Living Our Dream

Holmes County, OH

Berlin, OH - Events of Wednesday, May 23 to Monday, May 29, 2012

Holmes County is Ohio's Amish area, and it has the nation's largest concentration of Amish. This is one of our favorite places in the entire country because we like the picturesque farms, the family atmosphere, the friendly people and the good food. It tends to be a little less crowded than either the Amish areas in Indiana or in eastern Pennsylvania.

When we go to Ohio Amish country, we always stay at Scenic Hills RV Park in Berlin, OH. Scenic Hills has all full-hookup sites. Some are pull-throughs, and some are back-ins. The campground has no bathroom/shower facilities so all RVs must be self-contained. Some sites have 30-amp electric, and some have 30/50 amps. They do have a small laundry as well as guest rooms if RVers want to spend time with their non-rving friends.

The roads are paved and the pads are gravel. There are sites on three levels. The sites on the upper and lower levels have grass between them, and the sites on the center level where the office is located are all gravel.

Our site at Scenic Hills RV

There is a lumber mill next to the RV park, and there is sometimes some noise from the equipment at the mill and from the backup beepers of the fork lifts at the mill during the week, so we usually like to get a site on the lower lever because we think the noise is less. The mill doesn't operate on weekends. The good thing about having a lumber mill next door is the campground gets cuttings from the mill to provide free fire wood to the campers.

The campground wasn't very crowded when we first arrived shortly after noon on Wednesday. There were RVs scattered about the campground and there was a small cluster of 6 or 8 RVs in the row in front of us. The campground was completely filled for the holiday weekend, however.

A view of some of the sites in the row in front of us

There is free Wi-Fi that has good coverage and that initially seemed to be as fast as our Verizon 3G. The Wi-Fi did slow down as the campground filled, but we used the campground system most of our stay because we had occasional trouble getting online with Verizon. Not only that, but we were running well over the 5GB data limit on our Verizon plan. With all our research and blogging, we usually do run over 5GB, and every extra gigabyte of data (or fraction thereof) costs us another $10, so we try to use free Wi-Fi whenever we can to minimize the overage.

By the time we got to Scenic Hills and set up, Margery decided she didn't feel like making lunch or cooking dinner, so we went to Der Dutchman Restaurant in nearby Walnut Creek for lupper. We knew our stay in Berlin was going to be hard on our diets, especially after several celebrations in Pittsburgh just a few days before.

Der Dutchman in Walnut Creek

We both had the salad bar. Salad itself isn't bad for our diets; it's all the sugar in the salad dressings and in all the accompaniments like three-bean salad, rolls with apple butter, potato salad, and pickled beets that are the problem.

Margery at the salad bar at Der Dutchman

On Thursday, we drove around the area enjoying the beautiful spring scenery and making a few shopping stops. We stopped at Walnut Creek Cheese for some bulk herbs and spices and at Winesburg Meats for some beef snack sticks for Paul. The beef sticks are shaped like Slim Jims with a flavor that is a cross between Slim Jims and summer sausage.

Winesburg Meats

We also stopped at R.W. Leather for a new, smaller belt for Paul that fits better since his weight loss. R.W. Leather is run by an Amishman who makes the belts from high quality harness leather.

There is a pet supply store across from the campground where we went to look for a new dog toy for Freeway. He keeps tearing apart the cheap ones from Walmart. We're hoping the new one we got him will last longer.

There happened to be a western store in the same complex, and Paul was able to get a second new belt to replace the western-style belt he had that was too big. Margery's old belts are also getting too big, and she got a new one at the western store, too.

We did our weekly cleaning of the motor home on Friday morning and then went out to Walmart in neraby Millersburg to pick up a few things. When we came back, Paul was checking his wallet to determine his cash situation because many of the smaller businesses in this area and the vendors at the flea markets we planned to go to the following day are cash only. He absent-mindedly placed a couple of bills on the floor beside him. When he went to pick the bills up, one of them was missing. A quick search revealed the thief hiding under the chair.

Thief caught in the act

Lora and J. Michael arrived Friday afternoon and got set up several sites away from us down at the end of the row. We went down to greet them, then we had dinner together back at our rig.

Friday dinner at our rig

On Saturday morning, it was back to Der Dutchman for their breakfast buffet that we all love so much. There are scrambled eggs with several things that can be added to them like fried onions, mushrooms, cheese and green peppers. There are also several kinds of potatoes, sausage gravy and biscuits, fried mush, pancakes, French toast sticks, two kinds of sausage, bacon, fresh fruit salad, frozen fruit slush, several kinds of pudding, cinnamon rolls, and much more.

After breakfast, we drove a short distance to the east of Der Dutchman to the Walnut Creek Flea Market. The flea market has mostly new items.

Entrance to the Walnut Creek Flea Market

The area has two similar flea markets. The second is a few miles to the west of the Walnut Creek Flea Market and a short distance past the entrance to Scenic Hills RV Park in Berlin. In fact, we could see the Holmes County Flea Market from our site. We couldn't very well go to the Walnut Creek Flea Market and skip the one that is right next to the campground, so we went there next.

Like the first flea market we went to, the Holmes County Flea Market has mostly new merchandise, and most of it has a country flair to it.

Margery checks out country-themed decorative items at the Holmes County Flea Market

Wendell August Forge, which manufactures hammered aluminum giftware, has a large store in Berlin. Lora and J. Michael needed a couple of wedding gifts, so we went to Wendell August Forge after we walked around the second flea market.

Wendell August store in Berlin, OH

Lora checks out a possible gift idea.

From Wendell August it was back to the RV park where we relaxed a while then had a delicious dinner of marinated, grilled chicken and zucchini pancakes at Lora and J. Michael's campsite.

With most businesses in the area closed on Sunday, we took time to relax. After we shared another dinner, it was too hot for a campfire so we played a couple of games around the picnic table and read.

Lora and J. Michael stayed over Monday night so they could avoid traveling on the holiday. On Monday morning, we all went to Lehman's Hardware in Kidron to look around. Lehman's sells non-electric appliances, stoves, canning supplies, oil lamps, farm implements, and other products that cater to the Amish.

Lehman's Hardware

Inside Lehman's, there is a mixture of antique tools and implements on display and new merchandise for sale, and it's often hard to distinguish between the two.

Inside Lehman's Hardware

Trying on hats at Lehman's

Wood-burning pizza oven at Lehman's

After Lehman's. we stopped at Heini's Cheese Chalet. They make most of their own cheese on the premesis, and you can watch it being made if you arrive at the right time. Samples of most of the cheeses are available, and there is a slow-moving line around the showroom (especially on Saturdays) as people shuffle along tasting cheese. Fotunately, it wasn't very crowded when we were there on Monday, so we were able to make our way around the samples fairly quickly. Lora bought some delicious sharp Swiss and sharp cheddar.

Margery contemplates buying some cheese

We relaxed on Monday afternoon, then went back to Der Dutchman for an early dinner. In addition to the salad bar, they also have a hot buffet, which is what we all had. It has broasted chicken, pan-fried chicken, ham loaf, sweet and sour chicken, roast beef, fried fish, sweet and sour meat balls, mashed potatoes, stuffing, noodles, sweet potato casserole, hash brown casserole, several kinds of vegetables, and more. The price of $13.49 also includes the regular salad bar and a dish of soft-serve ice cream for dessert with your choice of topping. Our diets were out the window, especially with all the starches.

We had a great time with Lora and J. Michael in Pittsburgh and then in Berlin. We're so glad we took the detour to help celebrate Lora's Mary Kay success, and we're glad we were able to get reservations at Scenic Hills to spend Memorial Day with them. As they headed east to go home the following morning, we headed off toward the south. We'll tell you where we went in our next post.

A Few Days in Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh, PA - Events of Friday, May 18 to Wednesday, May 23, 2011

We arrived in Pittsburgh on Friday and spent the weekend hanging out with Lora and J. Michael. Freeway got to meet their two boxers, Gunnar and Fiona. Gunnar is an 80-pound, 3-year old, and Fiona is one year old and weighs 70 pounds. At only about 12 pounds, Freeway was a little wary at first.

Freeway meets Gunnar

Freeway quickly jumped into Margery's lap for protection.

Freeway hiding behind Margery

Later, Freeway met Fiona. He eventually became comfortable playing with Gunnar or Fiona (one at a time) when he was either up on the motor home steps or on the couch. By the end of our stay, Freeway was happy to be right down on the floor with both the larger dogs to play. Gunnar and Fiona seemed to sense they had to be a little more gentle with him since he is so much smaller. We'll have more about the dogs a little later.

On Saturday, we all went to Bahama Breeze to celebrate Lora's accomplishment of becoming a Mary Kay Director. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day, and there was already a wait for a table even though we arrived shortly after 5:00 PM.

Bahama Breeze

Fortunately, the wait was less than half an hour. We all decided to order a bunch of appetizers to share for our dinner. We got Firecracker Shrimp (2 orders), onion rings, jerk chicken wings and a chicken quesadilla.

We had appetizers for dinner at Bahama Breeze.

Everything was yummy, and we topped off the meal with each couple sharing a chocolate island for dessert. A chocolate island is a fudge brownie topped with rich chocolate mousse, chocolate sauce and whipped cream all swimming in a sea of chocolate sauce and vanilla anglaise.

Lora's debut as a Mary Kay Director was held at the Greentree Doubletree Hotel on Monday evening. The ladies of Mary Kay are very supportive of one another. There was a nice turnout of about 70 women. Paul, J. Michael and three other husbands were also there.

Mary Kay Directors from other units in the Pittsburgh area were introduced near the beginning of the event. They came to congratulate Lora and to help her celebrate her accomplishment.

Mary Kay Directors from other units

Lora's unit is called Bell's Angels, which incorporates her last name and is a play on words from the name of the well-known motorcycle club. Lora even managed to have a Harley-Davidson motorcycle brought in for the event.

Lora and the Bell's Angels

We topped off the evening's festivities with some delicious cake from Bethel Bakery. Bethel Bakery is a well-known bakery located in the Bethel Park area of Pittsburgh. The cake had raspberry filling.

Cake with raspberry filling

On Tuesday, Margery, Paul and Lora (J. Michael had to work) went to lunch with Paul's step mom at a relatively new Chinese restaurant in the North Hills called Empire Palace. We chose a Chinese restaurant because were still hungry for some good General Tso's chicken after our disappointment a few weeks ago in Fairhope, AL.

Empire Palace Restaurant

Margery and Paul had General Tso's chicken, Lora had Lucky General Tso's chicken, which is same as regular General Tso's chicken except with vegetables, and Paul's step mom had pork lo mein.

Inside Empire Palace Restaurant

Lucky General Tso's chicken - General Tso's chicken with vegetables

We're happy to report we were not disappointed by the General Tso's chicken this time. In fact, it was some of the best we have ever had. Prices for lunch run around $8 and include your choice of egg roll (outstanding) or soup, the entree, and a choice of fried of steamed rice. Portion sizes are very generous - we all had food left over.

On Tuesday evening, we celebrated Fiona's first birthday. She got to wear the silly birthday hat we got Lora and J. Michael's first boxer several years ago. 

Fiona got to wear the silly Happy Birthday hat.

Get this stupid thing off me!

As you can see by the next photo, Freeway was comfortable enough with the big dogs by this time to join in the fun. It looks like Lora is directing a choir, but in reality, she is handing out doggie treats.

Lora handing out doggie treats

The canines finished off the evening with Frosty Paws, which are frozen dog treats that are like ice cream. The humans had yummy cake left over from the previous night's Mary Kay celebration.

Freeway enjoying a treat of Frosty Paws

Lora and J. Michael had camping reservations for the following weekend (Memorial Day) in Berlin, OH, which is in the heart of Ohio's Amish country. Since Berlin is one of our favorite locations, we wanted to join them for Memorial Day. As soon as we made the decision to change our previous travel plans and detour to Pittsburgh, we contacted the campground to see if we could get in. We were pleased to find out they just had a cancellation, and we got a spot a few sites away from Lora and J. Michael.

We needed to vacate the RV pad beside Lora and J. Michael's garage so they could bring their trailer back to get it packed for the weekend. Therefore, on Wednesday morning, we hit the road around 10:00 AM and headed to Berlin, OH. We'll tell you all about our stay in Berlin in our next post.

Change in Plans

Pittsburgh, PA - Events of Tuesday, May 15 to Friday, May 18, 2012

The plans for our spring and summer travel that we made before we left Florida at the end of March were to head to New Orleans after spending about 6 weeks in Summerdale, AL. From New Orleans, we were going to meander northward up the Mississippi River stopping at a few new locations and at several of our old, favorite haunts before taking our time as we made our way east to the Pittsburgh area for family visits and our annual doctor and dentist appointments in the fall.

However, we got word about two weeks before the end of our stay in Summerdale that our daughter, Lora, who is a Mary Kay Beauty Consultant, achieved her goal and met all the requirements to become an Independent Sales Director for Mary Kay. To become a director, she had to recruit the required number of consultants to her team, and the team had to meet the initial sales goals set forth by headquarters.

Lora's debut as a director was scheduled for Monday, May 21 in Pittsburgh. Less than 2% of all Mary Kay Consultants become directors, so her accomplishment is quite a feat. We are so proud of her. We didn't want to miss celebrating her achievement which takes so much self motivation and hard work, so we rearranged our schedule so we could detour to Pittsburgh to attend the event where Lora would debut as a director.

As we have mentioned before, we usually don't travel more than 4 hours a day, and we usually don't travel more than two days in a row. However, we didn't want to cut our time in Summerdale short, so we made an exception for our trek to Pittsburgh and traveled 4 days straight. We tried to keep our travel time as close to 4 hours a day as we could, but we ended up traveling almost 6 hours the first day before our planned stop at Cullman RV Park in Cullman, AL.

Cullman RV Park has all full-hookup, pull-through sites. The space between the sites is fairly decent for a private campground, and most sites are nice and long so you don't have to unhook if you're only staying one night.

Our extra-long pull-through site at Cullman RV

Some of the other sites at Cullman RV

The campground is a couple of miles from the interstate on a dead-end road, so it is pretty quiet. You can barely hear the faint whine of the traffic off in the distance late at night when everything else is very still.

When we called Cullman RV from the road to make sure they had a site available, they warned us to follow their signs after we turned off the main road. Apparently, most GPS units are like ours and want you to go down a narrow, gravel road to get to the campground. The gravel road is a shorter distance, but it is very narrow with lots of overhanging trees - not a good idea with a big RV. The campground signs have you follow the paved road. The paved road is a little rough, but it is better than the gravel road.

Most of the interior roads at Cullman RV are paved, but a few are gravel. All are quite narrow, but at least there are no trees or other obstructions near the roads. If you have to swing wide to make a turn and get over onto the grass a little it's no big deal.

The pads are gravel, and there is nice grass between the sites and shade trees here and there. There were quite a few of what looked to be permanent residents at the lower end of the campground, but all the sites were neat and well kept.

We're not sure about the Wi-Fi at Cullman RV. Sometimes we could get on, and sometimes it asked for a password. The connection was fairly fast when we first got there in the afternoon, but it got real slooooow in the evening. We ended up just using our Verizon Broadband.

We hit the road fairly early the next morning because we had a 5-hour drive to our second overnight stop, and we also knew we would loose an hour going from Central Time Zone into Eastern. Our second stop was at Grandma's RV Camping in Shepherdsville, KY about 20 miles south of Louisville. We stayed there last October when we visited Louisville.

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 aren't very well placed and therefore aren't very useful. 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. There is supposed to be free Wi-Fi, but it required a password. Since we forgot to get the password when we checked in, we just used our Verizon Broadband. The utilities are also toward the rear of the site, which is not bad for 5th wheels; but with a motor home, we needed all 30 feet of our sewer hose.

Our site at Grandma's RV

The view down our row shows how close the sites are.

Grandma's is conveniently located right off I-65, and that means there is quite a bit of traffic noise. Fortunately, we didn't hear as many trains this time as we did last fall.

We hit the road fairly early again the third morning, but not as early as the first two mornings. Our drive was a little shorter this time at about 3½ hours. We were originally going to stop at Deer Creek State Park to the southwest of Columbus, OH, but we decided at the last minute we would be better off having full hookups and a pull-through site so we could save time on the morning of the last leg of our journey to Pittsburgh by not having to take time to go to the dump station and hook up the toad.

We found Jackson Lake Campground in Canal Winchester, OH a little to the southeast of Columbus. It is a little far from the interstate (about 10 miles), but it is the only campground we could find near where we wanted to stop. The upside to being far from the interstate is no traffic noise.

Our site at Jackson Lake Campground

Jackson Lake Campground has apparently gotten some negative reviews on rvparkreviews.com due to poor maintenance, particularly the rest rooms. However, Jackson Lake has new owners who are trying to fix things up. The property is very large so there is still a lot to do, but they have apparently made progress.

The campground was nice and peaceful when we were there in the middle of the week; but there looked to be a lot of seasonals, so it could be a bit zooey on weekends.

Some of the seasonal sites at Jackson Lake

The sites at Jackson Lake are fairly large, but some have side-by-side hookups. Since it was during the week and it was before Memorial Day, we had the place pretty much to ourselves except for some of the seasonals.

We thought the nightly rate of $35 was a bit high (even with full hookups) for the caliber of the campground; but on the other hand, Ohio state parks charge $27 a night for electric only.

There are tent sites with no hookups and RV sites with full hookups. Some sites have 30-amp electric, and some have 50-amp electric. The ones with 50 amps don't have 30-amp receptacles at all. The roads are dusty gravel, and there are remnants of old asphalt paving near the entrance.

The sites in the center grassy section can be used as pull-throughs if there is no one in the site behind. The seasonal sites are around the perimeter and are in the shade and are dirt and gravel. Wi-Fi is available for a fee. There are also rental cabins, a lodge that is in the process of being remodeled, a swimming pool, a rec hall, horseshoe pits, a volleyball net, frisbee golf, and picnic pavilions.

In the evening we took Freeway for a walk over to the fishing lake then settled in for an evening of TV.

Jackson Lake Campground fishing lake

We got on the road the final morning of our trek to Pittsburgh around 9:00 AM, and it took a little less than 4 hours to get to Lora and J. Michael's house. We will only be in Pittsburgh for a few days because Lora and J. Michael are going camping for Memorial Day, and we need to vacate the RV pad beside their garage so they can bring their trailer back to pack it up for the weekend. The good news is we'll be camping with them over Memorial Day. We'll let you know where that is, and we'll give you an update on our activities in Pittsburgh in our next post.

Bellingrath Gardens

Summerdale, AL - Events of Thursday May 10 to Sunday, May 13, 2012

Bellingrath Gardens is located on the far side of Mobile Bay in Theodore, AL, which is to the southeast of the city of Mobile. We love gardens, and we have visited Bellingrath several times before. However, we have never been there at this time of year, so we decided to drive over to Bellingrath to have a look.

It takes a little over an hour to get to Bellingrath from Rainbow Plantation, so we wanted to get a relatively early start. That meant we would be driving near Panini Pete's well before they stopped serving breakfast at 10:30, so we made a point of stopping to have some more beignets.

Paul squeezing lemon onto his beignets

As we mentioned before, the beignets at Panini Pete's are light and airy like cream puffs except without the cream filling. They are served with lemon, which when squeezed onto the beignets, combines with the powdered sugar to lend a delicious hint of lemonade flavor.

After we finished our yummy beignets, we made our way to Bellingrath. Bellingrath Home and Gardens is part of a 65-acre estate originally owned by Walter and Bessie Bellingrath. Walter, who was one of the first Coca-Cola bottlers in Alabama, bought the property along the banks of the Fowl River in 1917 as a fish camp. In the 1930s, the Bellingraths decided to build a year-round home there and moved out of their house in Mobile. Today, the house and gardens are owned by a foundation and are open to the public.

You can buy tickets to visit the gardens, tour the house, and take a boat cruise on the Fowl River. Tickets are available for the garden only or for the garden in combination with either one or both the other tours. We toured the house and took the boat cruise on our first visit, so we just toured the garden this time.

The first stop along the path that starts behind the visitor center is at the Rose Garden and the conservatory.

Rose Garden and conservatory

Inside the conservatory is a nice array of tropical plants.

Tropical plants in the conservatory

More tropical plants

There were even pineapples in the conservatory.

As we continued down the path from the conservatory toward the house, we could see the annuals were just starting to bloom.

Annuals along the Great Lawn

Impatiens along the waterway at the mermaid fountain

Entrance to the Bellingrath home

Another view of the home from the terraces

We stopped for a self-portrait on the terrace behind the house.

Paul by the Fowl River behind the house

The Fowl River is an estuary, which means it is a waterway where fresh and salt water mix. Estuaries are important ecological areas, and Bellingrath has a boardwalk that makes a loop over a bayou that flows into the river right near the house. The boardwalk provides an opportunity for wildlife viewing, although we have never seen anything more than a couple of turtles sunning themselves on a log. However, it's a pleasant walk if it isn't too hot.

Boardwalk around a bayou that flows into the Fowl River

From the boardwalk, we headed to the upper end of Mirror Lake.

Margery sits astride a cast iron lion at the upper end of Mirror Lake

In the past, we have visited Bellingrath Gardens in March to see the azaleas in bloom, in April to see the spring perennials and in the fall to see the mums, but we have never been there in May. We knew most of the perennials would be done blooming, but we were hoping the annuals would be starting to come into their own. Unfortunately, the planter boxes that line the bridge over the upper end of Mirror Lake were not yet in place, and many of the annual beds along the walkways had not yet been planted even though the threat of frost has been over here in lower Alabama for at least two months. One area that was in full bloom, however, was around the pavilion where they sometimes have weddings.

Many annuals were blooming around the wedding pavilion.

From the annuals that were in bloom, we could see this summer's color theme was going to be red, yellow and orange.

The colors for this summer are going to be red, yellow and orange.

On our way back from Bellingrath, we needed to make a stop at Camping World in Robertsdale, which is near Rainbow Plantation. Camping World also happens to be very close to L.A Barbecue where we stopped for a late lunch a few weeks ago, and it was early afternoon when we finished at Bellingrath and Camping World. Since we were already on a cheat day from our diet with the beignets that morning, we figured we might as well stop for a late lunch at L.A. Barbecue.

We both had the same barbecue pork lunch plate we had the first time we were there along with cole slaw and potato salad for our sides. This time we tried some of the alternate barbecue sauces. Paul liked a mixture of Carolina (a thin, vinegar-based sauce) and Texas Tangy. Margery tried several sauces, but went back to the mixture of Southern Sweet and Texas Tangy she liked the first time we were there.

Paul with an array of barbecue sauces at L.A. Barbecue

A few days after we visited Bellingrath was Mother's Day. Margery got a nice Skype call from Lora. Skype, which provides audio and video communication over the internet, works infinitely better with our Verizon Broadband than it did with the satellite internet we used to have. Gone are the satellite delay and the dropped calls.

Later in the day, we drove down to the Shrimp Basket in Foley for lupper so Margery wouldn't have to cook on Mother's Day. The restaurant was fairly crowded for the middle of the afternoon, but we didn't have problem getting a table. Margery had a fried clam basket, and Paul had a fried catfish basket.

Margery had fried clams for Mother's Day.

With the arrival of Mother's Day, we were down to our last couple of days at Rainbow Plantation. We didn't get in all the sightseeing we wanted to do, but that is just a good excuse to return. Look for our next post to see where we ended up next.

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.