Living Our Dream

Running Here and There

Wauchula, FL - Events of Wednesday, March 14 to Friday, March 23, 2018

Right after we ordered the park model last fall, we started doing research into what kind of furniture we wanted to get. We looked at furniture online, and we stopped at a number of new and used furniture stores looking for ideas. Over time, we began to zero in on preferences for some of the major pieces we needed. With the delivery of the park model now only a short time away, we are finalizing our selections and setting delivery or pickup dates for larger furniture items we had previously ordered, plus we're buying some of the many miscellaneous items we will need. Paul also decided to design and build a pedestal bed and an end table himself. The bed is done, but we have been running around buying materials and hardware for the table.

Several weeks ago while following up on earlier research on TVs, we noticed that the model TV in the size we had been thinking about for the living room was discounted more than the other sizes of the same model at Best Buy. Then about two weeks ago we noticed the TV we were considering was no longer in stock at many Best Buy locations indicating the probable reason for the lower-than-usual price was that size was being discontinued. We checked online and found a few were available at the Best Buy store in Sarasota so we ordered one online and drove down to pick it up several days later.

On our way to Sarasota to pick up the TV, we stopped at a nursery in nearby Arcadia. Bougainvillea is a flowering shrub, but most varieties of bougainvillea get much too big for our small site at the Co-op. Paul recently learned about a variety of dwarf bougainvillea called 'Helen Johnson' that only gets 3 feet tall. Margery did some research and found a nursery in Arcadia that specializes in Helen Johnson bougainvillea so we stopped and picked one up for only $8.

Selection of bougainvillea plants at the nursery in Arcadia

From the nursery, it was on to Best Buy to get the TV. Afterward, we stopped at Der Dutchman in Sarasota for lupper. Der Dutchman is our favorite restaurant in Ohio's Amish Country, and the one in Sarasota is part of the same chain of 5 or 6 restaurants. This restaurant is located the Pinecraft section of Sarasota, which is an area where Amish and Mennonites from all over the country come in winter. 

Der Dutchman

We both had the salad bar ($9.29), which in addition to salad and all the fixin's, also includes things like ham salad, chicken salad, pasta salad, cottage cheese, two types of bean salad, and more.

Paul with a full plate from the salad bar

Because we used to frequently visit the Pennsylvania Dutch area in eastern Pennsylvania in our younger years, we grew fond of shoo-fly pie. Shoo-fly pie, which has a molasses-based filling, is popular mainly in eastern Pennsylvania so when we started going to Amish Country in Ohio we were disappointed we couldn't find shoo-fly pie anywhere.

Much to our surprise, Der Dutchman in Sarasota had shoo-fly pie on the menu the day we were there. Since Amish and Mennonites from Pennsylvania are among those who visit Sarasota, there apparently is a demand for it here in Florida. We were tempted to have a slice for dessert, but since we were too full from the all-you-can-eat salad bar, we instead stopped in the restaurant's bakery on our way out and bought a whole pie to take home. We had some later that evening and over the next several evenings. It was yummy smothered in whipped cream!

On Friday, March 16 we were running errands in Sebring so we planned to stop at Dee's Place for a late lunch. Sebring is famous for its annual 12-hour endurance race for sports cars, and it happened to be race weekend. We also happened to be listening to the Sebring radio station while we were driving, and they mentioned a number of vintage race cars would be parked around the traffic circle in downtown Sebring from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m.

When we were first married, we belonged to a sports car club, and we followed Formula 1 racing and sports car racing. Therefore, since Dee's was only a block from the downtown traffic circle we decided we would walk down after our lunch of delicious, half-pound burgers to check out the cars and experience a bit of nostalgia.

Vintage Ferrari

Another vintage race car

Hot rod

There were more errands to run over the following week. The compact, stackable washer and dryer we were interested in were on sale at Lowe's so we stopped to order them. We also opened up a Lowe's charge account because it gives a 5% discount on all Lowe's purchases, which is better than the 2% cash back we get on our Visa rewards card, especially on such a large purchase.

We had previously gone to a lumber store in Lakeland to pick up some maple boards for the pedestal bed project. Paul thought he also bought enough for the end table, but a last minute change in the design meant the pieces he had left from the bed were just a little bit too small. Therefore, we headed back to Lakeland early last Friday morning to get more maple. The reason we went early was so we could stop at Fred's Market Restaurant for their breakfast buffet. We went to Fred's shortly after we first arrived in Florida last October for the lunch buffet, and we have been wanting to go for breakfast ever since.

Fred's Market Restaurant

Fred's all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet is $7.97, and they also have a one-trip plate for $5.97. The price is very reasonable considering all they have on the buffet. There are scrambled eggs, cheesy scrambled eggs, bacon, link sausage, sausage gravy and biscuits, home fries, hash browns, cheesy hash brown casserole, fried chicken, chicken-fried pork chops, fried green tomatoes, cinnamon rolls, muffins, many kinds of fresh fruit, cereal, and more. The food was excellent. It was all fresh and delicious.

Paul with his first plate from the buffet - fried chicken, bacon, sausage, and a cinnamon roll

The breakfast buffet is only served until 10:30. We didn't arrive until 10:00 because we had to take a detour due to a road closure, and then we were delayed even more with road construction on the detour. Fortunately for us, however, they kept bringing out fresh supplies of food right up until 10:30, and they didn't actually start taking food away to get ready for lunch until about 10:40 so we had plenty of time to eat our fill.

From Fred's, it was on the the hardwood lumber store then back to the Co-op where Paul got to work on the table. We'll have more on that in an upcoming post.

Solomon's Castle

Wauchula, FL - Events of Tuesday, March 13 to Wednesday, March 14, 2018

As we said in our last post, we finally had some sightseeing planned with our friends from Maine, Mike and Peggy. We picked them up around 1:00 last Tuesday and headed to Solomon's Castle located about half an hour away in Ona, Florida. We went there last year, and we liked it so much we wanted to share it with Mike and Peggy.

Solomon's Castle is the brainchild of Howard Solomon, who upon his return from living in the Bahamas in the early 1970s, bought 40 acres of land at the edge of a swamp near Ona.

Howard was a creative artist who made sculptures from found materials like old car parts, discarded tools, and used oil drums. He built his home and workshop to look like a castle and covered it in old aluminum printing plates he obtained from the local newspaper.

Solomon's Castle

The castle began attracting so many curious visitors Howard began giving tours for $2 thinking the fee would discourage people from coming. Boy, was he wrong. Visitors began showing up in such large numbers he was eventually able quit his regular job to work on his art full time. He frequently took time out from working in his shop to give tours himself until his passing in 2016.

Howard had a great sense of humor. Not only are the titles of many of his works very funny; but the narrative that goes along with the tour, most of which came from Howard himself, is filled with one pun after another and jokes galore. The two suits of armor built by Mr. Solomon that stand outside the entrance to the castle are examples of his humor. One is painted white, and one is painted black. He called them "Knight Light" and "Night Knight."

Tours of Howard's home and gallery (the castle) cost $12.50. New this year is the opening of a second exhibit building containing Howard's collection of pre-1935 automobiles and works from his later years. The cost to tour the second building is $10.00, but a combination admission is available for $18.50. We opted for the combo. By the way, Solomon's Castle does not accept credit cards - only cash and checks. There is an ATM on the property.

It was much more crowded this year than when we went to Solomon's Castle last year. We waited for almost an hour for the tour of the house and galleries. They say they are busiest on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The probable reason they are busy on Tuesdays, which is when we went, is because they are closed Mondays. We're not sure why they're also busy on Thursdays.

Howard's work displays a high degree of creativity. He could look at something most of us would consider trash and envision it as part of a sculpture. The next photo shows a figure with motorcycle chains as hair, pieces of exhaust pipe for arms, and an automobile differential cover as a hat.

Figure showing creative use of found materials

Another example of creativity is a tractor made from an old gasoline jerry can. The fenders are made from a frying pan cut in half.

Tractor made from a gasoline jerry can

Howard's work includes several three-dimensional recreations of Norman Rockwell's art. The photo below shows Howard's rendition of Rockwell's cover from the July 8, 1939 Saturday Evening Post entitled "100 Years of Baseball." A copy of the cover is shown to the right.

Howard Solomon's rendition of a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover

The humor continues in the tour of the living quarters. The old cameras placed on the sill of the stained glass window in the next photo makes it a "picture window." Incidentally, this is one of several dozen stained glass windows Howard made.

Picture window

After we finished up the tour of the gallery and living quarters, we walked down the path past the replica of the Alamo built by Mr. Solomon to the other exhibit building. We again had to wait for the next tour, but this time it was only about 15 or 20 minutes. As we said, this building contains a collection of pre-1935 automobiles.

Part of the collection of pre-1935 automobiles

Because Howard bought the antique vehicles as an investment and because he was so busy creating all his sculptures, he didn't have time to restore or tinker with them. Therefore, they all had to be in reasonably good condition and not require any further restoration, and they all had to run.

Most of the works in the second building are transportation related. The next photo shows Howard's last work completed just before he passed. It is a train engine whose boiler is covered with old, copper printed circuits.

Howard's last work

The tours are kind of long, but they are interesting and fun. However, waiting for the tours to start made for a very long day so we were all quite hungry by the time we finished. Our plan was to stop at Slim's Bar-B-Q & Grill in Arcadia on the way back to the Co-op.

In addition to barbecue, Slim's has lots of other dishes including seafood, chicken, salads, sandwiches, and burgers. Dinners range from $7 (1/4 chicken with one side) to $19 (10-ounce ribeye with two sides). Sandwiches and burgers are $6 to $11.

We all had barbecue in one form or another. Peggy had a rib/smoked turkey combo plate ($16), Mike had rib/smoked chicken/beef combo plate ($17), Margery had a rib plate ($16), and Paul had a smoked turkey/pork combo plate ($16).

Peggy, Mike, and Margery at Slim's

The ribs were tender and smokey, but not as moist as we like. The pork, which is served sliced rather than pulled, wasn't very smokey and tasted like pork that had been reheated. The turkey, however, was outstanding. It was smokey and moist and was so flavorful it didn't even need barbecue sauce. By the way, the house-made barbecue sauces (both hot and mild) were okay, but nothing to rave about.

Smoked turkey/pork plate and rib plate

After dinner, we headed back to the Co-op, dropped Mike and Peggy off at their rig and settled in for an evening of relaxation. The following evening, we stopped by to say "good-bye" to Mike and Peggy since they were planning to leave the following morning. It was good to take time out from our busy-ness to spend time with them.

Park Model Project: Pedestal Bed

Wauchula, FL

Paul has been busy working on building a platform bed for our park model for the past several weeks. Progress has been slow because he has had to work off and on since we are still busy with Co-op meetings and Co-op projects. However, persistence has paid off because the bed is finally complete.

The construction of the bed took two sheets of birch plywood, two sheets of fir plywood, and a couple of 2x4s. In order to be able to store all that wood in our shed, Paul had Home Depot cut the sheets of plywood into smaller pieces. That also made it easier for him to handle the sheets for loading and unloading, and it made it easier to handle the sheets when cutting them to the finished sizes.

Cutting one of sides for the bed

Sanding one of the sides

Paul used pocket screws for much of the assembly. The next photo shows him using his Kreg jig to drill a hole for one of the  pocket screws.

Drilling pocket screw holes

As we said, with our busy schedule Paul had to stop working and put everything away numerous times. Because of the limited space in our shed, everything had to be disassembled every time he put it away. Next time, he would have to get out all his pieces and reassemble them to pick up where he left off. Finally, he got all the pieces cut, sanded, and drilled so he could assemble the whole frame to test the operation.

Assembled frame

The mattress will sit on top of the deck, and gas struts make it easy to lift everything up to get at the storage space underneath. Although pushing the deck back down was difficult without the weight of the mattress on top, everything worked perfectly.

Gas struts installed and deck lid open

After checking out the final fit and operation of the bed, Paul had to disassemble it again to store all the parts in the shed until his next work day when he began applying stain and polyurethane finish to all the parts. After that, he finished building the drawers that go at the foot of the bed then assembled everything one last time to fit the drawers and attach the drawer slides.

Finished pedestal bed

Storage drawers at the foot of the bed

It was very unsatisfying to finish the project then have to take the bed all apart again to put it back into storage, but that's the only way it will fit into the shed. The good news is it won't have to stay in there long.

In spite of our busy schedule and a major project, we managed to go out to eat several times recently. We went to Wauchula Family Restaurant a couple of weeks ago with another couple from the Co-op, Jim and Arlene. We all had the Athenian, which is breaded, grilled grouper, and which was the special of the day for $9.95 (regularly $11.95). The food was delish, and we had a good time getting to know Jim and Arlene better.

As we mentioned in our last post, our friends from Maine, Mike and Peggy, are staying here in the Co-op for a couple of weeks. We went out to dinner with them last Monday. We enjoyed the Wauchula Family Restaurant when we went with Jim and Arlene so much, we suggested going there again. We had a good time catching up with Mike and Peggy.

We went out to eat with again with Mike and Peggy last Wednesday to Cody's Roadhouse in Sebring for their 2-for-1 fajitas. On the way back to the Co-op, we stopped at Maxwell Groves in Avon Park for some of their delicious orange, soft-serve ice cream. It was our first stop of the season. Maxwell's sustained a lot of damage as a result of Hurricane Irma so they only reopened recently. Margery likes orange-vanilla twist because is tastes like a creamsicle, and Paul likes straight orange because it is slightly tart and he thinks it is very refreshing. Part of the fun is sitting in the orange rocking chairs on the big front porch to eat your ice cream.

Margery with her orange-vanilla twist cone

On Thursday, we went to dinner to Giovanni's Main Street Kitchen in Wauchula with two couples from the Co-op - Jim and Arlene, and Nelson and Ann. We had a good time, and we probably annoyed everyone else in the restaurant with all our laughing.

With Mike and Peggy staying here at the Co-op, we finally have some sightseeing planned. Stay tuned.

Park Model Preview

Wauchula, FL - Events of Thursday, March 1, 2018

A while back when we checked with Winter Haven RV where we bought our park model, they told us our unit would begin its two-week journey down the assembly line at the factory in Ocala on February 19. We scheduled a factory tour for Monday, February 26 with the hope of seeing our park model somewhere near the midpoint of its manufacture.

The salesman in Ocala called the Friday before our originally scheduled tour to tell us things had been delayed a bit and if we came on Monday all we would see is the floor. Therefore, we rescheduled the tour for Thursday, March 1 thinking the construction would be a little farther along. Unfortunately, we found out when we arrived there had again been a another delay farther up the line, and our unit still hadn't made it out of the floor assembly area.

The floor assembly of our park model

We had hoped to see some walls, but we weren't too disappointed because we were allowed to go right down on the factory floor and get a close up look not only of our floor assembly, but also at some of our cabinets that were being built.

Paul checking out the soft-close drawer slides on one of our night stands

We also got to see some of our countertops.

Our bathroom countertop (marked #57) and the filler strip that goes between the stove and fridge

Since we were allowed right onto the factory floor, we got a close look at other units that were being manufactured. Florida is the only state that allows park models to be up to 500 square feet. Other states limit the size to 400 square feet. All park models over 400 square feet must meet HUD (Housing and Urban Development) standards for mobile homes rather than ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standards for RVs. Our unit will also meet the more stringent Wind Zone Class 3 requirements for coastal areas rather than the Class 2 normally required for our inland location.

Not only will our exterior walls be 2 x 6 construction rather than 2 x 4, there are multiple studs stacked up for extra strength at the corners and at the door openings. All studs are tied to the floor and the roof trusses with metal straps, and the tie-down brackets located at the corners and every several feet along the length of the sidewalls are screwed to the studs and to the perimeter floor joists with a total of 18 screws. The tie-downs will be fastened to heavy metal anchors in the ground.

Hurricane strapping and corner tie-down strap

After construction of the walls is complete, the entire unit will be wrapped in 7/16" OSB. The OSB will then be covered with Tyvek-type house wrap before installing the siding.

Our order specifies several additional electrical outlets, a couple of special wiring circuits with additional switches for the kitchen lights as well as some other special wiring provisions for TV cables. We were able to talk to the factory electrician while we were there to make sure everything we were asking for was feasible. 

Even though we didn't get to see our unit with walls, we were very satisfied with our tour. Being able to see everything up close and personal and being able to talk directly to people on the factory floor made it all worth while. Since the dealership is only about two blocks from the factory, the salesman offered to monitor the progress and to text us some photos of our park model once the walls were up.

The dealer had a unit with our floorplan on display so we stopped to look at it after the tour. We poked around some of the cabinets trying to decide where we might store some of our larger items like Margery's mixer and crock pot and where Paul would be able to put his coffee pot and coffee supplies. We also found a good place in one of the closets to put our printer. Paul will add a roll-out shelf and an electrical outlet once the park model is delivered and we get settled in.

On our way back to Wauchula, we stopped at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Pancho's Villa, in San Antonio, Florida. We both like chimichangas, and that was the special of the day ($1 off the regular lunch price of $7.85) so we both had ground beef chimis.

Margery with her chimichanga

We love the corn chips and salsa at Pancho's, but we limited ourselves to only one basket because we wanted to stop at a Dairy Queen a little farther south in Bartow for a cone. It was a yummy way to top off a delicious, late lunch.

The following week, the salesman from Winter Haven RV texted us a bunch of photos of the progress of our park model. The walls were up, and they were installing drywall and cabinets inside.

View of the exterior of our unit

Our living room with some of our kitchen cabinets awaiting installation

View into our bedroom

It was good to see how much progress was made in less than a week. After several more day's work to complete the building of our unit, it will go outside for final finishing and inspection. It will then be shipped to the Winter Haven RV lot in Lake Wales to await delivery to our site at the Co-op in early April.

Meanwhile, the winter season is starting to wind down at the Co-op, but we still have plenty to keep us busy. We have a flurry of last minute meetings to get various committees organized and to make plans for projects for next fall. Also, our friends from Maine, Mike and Peggy, arrived for a two-week stay at the Co-op. Of course, we just had to share with them some of the restaurants we have discovered since they were here last year. Paul has also been working to finish the bed he is building for the park model. Stay tuned for our next update.