Another family visit - The Villages, FL

February 27, 2014

We are going to see my cousins who came here to Florida on vacation and I’m really excited.  They’re staying in the Villages, so we found an RV park near them.  One of the two cousins, Canaan, came over with his grandpa to pick us up.  We could tell already the Canaan changed.  He grew a lot bigger than when we last saw him.  When we got to their rented house, we hung out for a while until my cousin Keegan, his parents, Uncle Bruce and Aunt JoJo, and his grandma, Shasha came. Keegan was so tall!  He was almost level with my Mom and the same height as my Dad!  

Then we ate dinner.  It was pizza.  Good pizza too. When we were all done, Shasha told us to play a game.  It was called Telestrations.  It was like the game Telephone, but there was drawing involved.  The game started by someone rolling the die.  Say if the numbers four, then you would pick up a card, and each card would have different things listed by numbers.  If you got broccoli, you would write your name in your notebook, write broccoli in the secret word box, then draw it.  You pass it to your left and then that person has to write down what they think it is.  The next person has to draw that, and then the next person has to guess.  It goes like that until your notebook gets to you.  Each person passed around a notebook, so at the end we all share our notebooks.  It would be like a picture of a broccoli, maybe someone writing tree, a person drawing a tree, maybe the last will switch back to broccoli.  We did one with the adults, but after that since it was getting late, we left.  

The next day, when we were ready we actually left the RV park and parked it in their driveway.  Our Great Uncle Glen told us everyone was in the pool.  We got on our suits and got on his golf cart and he drove us over.  We saw that golf carts were pretty popular.  They even had their own lane!  Along with their own road system!  We got to the pool and played around until food came.  It was Subway and it was good.

~Jack

This is a retirees paradise! Scott and I have been wanting to come check out this adult playground since we heard about it from his Uncle Glen and Aunt Sharon.  Our timing couldn't have been more perfect, not only did we get to see his Aunt and Uncle but Bruce & JoJo were here from NH with Keegan & Canaan for their winter break.

With 10,000 available tee times a day, 57 rec centers, 65 pools, 504 golf holes, over 50,000 golf carts, shuffleboard, pickleball, ping pong, tennis and any other activity you can think of you can not be bored in this place.  There are over 1900 organized clubs like classic rock, dart baseball, glass fusion, Village Twirlers, Rumpus Room Cloggers, Freethinkers - Darwinists & Humanists and on and on...I don't even know what half of this stuff is!  There is a weekly events calendar, 60 pages long, that keeps tracks of all the times and locations of these events.

We had a relaxing day at the pool enjoying the 80 degrees and sunshine, followed up by some shuffleboard and a couple matches of pickle ball.  Scott made a gourmet meal complete with fresh bread for the crew. We had a great time with lots of laughs as usual!

My favorite pic of the trip!

Bruce giving Scout some love

cinnamon swirl bread for breakfast

Pickle Ball, yellow wiffle ball, paddles and a small tennis court.

When I grow up, I am definitely coming back here!  Thanks for the hospitality and restocking our JoJo cookies!

~Linda

Ft. Walton Beach, FL

Feb 21-23

My Mom wanted to see my Great Uncle Jack because he was down in Florida, right in our way!  I did too, because I hadn’t seen him in at least 5 years.  When we pulled into his driveway, he let us plug in.  We talked for a while, and he showed us around.  He was an interesting guy, he was even in the Air Force!  We went out for dinner at a family restaurant because the Italian one we were going to go to had a really long line.  The food was fine, I mean, nothing to what my Dad makes, but it was fine.  The next day, we hung out, and then went to the beach.  We ate some sea food at the Crab Trap, and when Ty and I were full, we took the buckets down to the beach and waited for the rest of them to finish lunch.  It took a while but they came out.  Tyler and I attached our buckets and shovels to our shorts and started dancing around.  It made a lot of noise and made some people smile.  Kitty, Uncle Jack’s wife, and Jane, Kitty’s daughter, went back home.  Uncle Jack and my family stayed back to have ice cream.  We got some frozen yogurt and it was good, but we should’ve gotten ice cream instead.  The next day they wanted us over for breakfast.  We ate it up, said goodbye and left.

~Jack

We could not pass thru Ft. Walton Beach without seeing my Mom's brother, and favorite Uncle Jack!  We parked in his driveway for a couple of nights.

After sending out our Christmas cards, this is a portion of the correspondence that I received from him:

"Imagine my surprise to receive a Christmas card from Santa Barbara, California on 23 December not knowing anyone there.  I hastened to open it to find your lovely, annual pictorial Christmas card and, even more exciting, that Scout was taking you on a National Tour IHO his Golden Hour.  What a sport!  Kitty and I and family would love to host Scout and his assistants at Mt. Rural, Fort Walton Beach, FL.  It would make us very happy to participate in this once-in-a-lifetime adventure."

Driving up his street on Friday afternoon, we had a warm welcome as he was waiting on the driveway for us! We got settled in and Jack & Tyler begun telling their tales of our travels and showing him & Kitty our photos.  Uncle Jack started telling us his stories too.  He is a retired Lt. Col in the USAF and flew dozens of planes and went on a couple Tours of Duty.  He has been to 40 countries, spanning 6 continents! He is still tack sharp with an unbelievable memory!

We went out for a bite to eat along with Kitty's daughter, Jane who we just met for the first time.  The three of them sure do have a lot of laughs together which was so nice to see. 

On Saturday, Jane's son, Ed came by.  He was a lot of fun too and we enjoyed chatting with him before we went over to the beach for a late lunch.

Here is a selfie I took of me and Scott...I can't believe I am saying this but, I love his goatee and long hair!  

The sun was starting to set so I was able to coerce the guys to stick around for a few more minutes while Kitty and Jane headed home.  We took a walk out onto the pier and grabbed a couple more pics.

I promised the boys some ice-cream so we made a quick pit stop on the way home.  Not a fan of the frozen yogurt...next time I am getting the real thing!

Another thunder and lightening storm passed thru...Scout was all nervous again, trying to crawl into spaces that would barely fit a 10 lb baby let alone a 100lb golden retriever! Poor guy.

We had a really nice visit and so glad we stopped thru!  Off to see more friends and family...stay tuned!

~Linda

Santa Rosa Island, Pensacola

Feb 19-21

We finally had our water tank replaced in the RV.  I had been dreading this repair, but with a bit of advance work we were back on the road in just a couple of hours.  Since our appointment was so early in the morning, we had no choice but to stay at the repair facility the night before. There was a security guard on the premises but we were unsure if he had his shotgun that night :)

The kids had fun going on and out of at least 40 new motorhomes, fifth wheels and dreaming about an upgrade! These are panoramas from my cell phone.  The kids like to move quick from one spot to the other for the "double exposure".

We got to go to the beach one day. In fact, we were at an RV Park at the beach!  There was plenty of wildlife there too.  We saw some blue herons in their nest.  The people here are nice, and they saw some armadillos.  I hope we can find some.  There was a fort nearby and we biked over there to check it out.  It wasn’t as cool as the other fort though.  We headed back and my Mom and I went to the beach.  Tyler and my Dad didn’t go because Tyler’s back was sore.  My Dad’s always the one to take the fall.  We walked along the beach, and it was too slanted to skim board.  We headed back, and watched some Me TV after that.  The next day, we biked around, went to the beach, and just hung out.  When it was getting late, I found a nature trail.  We all got on our bikes and started biking around on it.  There was a plank go across a creek.  My Dad got daring and tried to bike over it.  A vine caught his handle, and he fell into some plants.  So I tried it.  My Mom didn’t want me to, but she couldn’t stop me!  I was a man on a mission, mission impossible!  I made it though.  I just did it across and back.  There was nothing to it.  We ended up on another campground and by that time, the weather totally changed.  We weaved through the grounds and found the exit finally.  I biked pretty fast trying to beat the weather.  When we made it back inside, got in our beds and watched TV, the National Weather Alert came on.  It was pretty creepy.  It said a storm was coming for us and there was a chance of a tornado or even a flood!  We couldn’t sleep due to worry until the storm settled down.  My Dad stayed up for a while, on his computer watching the storm.  Tyler got lucky; he slept through most of it.  We woke up the next day, safe and sound.

~Jack

We are currently enjoying Santa Rosa Island which is a 40 mile barrier island 30 miles East of the Alabama line.  Fort Pickens is the largest of four forts built to defend Pensacola Bay, Florida, and its navy yard. The fort was begun in 1829, completed in 1834.

Fort Pickens was as important as Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C. during the crisis between Abraham Lincoln's election in November, 1860 and the firing on Fort Sumter on April 12. 1861. The fort was reinforced the day after Fort Sumter surrendered, preventing the Confederates from controlling Pensacola Bay and using the Pensacola Navy Yard.

my mad dash on my bike to get to the sunrise!

We did lots of biking and bird watching.  There are a ton of GBH nests right out our window.  This island, has probably the most beautiful beaches I have seen so far.  Everything is pure white.  When you walk across the sand, it squeaks  like sneakers on a clean basketball court!

Scott was back at making his bread.  This time 2 loaves of honey wheat bread, one for us and one to share with our neighbors.

Our last night here, had some bad weather passing thru.  Lots of rain, thunder, lightening and then the winds started to howl.  There were tornado warnings north of us.  We weathered the storm fine, but, it was still a sleepless night!

 

We woke up to a bright, crispy, windy and cool morning.   But first, one quick family shot on the beach.  Scout was not allowed on the beaches so we grabbed this one on the edge :) breaking the law...

And now we are off to Ft Walton Beach to go see some family!

~Linda

Gulf State Park, Alabama

Feb 16-17-18

We are in Alabama, or Florabama, since we are so close to Florida.  We got pretty lucky we got to stay at a state park because it was beautiful.  We woke up in the morning to go see people practice with an instrument called the dulcimer for a concert.  They were really cool instruments.  They were like violins with long bodies, but you hold it on your lap, as if it’s a keyboard.  We also went to the nature center and found out about the wildlife in the area.  I got to hold a snake, opossum, turtle, and pet an owl. I liked that place.  The guy there just kept bringing things out.  One thing branched out from another.  My brother related the opossum’s tail to the snake.  The opossum had very sharp claws, so it was a good thing I had a sweat shirt!  His tail was pretty strong and it was already slithering up my shirt.  I hope it didn’t slide down my pants squeeze anything fragile.  We’ve been told there were great biking trails and decided we should go on a bike ride.  It wasn’t mountain biking, but it was a paved through the woods.  It was a very nice ride, and on the way back, we got to ride by the beach.  The road was busy, but my Mom wanted to cross the road to get to the beach.  It had really nice shells too. When we got into the park again, we saw a dead armadillo.  It was pretty sad, and I even wanted to see one.  The day was gone before I knew it, and I only wish I could’ve seen more.

~Jack

It was pretty much a fluke that we ended up at this beautiful Gulf State Park. We did not have much internet access at Dauphin Island and had to figure out our destination on the fly!  This state park was completely destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 9/2004 and had been rebuilt with almost 500 RV sites.  There is a backcountry trail system that goes for miles through the wilderness part of the park.  We are sitting waterfront on a lake and the Gulf is just beyond that, a short bicycle ride away. Lots of white stuff here...just sand instead of snow.  The beaches are gorgeous!

View from our site

In the park's events calendar, I noticed that there was a Dulcimer demonstration this morning.  Now, I was just introduced to a dulcimer the other day and now again.  Scott made us a great breakfast and the kids and I headed over to listen to the group practice for a concert.  They were really nice and showed us how it worked.  I am really intrigued.

After that, we went into the Nature Center.  I thought is was just a small "natural history" type of place.  We were pleasantly surprised to see and pet a live Eastern Screech Owl, hold an opossum, watch the box turtles roam the place and hold an albino snake.  The guy that was working there was so full of great information and we spent well over an hour with him.  All the animals, whether stuffed or alive are from the property here.  The kids were asking really intelligent questions and could answer more things than me!

Archimedes lost his eye in an accident with a car.

We spent the rest of the day biking the trails and we stopped at the beach for a walk in the sand, look for seashells and feel the warm gulf water. It was a nice 73 degrees...perfect because lately it has been at least 10-20 degrees to cold!

We just pulled into Pensacola to replace our RV water tank...glad we have the warranty so it's all covered.  They needed us here early, so we are plugged in on their property and they can start first thing in the morning.  Hopefully it won't take more than 1 day, the tank is already here.

The pictures from back at home make me feel really sorry for you all.  The snow has been relentless! If it is any consolation, we have not had the nicest weather either. :)

~Linda