Living Our Dream

Thanksgiving Week

Bushnell, FL - Events of Monday, November 23 to Thursday, November 26, 2015

On Monday, we decided take a ride to the south to Winterhaven pick up some cherry lumber for a couple of upcoming 5th wheel projects. Afterward, we drove around and did a little exploring ending up not too far from Anna Maria Oyster Bar in Ellenton, Florida, just north of Bradenton. It was mid-afternoon - a perfect time to stop for lupper.

Although we like the Anna Maria restaurant near Cortez better because it has a more beachy feel, it is farther south and much farther from the interstate. The one in Ellenton is located right off I-75 and is much easier to get to.

Anna Maria Oyster Bar in Ellenton, FL

As an example of the beachy feel, the next photo shows the sand and seashells encapsulated into the tabletops at the Cortez location. The Ellenton location has regular tables.

Seashells encapsulated in the tabletop at Anna Maria in Cortez

Obviously, seafood is the specialty of Anna Maria Oyster Bar. We love their fried clam strips. They are second only to the ones we had at Ipswich Clambake Company in Ipswich, MA when we went to New England a few years ago. Anna Maria's clam strips are sweet, tender and lightly battered. Margery had cole slaw and onion straws for her sides, and Paul had cole slaw and red potatoes. Everything was delish!

Fried clam strips, slaw and onion straws

On Tuesday, we had an appointment with DirecTV to have our satellite TV service upgraded to high def. When we ordered our new 5th wheel last year, we ordered it with an automatic, roof-top dish capable of receiving high def, but we kept our old, standard-def DVR. After reading about some of the advancements of the new Genie DVR provided by DirecTV, we decided it was time to upgrade.

We love watching our favorite programs in high def. With our older eyes and with the larger TV we have in the 5th wheel, some of the things on the screen in standard def weren't that clear. We also love the fact the Genie can record up to 5 programs at the same time as opposed to only two for our old DVR. Although we're pretty selective, we do watch a fair amount of TV; and it seems like everything we want to record is on at the same time. We were constantly shuffling the recording schedule to avoid conflicts with our old DVR.

This year for Thanksgiving, we broke with our long-standing tradition of going to Cracker Barrel for their Thanksgiving special and decided to smoke a turkey breast and have dinner in. Previously when we smoked our turkey breasts, we brined them overnight in a solution of Kosher salt and brown sugar. We recently read an article about a different method of brining called dry brining. In dry brining, a smaller amount of the salt and sugar mixture is rubbed directly onto the turkey. The turkey is then allowed to sit in the refrigerator overnight without any water added. The article said in their taste test, 10 out of 13 testers preferred the dry-brined turkey to the standard wet-brined turkey, so we decided to give dry brining a try.

Making a full-blown Thanksgiving meal is way too much work for just the two of us, so we decided to simplify. Margery made a green bean casserole, home made low carb cranberry sauce and a side dish of roasted delicata squash with cranberries and feta cheese. Delicata squash is named for its tender skin. Although technically a summer squash, its flesh is more like that of a winter squash (think butternut). For dessert, we had pumpkin custard (essentially pumpkin pie filling without the crust).

Smoked turkey, green bean casserole, squash and home made cranberry sauce

What a mistake it was to dry brine the turkey! The turkey had good flavor just like the article said, but it was very dry and very tough. The turkey breasts we wet brined and smoked previously were very moist and were nice and tender. The cranberry sauce could have been a little sweeter, but otherwise was delicious. In addition to the cranberries also being a little tart in the squash-cranberry-feta cheese dish, Paul thought it was an very unusual flavor combination; but at least it was nice and colorful. The pumpkin custard was yummy. We're thinking we might go back to Cracker Barrel next year.

That's about it for now. We continue to mostly relax and putter around, so our posts will probably be a little less frequent.

Market of Marion

Bushnell, FL - Events of Thursday, November 13 to Thursday, November 19, 2015

Blueberry Hill mows the grass on our site when we're gone in the summer, and they will also mow it when we're here in winter. However, when sites are occupied, guests have to put in a special request to have mowing done. Not only that, but now that we have pavement and landscaping the big mowers used by the RV park have trouble getting into all the corners. Therefore, we decided last year we would just mow our site ourselves when we're here.

Winter is the dry season in Florida, and the grass usually doesn't grow very much. In addition, with pavement and landscaping, we don't have that much grass. Therefore, Paul did all the mowing with the small, electric weed whacker we bought when we arrived last fall. However, with us arriving earlier and staying later, the grass does grow surprisingly fast at the beginning and end of our stay, and mowing our whole site with a weed whacker got real tired real quick.

When we left last spring, we decided one of the first things we would do when we got back this fall was to get an lawn mower. Even though it's a pain to drag around an extension cord, Paul decided on an electric mower because he didn't want to have to worry about storing gasoline in the shed or to be concerned about disposing of leftover gas when we leave in the spring.

New lawn mowers, especially electric ones, are fairly expensive. Therefore, we began a search for a used one on Craigslist as soon as we arrived in Florida. We found a Kobalt mower (Lowe's brand) that sells new for $200 listed for $80 in the nearby town of Floral City, and Paul went to look at it last Thursday. It is a couple of years old, and it was a little dusty with a few scratches; but it is in pretty good shape overall. The blade didn't even have one nick in it. In the end, the seller was willing to let it go for $65. Paul put it to work shortly after he got it back to our site.

Paul with his new lawn mower

On Friday, we needed to run some errands up near The Villages. Since we were headed that direction, we first drove a little farther north to stop at the Market of Marion.

Main entrance to the Market of Marion

We usually stop at the Market of Marion shortly after we arrive in Florida because Paul usually needs a pair of replacement reading glasses. The market has a vendor who has a large selection of good quality reading glasses at reasonable prices. They also sell sunglasses, and we couldn't resist trying on some novelty sunglasses while we were there.

Margery trying on butterfly sunglasses

Paul trying on court jester sunglasses

We walked the main aisle of the market then headed for the produce aisle. We got a tomato for our lunches and a sweet onion.

Produce aisle

One vendor in the produce aisle of the Market of Marion had raw sugarcane stalks for sale. It felt like we were at a market on some tropical island. Sugarcane, which is a member of the grass family, is grown in south Florida.

Sugarcane stalks

After our stop at the Market of Marion, we continued on to The Villages to run the rest of our errands. Wow! We can't remember ever seeing traffic in The Villages that heavy this early in the season. The stores were crowded, too. It looks like it is going to be a very busy snowbird season this year. We made several stops in The Villages then headed back to Blueberry Hill in time for dinner.

Except for going to church on Sunday morning, we hung out around the rig over the weekend. Paul did a few gardening chores and also rearranged things in the shed to make more room for the lawn mower as we continued to settle in.

On Monday, we headed over to Beef O'Brady's in Bushnell for Burger Monday. Build-your-own burgers with fries are $5.49 on Mondays (regularly $8.49).

Beef O'Brady's

Paul with his burger and fries

We had another errand to run up at The Villages on Tuesday morning. Thankfully, traffic wasn't nearly as bad as it was the previous Friday, mostly because it was earlier in the day. In the future, we'll try to avoid The Villages after noon or 1:00 if at all possible.

We spent the next few days running a few more errands, doing some more settling in at Blueberry Hill and relaxing. With rain in the forecast for Thursday, we went to see the new James Bond movie, "Spectre." It was another good James Bond film with plenty of action, car chases and things being blown up.

That's about all we have to report for now. We'll have another update soon.

 

Back in Florida

Bushnell, FL - Events of Monday, November 9 to Wednesday, November 11, 2015

On Monday morning, we said "good-bye" to Lower Alabama. We were hitched up and on the road heading toward Florida by about 9:40 a.m. We had a drive of a little less than 4 hours to our overnight stop at Beaver Lake Campground in Quincy, Florida. Quincy is a few miles into the Eastern Time Zone, so we lost an hour and pulled into Beaver Lake Campground around 2:30.

Beaver Lake Campground is a no-frills campground located behind a gas station just off I-10. There are about a dozen sites, most of which are pull-throughs in a grassy field. There are a few sites under some trees off to the side and a couple of older mobile homes way off in the back of the property.

As far as we could tell, all the sites have full hookups with 30/50-amp electric. There were cable boxes on the utility pedestals, but we have no idea if they worked or not. The sites are very close together and the hookups for the pull-throughs are side-by-side, so you are really close to your neighbor on the off-door side. There was surprisingly little traffic noise for how close the campground is to the interstate. We paid $20 for the night with a Passport America discount.

Our site at Beaver Lake Campground

View of the row of pull-through sites

With a bunch of pull-throughs, full hookups, a reasonable price and easy access right off the interstate, this is a good place for an overnight stop. It is especially good for us because it is almost exactly half way between Lower Alabama and where we stay for the winter in Bushnell, Florida. The only problem is the lady in the gas station who does the check-in for the campground. She is very brusque and somewhat intimidating. She is all business with no time for pleasantries, and she is strictly by the book. We knew about her from the online reviews on rvparkreviews.com, so we were prepared. We weren't disappointed. We suggest that you keep a sense of humor if you stay here.

The check-in time at Beaver Lake is 2:00 p.m. There are reviews by people who arrived before 2:00 and were made to stand there and wait until exactly 2:00 before the lady would begin the check-in process, even though she had nothing else to do. That is really by the book! If you plan to stop here, just don't arrive early, and don't expect a warm and friendly "hello" at the check-in.

The good news is the check-in was fast and efficient. Except for a few campgrounds where there was self check-in, this was the fastest check-in we can remember in almost 10 years of full-timing.

We had a drive of a little over 4 hours the next day from Quincy to Blueberry Hill. We were on the road before 9:00 a.m. and arrived shortly after 1:00. The highs were in the 60s when we left Lower Alabama. It was only in the mid-50s when we left Quincy, so Paul was wearing jeans instead of shorts. It was 84º when we pulled into Blueberry Hill. Whew!

We checked in at the office at Blueberry, drove to our site and backed in. We were happy to see that our palm tree and shrubs were thriving. It was good to be "home."

Our site at Blueberry Hill

Even though we didn't arrive as early in the season as we did last year, Blueberry Hill was almost as full. Several of our neighbors to the right in the photo above hadn't yet arrived, but the street behind us was almost completely full as were many of the sites across the street.

View down the street

We needed some groceries, so we ran over to the Walmart next door on Wednesday morning. In the afternoon, we headed south to have lupper at Pancho's Villa. We didn't get much Mexican food while we were in Amish country in Ohio all summer, so we were really hungry for it. Pancho's Villa is about 30 minutes south of Blueberry Hill in San Antonio, Florida.

Pancho's Villa

We love the corn chips and salsa at Pancho's because the chips are warm, crisp and lightly salted. They serve two kinds of salsa - hot and mild. We like to mix them about 50:50. Both kinds of salsa also have plenty of fresh cilantro.

We both had ground beef chimichangas. They are served with rice and refried beans, although Margery always requests all rice. The chimichangas are served with guacamole, sour cream, lettuce and tomato on the side. The chimis were yummy - nice and crisp on the outside and with a flavorful meat mixture in the inside. Even the rice is good. Most rice at Mexican restaurants is rather bland and dry, but Pancho's is full of flavor.

Margery with her chimichanga

After dinner, we headed back to the rig to relax with an evening of TV. We will spend the next few days settling in. There is a little weeding to do, and we want to move a few things from the storage bay (like the grill, the lawn chairs and the smoker along with the charcoal and the collection of wood chips) to the shed to make them easier to access. Beyond that. we don't have any definite plans, but something is bound to pop up. Stay tuned.

Wrapping It Up in Lower Alabama

Fairhope, AL - Events of Tuesday, November 2 to Sunday, November 8, 2015

As we said in our last post, it rained steadily over the weekend and on into Monday. Although it was still somewhat cloudy, the rain finally ended by Tuesday. We headed down to Foley in the afternoon for lupper at the remaining favorite restaurant in the area that we hadn't visited yet - the Shrimp Basket.

Shrimp Basket

Shrimp Basket is a chain of restaurants in lower Alabama and the Florida panhandle that specializes in seafood.

We both had fried clam strip baskets. Although the clam strips at the Shrimp Basket aren't nearly as good as the ones we had a couple of years ago at the Ipswich Clambake Company in Massachusetts, and they're not even quite as good as those at Anna Maria Oyster Bar in Florida, it has been a long time since we had clam strips so they still tasted good to us. Margery had cole slaw and potato salad for her sides, and Paul had cole slaw and new potatoes.

Margery with her clam strip basket

Foley is about half way to Bon Secour, so after our clams we swung by Bon Secour and stopped at Aquila Seafood to buy some fresh shrimp for dinner the following evening plus enough for two more meals for the freezer. We love smoked shrimp, but we recently had them prepared that way. Not only that, but we had something different planned for the smoker in the near future so we had the shrimp on Wednesday evening prepared another favorite way - sauteed in butter with a little white wine added at the end. When we have shrimp that way, we like to dip them in butter. They were delish!

Our plan for the smoker for Thursday was to make pecan wood-smoked chicken wings. We coated them with some dry rub and marinated them overnight. Although our smoker is small, it has racks on two levels so we were able to smoke a whole 4-pound bag of wings (enough for two meals) at one time.

Wings in the smoker

Since wings are small, they don't take very long to cook - only about 1½ to 2 hours. We didn't have to put them on until late in the afternoon.

Pecan wood smoke filling the air

The wings had a nice smokey flavor with a hint of heat from the cayenne pepper and a hint of sweetness from the brown sugar in the rub.

Smoked chicken wings

With our time in Lower Alabama almost over, we headed out on Friday afternoon to run a few last-minute errands. Afterward, we headed to Panini Pete's one last time. Once again, it was a beautiful day so we were able to enjoy eating out on the patio.

Outdoor seating at Panini Pete's

We both had our favorite - house-roasted turkey paninis with shoestring fries.

Paul with his turkey panini

It was late afternoon when we finished eating. Just as we were about to leave, one of the waitresses came out with a big tray of beignets and was giving a complimentary plate of them to everyone who was there. It was almost closing time (Panini Pete's is only open until 2:30), and they apparently had beignet batter left over. Rather than just throw it away, they fried it up and gave free beignets to everyone who happened to still be there. What a nice surprise! We finished up our food tour of Lower Alabama just the way we started it - with beignets at Panini Pete's.

We did our cleaning chores on Saturday then relaxed. After church on Sunday, we did a few pre-departure chores then relaxed some more. On Monday, we headed out to Florida. We'll tell you about our trip in our next post.

It's Why We're Here ~ Even More Food

Fairhope, AL - Events of Saturday, October 24 to Thursday, October 29, 2015

The rain we spoke about in our last post arrived with a few showers on Saturday, then the heavens opened up on Sunday when the remnants of Hurricane Patricia started moving through the area. By the time the rain ended late on Tuesday we had gotten over 5 inches, most of it in about a 24-hour period from Sunday to Monday.

By Tuesday, we were getting brief periods of sun mixed with showers, so we decided to venture out to LA BBQ for lupper. Although we have been doing a good bit of smoking while we're here in Lower Alabama, we were busy smoking things other than pork shoulder because we knew we could get good pulled pork at LA BBQ.

LA BBQ

LA BBQ has pork, ribs, chicken, brisket and sausage. We had our usual - pulled pork dinner plates for $10, which includes two sides. We both had cole slaw and potato salad.

Pulled pork dinned plate

Paul at LA BBQ

The pulled pork wasn't real smokey, but it was moist and tender. LA BBQ has 5 or 6 different kinds of barbecue sauce. We like a blend of Texas Tangy and Southern Sweet. The sides, especially the potato salad, were outstanding.

Sunny weather finally returned on Wednesday, and we fired up the smoker in the afternoon to make smoked Armadillo Eggs. Although there are many recipe variations, Armadillo Eggs, also known as Atomic Buffalo Turds, are basically jalepeños stuffed with with cream cheese and/or cheddar cheese then wrapped in sausage. Some recipes, like the one we used, also have the whole thing wrapped in bacon.

After lunch, Margery cleaned the peppers then we both worked on stuffing them with a mixture of cream cheese and cheddar cheese with a little barbecue dry rub mixed in. Margery got the messy job of wrapping the sausage around the peppers. We made some with mild Italian sausage and some with hot. You can also use breakfast sausage.

Margery wrapping the stuffed peppers in sausage

After wrapping the Armadillo Eggs in bacon, they went into the smoker.

Armadillo Eggs in the smoker

Armadillo eggs are normally used as hearty appetizers for tailgating, Super Bowl parties and the like; but we decided to have them for dinner. They were very good; but next time, we need to shorten the smoking time a little because they weren't quite as juicy as they should have been. Also, the jalepeños have enough heat of their own, so we'll use mild sausage.

Armadillo Eggs

Since our time in lower Alabama is growing short, and since we have a couple of our favorite eateries we want to visit a second time, we headed out on Thursday afternoon to Big Daddy's Grill. One reason we went on Thursday was because the weather was nice and we could eat out on the deck overlooking the Fish River.

Paul on the deck at Big Daddy's

View of the Fish River from the deck at Big Daddy's

The other reason we went on Thursday was Paul wanted to try the shrimp basket at Big Daddy's, and the shrimp basket is the daily special on Thursdays. The daily special price is $12 ($15 regular price) and includes a drink, cole slaw plus one additional side. You can have the shrimp fried, blackened or grilled. Paul had them fried and had sweet potato fries for his side. Margery had a Philly cheese steak with onion rings at the regular price of $10. Everything was yummy!

We had more rain over the weekend, so we just chilled out around the rig all day Saturday and after church on Sunday. The rain continued off and on into Monday, so except for a quick run to Walmart Monday morning, we didn't venture out until Tuesday...and it involved more good eats. Stay tuned.