Happy Thanksgiving

Ah... the pressures of writing a blog.    While we were on the road, we had something relatively new to report almost everyday.    Now we are settled in at the "mobile home" and there is work to be done everyday.   We've had an interesting week.

We've been taping, cleaning, and getting the mobile ready to paint up through Saturday.

Saturday night was the first quartet "sing" at the Lake Gibson Church of the Nazarene featuring the Kingsmen Quartet.    Sheryl and I took a break from the work and went with Paul and Judy Purdy.  The Kingsmen are sorta like the Oak Ridge Boys, except they sing music with an emphasis on Jesus and how He works in our lives.   That might be the essence of quartet music.   The Kingsmen have been a quartet since the 1950's.

Monday we were back at it - ready to paint the mobile - the major job to be completed this fall before the renters come in January.

We taped and papered..  papered and taped AND removed various things we didn't want painted.  The weather man had predicted low winds for Monday of this week - a must for our park because the units are quite close together.   I got the Graco paint sprayer system all ready to be flushed out with water and I had a leak.   I tried to get help at Lowe's..  no way.   I finally called Graco.... and they offered to send me a new gun, no charge, overnight.  So the painting was put on hold until Tuesday.   My heartfelt thanks to Graco.

Now it seemed like a good time to grab the camera, the golf clubs and go have some fun.  But first, a stop at the alligator pond.

Yup.. that's right here in the park.  And not too far from the goat pen too. 

Tuesday morning 10:05 a.m.   The new paint gun arrived via UPS and 15 minutes later I was ready to spray paint.  Two hours later I had 3/4 of the mobile done but I was a gallon of paint SHORT!   So off to Lowe's I went.   I guess I finished up finally about 3 p.m. and Phil and I (Phil is my son) had the whole place cleaned up and the tape removed by dark.  

New carpet is coming on Monday.   It's going to look nice in the living room, all we seem to be doing most of the time is working.  We're going to have to get back on the road to get a break from all this work.   All in good time, all in good time.

We wish everyone a great Thanksgiving.   We are thankful for how God has provided for us and the life He allows us to live.

It's been an interesting week.

I decided when I started this blog that I wasn't going to write something every day if I didn't have something to say.   I'm still not sure I have something to say today, but here goes anyway.   I also just realized that I don't have any pictures.

We started the week with the little 1400 psi electric power washer on the back side of the mobile.   We knew we had to wash the crud off the trailer before we could paint it.   Our next door neighbor Larry came around back asking if I had any fresh gasoline, which I did.  I got the gas can and wandered over to Larry's to discover that his friend Doug had just bought a brand new pressure washer from Home Depot.  They were about to test it.   I asked them if they'd like to test it on a "real test."   They said yes.   The short of it?   I got to finish the mobile with the new pressure washer.   Boy, was it great!   So the trailer is now clean and ready to paint.

We've been on the camp golf course a few times.   We haven't really played through nine holes yet.  We've always had something come up that cut the game short.  We started on the fifth hole tonight and played through nine, at which time it was cold and really getting dark.

We've been to the Lakeland Regional Hospital a couple of times.   A good friend of ours in there - He had surgery Tuesday and he is hoping to come home tomorrow.   Sickness doesn't take a vacation.

If I get some really exciting pictures of the hawk that watches over the golf course, or the turkeys that run across the golf course, or the golf balls that I hit that wind up at the wrong hole, I'll post them..  For now....

The Park and the Air Show

I know it's been "a bit" since I updated this blog so here goes.   We've been at the park a little under a week and we are enjoying the "retired life."

We unhooked the trailer and parked it in RV storage on the east side of the golf course.

Florida is "blessed" with wild pigs and they destroy the golf course at night.   The park has someone that traps them, but these are new "holes" so I guess the trapper hasn't gotten all of the pigs yet.

Here's the layout of the course.   It's the only golf course that Sheryl and I will ever play on.  Membership is $20 for the two of us for a year.   We can go out and play a couple of holes and then go do something else, if we want to.  We don't keep score 'cause we don't want to count that high.   We go out and whap the golf balls just for fun.

Here's some of the wildlife.   

 This could be an Ibis

And these are three of the pet goats.  The goats are "park pets."   No jokes about old goats please! 

Saturday November 5 was a free air show at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, featuring the Air Force Thunderbirds.   We arrived there around 1:30 p.m. for the 2:30 show.  After walking about one half a mile from the parking lot, we arrived at the flight line.   There were over 50,000 people at the show.

 The flight-line featuring the Thunderbirds

The flight line with the Thunderbirds.

Guess who is standing in the hatch of a C-117?   That's me and and Phil, our son who lives in Lakeland.  Sheryl is taking the picture.

 Another shot of some of the crowd.

The traffic was horrendous but the show was worth it.

The pilots who fly these F-16's are amazing.

The C-117 you see here can land and take off from a 3500 un-paved airstrip.   That's pretty good performance.


We went to church at Light and Life Park Church this morning and then hit the Smokey Bones Restaurant for lunch - Sheryl's sister Judi had a special coupon for us.   Even though there was a little rain this afternoon, I'm sitting under the carport, outside, writing this and it's very nice.  I think we've found warmth.

Next week I'll start planning how I'm going to paint the outside of the mobile.  The shutters have to be removed and the whole trailer has to be washed.   Then we'll have to mask off the places we don't want the paint (like the windows) and then set up the sprayer and go to it.  But for now, for today, I'm going to post this and finish my coffee.

Made it to Light and Life Park in Lakeland, Florida

We said "goodbye" to the Big Bass Campground in the Ocala National Forest this morning.  You would never guess that less than .5 miles off of a county road down this dirt forest service road that you would find a nice little campground.   There weren't any signs on the county road about the campgrounds.  I'm glad we had extra help from the computer and the mapping programs I was using, along with the paper atlas we picked up in Maine.

But before we left we took some pictures of some "things" we wanted to remember.

That my friends is a track of a black bear.   The trail in which the track was made was less than 50 yards from where we were camped.

You can tell from the size of Sheryl's hand the size of the track.  The average black bear in Ocala weighs around 400 pounds.   The biggest recorded was over 600.    That is a lot of bear.

We never did find out what these berries were called.

They are quite small and colorful.

We took back roads to get from Big Bass Campground to the Light and Life Park, through Eustis and and Taveres southeast of Ocala.   Nice communities and it seemed like a lot going on.  We saw once of the largest tree farms in the country on Rt 33 on our way to the Park.  It was a real nice drive.

Once at the Park, we said hello to our son Phil, and then drove out to the camper storage area and unhooked.   We picked up some things from the trailer and headed over to our mobile.  We have truly found warmth.

Tomorrow it will be time to get to work.   The mobile needs painting on the outside and there are some other things we'd like to do before the end of the year.   But we'll relax too.   Until the next blog....

Still enjoying the Ocala NF

We woke up to the sun smiling it's way through the trees and scrub.  What a beautiful day in Florida.   The temps were on the rise, going to the mid 70's.   I think we've found warmth.

Breakfast was inside the travel trailer today as there was still a chill in the air.   After breakfast, coffee, and some Bible reading, we took off for a walk around the park.   During our walk, we got side tracked on a trail not too far from our campsite.   We found large tracks, way too big to be dog tracks.  We figured that they must be black bear, because they are plentiful around these parts.   We just haven't seen one yet.

When we walk off the road or foraging for wood,

We found it best to keep our eyes peeled for this:

He or she is about 3 inches in diameter and they grow larger.   We think it's a banana spider and they love to spin huge webs (3-5 feet wide) at just about face level.   You can be walking along and if it you aren't looking ahead for a web, you might just have a close encounter with one of these Florida delights.  But, since I just learned that they eat cockroaches, they are OKAY in my book because I think the cockroach is the Florida state mascot - or should be.    We spend enough money keeping them at bay in Lakeland at the mobile. 

We got our work done up around 2 pm this afternoon and sat down outside in the sun to read.   How sweet it is.   It's supposed to hit 80 degrees tomorrow.   We finished off the day with Sheryl's homemade pizza and a campfire. 

Tomorrow's another day and another adventure.