet enough, so the clear coat on the top surfaces of the air conditioner covers also began to peel after several years of exposure to the weather.

The covers were originally painted a tan color that blended with several Tiffin paint colors rather than a color that was an exact match for our motor home. Paul thought the covers would look better if they were painted to match our coach, so when he bought paint for the edges of the roof, he bought extra to be able to repaint the AC covers as well.

The process for repainting was similar to that for the roof edges. However, since the tops of the AC covers where the paint was peeling was relatively flat, Paul was able to use his Porter Cable palm sander to remove the peeling clear coat more quickly.

After sanding with 220 grit on the palm sander, he sanded the top with 400 grit sandpaper, then scuffed the side surfaces with a 3M abrasive pad to provide good adhesion for the paint. The next photo shows the front cover with the sanding completed.

Rather than take the cover down to the ground for painting and risk damaging the new paint taking the cover back up, Paul removed the screws that held the cover in place, draped a plastic drop cloth over the internal workings of the air conditioner, and sat the cover back into place on top of the drop cloth.

Since the AC covers are textured, some of the sanding went through the paint at the high points of the texture all the way to the base plastic. Therefore, Paul bought a spray can of primer for plastic to use before applying the color.

After the primer dried, Paul applied the base coat of color using a Preval sprayer as he did for the roof edges. The Preval sprayer is capable of spraying many different types of paint, including the catalyzed urethane paints used for most modern automotive finishes.

The next photo shows the finished base coat on the front cover.

The base coat dries to a satin finish, and the shine comes from the clear coat, so the next step was to apply two coats of clear. The photo below shows the finished cover for the front air conditioner after the clear coat had dried and Paul had removed the plastic drop cloth.

The weather forecast was calling for several cooler days, so Paul will finish the rear cover sometime in the future whe the weather warms up. Stay tuned for more from Bushnell, FL.

Tampa RV Show

Bushnell, FL - Events of Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2012

In our last post, we told you about the new addition to our family, Freeway, our 8-week old Cavachon puppy. We warned there would be more photos, and here are a few.

Freeway loves the little Puppy Pal that our daughter Lora bought him. The Puppy Pal has a pillow inside that is stuffed with buckwheat. The pillow can be heated in the microwave to give the puppy the feeling he is sleeping with one of his litter mates.

Freeway also likes to pull the Puppy Pal's tail.

Every year that we have spent the winter in Florida we have gone to the big Tampa RV Show, and this year was no exception. We usually go on Wednesday, which is senior day ($1 off the admission price). The weather forecast for Wednesday was calling for an 80% chance of rain; but on Wednesday morning, the radar showed the showers would be somewhat intermittent, so we persevered and drove south to Tampa.

Since Freeway is too young to be left alone for as long as we would be gone, we took him along in his canvas carrier.

In past years, we always headed to the Tiffin display first, then made a big loop around the grounds to visit the two buildings with vendors selling RV accessories. By the time we got to the accessory vendors in the second building right near the entrance/exit, it was so crowded we couldn't even get close enough to some of the booths to see what was being sold. This year, we got smart and did our loop in reverse order. Even so, the accessory area near the entrance still had a good many people in spite of the fact we were there only half an hour after the show opened. However, this time we could at least see everything.

On our way to the second accessory building, we passed a couple of entertainers that were strolling around the grounds. There was recorded musical accompaniment playing from the cart while the fellow pulling the cart sang and played rhythm. There were several groups of entertainers, and they were all very good.

In the second accessory building, we ran across a couple from Pennsylvania selling two-wheeled shopping carts. One model had a nylon bag on one side for your purchases and the other side had a built-in, collapsible seat. The collapsible seat was also perfect for carrying larger items such as boxes or a puppy carrier. Since we were also carrying bottled water, umbrellas, and a few brochures we had picked up, we decided to buy one of the wheeled carts to make our carrying job easier. The cart will also come in handy when Freeway gets bigger (and heavier) or when we'd like to sit down for a rest ourselves.

If you look closely at the above photo, you might be able to tell Margery is standing beside a 5th wheel. When we were first researching RVs before going full-time, we determined a motor home would fit the style of traveling and sightseeing we planned to do. We love the convenience of our motor home and plan to keep it for the foreseeable future, but we sometimes ask ourselves if our style of traveling might be different several years from now.

When our new friends, Pat and Mike, started full-timing, they went with a 5th wheel. Since they are staying here at Blueberry Hill this winter, we have seen their lovely Open Range 5th wheel, which led us to the conclusion a 5th wheel might be a possibility some time in the future, especially if our travel style changes and we end up spending longer periods of time in one location. Therefore, we decided to check out a couple of makes of 5th wheels while we were at the show. We saw several makes that looked like they would be suitable for full-timing and that had layouts we liked with prices that weren't off the chart. We made a mental note of that information for future reference.

Some of the 5th wheels we wanted to look at were inside one of the exhibit buildings. That was good, because there was a brief shower while we were inside; but the rain only lasted a short time, and we only had to wait a few minutes after we were finished in that building for the rain to stop so we could make our way to the Tiffin display. The photo below shows Paul with Freeway in front of a Tiffin Breeze.

Another brief shower hit just as we were finishing up looking at Tiffins, so we took refuge in the Lazydays hospitality tent. When that shower let up, we made our way to the show exit. There was a pretty good turnout at the show in spite of the weather. In the photo below, it was still sprinkling a little, but people were starting to pop out from wherever they had taken shelter to continue on their way.

When we stopped in the accessory area near the entrance on our way into the show, we saw a security light that has a motion sensor to automatically turn on the outside light of the RV. Margery thought it would be a good thing to have, not only for security, but also as a convenience for when we have to take Freeway out after dark. We didn't want to have to carry the light around the show all morning, so we had to stop to buy the light on our way out. By this time, the crowds in that building were getting heavy; but at least we knew exactly where we wanted to go and what we wanted, so we got in and out of there fairly quickly.

The next day, Paul installed the light. It is really convenient to be able to scoop up Freeway and take him out without having to stop to turn on the light.

Paul has another motor home project scheduled. We'll tell you all about it in our next post.

New Addition to the Family

Bushnell, FL - Events of Friday, Jan. 6 to Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012

Last Friday, we drove about an hour and a half south to Lakeland, FL to pick up some wood for an upcoming project. We'll have more about the project in a future post, but we wanted to relay our tale of woe related to our trip to Lakeland.

First, we found out when we arrived the small lumber company we found online (the only one within 100 miles) was out of the type of wood that Paul needed for his project. Someone had come in the day before and bought all their remaining stock of that particular type, but the truck with a new shipment was on the way and due within an hour. Not a big problem. We needed to make another stop or two in Lakeland anyway, so we would just run our other errands and come back later.

As Margery backed the car out of our parking place at our next stop, she commented the car felt sluggish like the parking brake was not fully released. We checked, and the brake was off, so Paul tried driving. Sure enough, something wasn't right.

We drove about half a mile up the road, pulled into Walmart and parked. As soon as Paul got out of the car he smelled hot brakes. As he approached the left front wheel, he could feel the heat radiating from it.

After picking up something from the Walmart deli for lunch, we searched our GPS and found a possible repair shop within a mile. On the way there, we passed another place called Just Brakes. We were obviously having a problem with our brakes, so we decided to give them a try since they specialized in brakes and they were closer.

To make a long story short, after more than 4 hours and over $700, we left Just Brakes with two rebuilt front brake calipers, a new left rotor, a resurfaced right rotor, two sets of new front brake pads and all new brake fluid.

We just barely made it back to the lumber company before they closed (actually, we called and the owner stayed a few minutes late for us), and then we headed back to Bushnell. It was late so we stopped at Bob Evans for dinner on the way. What we thought would be about a 4 hour trip turned into almost 10 hours by the time we stopped for dinner and dealt with the rush hour traffic we hit on the way back. It was a long, expensive day, but we're grateful the problem didn't occur during our recent marathon drives to or from Pittsburgh or while we were towing the car behind the motor home. We wouldn't have been able to detect the brakes on the car binding up while the car was being towed, and that could have resulted in a fire.

The repair was expensive, but we feel Just Brakes did a good job. We're grateful they had all the parts in stock and they could get the repairs done the same day. They also diagnosed a strange whistling noise that we have been hearing off and on for a long, long time that had nothing to do with the brakes. It turns out it was the carrier bearing for the drive shaft. The lubrication they applied silenced the noise, at least temporarily. If the noise comes back, at least we now know what needs to be replaced.

The next day, we drove south again to Odessa, FL to visit the Royal Puppy Palace. Margery's family always had dogs when she was growing up, and she really missed having a dog after we lost Molly, our 15+ year old English Springer Spaniel, two years ago in March just before we left Florida.

Margery had been doing a lot of on line research about dogs over the last year or so, and she discovered Royal Puppy Palace that breeds small, non-shedding, hybrid dogs. These so-called "designer dogs" are bred to take advantage of the traits of two different breeds. Although owners of AKC-registered, pure-bred dogs often look down their noses at the hybrids, the hybrids have the advantage of combining desirable traits from more than one breed and they also have less chance of genetic defects because of the increased gene pool for the hybrids.

There were several types of hybrids that would have suited the needs of our nomadic lifestyle and our small living quarters, but we settled on a Cavachon because we felt it was the best combination of physical size, appearance and temperament. Cavachons grow to 12 to 18 pounds, they are friendly toward other people and dogs, they are quick to learn, they are low to non-shedding and they don't require a lot of exercise. The Cavachon is a cross between the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a Bichon Frise.

We first visited Royal Puppy Palace when we were having our thermopane windows repaired at Suncoast Designers back in early December. The Puppy Palace is operated out of the owners' home. In addition to Cavachons, they breed several other types of designer dogs. Although they couldn't show them to us at the time (they were too young), they had a litter of Cavachons that would be ready around the beginning of January. We were impressed by the care and training they gave the dogs, so we made a deposit on a pup from their upcoming litter of Cavachons a few days after we visited them.

We got an email from the Puppy Palace about a week prior to set up an appointment for us to come and see the puppies on Saturday. We arrived just in time for our 11:00 AM appointment and were introduced to the 5 remaining puppies from the original litter of 7 (we had the 3rd deposit, so we got 3rd choice). The puppies had already been shown to two other buyers that morning, so they were a little tuckered out.

We explained we were looking for a calm dog this time (Molly was far from calm, especially in her younger years), and she was strong-willed making her hard to train. The owner showed us which two pups were the most calm - one was a male and one was a female. After we played with them both and held them a while, we chose the male because we liked his coloring a little better, and he wasn't quite as laid back as the female. So let us introduce you to Freeway, our brand new, 8-week old Cavachon.

Margery was the one who really wanted a dog. Paul was a little reluctant, but it didn't take long for Freeway to melt Paul's heart.

We bought a canvas carrier to take Freeway home in. He whined for about a minute when we first put him in; but he fell asleep before we had driven three blocks, and he slept all the way back to the motor home. It looks like he is going to be a good traveler.

We had Freeway outside several times after we got back to the motor home, and all the neighbors came over to see him and watch him play. The little guy actually was able to climb up the first step of the motor home all by himself.

But it was a lot of work, so he needed a rest after he got up there.

The next day, we ran next door to Walmart to get some puppy toys for Freeway. He hasn't figured how to make the squeaker work yet, but Freeway likes his new toy.

Our grass here in Florida has gone dormant for the winter, and Freeway has been outside a good bit romping around as puppies do. The dormant grass is a bit dusty, and it had started to make Freeway's white fur look a little gray. Since we also weren't real fond of the scent of the doggie shampoo the breeders had used on him (it smelled like a "girly" shampoo), we decided it was time for a bath. After struggling to find a good way to bathe Molly, who weighed 40 pounds, it was a joy to give 3-pound Freeway a bath.

The breeders figure Freeway will grow to around 12 to 15 pounds, so we'll eventually need to get some sort of plastic pan for his baths; but as long as he doesn't make a big fuss about being bathed, we should still be able to do it on the counter top.

We are really enjoying Freeway. He is such a good boy. On his first morning, he slept in until about 6:00 AM. Actually, Paul got up before Freeway, and it wasn't until Paul had brushed his teeth, shaved, started the coffee pot and had turned on the computer and the lights that Freeway woke up.

All the puppies from the Royal Puppy Palace are crate trained, which keeps them out of trouble when you leave them, and which is also a good way to start off their house training. House training will be our number one priority in the coming weeks. Freeway is already able to go for fairly long periods when he is in the crate (puppies don't like to make a mess in confined areas), so the trick is to get him to be able to do the same when he is out of the crate.

We'll will undoubtedly have more pictures and stories about Freeway in upcoming posts, and we also have a couple of projects and some sightseeing planned. Look for our next post to see what we're up to.

Motor Home Project: Replace Slide Toppers

Bushnell, FL - Events of Saturday, Dec. 31 to Monday, Jan. 2, 2012

We would like to wish all our readers a happy and blessed New Year. The two of us spent a quiet New Year's Eve in the motor home. There was a party at the clubhouse, but we usually cozy in on New Year's Eve with a couple of movies and we snack on appetizers. Paul has been fighting a cold since we left Pittsburgh, so we only got one movie this year and we postponed the appetizers. We both struggled to stay awake until midnight. 

Paul felt a good bit better on New Year's Day, and we invited our new full-timing friends from Pittsburgh, Pat and Mike, who are also staying at Blueberry Hill, to our rig for kielbasi and sauerkraut. Pat and Mike contacted us through our blog a while back, and we met them for lunch when we were in Pittsburgh for Christmas in 2010. They have since bought a 5th wheel, retired and hit the road. Pat was planning to make pork and sauerkraut for themselves, so she brought that along as well as some appetizers and delicious garlic mashed potatoes. We had plenty of good food and good fellowship.

On Monday after New Year's, Paul was feeling well enough to start a project - replacing our slide toppers. Over the past year or so, Paul noticed the topper over the living room slide started to show a frayed area on the rear edge. It is not uncommon for these awnings over the tops of the slides to only last 4 or 5 years. Since we're full-timers and our slides are deployed 24/7 except for when we're driving, our slide toppers are exposed to sun and wind more than most. We consider ourselves fortunate to have had our slide toppers last almost 6 years.

In addition to the fraying, the living room slide topper also had a few pin holes in it and a number of spots and stains that wouldn't wash off anymore.

When Paul was on the roof repainting the roof radii a couple of months ago he noticed the living room slide topper had gotten worse so he decided to replace it during our stay in Florida. The bedroom slide topper also had a few spots on it, but it was generally in a lot better condition than the one over the living room slide. The living room slide is much larger than the bedroom slide; therefore, the living room slide topper flaps in the wind much more which caused the fraying. In the interest of having the toppers match, however, we decided to replace both of them at the same time. It's a good thing we did, because Paul was surprised at how brittle both old slide toppers were later after we got them off.

Replacement vinyl fabric is available from A&E, the manufacturer of our original slide toppers; but there have been a couple of RV forum discussions recently about another company called Tough Top Awnings. Tough Top supplies heavier than standard fabric that is said to be stronger than the A&E fabric, and it has a two year warranty instead of only one year for A&E. Tough Top replacement fabric is geared to do-it-yourselfers. They provide detailed instructions, plus they say you can call them if you run into problems.

Paul ordered the replacement fabric from Tough Top toward the end of our stay in Pittsburgh. Each replacement topper is custom made for the length and depth of your slide. Even with the holidays, the replacement fabric arrived in only 10 days (about 6 or 7 business days).

Because the fabric is so long and floppy, the instructions say two people are required to remove the old fabric and install the new. Our plan was to have Margery hold the fabric up so Paul could guide and pull it into place. Paul had previously mentioned the project to our neighbor since we planned to borrow his ladder, so within minutes of Paul going outside and getting his ladder out, our neighbor showed up with his ladder followed closely behind by two other neighbors.

We first proceeded to remove the old fabric. It definitely takes two people to unroll old fabric because of the high spring pressure of the roller tube.

Once the fabric is unrolled, there are holes in the roller tube where it can be pinned into place using a cotter pin, a nail or an awl to keep the spring from rolling the tube back up. The next photo shows our neighbor, Ken, trying to insert the locking pin. It's hard to see the hole, plus he also had to help hold the roller tube with the other hand so it wouldn't roll up again.

In the photo below, we just got the old fabric free from the groove in the roller tube.

As soon as we got the old fabric out, we laid the new fabric (left) out on the ground beside the old to make absolutely sure it was the right size.

We then started to slide the new fabric into place, first into the groove in the awning rail on the side of the motor home...

...and then into the groove on the roller tube on the slide.

After we got the living room slide topper in place, we repeated the process with the bedroom topper. The next photo shows Paul and Ken unrolling the topper over the bedroom slide.

The bedroom slide topper was definitely a lot easier than the one for the living room because it is smaller and because we had learned from doing the first one.  Here are Ken and Paul on ladders with Drew up on the roof just finishing up pulling the new bedroom slide topper into place.

Sliding the awning into place is a little tricky. The fabric tends to sag, and when it sags, it binds in the grooves. The breeze that was blowing didn't help any either. We ended up with one person on a ladder holding up the tail of the awning to keep it from sagging, a second person on a ladder pulling the awning into the groove on the roller tube and a third person on the roof pulling the awning along the groove in the awning rail. Two people could probably do the job, but Paul was glad our neighbors offered to help. The two of us would have really struggled by ourselves. That's the great thing about RVers - they are always eager to lend a hand.

Our slide toppers have an anti-billowing device that prevents the wind from unrolling the fabric while driving down the road. Since the new fabric wasn't the exact same width as the old fabric, the anti-billowing device had to be removed and repositioned.

Paul ran the slides in and out a couple of times to make sure there weren't any wrinkles, and we were done in about an hour and a half. The next photo shows both slide toppers complated.

We are very pleased with the quality and appearance of our new slide toppers. The delivery was quick, and the instructions were easy to follow, although having more than two people is a definite plus, especially if there is a breeze.

The weather forecast is calling for very cool temperatures (40 to 50º for the next couple of days and 20s at night - brrrrr!), so we probably won't be doing much except a little shopping and a lot of relaxing. However, this is Florida, and cold weather doesn't usually stick around too long. We'll undoubtedly be up to more mischief as soon as it warms up. Stay tuned.

Christmas in Pittsburgh 2011

Bushnell, FL - Events of Friday, Dec. 16 to Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2011

We made our trek from Florida to Pittsburgh for Christmas again this year. We go in the car and stay with our daughter, Lora, and "son," J. Michael, since the weather this time of year is too unpredictable to take the motor home north. As we have done in the past, we drove straight through, a trip that takes 15 to 16 hours. We drive straight through because we're spoiled by having an RV and don't like motels. It's a looong drive, and we're not sure how many more years we'll be able to do it, but it works for now.

The weather was fairly warm most of the way this year. We left Florida at 3:00 AM with the temperature around 60º. It dropped to the lower 50s as we drove north, but then began to climb again as the sun came up. It was 69º by the time we got to Charlotte. The temperature began to drop again after we hit clouds around Charlotte, especially after it started to rain a little north of there. The temperature was down to the upper 30s by the time we drove through the western part of virginia. Fortunately, it didn't get any colder so we didn't get any snow. The reason we leave so early is so we can arrive in Pittsburgh in the early evening to have time to visit before we both fall into bed.

Our trip to Pittsburgh usually doesn't take place until around December 20th or 21st, but Margery wanted to attend the wedding of the daughter of a former coworker the weekend before Christmas, so we left a few days earlier than usual so we would be there in time for the Saturday wedding. Fortunately for Paul, Lora also knows Margery's co-worker, so she went in Paul's place giving Paul a chance to stay home to relax and read. Margery and Lora had a wonderful time visiting with friends from the church where Margery worked. Here are the three beautiful Reamer 'girls' with the groom.

On Monday, Paul met some of his former coworkers for lunch, and on Tuesday and Wednesday evening, Margery did the same. On Wednesday afternoon, we took Paul's step mom to lunch at Bella Frutetto, which is an upscale, Italian restaurant located in a strip mall in Pittsburgh's North Hills area. Lunches range from $8 to $13 for paninis and sandwiches to $12 to $15 for entrées. We had a nice visit and a delicious lunch.

Having lunch out several times and the temptations of special treats of the holiday season made it hard to stick to our diet. We have had occasional cheat days in the past, but this is going to be a cheat week. Fortunately, Lora and J. Michael are following the same diet, and we are continuing to watch our carbs at least part of the time.

We spent the rest of the week cooking, wrapping, and preparing for Christmas. Then we went to church on Christmas Eve eve. The church Lora and J. Michael attend has grown so large, they can't accommodate everyone on Christmas Eve even though they have several services. They have a new building under construction, but it is not expected to be ready until early next summer. In the meantime, they have added a couple of services the evening before Christmas Eve (Friday). We decided to attend church on Friday hoping it would be less crowded. The service was filled, but not to overflowing.

J. Michael's family gathers at his brother's house on Christmas Eve. They are a great bunch, and we are so blessed to be included in the festivities. There is always plenty of good food (more temptations) and lots of laughter.

On Christmas morning, we opened gifts with Lora and J. Michael. The next photo shows J. Michael with his Christmas hat and their new, 7-month old boxer puppy, Fiona.

Fiona and Gunnar, Lora and J. Michael's two-year old male boxer, get along very well. We enjoyed watching them open and play with their gifts. The next photo shows them anxiously awaiting their first gift...

...and they had a great time with it.

J. Michael got Lora a Kindle Fire...

...and, among other things, a very cute set of PJs with a boxer that looks just like Fiona.

Lora got J. Michael a golf bag. He loved it so much, he just had to give it a big hug.

We got the puppies "bully sticks," which are dog treats recommended by Cesar Milan, the Dog Whisperer. They are supposed to be easy to digest and less messy than rawhide bones. J. Michael was shocked to find out that they are made from the part of the bull that makes it a bull.

On the day after Christmas (Monday), we went to J. Michael's mom's house for the family gift exchange. Rather than get everyone a small gift, they each draw a name and buy gifts only for that one person. Of course, the names are all kept secret, and they have a lot of fun guessing who has what name. There was a lot more good food and fun. The next photo shows us with Lora and J. Michael and J. Michael's mom.

And here is a photo of the whole gang sans J. Michael's brother-in-law who was the one taking the picture and having a great time with his new camera.

J. Michael had to go back to work on Tuesday. Margery and Lora went shopping to pick up some post-Christmas bargains and to re-stock the pantry. We went to see "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol" in the early evening after J. Michael got off work. It's been quite a while since any of us had been to the movies, and we really enjoyed seeing an action movie on the big screen. Nothing like movie popcorn for our last off-diet dinner!

On Wednesday, we were on our way back to Florida. We left Pittsburgh a little before 8:00 AM and got into Bushnell shortly after 11:00 PM . Traffic on the way south after Christmas is always worse than on the way north because many Florida residents are trying to get back home before New Years, and a good many snowbirds start to head south right after Christmas is over. However, this year was the lightest traffic we have seen in the 4 years we have been going back to Pittsburgh for Christmas. There was one tie-up in South Carolina on I-26 right before it meets I-95, and a few slow-downs on I-95, but it only took us about 15 minutes longer going south than it did going north. We're not sure what the reason was, but we're not complaining.

We'll take a few days to relax, but we'll have another report on our activities soon, so stay tuned.

Merry Christmas

Market of Marion

Bushnell, FL - Events of Friday, Dec. 9, 2011

Last January, we went to a flea market called the Market of Marion located in Belleview, FL a little to the north of The Villages. The market is open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, so we decided to take a drive to Belleview to check out the market on the Friday after we arrived in Bushnell. Like last time, we were able to get a parking spot right near the main entrance.

It was cool and a little overcast in the morning, so the market wasn't too crowded when we arrived around 10:00 AM, but it started filling up by the time we were getting ready to leave. The next photo is a view looking down the main aisle shortly after we arrived.

We remember seeing a vendor last year who had a large selection of knock-off sunglasses. In fact, we had photos of both of us trying on sunglasses in last year's blog post. The same vendor also has good quality reading glasses, and Paul needed a new pair because his old ones had gotten bent somewhere along the way, and the lenses also were speckled with paint from his project of repainting the roof edges a few weeks ago.

After picking out a pair of reading glasses, we continued on our way around the flea market. Being a woodworker, Paul was really impressed with the wooden airplanes and the train in the next photo that one vendor had for sale. The prices for the F-16 Fighting Falcon (left foreground) and F-18 Hornet (right foreground) were only $59.95, which Paul thought was reasonable given the number of hours that probably went into creating the models. They were accurate representations of the real thing with great detail and an amazingly smooth, glossy finish.

Last January, we went to the market looking for produce, but they didn't have much when we were there then. This time it was different. There was an entire row of fruits and vegetables of all types. We bought fresh asparagus, leaf lettuce, a green pepper and a cucumber. The prices were very reasonable.

After visiting the Market of Marion, we headed back to the motor home by way of The Villages so we could stop at Walmart to pick up a few items that the Walmart next to Blueberry Hill was out of when we stopped there the day before. After Walmart, it was lunch time, so we stopped at the OakWood Grill near The Villages. We discovered OakWood last year, and it quickly became one of our favorite restaurants because of their delicious smoked meats and barbecued ribs.

Barbecue doesn't fit with our low carb/low sugar diet very well because of all the sugar that is usually used in the sauce; but, fortunately, the yummy smoked beef we fell in love with last year at OakWood is so good it needs little or no sauce. Margery opted for the smoked beef sandwich, and Paul had a smoked beef platter to save more carbs by eliminating the bun. The platter came with garlic toast, but Paul only tried a bite or two of that. Lunches range in price from about $7 to $9 and include one or two sides, and some also include a beverage.

With our bellies full, we made our way back to the motor home. As we said, our posts may be a little shorter and a little less frequent now that we're in Florida for the winter, but we won't be napping the entire time, so look for our updates.

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.

Bon Secour, AL

Summerdale, AL - Events of Saturday, Nov. 26 to Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011

Bon Secour is a small town about 15 miles south of where we were staying in Summerdale. It lies on Bon Secour Bay, which is located along the southeastern edge of Mobile Bay.

Bon Secour was started as a Creole fishing village in the 1800s. The name means "good security" in French, which refers to the fact it was considered to be a safe harbor because it is located inside the mouth of Mobile Bay. The mouth of the bay was also guarded by Fort Morgan, which was completed in the 1830s to help defend the shore line of the fledgling United States following the War of 1812 with Great Britain. We visited Fort Morgan when we were in the area last November. Click here to read about that visit.

The main thing we wanted to see in Bon Secour was the Swift-Coles House, which is a mansion built along the Bon Secour River in the late 1800s. The mansion is normally only open on Tuesdays and Fridays, but they were having special hours on Saturday and Sunday after Thanksgiving for their Christmas open house. We thought about going then, but there was an extra charge for admission during the open house because there were refreshments. We decided we didn't need the refreshments or the crowds of the open house, so we waited until the following Tuesday. It's just as well because Saturday was cloudy and windy, then the heavens opened up and it rained over two inches from Saturday night right through Sunday. The photo below is a view of the lake outside our motor home on Sunday.

As we mentioned previously, the soil in this area is sandy so it doesn't get very muddy, and most of the water had soaked in by Monday morning.

The rain came through ahead of a cold front, and it was cloudy, cool and windy on Monday. Tuesday was still cool and breezy, but at least the sun came out for our visit to Bon Secour. The photo below shows the entrance to the Swift-Coles House...

...and the next photo shows Paul on the porch.

The Swift-Coles House was originally built as a 4-room, dog-trot fishing cabin around 1882. A dog-trot cabin is two small cabins separated by a breezeway (where the dogs tended to hang out in hot weather) all under one roof.

Charles A. Swift, who owned lumber mills in the area including one near the cabin, bought the cabin around the turn of the century and moved in with his wife and 9 children. They enclosed the breezeway of the dog trot and added on several rooms behind the original cabin. Around 1908, they added a second story. By this time, there were 11 children. The mansion ended up having 16 rooms with an area of about 6,000 square feet. There are also over 3,000 square feet of porches surrounding the house. The next photo shows another view of the sprawling mansion and some of the porches. The original dog trot cabin is the ground floor portion of the wing that juts out to the right.

And the photo below shows the side entrance, which is the enclosed breezeway of the original cabin.

Descendants of the Swift family occupied the house until 1976 when Nick Coles, a restaurant owner and antique collector from Gulf Shores, bought the house. Coles performed extensive renovations and furnished the house from his collection of antiques. Nick Coles willed the mansion to Baldwin County when he died, and the house is now operated as a museum.

There is a guided tour of the entire house, but unfortunately, photography is not permitted inside so we can't show you any of the rooms or furnishings. However, if you click the link above to the Swift-Coles House, there are several good photos of the interior on the web site.

After touring the house, visitors are free to walk the grounds. There was an old barn and an out building behind the main house. They were a little run down, but they had a lot of character. What stories could they tell if they could talk?

The Swift-Coles House is located on the Bon Secour River near the point where the river empties into Bon Secour Bay. Ferries bringing Mobile residents to their summer homes in Bon Secour used to dock near the Swift-Coles House.  The next photo is a view up the Bon Secour River from an area near the mansion.

It was a little chilly and breezy, so we didn't walk around the grounds long. Bon Secour is the home of several seafood packing companies, so another thing we wanted to do was to see if we could find some fresh seafood to take back to the motor home with us. We had gotten a tip from some of the other visitors on the tour who were familiar with the area that Billy's Seafood was a good place to get shrimp, so we hopped into the car and drove down the road to Billy's. On the way, we passed fishing boats tied up in the river.

We passed several other seafood places, and we soon arrived at Billy's at the end of the road.

They had a nice selection of different size shrimp at reasonable prices.

We picked out relatively large ones to sauté for dinner that night and some slightly smaller ones to freeze for shrimp au gratin at a later date.

After we bought our shrimp, we put it into the cooler in the car and walked back to the docks behind Billy's. The shrimp boat in the next photo was apparently preparing to head out into the Gulf because they were taking ice on board.

From the dock, we headed back to the motor home. We had some of the shrimp for dinner that evening, and they were outstanding! They were some of the best we've had. They were so good we went back the next day to get some more.

The cool air that moved in after the rain the weekend before was a reminder it is time to continue making our way south. We have a few errands to run over the next couple of days here in Summerdale, then we'll be off to Florida.

Let Us Give Thanks

Summerdale, AL - Events of Thursday, Nov. 24, 2011

As believers, we try to thank God every day for his kindness and provision, but a formal holiday is a good reminder to all of us that there is much to be thankful for.

We live in a country where we have the freedom to thank and to worship God as we see fit. We are personally blessed with good health, with a loving family, with good friends (both old and new), and we have the wherewithal to travel this beautiful country of ours to see its natural wonders and to learn about its people and its history. We are so blessed to be able to enjoy this adventure.

The above quote is from our Thanksgiving post last year. It sums up very well how we feel this year and every year. God is so good.

Our tradition of Thanksgiving comes from what is commonly considered to be the first Thanksgiving back in 1621 in Massachusetts. Last year, our Thanksgiving post talked a little about other Thanksgiving celebrations that took place many years before the one in Massachusetts. Click here to read last year's post about the history of early Thanksgiving celebrations in what was to become the United States. One of the earliest celebrations took place in 1541 in what was to eventually become Texas. Most of the initial celebrations were done by Spanish explorers; and since the English eventually won out in North America, they got to write the history books. Therefore, the 1621 Pilgrim celebration in Massachusetts is usually considered to be our first.

In our years of full-timing, we have cooked our own Thanksgiving dinner, we have had our Thanksgiving meal with fellow Escapees when we were at Escapees parks, and we have eaten out. This year, even though we were at the Escapees Rainbow Plantation, we decided we wanted a little quieter Thanksgiving, but we didn't feel like fussing with cooking our own meal. Therefore, we decided to go to the Cracker Barrel in Foley for an early dinner.

It was busy when we arrived at around 3:00 PM, and there were lots of people on the porch waiting for their tables.

It was a little cool in the shade on the porch, so we decided to wait inside where we looked over some of the Christmas items in the gift shop.

We have eaten Thanksgiving dinner before at Cracker Barrel, and they have an excellent meal. Their Thanksgiving dinner features turkey with dressing AND ham, sweet potato casserole, cranberry relish, choice of vegetable, choice of beverage, biscuits or corn muffins and pumpkin pecan streusel or classic pumpkin pie for dessert.

As always, the food was great, and the price for all that food was only $8.99. Needless to say, it was far from a low carb/low sugar meal; but what the heck, it was Thanksgiving, and we knew would it be a major cheat day from our diet no matter where we ate. We'll make up for it tomorrow.

We only have about a week left in Summerdale, and we did find some sightseeing we want to try to squeeze in before we leave, so stay tuned.

Printers and Paninis

Summerdale, AL - Events of Wednesday, Nov. 16 to Friday, Nov. 18, 2011

When we first started full-timing back in 2006, we bought a Hewlett-Packard all-in-one inkjet printer to carry around in the motor home with us. All-in-one printers can print, scan and copy. There are other models that also fax, but since we obviously don't have a land-line phone, we don't need that feature. The printer we bought was nice and compact, and it met our needs fairly well. The only problem was the printer was prone to paper jams. We had always had Hewlett-Packard printers at home and at work, and they had always been very reliable; but this one not so much.

We eventually ruined the printer by pulling jammed paper out from the front instead of clearing jams by the recommended method of removing the rear cover and taking the jammed paper out the back. Removing the rear cover meant we had to lift the relatively heavy printer down from the overhead cabinet where we kept it, so we took the easy way out and pulled the jammed paper out from the front. Apparently, that eventually stripped some drive gears so the paper feed no longer worked. The printer just sat there and clicked when you hit "print."

We replaced our first all-in-one printer with a different model HP all-in one. We hoped the newer model had solved the problem of frequent jams, but it hadn't. This time, however, we dutifully took the printer down from the overhead cabinet every time there was a paper jam (which was fairly frequent) rather than risk damage again by yanking the paper out from the front. The first printer lasted less than two years, but this one has lasted 4 or 5 years.

The next photo shows our second HP all-in-one printer in the overhead cabinet. As you can see, we also store paper and other office supplies in the cabinet, and much of that has to be removed every time we need to take the printer down to clear a jam.

Paper jams that would be an inconvenience if the printer were sitting on a desk become a major headache because of having to unload the cabinet and lift the printer down from overhead. In addition, we were not happy with the USB cable that hangs out of the cabinet and connects the printer to the computer, so we wanted a wireless printer (not yet available when we bought our prevous all-in-one printers) that would eliminate the cable and also make it easy to print with both computers. Therefore, even though our HP all-in-one printer still was still working, we occasionally looked at different makes and models of printers when we got to an office supply store.

When we stopped at Staples last Wednesday to pick up some office supplies, Margery started looking at color laser printers. Another thing we don't like about inkjets is the ink will run if you get the document wet. A laser printer would solve that, but most laser printers are too large for the space we have available. There are also very few all-in-one laser printers, and those are VERY large and quite expensive.

As we looked around Staples, we noticed an Epson NX430 all-in-one inkjet that boasted instant-dry, water-resistant ink. This printer is so compact they call it a "small-in-one." It prints, scans and copies, is photo capable, and has built-in Wi-Fi. We printed a test page, and, sure enough, the ink was very water resistant. We couldn't get the ink to run even when we took the freshly-printed sample page outside into the rain.

We went back to the motor home to make sure the Epson printer would fit in our cabinet and to look at online reviews. Because the paper feed is on the top of the Epson printer, Paul would have to modify the storage shelf that is in the cabinet above the printer; but, other than that, the Epson printer is actually smaller and much lighter than our old HP. Lighter weight means it will be easier to get down from the overhead cabinet when we have to change ink cartridges. Hopefully, we won't have to get it down to clear paper jams.

Most of the online reviews for the Epson printer were good. Margery's online research also turned up the fact the printer was on sale at Office Depot for $60 (regularly $100). The next day, we went to Office Depot to pick up the Epson Printer.

On our way back to the motor home, we stopped in Fairhope for a late lunch at Panini Pete's. We discovered Panini Pete's last spring after seeing it featured on the Food Network program Diners, Drive-ins & Dives. Panini Pete's features burgers and paninis that range in price from about $7 to $9. Included with the sandwich is a side of home-made shoestring fries, chips or the side of the day (usually a cold pasta salad). They are also open for breakfast and serve a couple of different kinds of breakfast paninis and beignets.

Panini Pete's is located behind a row of stores along the main street in quaint downtown Fairhope. There is outdoor dining on a nice patio surrounded by small shops and boutiques. Even though it was a little cool and breezy, we found a table in the sun and decided to eat outside.

Indoor dining is in a light and airy enclosure that looks like a Victorian conservatory.

We both had our favorite panini from last spring, which has house-roasted turkey, house-made mozzarella, roasted red peppers, baby greens and garlic aioli on fresh-baked foccacia.

The paninis were great! They were well worth taking a cheat day from our diet. As we usually do when we plan a cheat day, we try to just enjoy our special meal and not worry about the carbs and sugar. However, we do try to be extra careful with the carbs and sugar in our other meals for that day.

Speaking of our diet, we have been following the Belly Fat Cure low-carb/low-sugar diet for about 7 weeks, and we loosely observed some of the guidelines for about three weeks prior to that. Paul has lost a total of about 13 pounds, and Margery has lost a little over 7. We have our ups and downs; but the overall trend is definitely down.

It was fairly late when we got back to the motor home, so we decided to wait until the next day to tackle setting up the new printer. The setup turned out to be very easy. All Paul had to do was follow the quick-start setup booklet to get the printer ready and install the ink cartridges. Then he inserted the installation CD into the computer and followed the directions on the screen. Even setting up the wireless connection was a breeze. It was almost completely automatic. It even registered itself online.

After Paul got the printer working wirelessly with both computers, he started to modify the storage shelf he had installed at the top of the cabinet above our previous printer. After dragging his circular saw out of the storage bay and cutting down the old shelf and some of the supports, he realized the new printer was so much smaller than the old one that there was plenty of room for storage beside the printer and that the shelf was unnecessary. The next photo shows the cabinet with the new printer in place and with some of our office supplies stored beside it.

The new printer weighs less than 10 pounds while the old one weighs over 21 pounds. The Epson printer is noticeably slower in high-quality color printing mode than our old HP printer, but the black printing speed isn't too bad. We can live with the somewhat slower speeds. We're retired - what's our hurry?  The print quality is excellent, scanning and copying seem to be a lot easier and faster than with our old printer, the new printer is a lot smaller and lighter than our old printer and the ink doesn't run. We'll have to wait to see how long ink cartridges last; but so far, we're thrilled with our new Epson printer.

We don't have any firm plans for the remainder of our time here in the Summerdale area. We thought we might find some sightseeing to do, but we seem to be stuck working on projects for now.

Motor Home Project: Repaint Roof Edges

Summerdale, AL- Events of Friday, Oct. 28 to Saturday, Nov. 12, 2011

Last year on our way south, we stopped in Red Bay, AL to have the top of the front cap repainted due to peeling clear coat. The peeling was caused by the fact the original clear coat wasn't applied heavily enough or wet enough to the upper surfaces of the cap. Over time, exposure to the elements caused the bond between the clear coat and the paint underneath to weaken and the clear coat began to crack and peel off.

The vertical surfaces are easier to paint, and the upper surfaces of the motor home that curve away from the operators and are more or less horizontal are more difficult to reach to apply a good, wet coating of paint. When Paul was cleaning the roof and inspecting the caulk late this past summer, he noticed several spots on the upper surfaces of the radii at the edges of the roof were also starting to peel.

We contemplated stopping in Red Bay again this year to have the roof edges repainted, but since the radii at the edges of the roof are much less visible and are therefore less critical in appearance than the front cap, Paul decided to investigate doing the work himself to save money.

Paul checked out a couple of online sources that will custom match paint colors and put the paint into spray cans. They specialize in automotive paint, but one of them said they were sure they could get the proper matching code for one of the colors we needed for our motor home (there are two colors along the edges of the roof), and they hoped they could also get the code for the other color.

Paul wasn't too sure about the custom spray cans since they only hoped they could match the second color. Tiffin used Martin Senour paint on our motor home, and since NAPA Auto Parts is the distributor for Martin Senour automotive paint, Paul decided to check with NAPA when we were in Pittsburgh back in September. They said it would be no problem matching the original paint because even if they couldn't find the color mixing formula, they had a colorimeter that could do a custom match from a sample of the colors.

With the news that NAPA would have no problem matching the color, the only obstacle was how to apply the paint. We carry a portable compressor so Paul can keep the motor home and toad tires properly inflated, but the air volume output is marginal at best for spray painting. Therefore, buying an inexpensive spray gun to do the job was not an option.

Then in his online research, Paul came across the Preval Sprayer. The Preval Sprayer can be filled with almost any type of paint, including the two-part urethane that was originally used on our motor home. Paul was a little skeptical, but the Preval Sprayer got lots of good reviews. Since the edges of the roof are high and are not that visible, the appearance is not super critical. Therefore, Paul decided to give the Preval Sprayer a try.

The sprayer and aerosol power pack refills are available at most Home Depot stores and at Sherwin Williams Paint stores. When we were in Pittsburgh, Paul picked up the paint at NAPA (they had no problem finding the formulas for both colors), he bought a Preval Sprayer and a number of power pack refills at Home Depot, and he bought masking tape and sandpaper at Walmart. He planned to do the work while we were at Rainbow Plantation since we would be there for over a month.

Shortly after we arrived in Summerdale, Paul began preparation for painting. First, he sanded off all the peeling clear coat with 220 grit sandpaper to get down to sound paint. The damaged areas were then sanded with 400 grit paper and edges where the clear coat had peeled were feathered for smoothness.

Paul then sanded the entire radius areas along both sides of the roof, including areas that were not peeling, with 600 grit sandpaper to provide good adhesion for the new paint. Our motor home is 37 feet long, so there was a lot of sanding that took over a week to complete working off and on. Once everything was sanded, Paul applied primer to spots that had been sanded down to bare aluminum. The primer was also sanded with 600 grit.

Over the years, the caulk where the ends of the roof radii meet the front and rear caps had cracked, and Paul had applied more caulk to keep things sealed. After all the sanding and priming were done, Paul cleaned up all the old caulk buildup at the ends of the roof radii and applied new, paintable caulk that was also flexible in the hope it won't crack in the future.

With all the prep work done (sanding, priming and caulking), Paul picked a day for painting that wasn't supposed to be too windy and started out in the morning by masking off one of the roof edges.

He got all the paint and supplies ready. The two cans on the left are the two paint colors, and the tall can is the hardener. The Preval Sprayer is in the center, and that's the clear coat with it's hardener on the right.

Paul applied several coats of the first color. One fill of the 6 ounce paint jar of the Preval Sprayer was just about enough paint for one coat.

The paint dries very quickly, and shortly after finishing three coats of the first color, Paul was able to mask off the area and apply the second color.

The color base coat dries to a satin finish, and the clear coat provides the shine. After applying the second color, it was time for clear coat. The clear coat must be applied within 14 days or it may not adhere properly. The paint dries so rapidly, it was no problem finishing two colors plus the clear coat for one side all at in one day; but it was a lot of work. Paul started masking about mid morning after the temperature warmed up a bit and didn't finish cleaning everything up until after 4:00 PM. The photo below shows the final results.

Several days later, after waiting out a few windy days and couple of rainy days, Paul repeated the whole process on the other side of the roof. The second side was a little easier since Paul knew what to expect after having completed the first side. There was also a little less breeze for the second side.

While certainly not a full-sized spray gun, the Preval Sprayer did an OK job. There turned out to be a little more breeze than Paul had hoped, and the sprayer had to be held close to the work in order to not have most of the paint blow away. That led to a few runs in the final clear coat, but Paul was able to sand them out and restore the gloss with polishing compound.

The Preval Sprayer is probably better suited to smaller projects being done indoors; but overall, the results look good, especially considering how much money we saved. Based on what it cost to repaint the top of front cap last year, Paul figures we saved at least $500 to $600, and that's after subtracting the cost of materials. :>)

Paul has been working on the repainting project off and on for the entire 2+ weeks we have been at Rainbow Plantation so far. It's good to have the work finally done. Now we can concentrate on relaxing. We'll also be investigating more sightseeing opportunities and we're hoping to eat out another time or two. Stay tuned.

Blue Angels

Summerdale, AL - Events of Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2011

Naval Air Station Pensacola is the home of the U. S. Navy flight demonstration squadron the Blue Angels. The purpose of the Blue Angels is to enhance the recruiting of the U. S. Navy and Marine Corps and to serve as ambassadors of good will across the United States and in foreign countries.

The Blue Angels show schedule runs from March to November. In November, the "Blues" move to their winter home of El Centro, CA where they stay until sometime in March. We saw them from a distance when we spent a few days in El Centro in February of 2007 during our first year of full-timing. We have never seen them close-up, and since the practice sessions in Pensacola are open to the public, we decided to get up early and drive over to Pensacola on Wednesday to watch one of the last practice sessions before the Angels left for El Centro for the winter. Practice session dates and the show schedule are shown on the Blue Angels website.

The Blue Angel practice starts at 8:30 AM, and it takes almost an hour to drive from Summerdale to Pensacola. The practice sessions take place adjacent to the National Naval Aviation Museum located at the Pensacola Naval Air Station. The museum itself is fantastic; and it's free, so if you've never seen it, be sure to stop. We were there this past spring, and if you would like to see a preview of the museum, check out our post by clicking here.

The banner at the top of this post is at the entrance to the viewing area for the Blue Angels practice. There are bleachers to sit on, and there is also plenty of space for lawn chairs and for standing. We took our own chairs, but we didn't sit in them much because it was easier to see when we were standing. We liked to turn around and watch the Blues after a maneuver to try to guess what direction they would be coming from next.

The Blue Angels were formed in 1946 by Admiral Chester Nimitz as a means to boost Navy morale and to maintain public and political interest in aviation during cuts in defense spending following WWII.

The first aircraft used by the Blues were propeller-driven Grumman F6F-5 Hellcats. The first jets (the F9F-2 Panther) were used in 1949. There have been several other types of aircraft over the years, and the Blues are currently flying F/A-18A-D Hornets.

Although the Hornets have been modified somewhat (including the replacement of the nose cannon by a tank containing the paraffin-based oil used to create the smoke trails), they could be repainted and made combat ready within 72 hours. The next photo shows Blue Angel 5 and Blue Angel 6 ready for takeoff.

Six Blue Angels usually take part in the flight demonstrations. Blue Angels 1 though 4 fly mostly in the diamond formation...

...but occasionally fly in other formations as well.

When in tight formation, the planes are often less then two feet apart, and you can see from the photos above how low they sometimes fly. At other times, they perform their maneuvers at higher altitudes.

Blue Angels 5 and 6 are known as the solos. They usually fly at higher speed than the Blues in the diamond, and they do a number of high-speed passes that make it look like they are about to collide.

Later, one of the solos joined 1 through 4 to do a five-plane vertical loop.

The next photo shows the solos performing a maneuver called "section high alpha" where they slow their speed to about 120 mph and pitch the noses of the planes up to almost 45º to plow through the air belly first.

Toward the end of the show, the solos join Blue Angels 1 through 4 to form a delta.

The delta performs some real crowd-pleasing maneuvers.

The practice only lasted about 50 minutes, but it was well worth getting up early and making the drive to Pensacola to watch. Afterward, we made a few stops in Pensacola, then headed back to Summerdale.

We planned on having a "cheat day" from our low carb/low sugar diet and stop at the Shrimp Basket in Foley for lunch on our way back to Rainbow Plantation, but we would be arriving a little after noon just in time for the lunch rush. Therefore, we decided to go to the motor home for lunch and go back out to the Shrimp Basket later for an early dinner.

We have written about the Shrimp Basket before. They are a chain of about a dozen restaurants in southern Alabama and the Florida panhandle. They have sandwiches and po' boys for $6 to $8, fried baskets for $10 to $14 and platters for $13 to $14.

The Shrimp Basket also has all-you-can-eat specials on various days, and even though we were there on Wednesday for the popcorn shrimp special, neither one of us felt like we could do justice to all you can eat now that we were used to eating less on our diet. Instead, Margery had a fried clam basket, and Paul had a jumbo fried shrimp basket. We both had boiled new potatoes and slaw for our sides.

The food was delish. It certainly isn't low carb, but it wasn't all that bad, especially since neither one of us ate all our potatoes. In addition, we tried to compensate by being more careful with our other meals that day since we knew we would probably be eating out. We both lost a little more this week, so we'll see how we do on next week's weigh-in.

After our early dinner, we headed back to the motor home for an evening of TV and relaxation. We will be chilling out at Rainbow Plantation for a few more weeks. Paul is working on a motor home project, we're planning for a couple more meals out and we are hoping to do a little more sightseeing, so there will be more posts from Summerdale coming up.

Tuscumbia, AL to Summedale, AL

Summerdale, AL - Events of Wednesday, Oct. 26 to Thursday, Oct. 27, 2011

As we said in our last post, the weather forecast was calling for another cooling trend, so we continued heading south on Wednesday morning. We were making our way to the Escapees Rainbow Plantation in Summerdale, AL near Mobile. Our first day's drive was relatively long for us at almost 5 hours. We got a fairly early start and pulled into Montgomery South RV Park at about 1:30. It's a good thing we got there when we did because we had not made reservations, and we got the last site they had available.

We have stayed at Montgomery South a couple of times before because it is a convenient place to stop on our way to or from Summerdale, and we didn't expect them to be full at this time of year. However, there is a construction project going on in Montgomery, and the campground has a bunch of construction workers staying there. The campground only has 23 sites, and it looks like the construction company bought about a dozen unmarked, surplus, FEMA trailers and set them up at the campground for some of their workers.

The sites and roads at Montgomery South are gravel, and the spacing is not bad for a private campground. There is grass between the sites.

Montgomery South is a Passport America campground with half-price camping. They apparently have only some of their sites designated as Passport America sites because, unfortunately, we didn't get the discount this time since they were full; but we did get the Good Sam discount.

As we said, Montgomery South is a convenient place to stop for one or two nights. They are located near the interstate exit, but that means there is also a lot of traffic noise. There are also quite a few trains.

Montgomery South has full hookups with 30/50-amp electric, cable and free Wi-Fi. We were located near the office, so the Wi-Fi signal was strong, although we got knocked off several times later in the evening. The connection was also pretty fast.

You may have noticed we have added comments to this and another recent post about the strength and speed of the campground Wi-Fi connection. That's because now we sometimes use the campground Wi-Fi as long as the signal is strong and the connection is reasonably fast in order to save the usage of our Verizon Broadband. We had usage limits when we were on satellite internet, too; but the limits worked a little differently. On satellite, the data usage was also linked to time. The data limit gradually recovered during idle periods, so we could download a fair amount of data as long as we didn't do it over too short a period of time. With Verizon, the limit is strictly 5GB of data per month, period. Therefore, we will try to save on that limit when possible by using campground Wi-Fi. The good news is even if we do exceed our limit by quite a bit, the cost will still be lower or the same as satellite.

We also found out about a nice feature that our Cradlepoint wireless router has we didn't know about. It's called Wi-Fi as WAN (wide area network). This feature lets the router receive an unsecured, campground Wi-Fi signal, encrypt it, and rebroadcast it as a secure connection to our computers. When using this feature, we connect to our own wireless router the same way we do when using our Verizon Broadband (except the Verizon modem is disabled) instead of connecting directly to the campground Wi-Fi.

The next morning, we had about a three-hour drive to Summerdale, AL, which is one of our favorite locations. It is close to Mobile to the west and to Pensacola, FL to the east, so there are lots of things to do, lots of good seafood, and lots of convenient shopping.

As we said, Rainbow Plantation is an Escapees campground. It has paved roads and grassy sites. There are live oak trees between most of the sites that provide welcome shade from the hot Alabama sun, but most of the trees aren't big enough yet to block our satellite dish, which we still use for TV. However, the shade means the grass on some of the sites is a little sparse. The good news is, the soil is sandy so it doesn't get muddy when it rains and water drains away quickly. This time, we got a site with grass that was fairly plentiful so we didn't need to put out our patio mat. As you can see from the next photo, we have a nice tree on our driver's side, which faces west, to shade us from the afternoon sun.

The next photo shows a view down the road.

Except for the dry-camp area (since Escapees campgrounds don't take reservations, they all have a dry-camp area for overflow), all the sites at Rainbow Plantation have full hookups. The sites on the eastern end have 30-amp electric, and the ones on the western end have 30/50 amps. There is Wi-Fi available; but since there is a fee, we will be using our Verizon Broadband. Although this is a 4G area, our connection is a little slower than we experienced in Nashville, but it's still faster than our satellite internet.

Rainbow Plantation is one of our favorite campgrounds, and we usually stay here for at least several weeks on our way to and from Florida each fall and spring. The sites are widely spaced, and the campground is nice and quiet. The rates at Escapees campgrounds are very reasonable to begin with; and on top of that, Rainbow Plantation also has special rates from the end of March to the end of December where you pay for 15 days and get 5 additional days free. That brings down the nightly cost to under $12 a night plus electric (usually around $2 a day). Not bad for full hookups and generously-sized sites with grass and trees.

In addition to the regular campground, Rainbow Plantation has deeded lots, seasonal sites and co-op sites. If Summerdale had winter temperatures a little warmer, we would definitely consider a seasonal site or putting our name on the waiting list for a co-op site. But since we even complain about occasional cold days we experience farther south in Florida, we're afraid Summerdale would not be warm enough for us in winter.

Since we are planning to stay at Rainbow Plantation at least through Thanksgiving, Paul has a project or two in mind to get done during our stay. We'll report on those projects as they unfold in the weeks to come. In the meantime, we plan to have a couple of cheat days from our diet to have some fried shrimp at the Shrimp Basket in Foley and a panini or two at Panini Pete's in Fairhope. We also hope to squeeze a little sightseeing in between our projects and our relaxation, so stay tuned.

Tuscumbia, AL Part II: Pillows and Parks

Tuscumbia, AL - Events of Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011

Our next sightseeing outing was motivated partly by fun and partly by necessity. Paul has been complaining lately that, although his pillow isn't that old, it seems to be getting a lot harder. We figured we would look for a Bed, Bath and Beyond once we got to our next stop so Paul could check out a new pillow. Then Margery noticed a write-up in a tourist magazine we got at the campground office for the Pillow Factory Outlet Store about 10 minutes away in Muscle Shoals. Not only did the Pillow Factory Outlet sell pillows, they made them on the premesis, and their website said they also had factory tours.

Muscle Shoals is named for the shoals along the Tennessee River in that area. Shoal is another name for shallow water. There are several theories about where the "muscle" part of the name came from, but the one that seems most logical is it a mis-spelling on the part of early settlers of the word "mussel" referring to the large numbers of fresh-water mussels that live in the shallow waters.

The Pillow Factory seems to specialize in supplying pillows to high-end hotels and motels, but they also sell pillows, comforters, and other bedding to the public in their online store and at their factory outlet.

The Pillow Factory uses European down, feathers, Comforel hypo-allergenic polyester, or a combination of those fill materials to make their pillows. The best part is they will customize your pillow at no charge while you wait. If you want a softer, flatter pillow, they will open the pillow up and take fill out. If you want a plumper, firmer pillow, they will add fill.

Paul was interested in a Comforel pillow because of his allergies and because they are more affordable than down. Pure down pillows can run over $100, whereas polyester-filled pillows cost much less. Unlike some polyester pillows that contain a wad of continuous fiber, Comforel is made up of small clusters of chopped polyester fibers that make the pillow feel more like it is filled with down. Comforel won't last as long as a good down pillow, but the price is much more affordable.

We were greeted by a very friendly and helpful lady who turned out to be the owner. She showed Paul samples of all their pillows and explained the virtues of each. Paul chose a Comforel pillow, but he thought it was a little too high and firm. No problem. The pillow went back into the shop to have some of the filling removed. We asked if we could tag along to watch the process.

It is a pretty small operation. We saw only two employees besides the owner. One worker was filling pillows. Down is drawn from the storage bin located in the small building next door and is fluffed by air flow in the large, blue bin behind the worker in the next photo. He places a pillow case over the small, round nozzle that is by his elbow to the right, and filling is blown into the pillow case. He is checking the weight to make sure the pillow has the proper amount of fill.

The other worker sews the pillows and adds the "Do Not Remove" tag. By the way, it is legal for the purchaser to remove the tag. The worker is shown below sewing up Paul's pillow after removing several handsfull of Comforel.

Next, the worker places the pillows into a plastic bag, which she then places into a machine that flattens the pillow to only about an inch thick to force out most of the air to save space for shipping. The machine then seals the bag. We obviously weren't going to have Paul's pillow shipped, but they offered to demonstrate the machine for us. When the bag is opened, the pillow pops back to its original fluffiness.

Margery got a water-filled pillow years ago from our chiropractor. It has a vinyl chamber for water on the bottom and polyester fill material on the top for comfort. The height of the pillow can be adjusted by changing the amount of water in the chamber. The water pillow really helped relieve Margery's neck pain. The Pillow Factory sells a few types of pillows that they don't make such as those made from memory foam and also water-filled pillows. Since Margery's water pillow is old and the padding is getting pretty hard, so she decided to get a new one. The next photo shows Paul and the owner holding up Margery's new pillow.

On our way back to the motor home, we made a stop in Tuscumbia at Spring Park. Spring Park is located right near the downtown business district. The park features a spring-fed lake that supplies the city's drinking water, picnic and playground areas, a small number of amusement rides, and the world's largest man-made, natural-stone waterfall. Cold Water Falls, which is shown in the photo below, is 48 feet high and 80 feet wide and has a flow of over 4 million gallons of water a day.

The lake has a memorial fountain dedicated to Princess Im-Mi-Ah-Key, who was the wife of Chief Tuscumbia for whom the town is named. On weekends, there is a water show where the 51 water jets and lights are timed to music.

Tuscumbia was located along the Trail of Tears, which was the route followed by Native Americans (Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw and Chocktaw) during their relocation from the southeastern United States to the western states. The Indian Removal Act was signed into law in 1830 by Andrew Jackson. We learned a little about  the Indian Removal Act when we visited Andrew Jackson's home recently when we were in Nashville. Click here to read our post about Andrew Jackson's home.

Tuscumbia was sympathetic to the plight of the Indians, and many townspeople provided for the needs of the Indians as they traveled through the area by giving them clothing and food. A sculpture called Sacred Tears stands in the park to commemorate the Indians' suffering.

There is also a chainsaw carving of an Indian brave that stands about 20 feet tall.

We had a pleasant walk partway around the lake, then headed back to the motor home.

The weather was cool when we arrived, but the daytime temperatures had finally risen into the 70s. However, nights were still cool, and the forecast was calling for another cooling trend so it was time to head south again. We'll tell you where we went in our next post.

Tuscumbia, AL Part I: Helen Keller Birthplace

Tuscumbia, AL - Events of Monday, Oct. 25, 2011

Tuscumbia, AL is the birthplace of Helen Keller. She was born at the family home Ivy Green, which was built in 1820 by her grandparents. The photo below shows the main house at Ivy Green.

The main house has 4 large rooms on the first floor including the dining room, the master bedroom and the parlor shown below. Most of the furnishings in the home are original to the Keller family. A small museum occupies the fourth room downstairs.

The second floor had two bedrooms and a storage room. The next photo shows Helen's room on the second floor.

When Helen's parents were first married, the plantation office next to the main house was converted to a cottage for the newlyweds. It was here Helen was born. Later, after Helen and her parents had moved into the main house, the cottage served as a classroom.

Helen Keller was not blind and deaf at birth. It was not until 19 months of age that she was stricken by a severe illness (possibly scarlet fever or meningitis) that left her totally blind and deaf. By the age of 6, Helen had become a very unruly child because of her frustration of not being able to communicate.

The Kellers contacted an eye, ear, nose and throat specialist in Baltimore for advice. The specialist encouraged them to contact Alexander Graham Bell, who was working with deaf children at the time. Bell subsequently put the Kellers in touch with the Perkins Institute for the Blind. In 1887, the director of the institute asked a young woman by the name of Annie Sullivan, who was almost blind herself and who was a former student at the institute, to go to Ivy Green to try to communicate with Helen.

Early attempts by Annie to teach Helen sign language by spelling words into Helen's hand were unsuccessful because Helen had become blind and deaf at such an early age, she didn't realize every object had a unique name. Then one day behind the house at the well, Annie made a breakthrough when she repeatedly spelled the word "water" into Helen's hand while pumping cool water over the girl's other hand. The pump still stands behind the house.

Helen Keller learned Braille by age 10, and she also learned the manual alphabet and how to use the typewriter. She even learned to speak by putting her fingers into Annie's mouth to feel the movement of Annie's tongue and by putting her hand on Annie's throat to feel the sound vibrations. Helen Keller went on to graduate cum laude from Radcliffe college in 1904. The photo below shows Helen Keller on the left in her cap and gown and Annie Sullivan on the right.

Annie Sullivan married in 1905. Although she and her husband separated in 1914, they never formally divorced. Annie continued to live with Helen in New York as a companion until Annie's death in 1936. Helen Keller had another companion and also a nurse in later life. Helen Keller died in 1968.

Helen Keller devoted most of her life to improving conditions for the blind and the deaf. She gave a speech at the Lion's Club Convention in 1925 and persuaded the Lions to become the crusaders they are today for vision preservation and service to the blind. Helen Keller was also a political activist and a member of the Socialist Party. She helped found the ACLU.

As we continued our tour, we visited the kitched that is located in a separate building behind the main house.

Also located behind the house is the herb garden in the foreground in the next photo with the butterfly garden behind.

Next to the house is the Lion's International Memorial Garden.

And to the rear of the property is The Clearing where there is a collection of native trees and shrubs. The collection includes the Moon Tree, which is a loblolly pine that was grown from a seed that was flown to the moon and back on Apollo 14 in 1971. The seedling was presented to Ivy Green in 1976 by the U. S. Forest Service.

Helen Keller was a remarkable woman to have overcome such adversity, and we were glad to have the opportunity to learn more about her life.

We keep saying we have shifted from sightseeing to relaxation; but we found yet more to see in the Tuscumbia area, so stay tuned.

Tiffin MotorHomes

Tuscumbia, AL - Events of Wednesday Oct. 19 to Thursday Oct. 20, 2011

Holy cow! When we said there was a general cooling trend on the way, we weren't kidding. We awoke at Cedar Creek on Wednesday morning to temperatures in the low 40s, a stiff breeze, cloudy skys and drizzle. The high temperature was predicted only to be in the 40s. Driving 3 hours south to Tuscumbia, AL didn't help much. It was only about 47º when we arrived around 1:00 PM. Fortunately, the forecast was calling for an increase to the 70s by the weekend.

In Tuscumbia, we stayed at Heritage Acres RV Park. Most of the sites are back-ins, but they do have two pull-through sites in the back row. There are full-hookups with 30/50-amp electric as well as free Wi-Fi (good signal, and pretty fast) and cable. The photo below shows our site at Heritage Acres.

There is a little traffic noise during the day from the four-lane road that passes the campground, but it quiets down at night. Although there are several railroad crossings within earshot, we only heard occasional trains when we were there.

The sites at Heritage Acres aren't very fancy. In fact, there are essentially rows of sites on a gravel parking lot. However, the gravel is clean and fairly plentiful. As you can see from the next photo showing a view down our row, the sites are relatively close together.

As we said in our last post, we are now on Verizon Broadband for our internet access. Tuscumbia is a 3G area. We didn't run any speed tests, but the 3G in this area feels a little faster than our satellite internet. So far at least, we are happy with our decision to switch.

For the past couple of years, we have stopped on our way south in Red Bay, AL where our motor home was built and stayed in the Tiffin Campground. This year, we decided to take a slightly different route through Tuscumbia and not go to Red Bay. The lens on one of our fog lights is cracked, and Paul was going to order a replacement from Tiffin once we got to Summerdale, AL where we plan to stay at least a month before heading to Florida. However, since Tuscumbia is only 45 minutes from Red Bay, we decided to take a day trip to Red Bay to pick up the replacement fog light and to take a factory tour.

Some things about the Tiffin factory tour have changed since we were there last year. Red, who is the 80-something very southern gentleman who used to lead the tours, no longer does that because of his failing eyesight. However, Red is still there every day as the official greeter. He ushers everyone in the door and makes sure they sign in and get safety glasses, then chats with individuals until it's time for the tour to start.

There is now only one tour a day (9:30 AM) instead of two like there used to be. However the tour has been expanded to include the cabinet shop and the Powerglide Chassis assembly building in addition to the main assembly building that used to be the only part of the operation included in the tour.

There were so many people wanting to take the tour the day we were there (about 25 or 30), they split us into two groups. Our group went second, and our tour guide filled us in on some history of Red Bay while we waited about 10 minutes for the other group to get far enough ahead of us that we wouldn't be running into each other once we got into the plant.

When our turn came, we headed through the gate. Tiffin is building 10 motor homes a day (5 days a week), which is down a bit from the peak of 13 they were building when we visited in 2007, but it is up a lot from only 6 a day (4 days a week) they were building when we were there in 2008 when the high fuel prices first hit. We were happy to see there were lots of cars in the employee parking lot (left) and a good many motor homes sitting in the final inspection area off in the distance.

Tiffin employs about 700 people in the town of Red Bay, and 1400 to 1500 total in western Alabama and Eastern Mississippi. They are very important to the local economy.

Our first stop was the cabinet shop. For the second time in less than two weeks, Paul got to enjoy the aroma of fresh sawdust. The first was at the Loiusville Slugger factory. Paul was really impressed by the size and scope of Tiffin's cabinet-making operation.

We entered though the warehouse where we saw stacks and stacks of lumber. This lumber is first planed smooth, then inspected for defects, which are cut out. There were numerous work stations like the one shown in the photo below where boards were being cut to size for various components.

The components are milled to various shapes and profiles, which are then assembled into drawers, doors and other parts. The next photo shows a paneled door that had just been assembled.

And the next worker is assembling a large, decorative ceiling panel for an Allegro Bus.

After assembly, the wood parts are then sanded and finished. The photo below shows finished sections of kitchen cabinets. Rather than a flip-up counter extension, Tiffin uses a roll-out extension in the larger diesel pushers. Drawers are easy to reach since they roll right out with the extension.

From the cabinet shop, we entered the Powerglide Chassis assembly building. Tiffin builds a good many of its own chassis. They build all the chassis for the Allegro Breeze, Tiffin's newest motor home launched last year. It is a smaller, diesel pusher available in 28 and 32-foot lengths. The Powerglide Chassis is also available as an option on some of Tiffin's larger diesel pushers. The next photo shows a chassis for an Allegro Breeze.

The photo below shows Cummins 450hp ISL engines waiting to be installed in chassis for Allegro Buses.

In addition to building some of its own chassis, Tiffin also buys chassis from Ford, Freightliner and Spartan. All chassis go to the welding shop to have floor structures, storage compartment frames and other components welded on. The welding shop is not part of the tour, but the next photo shows a chassis that just came out of the welding shop. Next, it will go to main assembly.

When the chassis enters the main assembly building, workers begin installing components like water and waste tanks, wiring, flooring, interior walls and cabinets, appliances, exterior walls, roof and end caps. We wrote up a fairly detailed description of the assembly when we visited the factory in 2009. If you are interested in reading more about the assembly and seeing photographs, click here.

After the tour, visitors are invited to have a look inside any of the coaches that are parked inside or outside at final inspection. We looked in a few, but some were hard to see because there were several workers inside. We didn't want to get in their way, especially since we are not looking to buy.

From the Tiffin plant, we headed over to the service facility to pick up the replacement fog light. Unfortunately, the company Tiffin used to buy the light from either no longer makes it or is no longer in business, so Paul will have to try to find an alternative. In the meantime, the light still works - it's just the lens that's cracked. We never drive the motor home at night anyway.

Since we just happened to be in Red Bay on Thursday, and since Swamp John's has their catfish special on Thursdays, we decided to have a "cheat day" and stray from our low carb/low sugar diet and stop for the catfish special. The catfish special means the catfish dinner consisting of fried catfish, French fries, cole slaw and hush puppies is available all day.

Swamp John's is a no-frills restaurant that is located in an old gas station. The pumps are still outside, and the main part of the restaurant is where convenience store of the old gas station probably used to be.

We arrived at Swamp John's at the perfect time - 11:45. Tiffin employees have lunch from 11:20 until noon. Lots of people with Tiffin logos on their shirts were leaving, there was only one person ahead of us in the order line and there were lots of empty tables. One of the Tiffin sons was eating with some of the manufacturing employees at one of the few occupied tables. As we were finishing our meals at 12:10, the order line was fairly long and the restaurant was filling up with again with people from downtown businesses on their lunch break.

The catfish was yummy. There was more than we could eat, especially now that we are used to eating less. There were 4 strips of catfish, a hugh pile of French fires, a big mound of cole slaw and two hush puppies - all for $7.49.

Speaking of our diet, we are doing fairly well with our weight loss. We had a slight setback a few weeks ago when we both went up a little at our weekly weigh-in even though we had not cheated at all that week. However, in the couple of weeks since, we lost that slight gain plus a little more. Paul has lost a total of about 10 pounds since we started in early September, and Margery has lost over 6 pounds. This 'diet' is called the Belly Fat Cure which means that we get to measure our waist, too. Paul has lost 1½ inches and Margery has lost 2 inches. Taking a measurment and weighing in means we usually get to see a loss in at least one of those areas.

After lunch, we headed back to the motor home for an afternoon of relaxation (naps). As we keep saying, we have shifted into relaxation mode. However, we haven't stopped sightseeing completely, and there are still some things in Tuscumbia we want to see.

Nashville, TN

Mt. Juliet, TN - Events of Wednesday, Oct. 12 to Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011

As we said in our last post, the weather was cooling off in the Louisville area, so we continued heading south to Cedar Creek Corps of Engineers campground near Nashville in Mt. Juliet, TN. Cedar Creek has paved roads and gravel sites with 30/50-amp electric and water hookups. The sites are a good bit closer together than we usually see in Corps of Engineer campgrounds, and our loop probably had the closest spacing of all the loops. There are about a dozen lakefront sites and another dozen across the road from those that have much wider spacing, but the lakefront sites are hard to get on weekends, and they have too much shade for our rooftop satellite dish. The photo below shows our site at Cedar Creek.

Since we were going to be at Cedar Creek over a weekend, we made advance reservations. It's a good thing we did because, although the campground was only about 1/3 filled when we first arrived on Wednesday, it started filling up on Thursday afternoon because local schools had Thursday and Friday off for fall break. Kids have only been in school less than two months, and they need a break already? Anyway, the photo below shows some of the other sites on our loop later Saturday afternoon after the campground filled up.

Speaking of our rooftop satellite dish, we used Google Earth when we made our reservations to pick out a site with a clear view of the southern sky. After we arrived and leveled the motor home, we pushed the button to deploy the satellite dish. In the meantime, Paul went about connecting utilities outside and Margery put out the slides and worked on setting up the inside. After we finished up, we noticed the satellite dish had found the proper satellite, but we did not have a signal lock. Uh-oh. The same thing happened at our last stop, but we thought it was a problem on the satellite provider's end because it cleared up and we got a lock after a little while.

Unfortunately, we did not have the same luck this time. After a call to MotoSat technical support, we determined that our transmitter had probably gone bad. A replacement part costs about $200, which isn't all that bad considering how much we use the internet. However, the big problem was we would have had to order the part, and since we were staying at a Corps of Engineers campground for a week, there would be no good way for us to receive the part.

We have been reading about Verizon Broadband for some time, and we have toyed with the possibility of switching; but as long as our satellite internet dish was still working, we had no real reason to make a change. However, now that we were facing the inconvenience of being without internet for a week or more while we figured out how and where we were going to have the repair part shipped, we had an incentive to consider Verizon more seriously. The problem was, without an internet connection, we couldn't research our options online, and we didn't even have a good way to locate a Verizon Wireless Store. So we grabbed our laptop, hopped into the car and drove toward Nashville. We found a McDonalds that had Wi-Fi, so we did a little quick research and found a Verizon Wireless Store nearby.

To make a long story short, after much deliberation, we decided to discontinue our satellite internet service, and we will now connect to the internet via Verizon Broadband using a Pantech USB modem. Since we have two computers, the modem will be plugged into a Cradlepoint wireless router so both computers can connect at the same time. We also considered Verizon MiFi, but the MiFi is battery powered, and we didn't want to worry about having to keep it charged.

As it turns out, Nashville is a 4G area, and we are thrilled with the improved speed of our internet connection. We know 4G coverage is still limited, but it is growing all the time. We will probably have 3G much of the time for the foreseeable future; but 3G should still be at least as fast as satellite internet in most cases.

When we first started full-timing, there were wide gaps in wireless internet, and it was not as fast as satellite internet. Since satellite internet is available EVERYWHERE as long as your dish can get a clear view of the southern sky, we went with satellite in spite of the fact we had to buy expensive equipment to do it. Now, with the advent of 4G, wireless broadband can be much faster than satellite. We know there are still areas of the country that don't have 3G, much less 4G coverage, and there are some areas that have no wireless internet coverage at all. We will have to deal with that when we run into it. Hopefully, we will be able to find campgrounds with Wi-Fi at least some of the time in those areas.

Not having to depend on our rooftop satellite dish for our internet connection will broaden our campsite selections. We were always limited to sites with few or no trees. Our satellite TV shares the rooftop internet dish, so we will still have to be a little careful about too many trees. However, we will be able to use our portable TV satellite dish on a tripod in the event our site has too much shade for the rooftop dish.

On one of our information gathering trips to the Verizon Store, we saw a sign for the Hermitage, which is President Andrew Jackson's home. Since it is located fairly close to where we were staying, we decided we were interested in seeing the Hermitage once we got our new internet connection up and running.

Cedar Creek is nice and quiet during the week (except for the times when the maintenance crews are mowing); but it was crowded and zooy on the weekend. We usually don't do much sightseeing on the weekend, but we needed a break from the smoky campfires and the noise in the campground, so we decided to visit the Hermitage on Saturday. The photo below shows the front of the Hermitage.

Andrew Jackson, who was the son of Scots-Irish immigrants, was born in 1767 near the border between North and South Carolina. Jackson was a military courier during the American Revolution when he was only 13. During this time, he was slashed with a sword by a British officer, and Jackson developed a deep hatred for the British. Andrew Jackson eventually got revenge when he later defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812.

Jackson's father died before he was born, and Jackson became an orphan at age 14 when his mother died of cholera. Although Jackson's legal education was scant, he learned enough to become a frontier lawyer in the late 1800s. He moved west to an area that was located in what was to become Tennessee. When Tennessee became a state a few years later, he was elected Tennessee's first U. S. Representative. He also served as a Senator and as a Tennessee Supreme Court Judge. During this time, Jackson prospered as a planter and merchant. His toughness and aggressive personality earned him the nickname "Old Hickory."

Andrew Jackson acquired a plantation he named the Hermitage near Nashville in 1804. He and his wife, Rachael, moved into a two-story, log farmhouse on the property. Between 1819 and 1921, the Jacksons built a two-story, eight-room, brick, Federal-style mansion on the property. The two-story log house was then disassembled and rebuilt into the two, single-story slave quarters shown in the next photo.

Andrew Jackson was elected the 17th President of the United States in 1828, and he served two terms. His wife died a month after the 1828 election. During the campaign, his opponents called him a "jackass," a name he actually didn't mind. He was later one of the founders of the modern Democratic Party, and the donkey became its symbol after being popularized by political cartoonist Thomas Nast.

In 1834, a fire severely damaged the original mansion, and Jackson had the house rebuilt in its current Greek Revival-style. The columns on the front are made of wood, but they are painted to look like the stone columns of a Greek temple.

There is a guided tour of the home, but, as is usually the case, photography is not permitted inside. After Andrew Jackson died in 1845, his stepson continued to live at the Hermitage. Later, the Hermitage was sold to the state of Tennessee, so about 90% of the furnishings in the house are original.

After the tour, we paused for a photo behind the house near Alfred's cabin.

Alfred, who was born in 1812, was one of Jackson's slaves who lived his entire life at the Hermitage. Alfred stayed on as a caretaker after Jackson's death and even after the Civil War. He worked as a guide when the mansion was opened for tours in the late 1800s.

We also toured the garden.

Although most of the flowers had faded, there were a few like these dahlias still going strong. The orange color was almost blinding in the bright afternoon sun.

Andrew and Rachael Jackson are buried in the garden. Alfred is also buried there off to the right side. You can just barely see his headstone above the top of the railing in the foreground.

After we toured the mansion and grounds, we went through the museum. The museum has some of Andrew Jackson's personal items and numerous of old photos. We probably should have visited the museum first because the museum was laid out in chronological order, and it would have helped establish the historical timeline for the rest of our visit.

There is a lot more to see in the Nashville area, especially if you're into country music. However, since we have shifted from sightseeing to relaxation mode, and since we spent the first two or three days in the area trying in vain to get our old satellite internet working and then running around researching and setting up our new Verizon Broadband, we decided to leave the rest of the sightseeing for another time.

We watched a lot people leave the campground on Sunday. However, quite a few stayed, and quite a few new people came in later Sunday afternoon. Fortunately, the sites near us remained empty so we didn't have any more smoky campfires nearby.

We relaxed for the remainder of our time at Cedar Creek and spent a good bit of time surfing the 'net. The weather forecast was predicting a general cool-down in the east, and the temperature around Nashville dropped like a stone on Tuesday afternoon. Our scheduled departure on Wednesday to head farther south was well timed. Stay tuned to find out about our next stop.

More Louisville, KY

Shepherdsville, KY - Events of Sunday, Oct. 9 to Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011

When we arrived at Grandma's RV Camping a few days earlier, we noticed a large flea market behind the campground as we exited the interstate. We watched a steady stream of cars pouring into the flea market as we did our cleaning chores in the motor home on Saturday morning and relaxed in the afternoon. On Sunday, we decided to walk over to check it out.

The flea market calls itself as "The Most Awesome Flea Market in the World," or Awesome Flea Market for short.

As you can see from the photo above, there is a large building that houses regular indoor vendor stalls and a fairly big outdoor section. We started out inside the building because it was closer to the campground and because it was a little cool in the morning. We wanted to give the sun a little more time to peek through the haze and warm things up.

Inside, Margery paused at one stall to oooh and ahhh over the puppies that were for sale.

The flea market had a nice variety of new and used merchandise, and we saw quite a few people carrying bags filled with purchases. Fortunately, we escaped without buying anything.

After the flea market, we relaxed some more and watched the NASCAR race. Although we couldn't get the Steeler game, we found out they beat the Tennessee Titans 34 - 17 in spite of the fact Roethlisberger is playing with a sprained foot.

On Monday, we drove back toward Louisville to see Chuchill Downs, home of the famed Kentucky Derby. As with baseball, we're not into horse racing, but almost everyone has heard of or watched the Kentucky Derby a few times on television so we couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit the home of such a well-known event.

Churchill Downs has a Kentucky Derby Museum which includes lots of history of the race and information on thoroughbreds. The $14 entrance fee for the museum ($13 for seniors) includes a 30-minute walking tour of the track. Behind the scenes and barn tours are also available at an additional cost. The next photo shows Gate 1 for the track and the entrance to the museum to the left.

Our timing was good since we only had about 10 minutes until the next walking tour. We spent a little time just inside the entrance of the museum getting oriented, and they announced the start of the next tour within a few minutes.

The tour guide was excellent. He gave us a lot of history about the track, about the Kentucky Derby and about thoroughbred race horses in general. The first derby was held in 1875, and it has been held every year for the last 137 years. The race is held the first Saturday in May and is for three year old thoroughbreds.

In addition to the Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs hosts the Kentucky Oaks on the Friday before the Derby. The Oaks is a race for three-year old fillies. Churchill Downs also has a regular racing schedule from the end of October through November and from the end of April through July 4th.

The horses are brought to the track for races from the barns located to the south. The next photo shows the paddock area where horses are saddled prior to the race.

We also got to see the grandstands and the track. Below is a view of the track toward the finish line (the white pole to the right).

The spire in the next photo is one of the original twin spires that mark the oldest section (formerly the barns) of the grandstand where most of the owners and trainers sit to watch the race. The other spire is just out of the picture to the left.

Millionaires' Row, which is the upper three levels of the section in the next photo, is where celebrities sit. 

After touring the grandstands and track areas, we went back to the museum. Hats for the ladies on Derby day are a must, and the museum has a display of some of the more unusual ones. The hat on the bottom row right next to Margery is a horse's butt. The black strip is the horse's tail that looked like it was made from yarn.

Later, Margery got to try some of the hats for sale in the gift shop.

The Kentucky Derby presents a lot of opportunity for fund raisers and balls in the days leading up to the race. The gown to the left in the next photo was worn by the chairwoman of a fundraiser for the museum. Since the Kentucky Derby is called the "Run for the Roses," the gown is appropriately covered by roses made from red fabric.

The reason the Kentucky Derby is called the "Run for the Roses" is because of the rose garland that is placed around the neck of the winning horse in the winner's circle.

 

The photo above depicts the 2011 winner, Animal Kingdom. The garland consists of 564 roses all in individual water vials wrapped in foliage and sewn to a fabric backing. The top center has one additional rose for every horse running in that year's Derby.

There are a lot of displays of trophies, photos of past winners, videos of Kentucky Derby races, information on famous jockeys, and information of many famous horses. There are also numerous hands-on displays, and Paul couldn't resist trying on jockey silks and sitting on a mock-up of a horse in a starting gate. You can almost hear the announcer yell, "...and they're off!"

Margery tried her hand at video horse racing. There are controls to move your horse right and left and a button to use your riding crop. She finished second.

We really enjoyed visiting Churchill Downs and getting to know a little more about thoroughbred horse racing and the history of the Kentucky Derby.

On Tuesday, we decided to drive through Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest located one exit south of where we were staying in Shepherdsville to get a taste of fall foliage. The Bernheim Arboretum and Forest was established by Isaac Bernheim, who was a successful whiskey distiller. Bernham purchased 14,000 acres of land and gave it as a gift to be held in trust for the people of Kentucky.

The arboretum, which is near the entrance, is planted with different varieties of specimen trees and shrubs. The photo below shows some of those trees overlooking a prairie.

Most of the area is natural forest. Although there were some trees starting to turn and a few falling leaves floating through the air, peak tree color is still at least 10 days to two weeks away in western Kentucky. 

The along the roads that wind through the Bernheim Arboretum and Forest there are numerous parking areas (many with picnic tables) and dozens of hiking trails. We stopped and walked a short loop trail so we could enjoy the fall air.

There were some sort of gnat-like bugs that kept buzzing in our faces and trying to fly into our eyes and ears. Margery's glasses helped protect her eyes, and she devised a method to protect her ears by sticking leaves under the temples of her glasses. Much to Paul's surprise, it worked remarkably well. 

Driving and walking through the Bernheim Arboretum and Forest satisfied our need to experience fall. That, along with the gradual cooling of the weather during the week we were in the Louisville area were good reasons to continue heading south. We'll tell you about where we stopped in our next post.

Louisville, KY

Shepherdsville, KY - Events of Wednesday, Oct. 5 to Friday, Oct. 7, 2011

After 8 days at Caesar Creek State Park in Willmington, OH, we drove about three hours southwest to Grandma's RV Camping about 20 miles south of Louisville in Shepherdsville, KY. Grandma's has about half back-ins and half pull-throughs. Although they are a decent length, the sites (especially the pull-throughs) are quite close together. The roads are paved, as are the small patios; but the patios are a little too far toward the rear of the sites for motor homes. The sites themselves are all gravel (the gravel is fresh, clean and plentiful) with no grass. There are full hookups with 30/50-amp electric and free Wi-Fi. The utilities are also toward the rear of the site, which is not bad for 5th wheels, but we needed all 30 feet of our sewer hose for our motor home. The next photo, which was taken when the sites on either side of us were unoccupied, shows our site at Grandma's.

And below is a shot looking down the road from our site.

Grandma's is conveniently located right off I-65, and that means there is quite a bit of traffic noise. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it), the traffic noise almost covers up the sound of the trains. Oh yeah, and if the wind is blowing the right direction, the campground is also on the glide path for the Louisville airport.

We complained about cool weather up north, and with a general warming trend across the eastern half of the country plus moving a little farther south, the 50 to 60º highs and 40º lows have given way to highs around 80º and lows in the mid 50s. Not only that, but the sun is out a lot more than it was up north. Ahhhh, that's more like it!

We continue to be in relaxation mode, but there were a few things we wanted to see in the Louisville area. One was the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory. Louisville Slugger, whose official company name is the Hillerich & Bradsby Co., is the world's largest manufacturer of baseball and softball bats. Hillerich & Bradsby also makes sports and recreational gloves and golf clubs. The most distinguishing feature of the museum is the "Big Bat," which is the world's largest bat.

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The 120-foot tall bat is hollow and is made from steel. It weighs 68,000 pounds. It would take a real power hitter to swing that one!

The museum is loaded with baseball memorabilia, and it has several displays depicting the history of the company. J. F. Hillerich opened a woodworking shop in Louisville back in 1855. The shop made bed posts, stair railings, bowling pins and butter churns. Although the story is sometimes disputed, legend has it that Hillerich's 17-year old son, Bud, took off work one afternoon in 1884 to watch Louisville's professional baseball team play. Pete Browning, who was a star player for the Louisville Eclipse, broke his bat during that game.

As the story goes, young Bud offered to make Browning a new bat at his father's wood shop, and Browning got three hits with his new bat the next day.

With Browning's success, Bud got orders for more bats from Eclipse players. The elder Hillerich didn't want anything to do with baseball bats; but word of the success of players using bats made at the Hillerich shop spread, and he eventually relented and began to embrace the new addition to his business.

The bats were originally sold under the name "Falls City Slugger" because of the location of Louisville near a waterfall on the Ohio River. Bud changed the name to Louisville Slugger when he took over the business from his father in 1894.

In 1911, Frank Bradsby joined the company. Bradsby became a full partner in 1916, and the company name was changed to Hillerich & Bradsby Co.

A factory tour is included in the $10 museum admission fee ($9 for seniors), but photos are not permitted inside the factory itself. Therefore, Margery missed getting a picture of Paul swooning at the smell of fresh sawdust when we first entered the factory. He still misses his workshop.

There are, however, a couple of displays in the museum that relate to the manufacturing process that we could photograph. The logs in the next photo show how the blanks for the bats, called billets, are taken from the logs. The log to the left shows the more modern method where a boring machine extracts the billets from an intact log. This method maximizes the number of billets that can be obtained from each log. In the method shown on the right, the log is first split into wedges, then the wedges are turned on a lathe to form the billets.

Another display in the museum shows the process that turns the billets from wedges. Those are mannequins in the photo below, not real people. The display is very realistic right down to sawdust everywhere, including on the workers themselves.

On the factory tour, we learned how bats are made from the billets. Most bats are made from ash, but some are made from maple. Maple is more brittle and prone to breaking, but some players think maple gives them an advantage.

Minor league bats and bats for the general consumer market are made on tracer lathes. The cutting head on the lathe follows a stylus that traces a metal pattern of the bat's contour. The pattern can be changed to produce different sizes and styles of bats. It used to take 20 minutes for a skilled operator to hand turn a bat. A tracer lathe can turn a bat in 30 seconds.

Bats for professional players are made on CNC (computer numeric control) lathes because these lathes can programmed to produce an almost infinite combination of size, shape and weight characteristics. Of course, these characteristics must be kept within the limits of the rules. Professional players take thousands of swings a year, and they can feel subtle differences in their bat. Over their careers, they develop preferences for certain characteristics in a bat. The machine can remember each program, so changing from one style of bat to another is as easy as pushing a couple of buttons. A CNC lathe takes about 45 seconds to turn a bat.

After the bats are turned, they are sanded and branded. Some bats are flame tempered and some bats are dipped in color. The bats are then finished by dipping them in clear lacquer.

After we finished the factory tour, we had time to look around the museum a little more. Although Paul was somewhat of a baseball fan when he was a kid, neither one of us follows baseball today. If you are an avid fan, however, there are lots of things of interest. For example, you can don white gloves or batting gloves and handle bats used in actual games by well-known players such as Mickey Mantle and Johnny Bench.

Other historical bats like the one shown below belonging to Babe Ruth are much more rare and are housed under protective covers.

Babe Ruth, who played from 1914 to 1935, was the most prolific hitter of his time. In fact, his 1927 record of 60 home runs in one season stood for 34 years, and wasn't broken until 1961 by Roger Maris. He is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture. There are several mannequins of famous players including one of Babe Ruth in a classic pose watching the ball go over the outfield wall.

There were numerous other bats on display including one belonging to Joltin' Joe DiMagio shown below partly out of the photo to the right. Paul was more interested in one of the bats in the drawer (the one just visible over the top of the drawer front) that belonged to Roberto Clemente.

Roberto Clemente, who was born in Puerto Rico, played his entire 18-season major league career with the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955 to 1972. Clemente is considered by some to be the greatest right fielder to have ever played the game. His career was cut short in 1972 when he was tragically killed in a plane crash while helping in a relief effort to aid earthquake victims in Nicaragua. As we said, Paul did follow baseball back when he was a kid, and he was fortunate enough to have seen Roberto Clemente play in person several times.

Another famous Pittsburgh Pirate was Honus Wagner. Wagner played from 1897 to 1917, mostly for the Pirates. He is considered to be one of the best short stops ever, and he was an excellent all-round player. The photo below shows his jersey and one of his bats. Honus Wagner was the first baseball player to endorse the Louisville Slugger bat.

The museum also has a 20-minute movie about baseball. Since our parking meter was about to run out and since we don't follow baseball, we decided to skip the movie.

Everyone on the factory tour receives a miniature souvenir bat. Paul tried his out next to the "Big Bat" on our way out of the museum.

We found more to do and see in the Louisville area, so stay tuned.

Caesar Creek State Park, OH

Wilmington, OH - Events of Tuesday, Sept. 27 to Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011 

From Pittsburgh, we headed to Caesar Creek State Park in Wilmington, OH near Waynesville. Caesar Creek has always been a favorite campground of ours. The grassy sites are huge, and the roads and pads are paved. Caesar Creek has only electric hookups, and they are all 30 amp. Water spigots where you can fill your fresh water tanks are located throughout the campground. The next photo shows our site at Caesar Creek.

Caesar Creek is usually almost empty and very quiet on weekdays, especially after Labor Day, as you can see from the next photo showing the view down the road from our site.

There were a few more sites taken in the non-reserveable loop, and the campground was about 2/3 full on the weekend; but there were only a few other campers most of the rest of the time.

Along with some of the other Ohio State Parks, Caesar Creek honors Passport America for half-price camping on Sunday through Wednesday nights to try to attract more visitors during those slower days. However, the campground is usually filled on summer weekends; and on holiday weekends, it can get pretty zooy.

After all the running around we did while in Pittsburgh, it was nice to relax a while. But we didn't just sit around the whole time. Since the campground was almost empty, Paul hooked up a hose to the spigot near our site and scrubbed the road grime from our fabric tow shield. Margery went to Willmington for a haircut, she worked on menus for our new Belly Fat Cure low carb/low sugar diet, and we made two stops Walmart to pick up some groceries.

Speaking of our new diet, we casually followed some of the general guidelines of the diet for about two weeks back when we were staying in Berlin, OH, and we have been adhering more strictly to the rules for about the last two weeks (with the exception of eating out three times while in Pittsburgh). We have both lost about 5 pounds already. That is an average of a little over a pound a week, which we think is an excellent rate - not too fast, but fast enough to be encouraging.

Caesar Creek Flea Market is about 10 minutes from Caesar Creek State Park; and when we're in the area, we usually head there on Saturday after having the breakfast buffet at Der Dutchman in nearby Waynesville. The restaurant in Waynesville was part of the Der Dutchman chain of restaurants we wrote about recently when we visited Berlin, OH. Unfortunately, the Waynesville restaurant had a devastating fire about a year ago, and the owners decided not to rebuild.

Saturday was cold and rainy anyway, so with Der Dutchman gone, we had no excuse to venture out. Therefore, we decided to wait until Sunday to go to the Flea Market. Sunday was still cold (it went down to 37º overnight), but it was sunny, and the wind had died down.

Caesar Creek Flea Market is an indoor/outdoor market that is open year round. The outdoor vendors sell mostly used household merchandise and collectibles like glassware. We walked over to see how many vendors there were, and the photo below shows about a third of the vendors there. Since they were kind of sparse and scattered all over the parking lot, we decided to skip the outdoor section.

As we started through the first building, Paul stopped to check out some bungee cords that had nice snap hooks on the ends that would be less likely to slip off than standard hooks.

Paul didn't buy any bungee cords, but he ended up buying some sandpaper and a small polishing disc for our aluminum wheels. Margery scanned a couple of used book stalls, but much to Paul's relief didn't find anything interesting.

In front of the flea market buildings, there is a long, covered row of outdoor vendors that we walked through on our way back to the car. At the end, there was a vendor with dozens of colorful pumpkins and gourds. The scene was very fitting for a cool, fall morning.

After the flea market, we went back to the motor home to watch the Steeler game and the NASCAR race. We didn't watch the Steeler game long - they played even worse than the score indicates (Texans 17 - Steelers 10). We enjoyed watching the campground empty out a whole lot more than watching the game.

We relaxed the rest of our time at Caesar Creek. We had a couple of nice sunsets, but one evening was particularly beautiful.

We previously said, the speed with which we head south will depend on the speed with which the weather cools off. In spite of several cool days in Berlin, several more in Pittsburgh, and a good bit of even cooler weather at Caesar Creek, the 10-day forecast shows a definite warming trend. Therefore, we will be doing a little more meandering and a little less speeding. We'll tell you about where we went in our next post.

More Pittsburgh, PA

Pittsburgh, PA - Events of Monday, Sept. 19 to Monday, Sept. 26, 2011

In the midst of all our doctor and dentist appointments, we found time for a little fun. The ladies went shopping at Kohl's and the Dress Barn, and Paul stopped and looked around in Lowe's and Home Depot twice. He also had time to squeeze in a few small projects, and we had a good bit family time with just the four of us.

We also went out to eat several times. After our doctor appointments on Monday, we took Paul's step mother to Bravo for lunch to celebrate her birthday. Bravo is an upscale Italian restaurant featuring a creative menu and fresh ingredients. Bravo has locations in 19 states with 6 restaurants in and around Pittsburgh. They have daily lunch specials for $8, sandwiches for $8 to $10, pizzas for $9 to $11, and lunches that are smaller portions of their dinners, and they range in price from $10 to $12. All the meals were delish!

J. Michael had the following Friday off work. After our appointments that day, we were starved, so the four of us went to a restaurant called Uncle Sam's for lunch. Uncle Sam's has 4 locations around Pittsburgh.

Uncle Sam's has a variety of subs that range in price from about $6 to $8 and a filet mignon sub for $11. The price for the sandwiches also includes fries for eat-in orders. Fries cost extra for take-out. The 12-inch sandwiches and the fries will easily feed two people unless you are very hungry.

Because of the great sandwiches and reasonable prices, Uncle Sam's is very popular for lunch. We arrived just at the start of the Friday lunch rush, and you can see the line to order beginning to form.

Uncle Sam's has mostly steak subs. We all had the Uncle Sam's Special, which is a cheese steak with extra meat, marinated peppers, mushrooms and grilled onions. The sandwiches and the fries were excellent!

On Sunday, we all went to dinner at Bahama Breeze. We like the tropical atmosphere and the Caribbean-inspired menu.

Dinners range in price from about $10 to $15. We had firecracker shrimp as an appetizer, Lora had almond encrusted salmon, Margery had almond encrusted talapia, J. Michael ordered chorizo sliders, while Paul had Jamaican chicken. The meals were all great.

One of the things we like about Bahama Breeze is some of their menu items are available as lighter portions where you get a slightly smaller meal (for example, one chicken breast instead of two). That allows you to save room for dessert. We shared a chocolate island, which has a brownie base topped with chocolate mousse, whipped cream and toasted almonds. The whole thing is served in a sea of delicious cream sauce with chocolate designs.

With all the eating out we did, it's hard to believe Lora and J. Michael started a new diet several months ago. They are on the Belly Fat Cure by Jorge Cruise, which basically restricts carbs and sugars. Carbs and sugars provide the energy for your body, and most of us take in way more than we need. All those extra carbs and sugar your body doesn't burn are stored as fat, especially around one's middle. Lora and J. Michael have been limiting their carb and sugar intake for about three months, and they have both lost a substantial amount of weight.

The good thing about the Belly Fat Cure is it only limits carbs and sugar, so that means you can still eat get plenty to eat, and you can still eat out as long as you're careful about what you order. You can even splurge once in a while with a yummy dessert (like a chocolate island) if you are careful with your other meals that day.

Lora and J. Michael have been talking to us about their diet for some time now, and after seeing them in Berlin, OH a few weeks ago and seeing how successful they have been, we decided to give the Belly Fat Cure a try.

For the first 10 days or so, we had not even been sticking to the diet very religiously, only following its general guidelines. Even with all the eating out in Berlin, with cream-filled doughnuts and pumpkin whoopie pies, and with eating out several times while in Pittsburgh, we have already lost almost two pounds each in less than two weeks. We can already feel our clothes aren't as tight.

Belly Fat Cure is more than a diet - it's really a lifestyle change. Changing your eating habits to 15 grams of sugar and 6 servings of carbs/day will not only cause you to lose weight, but you will be able to keep the weight off. We have been avid nutritional label readers since we were both diagnosed with high cholesterol. Now we've added carbs and sugars to our research, let us tell you there is sugar in EVERYTHING! Check it out yourself. Considering Margery was a one Mountain Dew per day drinker for 46 grams of sugar, she quickly adapted to eliminating Dew (among other things) from her diet, but amazingly, we have found our craving for sugar is greatly diminished. Limiting carbs and sugars will be a lifelong effort. Time will tell if we can stick with it in the long run.

As our travels for the year wind down and with our start of the Belly Fat Cure, we are officially ending the 2011 Zeller Foodie Tour. That's not to say we won't eat out anymore. It will just be a little less frequent, but we still hope to have some great restaurants to tell you about.

On Monday, we finished up the last of our appointments. With 14 appointments between the two of us over 6 weekdays, it was a very busy week, but we've completed all of our annual check ups. We got good reports on all our visits and tests. Margery may need cataract surgery at some time in the not too distant future, but for now changes to her eye glass prescription will deal with it.  Cataracts are a common eye problem as we age. The eye doctor said it shouldn't be a big deal to have it done anywhere in the country as long as we do our research to find a good doctor.

On Tuesday, we finished packing up the motor home and said our last good-byes. We will be meandering south. We have already had several cool days and nights in Berlin, OH and in Pittsburgh, so the speed with which the weather cools off will affect the speed with which we head south. We'll have more info about where we stopped in our next post.

Pittsburgh, PA

Pittsburgh, PA - Events of Friday, Sept. 16 to Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2011

Last Friday, we arrived in our old home town of Pittsburgh where we are staying in the driveway of our daughter, Lora, and our "son," J. Michael. J. Michael graciously agreed to temporarily move their new travel trailer to another location so we can use their RV pad while we are in the area.

 

As we said in our last post, we are here for family visits and for our annual doctor and dentist appointments. We also mentioned we wouldn't have much of interest to report this week, but we just wanted to make a quick post at the half-way point to say all our medical appointments so far have gone well. But it hasn't been all doctor appointments - we have also been enjoying our visits with family, we'll be eating out a couple of times and we worked on a couple of small projects. Next week, we'll have a few more details about some of the things we did during our stay in Pittsburgh as well as news about our next destination.