March 27, 2013

04/11/2013

Spent most of yesterday unpacking, doing laundry and washing the rig.  Just in time for the rain that is moving in here tonight.

Joyce ran across this site for doing lookup's for names listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall:
http://www.virtualwall.org/iStates.htm

04/14/2013

Just before we went on our last cruise, our brand new, super-duper, do everything Rand McNally RV GPS started locking up on us.  I called tech support and they talked me through the "fix" process.  Everything is good to go and life is good.  Wrong.  When I put it in our truck and drove a short distance, it locked up again.

When we got back to Jacksonville, we took the piece of junk back to Camping World where we bought it.  Even though the return policy for them is 90-days for electronics, the store manager authorized the return and issued us a store credit for the amount of purchase.  We're happy campers!

Bought a new Garmin GPS at Costco and even though it doesn't have RV routing, we'll make it work by using a trucker's atlas when we'll be driving roads other than interstates and US highways.

03/17/2013

On Friday Joyce and I visited Fort Caroline National Memorial.  Not much there but we did learn something about the French presence in northern Florida.  Anyway, we got our National Parks Passport stamped.

Yesterday we celebrated our granddaughter's seventh birthday.  Abigail is growing fast and maturing even faster.

03/18/2012

Had a great day with Harold, Michelle, Abigail and Skyler yesterday.  Being with family, delicious food and a great bottle of Four Vines Zinfandel made our last day here very memorable.

Hooking up today and heading over to Weeki Wachee to visit Rodney and Sue Ziehr before our long run to the left coast.

03/19/2013

We made a very easy run across northern Florida to Cody's RV Park in Weeki Wachee.  We volunteered here four years ago where I was the manager for a while.

Jeff, the owner, greeted us upon arrival and fixed us up with one of the primer sites and gave us a great rate as well.  We have seen several folks that we're here back in 2008.

03/19/2013

Yesterday Susan, Mern, Margie and Joyce drove to Tampa in order to make their donations to the Hard Rock Casino.  Although no one came out a winner, they had fun.

03/20/2013

Susan and Joyce have started putting on the tile behind our stove and so far it's looking great.  Today their going to do the grouting and then tomorrow they'll do the sealing.

Before

After

 

Last evening we joined Rodney, Susan, Bill and Mern Roberts and Carolyn for a dinner at the Monkey Bar and Restaurant in Homosassa.  Bill and Mern were at Cody's when we were here four years ago and it was good to renew our friendship with them.

03/23/2012

Yesterday we took a drive down to Tarpon Springs with Rodney, Susan and Jeff's mother Margie.  Marg is a feisty eighty-three year old gal who is never left with something funny to say.

03/26/2013

Yesterday we said goodbye to all our friends at Cody's, hooked up and made the short run to the Elk's Lodge in Perry, FL.  Since the drive up was only 140 miles, we left later than we normally do and then arrived here very early in the day.  Out at 10:00, in by 2:00...our kinda day!

The Perry Elk's has fourteen sites with 30/50 amp electrical, water and cable TV (we couldn't get the cable to work very well).  All sites are located on grass.  The lodge asks for a $15 donation which we believe is very reasonable.

03/27/2013

We had an easy run for most of the day from Perry to the Destin Army Infantry Center Recreation Area where we will be spending the next five days.  When I woke Joyce up yesterday she said "it's a destiny day".

We had smooth sailing until we got into the Destin area on Highway 98 when we ran into a huge traffic jam.  What I didn't know was it is spring break time here and all of the nut cases are out and driving their cars like maniac's.  It took us over an hour to go four miles!  Cause?  Three lanes narrowing down to two in the Outlet Mall area and idiots turning left, running the stop lights.  I counted nine cars trying to cross into the parking lot after the light had turned red.

While we were in that craziness, Joyce was looking over our itinerary sheet that I print out and discovered that we were arriving in Destin one day early.  What the heck!  Yep, old Barry had actually scheduled us to be in Perry for two nights and then on up here on the 27th.  We called the Recreation Center and they actually had one site left.  No "old guy" comments are needed please.

Indulge me in posting a couple of grand baby pictures please.  We miss them already!

More later!

Barry & Joyce

March 10, 2013

02/24/2013

We only have a few days left here at Anastasia State Park and then we'll be hooking up the rig and heading up to NAS Jacksonville where we'll spend a couple of weeks.  Of those we'll be on a cruise out of San Juan, PR.

Yesterday we drove over to The Villages to visit our friends Tony and Brenda Falduto.  Brenda and Tony have a crafts business and were at The Villages for a show.  After taking a wrong turn (wrong address in the GPS) we finally made it to the Lake Sumter Landing village and found their booth.

If you have never been to The Villages, you have really missed something.  The retirement community is huge, spanning 45 square miles and presently having over 92,000 residents.  According to one of the sales folks we talked to, they are selling about 250 homes a month and that doesn't include preowned houses.

The primary mode of transportation in The Villages is buy golf cart.  The planning commission of the community have included cart only roads, turn lanes and even tunnels that go under major thoroughfares.  Some folks have really gone all-out in the customization of their carts:

If you get bored at The Villages, it's your fault.  There are 468 holes of golf (nine executive and 11 championship courses), free music in the town squares each night, dancing, night clubs, movie theaters and over 1900 activities each week.  They even have their own newspaper that is delivered to your home every morning that has a section listing everything going on so you can plan your day.

Living in The Villages isn't for everyone that's for sure.  Along with living in this community comes rules, and a lot of them.  Most are just common sense things like only using certain colors for painting and such.

All of this comes at a price of course.  However, Joyce and I were very surprised at how affordable living there is compared to a lot of places we have seen throughout the country.

I could go on and on about this place but suffice it to say, The Villages is an amazing place.

02/24/2013

Yesterday we went to see the movie Zero Dark Thirty.  The film is very long and slow to get started but it did get progressively more intense, the last twenty minutes being very powerful.

03/01/2013

Yesterday we hooked up the rig and headed up to NAS Jacksonville where we're staying until March 18th.

The above sentence sounds simple enough but our day was anything but that.  In fact, the day was pretty much one hassle after another.  First, when getting ready to hookup the trailer, the leveling jacks and stabilizers would not operate.  Finally got that fixed.

We then drove over to a tire shop to have our trailer tires rotated.  When told where to park our Swivel Wheel had a minor altercation with a recently painted Corvette.  Got that taken care of, the tires rotated and then headed up I-95.

Got to the Famcamp here at NAS Jacksonville, backed into our site, leveled and all setup.  Then I got a call from the office telling us we had to move because the folks that were in the site had power problems the night before and the maintenance guys wouldn't work on the problem if someone was there.

To add insult to injury, our brand new, super-duper, do everything GPS started locking up.  After calling tech support we hopefully have that fixed.

So, to help make it all better, Joyce got a lobster and crab at the Commissary.  Then she got me a six'er of Shiner Bock to wash it all down.

We're going down to Orlando today and then getting on a flight to San Juan tomorrow.

03/10/2013

We got back to NAS Jacksonville yesterday after our seven-day cruise.  And what a cruise it was!

After spending the night at the Embasy Suites Hotel in Orlando we then flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico where we boarded the Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas.

Our first stop was a St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Island.  Here we rode a gondola to the top of Paradise Point Hill where we had spectacular views of Charlotte Amalie and the harbor.  We then walked about a mile ad half to the town, had a some chips and salsa and then walked back to the ship.

St. Thomas

 There were some beautiful yachts parked docked in St. Thomas

At the next stops at St. Lucia and Guadeloupe we didn't even get off the ship.  Sometimes it is really nice to have the ship almost to yourself.

St. Lucia

Guadalupe

I thought this was a really cool looking building.

Our next port-of-call was Antigua where we took a short tour of St. Johns and then drove across the island to English Harbor.  Here we were treated to a glass of the local very strong rum punch.

Antigua

The home on top of the point is owned by Eric Clapton.

 English Harbor

 I told James to leave this big one at home!

Our last stop was at St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands.  Here we just got off and walked around the port for a short time.

St. Croix

This looked like a lot of fun!

All-in-all it was a good cruise.  Brilliance is is one of RC's older ships and is scheduled to go into dry-dock in April.  It needs it.

Until next time!

Barry & Joyce