February 2 to February 8

Saturday morning February 2, after uploading last weeks website updates, we biked with Monarcha to mail the house fuel oil payment by SNAIL MAIL; a first!  I guess we cannot expect everybody to be web enabled...then we continued around Sanford to see the sights.  A new develpoment here is Paws Park, a park for dogs and their owners.  A lot of work has been put into this by volunteers and the city.  It is really interesting to watch the dogs frolic as their owners socialize.  I would have expected a bit more aggressive behavior among the dogs than we observed. This is a great idea for building a community among dog owners.

  Sanford has many residential streets with historic Florida homes lining charming Spanish moss covered trees arching over the roadway.

  We returned to Monarcha's home for lunch on the back porch overlooking her beautifully green plantings in the yard.

 Most amazing to me was the almost total lack of bugs in the balmy 75 degree weather;  over 20 years in Massachusetts has accustomed me to HORDES of mosquitoes almost any time the weather is fit to be outside in shirtsleeves.  Monarcha did not even close the back door, and there was no screen.  Late afternoon we started the walking tour of historic Sanford homes. This large two story well restored Queen Ann is about 100 years old.  

Twilight came suddenly, as it usually does in Florida, so we interrupted our unfinished walk for dinner at Otter's on the bank of the St John's river.  The breeze was cool, as a front was finally moving into central Florida, so we ate in the enclosed veranda overlooking the lighted swimming pool; the fish was delicious.  

Sunday morning February 3 dawned in the low 70's and much dryer;  it was delightful, and felt almost like an Indian Summer day in New England.  We decided to finish the historic home walking tour by bike before going to visit the Sanford zoo.  We were fortunate to receive a tour of Higgins House conducted by Monarcha's friend Paula.  This historic home is now operated as a bed and breakfast; it is very comfortably set up with elegantly furnished community activity and sitting rooms, as well as comfortable sleeping/living quarters for guests.

 We returned in time to meet cousin Will, LuAnn, and their three children Travis, Jacob and Ellie who were joining us for lunch and the zoo.  Cousin Dottie and Luther joined us also, and we drove through Burger King on the way to the zoo's picnic area.  Travis made a close friend of a local chameleon.

Ellie and Jacob found ways to wrangle piggy back rides from Luther & LuAnn.  I think the delightful weather may have been a factor here... :-)  

The zoo is a good one, even though they have an undisciplined goat that stole and ate Monarcha's zoo map in three bites....

 The herpentarium was very well done and of particular interest to Travis; he knows a lot about reptiles, and expressed interest in volunteering at the zoo to learn even more about them.  The zoo got lucky recently, and bred an albino rattlesnake; these seldom survive in the wild, as they have no camoflage.  The odds of hatching such a snake were stated to be 1 in 200,000, so the Sanford zoo is VERY lucky!

The day passed too quickly, and the zoo was closing as we left.  Ellie had butterfly "tattoos" that she expertly applied to all members of our "herd", but I think her really was the best.  We could not end the day without a mini-reunion picture on the front steps (see the butterflies?).

 It was a day that too quickly passed, but it sure was nice of everybody to come visit us on our way through.  It seems we just do not have enough time to stop and see everyone, even though we'd really love to do it.

Monday February 4 Monarcha was off to work and Sebastian & Chris off to school before we awoke; we prepared for departure and headed for Umatilla, where we planned to visit Nadine and Gene. On the way, we resupplied in the Mt Dora Walmart. We had met Nadine and Bob in the Bahamas when sailing there 25 years ago.  We had visited them several times since, when we were on the boat and once in the Summer when our kids were small, before Bob's death; I still remember swimming with the kids in the lake's warm water on a hot day.  It has been a long time though, and memory failed me when it came to finding the place;  Nadine met us at a local gas station and led us in.  The little airport was still there, and the runway had been lengthened closing one road. We stopped alongside the road at the end of her driveway, and walked in to look at the full hookup RV site we had talked about on the phone.  WOW, water, electric AND sewer connection; unbelievable!!  After a brief attempt to back us into the site to arrange sewer connections on the correct side of our RV, we decided that running the hose under the RV was not really that difficult anyway...  :-)  We showed Nadine through the RV as we hooked up, met Gene for the first time, and walked Purry who just REFUSED to stay inside any longer.  He really does enjoy a tree to exercise his claws on........

 We then went to see their beautiful home nestled among the trees overlooking the lake.  

This was a delightful place with room for all of Gene's hobbies (MANY model airplanes, computers, his new metal lathe, and bee hives protected by the electric fence near the garage) and Nadine's love for her trees, plants, and wildlife that she had nurtured on the property over the years.  The commercial citrus groves that I remembered abutting the property were gone. The citrus industry that had flourished here has been greatly diminished by severe freezes in succeeding years that killed most trees over 10 years ago; many were not replanted, or were moved further South where frost is less likely.  Gene had put in a small citrus grove for their use; it was hanging heavy with fruit.  Gene was in the final checkout of a new 1.2 GHz Athlon computer he had built, and it was not yet right.  This was fun; (it's even more fun on those rare occasions when it is not YOUR computer having difficulty)! :-)  We enjoyed a lovely dinner (including locally grown sliced citrus) and chat.

Gene and I  continued to puzzle over the recalcitrant computer until we noticed the time; further attempts to right computer wrongs would only result in messing it up more......time to retire!

Tuesday February 5 dawned COLD in the RV; we had not turned on the heat, but temperatures went down to the low 40's overnight; the blankets kept us warm, but the furnace was started quickly in the morning.  This is a taste of more normal Florida Winter weather, and we are moving North as well.  The computer puzzle continued, the hard drive was reformatted and software loading was restarted, but we made time to go to lunch at the Blackwater on the St John's River, and were much surprised by a visit with Nadine's cousin Mary, a bridge tender on a St John's drawbridge.  This HAD to be a time when I forgot to bring the camera...DUHHHH.  We had been through many bridges on the St Johns while sailing, and it was interesting to chat with her about the bridge operation.  We toured Alexander Springs in Ocala National Forest, missing the camera again, as Nadine identified many plants we had seen before and wondered what they were.  We returned to another delicious dinner that Nadine had found time to cook, and I was happy that Gene had found the fundamental problem in the computer; it would not run reliably at 1200 MHz clock, 133 MHz on the Memory bus.  It ran fine at a slightly higher clock speed, so with that selected Gene was able to get all three monitors running and software installed  to run properly.  Time another day to explore the motherboard website for a reason for this idiosyncracy.  We were happy to not be having quite so much "fun" with it. :-)  It sure is a screaming system!

Wedenesday February 6 we had to be off to New Orleans; time had passed too quickly at this lovely place, but we have the campground reserved Friday for Mardi Gras.  It will not wait!  We visited Nadine's Born Free RV, and enjoyed the beautiful woodwork and clever layout that allowed comfortable living quarters (and a BATHTUB) for two or more persons in a 26 ft vehicle. (A tub had been on our wish list, but had been one thing we had compromised away when we chose our Seabreeze.) It had been to Alaska more than once, and the Ford chassis had 78,000 miles on it with no serious problems; it is hard to beat proven success like that!  We dumped again, loaded water, and prepared for departure.  We backed down the driveway, and out into the road; we had to say goodby to Nadine and Gene now, or block traffic.......   

We headed to downtown Umatilla to refill our propane for the first time since heading for the outer banks in November; we would need it much more now, as multiple cold fronts were headed our way.  Ace Hardware had propane for $1.25 a gallon, as low as we had seen it since we left Texas in August.  I was amazed, as a dealer in Sanford had quoted us $3.00 a gallon 4 days ago; he must not like to fill RVs.  We had a fast drive through the Ocala National Forest to I75 North of Ocala where we filled fuel, then continued on to I10 West. We passed into the central time zone at Appalachicola. About 3PM it started raining steadily; we continued on to our destination in Chipley.  We found the Walmart easily, but were dismayed to see more "No overnight parking" signs.  It was raining VERY heavily now, and driving was not much fun; we decided to stay until we were asked to leave.  In a short time several more RVs arrived and joined us; one ran his generator fairly constantly, but with the sound of heavy rain on the roof it was not bothersome.  Purry agitated for a walk by clawing the screen door; it was tempting to oblige him, but the thought of wet raingear dripping from the hanger was enough to restrain us. :-)  I doubt anyone will want to get out of a car in this weather to chase us either.....

Thursday February 7 dawned rainy, but we had only four hours driving.  The forecast was for morning clearing, so we delayed and slept in.  When the weather cleared we visited Walmart for a few things and to add to the balance on our Walmart gift card that gives us 3 cents discount at Walmart's Murphy's gas stations. We fueled and headed out; we used less than 1/3 tank, but we might as well stay full against possible higher prices in states west.  We passed up the Alabama welcome station; we would not be here by nightfall.  We passed over the long causeway and through Mobile; the causeway would not be a place I would want to be in a bad storm.  We stopped at the Mississippi welcome station and looked for flyers for places offering "Crawfish boil"....none were apparent, so we continued on to our evening destination in Gulfport.  We stopped at the convenient Home Depot to buy replacement screen door screening to repair Purry and Pookie's damage, but we'll defer repair until the weather warms up enough to open the screen door.....maybe even until we see bugs.  :-)  We continue on to Walmart, and find no signs, and several RVs. It's nice to feel welcome again.  We decided to drive down to the beachfront to see the sights and possibly even find a crawfish boil.  We continued several miles west on Rt 90 to Long Beach, near Pass Christian (a town that sticks in my memory as having been nearly destroyed by a hurricane (Camille?) years ago).  The land is low and unprotected from the Gulf; it is scary to imagine storm conditions here.  Today it is blowing cold from the North, off the brilliant white sand beach, and seas are calm.  Purry walks briefly on the beach but seems unimpressed by this huge sandbox. :-)

 The beach is populated only by seagulls today; it is 45, but the humid breeze feels chilling. We walk to the end of the fishing pier and look back at the RV; it's a distant speck on the beach.  We will either dress warmer or spend little time outdoors in this weather.  

We returned to Walmart's parking lot, selected a place near but separated from the other RVs in the lot and Claire cooked dinner.  We were surprised to hear a loud generator start up; it turned out we had left TOO MUCH space.  A large RV had squeezed in between us and the next RV and was running a generator with it's exhaust 6 feet from us. :-(  I went to Walmart's to refill the gas card (gas was 97.9 here, 94.9 with the card's 3 cent discount), and the generator was still running when I returned 45 minutes later.  We decided to move across the lot.  An idling diesel truck was much preferred to the loud insistant roar of that generator.

Friday morning dawned sunny and chilly; forecast was for 31 degrees and frost along the gulf coast of Mississippi.  The furnace had run regularly all night, so I believed the forecast.  We picked our approach to New Orleans, and I returned to Walmart for cash from the ATM.  We drove the hour to New Orleans, stopping at the welcome station to load up on pamphlets and advice.  Claire planned a drive around the city to get a sense of it before settling into our campground; what a BEAUTIFUL job of city traffic driving she does too, even with this big freaking RV!   :-)  We passed over Chef highway and looked for our campground to no avail; only AFTER downloading the pictures did I realize I'd snapped a closeup of it.... Riverboat Travel Park :-))

As you might surmise from the picture, the park is noisy, crowded, next to Motel 8 and Family Inns, and not in the most senic area; BUT it IS in New Orleans, on city bus lines, has full hookups, and so far has been safe, though we do lock our doors (as we do everywhere).  We decided not to bus downtown Friday night; we were just too tired after the drive through the city and the hookup procedure;  we tried two sites we did not fit in before we were assigned to the bigger side of the park, then needed to splice an added sewer hose to ours to reach the dump opening.  We celebrated our arrival with a rare beer, and retired early.  Some party animals we are........  :-)  I'm going to close this week's update with Friday, as Mardi Gras is an experience I am unsure how to describe after only one day's exposure.  Hopefully the experience will solidify into something I can describe in a family webpage by next week.  We both came back with  necks full of beads, and a feeling of EXPERIENCE.  The challenge; to describe that experience.  Until next week, ENJOY!  We sure are!  :-)