April 4, 2013

03/28/2013

Yesterday we drove over to Eglin AFB and did the BX/Commissary thing and checked out the famcamp.  Eglin's Commissary is one of the nicest we have ever seen.

We then drove over to Hurlburt Field to check out their famcamp.  This is a very old park but the base is in the process of building a new one.  We saw that the work on this park is progressing nicely and should be finished within the next couple of months.

03/29/2013

It has been a long time since we have played golf.  In fact, I don't think we have whacked a golf ball in almost two years.  So yesterday we decided to go out to Hurlburt Field's golf course and hit some balls on the driving range.  When we got there we decided to play nine holes instead.  Our games are a little rough around the edges but it was fun to get out there again.

After our round of golf we joined friends from the RV park for a pizza at the Helen Back Cafe in Fort Walton Beach.

04/02/2013

Last Friday we had a great day playing a round of golf at Hurlburt Field with our new friends, Dennis and Lynn Montgomery from Illinois.  Dennis is retired from the Army who spent most of his career in Special Forces.  Our golf game wasn't the greatest but spending time with Dennis and Lynn was priceless.

After hacking our way around the course, we decided to stop at Dewey's Seafood Restaurant near the RV park.  Although they didn't have raw oysters (which I was craving for) the shrimp and grouper was delicious.

On Easter Sunday, Joyce and I along with several of our new friends had brunch at McGuire's Irish Pub in Destin.  The food was good and the conversation was lively.

Monday evening Joyce and I had dinner with TJ and Mary Langdon at Old Bay Steamer in Fort Walton Beach.  TJ and I flew together in the 7th Military Airlift Squadron before he left Travis for instructor duty at Altus AFB, OK.  I hadn't seen TJ in over 25 years and it was good to see him again.  For y'all that know TJ, he and Mike Graziano, who was a Flight Engineer in the 86th Squadron, are the Simulator Certifier's at Hurlburt Field.

Yesterday we hooked up the trailer, said goodbye to all our friends and headed to
New Orleans Joint Reserve Base/NAS.  The traffic on I-10 was heavy all the way but moved along smoothly until we got into the New Orleans area.

We're now parked at Aviation Arbor Oaks RV Park, one of the newer parks in the military system. The old section of the park is still here but used for folks that are staying here long-term.  The new section has large, fairly level concrete parking pads with modern hookups.

04/02/2013

Today we drove about 45 miles east of here to Vacherie, LA to tour the Oak Alley Plantation, one of several sugar cane plantations in the area.

Oak Alley Plantation

Postcard Scans

Notice the black netting on the mirror.  This guestroom was also used as a layout room when there was a death in the family.

I took the following pictures.

A replica of the slave quarters.  At one time there were 93 slaves on the plantation and 20 slave houses.

This is one of the pots that we used to boil the sugar cane.  Slaves were required to stand over the pot and skim off the impurities.  Hard labor to say the least!

The overseer's quarters.  Now a private residence of a great nephew of the last owner's wife.

A fire extinguisher.

04/03/2013

Rain, rain, thunderstorms and more thunderstorms.  It started storming and raining last night around midnight and it hasn't let up.  According to the news some areas have had over three inches and by the looks of the creek at the edge of the RV park here, we've had at least that much.  The forecast is for the rain to let up some after noon but more is on the way for tomorrow.

We won't get much sight-seeing done the next couple of days so we'll do the laundry and other housekeeping chores.

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

February 21, 2013

02/11/2013

We have been connecting to the internet through a Verizon Pantech UN175 air card, plugged into a Cradlepoint router and amplified with a Cyfre amplifier.   This system has served us well for over four years but lately we have been talking about going to something else.

Our Verizon cell plan allows us to use unlimited data on the air card which is really great, especially since I am doing a lot of genealogy research on Ancestry.com.  Some of the census files and photos can be very large and we use an average of 11.5 gigabytes which includes the air card and our smartphones.

Yesterday we decided to make an upgrade to the Verizon MiFi system.  The new router/modem is 4g capable and we hope will be faster.  The main disadvantage to this router is we can't hookup an external antenna and send it through our Cyfre amp.  However, we are rarely in an area where we can't get cell service anyway so we feel that this is a better internet solution for us.

When we made this change, we lost our unlimited data plan so we opted for getting 10 gigs for now.  We'll have to watch our usage and change our plan as necessary.

Joyce also upgrade her phone to the new Galaxy IIIS.  I won't go into details here but be advised, check your phones when making any changes to your plan before leaving the store!

02/14/2013

On Tuesday we welcomed Ron and Katie Cutler to St. Augustine for a short visit.  You might remember we went to Orlando to visit last month.  We always have a great time with Ron and Katie who we hope to visit at their home in Payson, UT in the future.

Yesterday after saying goodbye to Ron and Katie, we drove up to Jacksonville to have the latest and greatest MAC OS, Mountain Lion installed on my MAC Book Pro.  I have been contemplating making the upgrade for some time now, having waited due to software issues with out air card.  Now that we have solved that little problem it was time to get my MAC up-to-speed.

02/15/2013

I have been using our new MiFi system for a few days now and am generally pleased with it's operation.  We are getting three bars of solid 4G service here at Anastasia State Park and so far we haven't experienced any dropped calls.  With the old air card we had several drop outs that sometimes lasted for five minutes or more.  Of course, the park in right in the town of St. Augustine so the we won't know really how it works until we're out on the road or in places like Terrebonne, OR.  Then we'll see how it works on 3G service.

02/17/2013

Joyce and I are grand baby sitting while Harold and Michelle are in Orlando.  Last night Grandma made a delicious meat turnover supper and I gave Skyler a bath.  He really likes the water!  After putting him to bed we watched "The Princess and the Pop Star" with Abigail.  Weather permitting we plan to take the kids our for a few hours today.  Might even hit Micky 'D's.

We did Taco Bell instead.  Skyler loves Cinnamon Twists!

Reading his Valentine card from Grandma Steffen.  I wish I had this on video.

Several of my squadron mates from the old 7th Military Airlift Squadron are planning a reunion for May 18th at the Pippo Ranch in Vacaville.  Joyce and I will be arriving at Travis AFB on the 17th for a weeks stay before heading up to Oregon for the summer.  We hope to get a couple of days of Reno time while we are there as well.  Anyone up for a Bozo's night?

02/19/2013

The yesterday was all about computer's, phone's, printer's and Verizon MiFi.  Grrr…..!!!!  'Nuff said.

02/20/2013

Yesterday afternoon Joyce and I made a visit to Fort Matanzas National Monument.  Completed by the Spanish in 1745, this small fort guarded the south river entrance to St. Augustine.

Until next time.

Barry & Joyce

Feburary 11, 2013

01/30/2013

As most of you know, one of my hobbies is doing genealogy research.  Recently, Ancestry.com has linked up with Find A Grave which is really helps those of us who study old dead folks.  I found these stones the other day:

Myrtle was a sixth cousin of mine.

In our last posting I showed you a picture of Barry's Bird Attack Repelling Device.  It worked for a day or so but one of them just won't go away:

Courtesy of John and Carolyn Staples.

02/02/2013

Joyce and I can't believe that we have been in Florida for almost four months.  Seems like only yesterday that we were backing into our parking site here at Anastasia State Park.  Just twenty-six more days and we'll be hooking up the rig and heading up to the NAS Jacksonville RV Park for a twenty day stay there before heading west.

If you shop at Toys R Us, the next is for you.  If not, skip over the next few paragraphs.

This Christmas we bought Skyler a kiddy trampoline at Toys R Us.  The darned thing fell apart after just a couple of days so yesterday Joyce and I took it up to Jacksonville with the goal of exchanging it for a better one or to get store credit.

The young gal at the customer service desk said that she could only exchange it for the same item because we didn't have the original packaging.  What?  Who the heck saves the original boxes of stuff you get for kids at Christmas?

So, after a couple of minutes of "discussing" the situation, I asked to see a manager.  The manager came over and proceeded to give me a long drawn out dissertation about the company's policy for returning items to Toys R Us, including the reasoning behind the necessity to have the original packaging.  After a few minutes of listening to him blabber, I told him in no uncertain terms that I didn't give a darn if the store got their money back, I only cared bout my money being refunded.  I then asked to talk to his boss who of course, wasn't in the store.

After leaving with the broken toy in hand we called American Express.  The immediately took the charge off of our card and started a dispute with Toys R Us.  We may or may not win this dispute but I think it's going to cost the company more money than just refunding our's.  And, I hope it does!

Last night we invited out neighbors, John and Carolyn Staples who hale from Virginia to join us at the Elks Lodge for supper.  We had a great time visiting with them over plates of delicious B-B-Q.

02/04/2013

Last night we went to Harold and Michelle house for their Super Bowl Party.  Several friends and neighbors came over to join us.  They all brought food and beverages. Sorry that the 49'ers couldn't pull it out for a win but who really cares anyway?  I would much rather watch the college National Championship game than endure a bunch of over-paid spoiled adults acting like five year olds.  Just sayin'.

Abigail has new glasses!

02/05/2013

Joyce left this morning to visit Sue Ziher at Cody's RV Park in Weeki Wachee today.  She had planned to visit her grandmother in Fort Myers but she called this morning to let Joyce know she was sick.  So, with a rental car already paid for she decided to visit Sue.

During our travels, we have had the unfortunate experience of being behind sand and gravel trucks a few time.  Out windshield has become very pitted causing poor visibility and wiper hopping.  So, I called our insurance company and they authorized replacement.  It only cost $246 here in St. Augustine and since we have zero deductible on glass, the insurance picked up the tab.

02/07/2013

Yesterday Joyce and I volunteered to drive a shuttle tram for the Flight to Freedom event at Fort Mose Historic State Park here in St. Augustine.  Fort Mose was the first free black settlement in what is now the United States and played a significant roll as a sanctuary for run-away slaves from the Carolina's in the late 1600's and into the early 1700's.

Re-enactors in period clothing told the story of the founding of Fort Mose. In addition, Florida Living History Inc. performed Colonial Spanish military drills and provided demonstrations of musket and cannon firing throughout the day. The event also included a cooking demonstration, an exhibit on Native Indians and various exhibits, performances and food vendors.

That's enough for now!

Barry & Joyce