Living Our Dream

Easter Dinner

Bushnell, FL - Events of Sunday, March 27 to Wednesday, March 30, 2016

We started out Easter morning with a celebratory church service at Live Oaks Community Church in Wildwood where we usually attend when we're in Florida for the winter. It's a small, but fast-growing church with about 200 in attendance at each of two services on Sunday mornings in winter.

After relaxing for a while after church, we headed out to lupper with a group of friends - our old friends, Pat and Mike, and our new friends, Debbie and Frank. Also joining us were Dave and Janice. We had lupper with Dave and Janice a few weeks ago when they were passing through the area and stopped in nearby Wildwood to have their motor home serviced. They needed to have a part ordered, so they stopped again on their way back. Unfortunately, the dealer forgot to order the part, so Dave and Janice had to stay in Wildwood for several additional days waiting for the part to come in, and they were here over Easter.

We usually go to Cracker Barrel for holiday meals, but last Easter, we went to Texas Roadhouse in Wesley Chapel. This year, there is a Texas Roadhouse that just opened a couple of weeks ago in The Villages. Everyone seemed to enjoy having steaks for a change-of-pace Easter dinner last year, so we headed to the new Texas Roadhouse this year.

We picked up Pat and Mike and headed to The Villages where we were scheduled to meet Debbie, Frank, Dave and Janice at 2:30. Unfortunately, we had a mishap on the way. We were about 10 minutes from the restaurant, and Paul was just starting to make a left turn. Suddenly, a car shot out from behind us, crossed a double yellow line, passed us on the left going through the intersection on the wrong side of the road and clipped the left corner of our front bumper. The road had narrowed from four lanes to two, and apparently, the other driver wasn't paying attention and thought the road was still four lanes.

The other driver pulled off in a safe area up the road a few hundred feet, and we followed suit. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but one of the three kids the other driver had in the car with her was pretty shaken up and was crying.

We surveyed the damage to the truck and found it is limited entirely to the bumper. There was no damage whatsoever to the sheet metal, lights or anything else. The other vehicle, which was a compact car, had a badly damaged right rear quarter panel, but it was still driveable.

Damaged front bumper

Shortly after we pulled over, the driver of a vehicle that was traveling in the opposite direction pulled in behind us. He had witnessed the accident, and it also turned out he was an off-duty police officer. Even though he was from a different municipality, he knew what needed to be done and took charge of the situation. He called the local police, and when the other driver mentioned her son's neck hurt, he also called paramedics as a precaution. It turned out her son was okay, but we ended up with two police cars, an EMT truck, an ambulance and a fire truck (they always roll a fire truck when they send an ambulance just in case).

Accident scene

With having to wait for police and an ambulance, we were obviously going to be late meeting our friends at the restaurant, so we gave them a call to let them know. We finally made it to the restaurant about half an hour late.

New Texas Roadhouse in The Villages

The restaurant won't seat guests until the entire party arrives, so we unfortunately lost our place in line. However, in spite of the fact we needed a table for 8, we only had to wait about 30 minutes.

Paul wasn't in a very festive mood, but everyone else seemed to have a good time and enjoyed their meals.

Mike, Pat, Janice, Dave, Debbie, Frank and Margery

We notified our insurance company of the accident as soon as we got back to the 5th wheel on Sunday. A representative from our company called us back on Monday and filed a claim on our behalf with the other driver's insurance. The other insurance company called us on Tuesday afternoon, and we opted to go out to get an estimate on our own rather than wait for their adjuster to come to us. We did that to try to save time because Paul would like to get the truck repaired before we leave Florida if at all possible. Paul headed to a body shop for the quote on Wednesday morning, but getting the repairs done before we leave Florida will be a challenge because we are scheduled to leave in less than two weeks, and the quote still has to be approved by the other driver's insurance company.

We still have some sightseeing we would like to do, but with the truck repair in limbo and with a couple of other things that need to be done before we leave Florida, we don't know if we'll get to them or not. If not, there's always next year.

 

Green Cove Springs, FL

Bushnell, FL - Events of Wednesday, March 16, 2016

When we switched our residency from South Dakota to Florida, one reason we decided to use St. Brendan's Isle (SBI) as our mail forwarding service is their address is recognized by Florida as a legal street address for driver's licenses and vehicle registrations. St. Brendan's Isle is located in Green Cove Springs, so Green Cove Springs is now our new "hometown."

We were able to get our driver's licenses and to register our vehicles at the county tax office in Bushnell, but it somehow didn't feel right leaving Florida a few weeks from now without ever having been in our new hometown. Therefore, we decided to take a drive to Green Cove Springs last Wednesday. Green Cove Springs is located a little over two hours from Bushnell on the banks of the St. Johns River about 15 or 20 miles south of Jacksonville.

We headed first to SBI's mail handling facility. Not only did we want to see the facility in person; but we had just gotten an email notifying us that we had received mail at our new address, and we wanted to pick it up. The mail facility is in a small industrial park north of town.

St. Brendan's Isle mail facility

Inside, there are rows and rows of mail slots. When mail arrives, it is sorted and the envelopes are scanned if the customer has chosen that option. Our mail bin, which is obviously one of the most recent ones, is off to the right of the photo below and way in the back.

Inside SBI mail facility

One of the pieces of mail we got contained confirmations of our Declaration of Domicile forms from the Clerk of Court. Since those confirmations are needed to register to vote and since we now had them, we headed downtown to do that next.

Paul filling out his voter registration form

After we registered to vote, we drove around the downtown area a bit to reconnoiter. Much of the new development in Green Cove Springs is north of town, but the downtown is an eclectic mix of old and new. The classic, small-town movie theater in the next photo is one of the old buildings that remain.

Old movie theater converted to offices

SBI was originally located downtown, but they outgrew the building years ago and moved to their present location north of town. In order to avoid all their customers being inconvenienced by having to change their address, SBI made arrangements with the Green Cove Springs Post Office so customers could continue using their old downtown address and to have all the mail automatically redirected to the new facility. Gotta love small towns. The old building is now occupied by a naval architecture/yacht design firm, but the SBI name and address are on the window in small letters in the upper left corner.

Original SBI location in downtown Green Cove Springs

Before we headed to Green Cove Springs, Margery did some research into places to eat. The town has most of the usual fast food restaurants north of town, but the place that sounded good to us was Farmers in the Deli located downtown.

Farmers in the Deli

Farmers in the Deli has a wide range of sandwiches, wraps and salads for $4.49 to $7.49. As far as we can tell, most of the sandwiches and wraps include one side. Their Reubens ($7.49) get rave reviews, so that's what we both had. We both had vinegar-dressed cole slaw for our side.

The deli has limited seating, so while we were driving around downtown, we made sure we found Spring Park that we had read about. Although the deli wasn't that crowded, the park was very nice so we ordered our Reubens to go and headed to the park to eat them.

Spring Park

Margery with her Reuben sandwich

Ruben sandwich and vinegar-dressed cole slaw

The Reubens were great. The deli roasts most of their own meats, and the corned beef was delicious. However, it is pulled instead of being sliced making it a little difficult to eat because big chunks of meat sometimes get pulled out of the sandwich when you take a bite. The cole slaw was unusual in that in addition to both red and green cabbage, it also contained kale, radishes and cucumber.

There were historical markers in the park, so we were able to learn a little bit about the history of Green Cove Springs while we were there. Green Cove Springs was first inhabited around 7,000 years ago by Native Americans who were attracted by a mineral spring. That spring is located in the park, and it feeds a public swimming pool before flowing down the hillside into the St. John's River.

As we crossed a bridge over the spring run, there were a couple of people on the bridge who called our attention to a snake in the water below that they said was a water moccasin. We don't know a lot about snakes; but Paul was a bit skeptical because, although there was a warning sign about snakes in the run, he thought it would have been much more emphatic if those snakes were deadly water moccasins. Not only that, but Paul was pretty sure water moccasins have fatter bodies and flat, triangular heads. Later research showed the snake to be a non-venomous water snake, not a water moccasin.

Water snake in the spring run

Continuing on with the history of Green Cove Springs, Spain still was in control of Florida when George Clark received a land grant 1816 and built a sawmill in the area. Spain ceded Florida to the United States in 1821. The first settlement was established in 1854 and was called White Sulfur Springs. The town was renamed Green Cove Springs in 1866, and it became the county seat in 1871.

Following the Civil War, steamers brought tourists to the area, and tourism began to surpass lumber and citrus in economic importance. Visitors were drawn by the supposed healing properties of the spring. Arrival of Henry Flagler's railroad in the late 1800s brought even more tourists.

The age of the automobile and the advent of a state highway system brought yet more tourists and new residents in the 1920s, but the Great Depression halted that growth. Prior to the involvement of the United States in WWII, the U.S. Navy built an air field in Green Cove Springs spurring the economy of the area again.

After WWII, the Navy built a number of piers adjacent to the air field where around 600 ships were mothballed. In 1961, the government decommissioned the base and transferred the ships elsewhere. Green Cove Springs annexed the decommissioned base in 1984. The old piers were refurbished and became the Green Cove Springs Marina, which is home port to many yachts. SBI originally started its mail forwarding business to serve yacht owners who cruised extensively and/or lived full time aboard their yachts. By the way, St. Brendan's Isle was a mythical island named after St. Brendan, who is the patron saint of sailors.

In addition to picnic pavilions and the swimming pool, the park has a gazebo, a playground for kids and a municipal pier. The next photo is a view of the spring run with the playground off in the distance.

Spring run lined with cypress knees

Before we left the park, we headed to the pier.

Municipal pier

Beautiful homes line the banks of the St. John's River in the area of the park.

Riverfront home

Another riverfront home as viewed from the pier

After we strolled out onto the pier, we walked to the truck and headed back to Blueberry Hill. We had a nice visit to our new hometown.

 

 

Good things to Eat

Bushnell, FL - Events of Monday, March 7 to Saturday, March 19, 2015

We continue to use our smoker about once a week, but we usually don't write about it because much of the time we're making our old favorites like turkey breast, meat loaf and wings that we have written about before. Over the past several weeks, however, we have tried some new recipes.

One new thing we smoked a few weeks ago was an apple-juice brined, apple-wood smoked pork tenderloin served with apple-barbecue glaze. Pork tenderloins are tender to begin with, so they don't need to be smoked very long. Not only that, but brining overnight in apple juice made the meat even more tender and juicy. The sweetness of apple juice added to the heat and tartness of the barbecue sauce made for a delicious glaze.

Apple juice-brined, apple wood-smoked pork tenderloin

Another new item that was less successful was boneless, country-style beef ribs, which are essentially strips cut from cut from chuck roast. We were hoping for a less expensive alternative to beef brisket; but, even though the flavor was good, the beef ribs ended up being tough. Cooking meat "low and slow" the way it's done in a smoker is supposed to make even tough cuts of meat tender, but it didn't work on the beef ribs. The ribs were a little less chewy when Margery reheated the leftovers for several additional hours in the crock pot, but they were still nowhere near tender.

Fortunately, we tried a second new recipe at the same time as the boneless beef ribs. It was smoked mac and cheese shown at the top of the next photo.

Boneless beef ribs and smoked mac and cheese

The smoked mac and cheese was to die for! It saved the meal. We ate waaay more of it than we should have because it was sooo good. The beef - not so much.

Closeup of smoked mac and cheese

We also made a variation of a previous recipe for honey-barbecued chicken wings. This time we substituted chicken thighs. The dark meat of the thighs added more depth of flavor, plus thighs are easier to eat than wings. We'll definitely be having them again.

Honey barbecued chicken thighs on the smoker

Even though we've been busy lately setting up our new Florida residency, we did have time to go out to eat several times. A while back, we got an email from our friends, Janice and Dave, who were going to be staying just to the north of us in Wildwood for a few days to have their motor home serviced. We made plans to go to lupper with them on Monday, March 7. They also wanted to see our new 5th wheel, so they stopped by our rig beforehand. We haven't seen them in quite a while, and we had a delightful time catching up.

Later in the afternoon, we headed over to Beef O'Brady's for Burger Monday where we chatted some more. The burgers were great as usual, and so was the company.

Paul, Janice and Dave at Beef O'Brady's

We don't get much Chinese food when we're in Florida, so we're always on the lookout for Chinese restaurants. We have had one called Mr. Wang in Homosassa Springs programmed into our GPS for the last three years, but we have never made it there. Last Friday, we made plans to go to lupper at Mr. Wang with our new friends and new full-timers, Debbie and Frank.

Mr. Wang Chinese restaurant

We arrived before 3:00 to take advantage of lunch prices, most of which run around $6.50 to $7.00. Some entrees include only rice (fried or steamed), and some include rice plus soup or an egg roll. We had our usual - General Tso's chicken ($6.75) with fried rice and we each had an extra-cost egg roll ($1.40).

Margery, Debbie and Frank at Mr. Wang Chinese restaurant

Although Mr. Wang gets very good reviews online, we all thought the food was just okay. Since we've had Mr. Wang on our radar for three years, we're glad we finally tried it. However, we don't think it's worth the one-hour drive all the way to Homosassa Springs and probably won't be going back.

Every year since Sun RV Resorts has owned Blueberry Hill, they have had a farewell picnic for guests sometime in March. This year it was last Saturday. We headed up to the clubhouse in the afternoon to take part. As we arrived, we saw the campground manager manning the grill on the porch.

Campground manager manning the grill at the farewell picnic

Inside the clubhouse, there were three stations serving complementary burgers, dogs, baked beans and chips. Complimentary soft drinks were available as well. As usual, the staff and volunteers did an excellent job serving lots of people in a short amount of time.

One of three serving lines

Clubhouse full of people at the farewell picnic

Since it was nice and warm with only a light breeze, we decided to eat outside where were joined by Debbie and Frank. After eating and chatting for quite a while, we eventually headed back to the rig for an evening of relaxation.

Now that we have our new address in Green Cove Springs, Florida, all set up, we planned a day trip there to see our new "home." Stay tuned.

 

Give Me a Home Where the Alligators Roam

Bushnell, FL - Events of Friday, March 11, 2016

We have had South Dakota as our legal domicile since we first became full-time RVers almost 10 years ago. Last week, we "moved" to Florida.

As full-timers, we don't have a permanent residence. However, we still need to have a legal domicile, which is the place where we have our vehicles registered, the place that issues our drivers licenses and where we are registered to vote. For most people, their domicile and their residence are one in the same; but those of us who live in an RV and travel full time get to choose our domicile. While some full-timers remain residents of their old home state by using the address of a relative, most use Texas, South Dakota or Florida as their domicile. The advantage to those three states is that none of them has state income or inheritance taxes, and all of them make it relatively easy to establish residency. All three states also have excellent mail forwarding services available.

Even though South Dakota has served us well as a domicile, we recently began investigating "moving" to Florida. The primary reason is our driver's licenses were up for renewal this year, and we (especially Paul) weren't thrilled about driving all the way to South Dakota just to renew our licenses. Not only that, but Paul has always had a fondness for Florida because he vacationed here for many years with his parents when he was a kid. We also spend a good bit of time in Florida, and it's quite possible we'll choose to live at least part time in Florida if and when we ever hang up the keys. Therefore, it made sense to us to consider switching our residency to Florida.

Our first step to establishing Florida residency was to investigate the costs so we didn't have any surprises. As expected, health insurance is more expensive in Florida due undoubtedly to the higher overall age of Florida's population. Medicare costs the same all over the country, but the cost of Medicare Advantage plans and the cost of Medicare supplemental plans (Medigap insurance) vary by region. Consequently, our Medicare supplement premiums will be going up a bit. Also as expected, the insurance on our truck will be higher in Florida. However, we were surprised to find out the insurance on the 5th wheel is actually lower in Florida making the total cost to insure both vehicles $1 per year less than in South Dakota. Another bit of good news is vehicle registration is lower in Florida. The end result is a modest increase in cost that we decided we can live with.

Our second step was to sign up for a mail forwarding service. We chose St. Brendan's Isle in Green Cove Springs, Florida. St. Brendan's Isle is one of Florida's oldest mail forwarding services, and it has a reputation for excellence. We took advantage of their Scan Pro plan whereby they scan the outside of all our mail as it arrives at their facility. That way, we know how much mail we have and who it is from. We can then decide to hold the mail, forward the mail or to have them open any piece of mail and scan the contents for a small additional fee. We can also have them shred any mail we don't want so we don't have to pay to have it forwarded.

After we had our new address, Margery spent hours and hours changing the mailing address on all our accounts. With a couple of exceptions that required phone calls, she was able to do most of it online. We still have to notify all our friends and family of our new address, but we usually communicate with them by phone, text or email, so there's no hurry. We also plan to keep the old mail forwarding service in South Dakota active for a while in case there are some people we forget to notify.

While Margery worked on changing the address on all our accounts, Paul took care of getting our vehicle and health insurance switched to Florida. That required several phone calls and a couple of frustratingly long waits for return calls.

St. Brendan's Isle provided checklists for all the information and documentation required to register our vehicles, to apply for driver's licenses and to register to vote. They also provided links to online forms and detailed instructions on how to fill out the forms. It took us several days to accumulate everything we needed, to fill out all the forms and to have a couple of the forms notarized.

With all our paperwork in hand, we headed to the Sumter County Tax Collector's office in Bushnell last Friday morning. Unlike Pennsylvania where we are from originally and unlike many other states that have state DMV offices, Florida handles DMV activities like driver's licenses and vehicle registrations through county tax offices. Since we will be using our address at St. Brendan's Isle as our legal domicile and since St. Brendan's Isle is in a different county than Bushnell, we made a point of checking with the Bushnell office ahead of time to be sure they would handle out-of-county registrations and licenses.

We only had a wait of about two or three minutes to have out number called and to begin the process. We started with driver's licenses and then proceeded to vehicle registrations, which required us to decide on the license plate design we wanted.

Florida has a plethora of license plate designs to choose from. Click here to see all the plates Florida has to offer. Paul was happy with the standard plate with an iconic design that has been around for years featuring oranges, orange blossoms and a silhouette of the state of Florida. However, Margery protested saying all the old fogies who live in Florida have that plate, and she didn't want to be branded an old fogy when we go north for the summer.

"Old fogy" plate

Since Paul liked the standard plate with the oranges and Margery wanted something different, we compromised by choosing a standard "old fogy" plate for the 5th wheel and an Everglades specialty plate for the truck. There is an additional annual fee that is charged for specialty plates that goes to an organization or to a trust fund for the cause represented by the plate.

Everglades plate

About an hour and a half later (it would have taken less time, but the agent was having trouble with her computer), we walked out of the tax collector's office with new driver's licenses and new license plates.

The personnel in the tax collector's office in Bushnell are a pleasant departure from the stereotypical DMV or tax office employee. They all were efficient, professional and most of all, they were very friendly. We were very pleased with our experience.

Back at Blueberry Hill, Paul got right to work putting on our new plates.

Paul putting the new plate on the truck

Paul putting the new plate on the 5th wheel

With the installation of the new plates complete, we have officially traded the buffalo that roam in our old "home" of South Dakota for Florida alligators.

 

 

Cedar Lakes Woods and Gardens

Bushnell, FL - Events of Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Last Tuesday, we headed to Cedar Lakes Woods and Gardens located in Williston, Florida, which is about 90 minutes north of Bushnell. Cedar Lakes is a botanical garden located in an old limestone quarry. The area surrounding the garden is a nature preserve administered by the Conservation Trust of Florida. The gardens are open Tuesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Dr. Ray Webber purchased about 100 acres of land outside Williston containing several old limestone pits in 1993. His original intent was to stock some of the pits with fish to create his own private fishing holes. Over the course of a few years, a couple of the pits were dug out and the banks were lined with concrete to prevent erosion. Then to hide the concrete, Dr. Webber began adding plants. Soon, he was spending more time planting than fishing. Dr. Webber started concentrating most of his efforts on one main pit, which he eventually opened to the public.

It's a fairly long way from the main road to the parking area. The entrance road is also pretty rough in spots, especially for the stiff suspension on our one-ton truck, but we somehow made it to the parking area with the fillings in our teeth still intact. There are also signs along the road warning to watch for cattle, and they aren't kidding.

Watch for cattle on the road into the garden.

After paying our $12 per person admission and before we headed off to the gardens, we got to visit with one of their two rose-breasted cockatoos. We thought all cockatoos were white with a yellow crest, but this pink and gray variety is quite common in Australia.

Margery with a rose-breasted cockatoo

There are paths that wind around the rim of the garden, and there is a labyrinth of paths down at the bottom. Bridges connect several islands and peninsulas.

View down into the garden from near the entrance

View of a gazebo from the upper path

There are quite a few squirrels in the gardens, and we could occasionally catch glimpses of them scampering out of our way as we walked along. At one point, one of them who was raiding a bird feeder finally paused long enough for Paul to snap a photo.

Squirrel raiding a bird feeder

At the far side as we started down the path to the lower part of the garden, we came upon a small pool where water bubbling up formed the starting point of a series of cascades and small waterfalls that ran along the path. The cascades created a pleasant trickling sound as we followed the path.

Starting point of a cascade that followed the path to the lower garden area

Along the way, there was a pool with a number of large koi.

Pool with koi

We strolled around the lower paths taking in the sights and snapping photos.

Margery on one of the lower garden paths

View of the gazebo from one of the islands

In addition to the cascade of water that followed the path down to the lower level, there are several waterfalls splashing down from the upper rim.

Waterfall flowing down from upper level

Another waterfall

There was a pair of swans on the lake. They were paddling around the lake rather quickly; but after following them around for a while, we were eventually able to get a few good photos, one of which is shown below.

One of the two swans in the lake

The lake also contains quite a few yellow-bellied slider turtles. The ones shown below were part of a group of about 10 of them sunning themselves at one end of the lake.

Yellow slider turtles

After navigating our way around the lower paths, we headed back to the upper level and began making our way to the exit. On the way, we stopped for another photo from the rim.

Yet another view of the garden from the upper level

A short distance from where we took the photo above, we also got a good look at the two blue catfish that live in the lake. Big Ben, the larger one (they were both huge - we couldn't tell which one was Ben), weighs 100 pounds and is over 3 feet long.

Blue catfish

We enjoyed our visit to Cedar Lakes. It was still early in the season so there wasn't a lot of spectacular color when we were there, but there were a few azaleas and a couple of other flowers in bloom. They told us there is a a lot more color by late March or early April and there is more lush foliage, so maybe we'll go back next year later in the season.

Some of the flowers at cedar Lakes

There is a restaurant called Dan's Clam Stand we have been wanting to try, so we took the long way back to Bushnell through Crystal River where Dan's is located. There is also a Dan's Clam Stand in Homosassa Springs, but we went to the one in Crystal River because it gets better reviews. Not only that, but it was a little closer, and we were hungry.

Dan's Clam Stand

Dan's has all kinds of seafood, but we wanted clams. They have them available in numerous forms including whole belly clams at market price, a dinner basket of frozen clam strips with two sides for $7.75 and a dinner basket of fresh clam strips with two sides for $9.75, and a lunch basket of clam strips (presumably frozen) with one side for $6.50. We both had fresh clam strip dinner baskets with slaw and onion rings ($1.75 extra).

Paul with his clam strips and onion rings

The clams were outstanding! They were crispy on the outside and tender and sweet on the inside. They were sweeter and more tender than the ones we get at Anna Maria Oyster Bar, but they still were not quite as good as those at the Ipswich Clambake Company in Ipswich, MA. We don't think anyone else can ever beat those. The cole slaw and onion rings at Dan's were good, too. The good news is Dan's is a lot closer to Blueberry Hill than Anna Maria Oyster Bar - only about 45 minutes as opposed to over an hour away. We're going to try to get there at least once more before we leave Florida.