Thursday, February 8, 2018
It has been a while since we posted, or, for that matter, since we did anything worth posting. However, I can honestly say I feel healthier now than I have in years. Al has had a few health issues but recently had an angiogram and was told he does not need any stents. He does have a minor issue with his aortic valve, but he is not a candidate for surgery and his doctor just wants to keep an eye on it. For our ages, we are doing pretty well.
It was overcast this morning and 68° F. This is a nice break from the unusual cold snap we have recently experienced. However, we don’t have to shovel cold! We don’t miss snow at all. It was already 10:30 and there was a fine mist on the windshield when we drove through the back gate, but one swish of the wipers and it was clear for the rest of the trip.
Since we had such a late start we considered taking the Interstate to save time, but when we came to the intersection of Rte 484 and I-75, we passed it and continued on the scenic route. We have made this same trip on these same roads many times but still enjoy it. On 475-A several motorcycles passed us going the other way. Of the twenty or so, at least half of them were the three-wheel type. We are seeing these more and more often. I guess when baby-boomers reach retirement age they are usually substantially well enough off financially to buy an expensive and beautifully tricked out bike with an equally substantial seat. (Think about it.)
There is something so relaxing driving along a country road with cattle, goats and pigs for sale. Two horses nuzzle each other in the corner of a pasture. We passed a life-sized, multi-colored giraffe, but we passed too quickly for me to take a picture. The colors are bright primary colors that look like they came from Mexico. Why a giraffe? I know of two small giraffes decorating house gardens in OTOW. One is copper colored and the other is the same multi-colors as this large one. We saw a sign for Registered Nigerian Horses, although I had never heard of them. Apparently, they are a pony “with characteristics of a horse”. Now I don’t understand that at all!
We were both perplexed by an oddly colored flag. It seems to be an American flag with the a black field of white stars, and stripes that are black and white with a blue stripe in the middle. Al took it to be a flag representing “Blue” republican states. I took it to be an abomination of our sacred American flag. That is NOT the flag our military has always fought for!
“The three colors on the American Flag stand for: “… the red of the flag represents valor, white stands for liberty or purity and blue represents justice, loyalty and perseverance.”
When I googled this bizarre flag, I found all kinds of answers. An American flag with ONE blue stripe stands for the police officers. “It has been called the line that separates society from anarchy, and while some firmly stand against altering the U.S. flag in any way, many members of law enforcement say they appreciate this gesture.”
On the other hand…I believe the Red, White and Blue should stay just that — Red, White and Blue!
In Wildwood we turned onto SR 44 and passed the entrance to Brownwood, the southernmost community of The Villages. The theme is western and there are life-sized statues of cattle by the main entrance. In the past year alone this stretch of Rte 44 seems to have burst with commercial construction. There is at least one large shopping center going up and several large buildings with no signs suggesting their future occupants.
As we picked up US 27 just south of Leesburg, we passed a sign for the Flat Island Preserve. It is a small preserve with what sounds like a very pretty 3.5 mile hiking path. It “is surrounded by the vast Okahumpa Marsh, shelters an interesting mix of flora in its hammocks— more than 110 species, including rare trees, unusual wildflowers, and colorful mushrooms.” It would be an interesting place to spend an afternoon.
The gray skies overhead look like they are clearing up ahead to the south. In Minneola we passed an old, closed fish restaurant that has had a decrepit old boat sitting in front of it for many years. Today, the boat is gone and the old place has been opened as the new Surf Bar and Grill. We wish this new endeavor well. We prefer to see old buildings recycled rather than razed to the ground and rebuilt.
We finally arrived at the Stages Campground in Winter Garden, a suburb of Orlando. We first stayed here in 2006, missed 2007, and have stayed here every February since then – a total of twelve visits. We have seen great changes over the years: updated bathhouses; broken and/or unusable electric, water and sewer hook-ups have been replaced; ratty old units that looked like they had not seen the road in several decades are all gone; really bad interior roads have been repaved and the pool was refurbished not long ago. There is a sizable area with small but permanent park models.
As we set up, we noticed that the site next to ours has a long 5W with a car that is far too small to pull the rig. There are four small, pink bicycles parked along the side – the largest of which still sports training wheels. Besides the children, there appears to be their mother and grandmother.
We settled in and enjoyed the open windows for just a short time before it got too cool and dark. It feels wonderful to sleep in the ROO again. I think Maddy would agree with us.
Total miles for the day: 73.1.
Friday, February 9, 2018
Al left early for the 72nd Annual Orlando Hamcation. As always, it is held at the Central Florida Fair Grounds and Expo Park and there is camping available on-site. However, we prefer to stay here at the Stagestop, where it is more quiet and life seems slower. The sky is overcast, but several seniors stroll around the campground in twos and fours. By noon all our windows are open, my ten basil plants are in a window soaking up some sun and Maddy has left my lap to sit by the screen door to stare with rapt attention at whatever it is she sees.
There is no cable here but we are so close to Orlando that we easily get several TV stations. Aside from the major stations – ABC, NBC and CBS – there are the usual PBS, Spanish, religious and local government stations. And there are very old westerns with their ridiculously foolish scripts and bad acting. Not to mention very old game shows. Garry Moore hosted What’s My Line, with a very, VERY young Johnny Carson on the panel years before his Tonight Show gig. Wow! That tape must be 60-years-old. Garry Moore: bow tie, crew cut and a perennial cigarette in his hand. He died of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Esophageal Cancer. Sigh…
Al got back to the Roo mid-afternoon and in need of a nap. He spent the morning facing rush hour traffic, maneuvering a large parking lot and walking long aisles of meters, cables, gadgets, widgets, whatchamacallits and various radio parts. All this amidst thousands of ham radio operators. He had eaten lunch off a food truck with some old ham friends. And tomorrow he’ll do it all over again.
No thank you. I’ll take the peace and quiet anytime.
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Al left early again. At least he doesn’t have to stand in line because he bought his ticket months in advance. He says that by Saturday afternoon some vendors have lowered their prices. Also, with the weekend come several outdoor tailgaters.
It had rained during the night but the morning was clear and comfortable. I saw the mother and grandmother next door but just caught a glimpse of one child in the doorway. The bicycles have not been moved. On the other side of us, the big rig had packed up and left the campground. About a dozen snowy white egrets (not to be confused with Snowy Egrets) pecked around the site – looking for anything of interest the rig might have left behind. Their impossibly skinny legs and super long beaks always fascinate me. Mother Nature must have been having fun the day she designed them. They bob their heads with each step like a chicken but somehow manage to look graceful.
In the afternoon a young couple with a small child pulled into the site beside us with a small pop-up trailer. He with long hair down his back, she with hair the colors of green, pink and blue. The toddler has yet to see his second birthday. They must be newbies because both Ponytail and Rainbow seem unusually interested when hooking up their utilities. They also seem to have no idea of unwritten campground etiquette: walking through others’ campsites is considered rather gauche. We understand they need to use the bathhouse, but walking so close between rigs comes across as more than a little impolite.
Al came home and again, he was exhausted. After a rest, we decided to go out for dinner. It was nothing special, but it was a nice change. Just as it got dark – about 7:00 p.m. – we could hear the fireworks at Disney. It was not very loud and certainly didn’t bother us. It was just another reminder of how close we are to Disney World.
The quiet evening brought a flood of memories. Al and I had a pop-up trailer back when we lived in California in the 1980s. We had just graduated up from ground-sleeping in a tent and loved this new form of camping. A pop-up has a metal top and bottom with the sides made of canvas that fold down inside when on the road. When the top is cranked up, the sides fold out to create two double beds. The canvas all around can be unzipped to reveal screens. It is far closer to real camping than sleeping in a motorhome.
Back then, we lived across the bay, east of San Francisco. We would pack the trailer on Thursday night, Al would drive me to work Friday morning and then take the trailer up on Mount Diablo to our favorite camp site. He would drop it off and then go to work. After work, he would pick me up and we would drive directly up the mountain for the weekend. That way, we were always assured to get our favorite site – overlooking the city. One of my all-time favorite memories is sitting outside late one moonless night, clouds/fog dimming the lights of the City and Bay below, while a black velvet sky twinkled overhead with a thousand stars.
Beautiful memories to fall asleep by.
Monday, February 12, 2018
Yesterday and today were very lazy days. We had planned on going home today, but made the decision to stay one more night. Yesterday morning we woke up to the sound of a baby crying – for maybe the first time in many years of RVing. Rainbow and Ponytail have the only tent-type rig in the campground and typically spend most of their time outside. Ponytail wanders around shirtless and shoeless, sipping his breakfast from a beer bottle. His son toddles behind, also shirtless and shoeless.
The permanent or semi-permanent rigs are quite obvious. We think most of those sites are taken up by six-monthers or such. Some delineate their sites with a line of potted plants, foot-high fences or whatever they can think of. There are gnomes, fairies, birdbaths, angels, flowers (both real and fake, potted and hanging), veggies and herbs, signs, bird feeders, whirligigs, sun-catchers, gazing balls and flags, flags and more flags. Most often they are U.S. or Canadian flags, with POW/MIA and favorite team flags. I saw one I didn’t recognize and Al said it was for the Michigan Spartans.
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
It was only 70° but very, very humid this morning. Rainbow and Ponytail must have left either very early this morning or during the night. We were surprised to see them gone. Our neighbors on the other side were even stranger. In all the time we were there we never saw the children outside and all four bicycles never moved from the side of the 5W. The weather had been wonderful so we don’t understand this. We did see the children inside the 5W, but never outside.
On our way out of the campground we passed a small permanent RV with a very large, hand-built parrot cage next to it. We dragged our feet and didn’t get on the road until after 11:00. We had figured out a shortcut from US 50 to US 27 so we took it and came out at the Citrus Tower. The ride took us over a very hilly road and we passed some large two-story homes with very large “birdcages”. However, there were some homes with big blue tarps on the roofs and we wondered why. Is there still some unrepaired hurricane damage in this area?
A sign: Mrs. Suwanee Psychic Medium, Get all the Answers. Interesting…a lot of churches promise all the answers, too. Many acres beside US 27 has been plowed down to raw earth. Some kind of road kill has attracted a large group of turkey vultures. According to the dictionary, a large group of vultures is called a “committee”. Hmmmm…
In Lake Harris there is a large area thick with lily pads. The fishing must be good there because every time we pass by, there is at least one fisherman trying his luck. Words lettered on the back of a pickup window: “Life’s a Bitch”, and lower down, “John 3:16”. These just don’t seem to go together in my mind.
A section of SR-44 in Leesburg is designated, “Staff Sergeant Michael A. Bock Memorial Highway.” Many people pass these signs every day and pay no attention to them. I always wonder about the people behind them. “Bock felt compelled to join the military after his 18th birthday — Sept. 11, 2001 — after terrorists hijacked airplanes and crashed them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.” He served two tours in Afghanistan and two in Iraq. Bock posthumously received Silver Star, the third-highest award in the U.S. military for combat valor, for leaving an armored vehicle three times to help other soldiers. He was 26-years-old.
Florida is such a contradiction in so many ways. In one area the road has been widened so many times that several old houses are just inches from a narrow sidewalk, making the passing cars just a few feet away from rattling windows. Then it opens up to a single bull standing in the middle of a large field up to his belly in a pond of muddy water. Then we pass the huge Duke Energy Wildwood Substation where they seem to be continually hiring. In another area 514 acres are for sale.
Alas, home again. But looking forward to our next excursion.
Total miles for the day: 76.26.
Total miles for the trip: 149.36.
Read On
In reading this over, I realize I have used some terms that may be confusing to anyone reading this blog that hasn’t been reading it for years. So here is a quick explanation.
5W – Fifth Wheel. The dictionary says, “some camper trailers use a fifth-wheel configuration, requiring the coupling to be installed in the bed of a pickup truck as a towing vehicle, and “fifth wheel” is therefore sometimes used as a synonym for such campers in North America. “ Some 5Ws can be larger and longer than a motorhome. Basically, their configuration goes up and over the bed of a pickup.
Park models – “Park Model RVs are unique units that provide temporary accommodations for recreation, camping or seasonal use. Park Model RVs are designed to look like a home, but they need to be hooked up to site electricity, sewer and water like any RV.” Many look like small trailer homes but are not meant to be lived in full-time.
Birdcages – Originated in Florida in the 1940s, they are large screened/aluminum additions to houses epitomizing indoor-outdoor living. They can be as small as a porch or large enough to encircle an Olympic-size pool.
HamCation – The second-largest amateur radio operators show in the country, held every February in Orlando, Florida.