TOO HOT!

I never thought I would say it is too hot....but he last couple of weeks in Punta Gorda on the gulf was hot & sticky. I can't believe I am glad we are a little further north in Ocala, Florida but the weather is more comfortable....80's during the day and 50's at night...less humidity...aaaahhhh! Not much to report from Punta Gorda. Went into Fort Meyers, Pine Island, Cape Coral a couple of times, mainly to eat & shop!. Some interesting pictures:


This is a huge wood carving that sits in front of
the Punta Gorda Chamber of Commerce.
This Whispering Giant "Calostimucu" is an effigy
to the first people inhabiting this area. There
is a time capsule in the base.


Mural of the First City Council
on the wall in front of the Punta Gorda
City Hall

On the road from Pine Island there is a stretch of telephone poles that someone, either was artistically inspired or didn't have anything better to do, painted various whimsical pictures about 8 feet from the ground.


Dragonflies


Smiley face with sunglasses on one side and pink
sun on the other.


This is my favorite one...little froggies. A little
blurred - had to take it while we were rolling.


Unique architecture of condo's in Fort Meyers.

We are in Ocala for a couple of days to visit with Sue & Tom. We will then work our way to Red Bay Alabama...yes...to have the satellite worked on...again.

Hope all is well!

Okeechobee Florida

We have been in Okeechobee Florida for 4 weeks now. We love the RV park. It advertises as a 5 star RV resort and it is. It is a gated community with 4 lakes/ponds, swimming pool and spa, library, card room, a really nice fitness center and a calendar jammed with activities. It is an ownership complex, where they sell the spots for $55,000 - 77,000. Although they do offer to give you a tour when you first arrive, it is really so they can give their sales pitch. But after that they don't bother you.

It may be something we do in the future, but it won't be in Okeechobee. Okeechobee has a population of 6,975 when the snow birds aren't here and that is way too small of a town for us. Ron tried to take me out on my birthday for a seafood dinner at their "best" restaurant. We got there just before 8 pm and was told they were so busy that day that they ran out of food! What restaurant runs out of food? Only in Okeechobee!!

But we have participated in their pool parties, hand & foot, Texas hold 'em, bingo a few dinners with entertainment and have watched them play Minute to Win It. They also have bocce, pentaque, sand volleyball, tennis courts etc.




View from front of coach of pond and sea crane.


Pond with 2 fountains and one 4 ft resident alligator....
we haven't had the pleasure of meeting him/her yet.



Some of the most beautiful sunsets we have seen.
Taken from our site.








Ok...that's enough sunsets.

We attended the Re-Enactment of the Battle of Okeechobee one weekend and the Brighton Seminole Tribe annual Rodeo another weekend. This was only our second Rodeo. They attract some of the big names in bull riding, roping and barrel racing. We went with friends, Chuck & Carol from Alabama who we met at our last campsite in Jupiter. It took place on the Seminole Reservation and they had a native festival, entertainment and carnival type food booths.... funnel cakes...yummy!


Opening Ceremony



Clown


Bronco Bull Rider

Attended one St. Louis Cardinal training session and our first game. The training takes place on 6 fields and you just walk between them to see all of the players and the various drills.


Roger Dean Stadium...spring training location for St. Louis Cardinals and Florida Marlins.



Pujols getting ready for live batting session.
He and Holliday are the only 2 who do not have
jerseys with their names on them.....guess they
figure everyone knows who they are!


Molina...he just looks like he really enjoys his job.





Tony LaRussa while signing an autograph for me...
please, SMILE just once Tony.


Mark McGwire & friends.

Stay tune for more from exciting Okeechobee....

Hope all is well!

Yes, we are still alive and well in Jupiter, Florida.

And yes…we are great aunt and uncle again. Our nephew, Steve who lives in Indiana had a baby girl – Dahlia Anne on January 16.


Dahlia Anne Scott


The happy parents...Steve and Karen

Another visit to Indiana is a must to see her!

The campground in Jupiter is average …the best part is there are no trains, planes or barking dogs . They have quite a few activities such as pizza parties, ice cream socials, bingo, shuffleboard, luncheons, card making etc. We have both won at bingo and Texas Hold ‘em….they will probably be glad to see us leave. Every Friday night they have entertainment….A tribute to Neil Diamond, a Female singer impersonator, DJ’s etc.

These people really enjoy this lifestyle. They come back year after year and say they have more friends here than they do at home. Most are snowbirds and still own property. However, we did meet one couple who have been full-timing for 20 years….wow.

Shortly after our arrival, we once again got the inkling to try some geocaching in this area. There is a really nice park, Riverbend Park, close to our campsite with several caches to be found. After a ½ mile walk and with great enthusiasm we chose to enter a very heavy thicket of short palm trees and bushes to find our first “treasure”. We followed our GPS about 200 yards into this jungle-like area.

Once at the destination we lost our GPS signal and after looking for 1/2 hour we couldn't find the cache, but realized we also couldn’t find our way out. Mild panic began to set in and we both wished we were better scouts and the geocaching badge was available back then. Eventually we stumbled upon the correct path to guide us out into the open area. We were never so happy as to find our car again We might have to bring some yellow ribbons with us next time to mark our trail. IF….I can get Ron to geocache again.

We have received the following souvenirs declaring the states we have completed the most finds. These are awarded by geocaching.com.







We drove to Fort Lauderdale for a day. Now I can see why the college kids like to go there for spring break. There is a beautiful, large, beach on one side of the road and several bars, restaurants and shops on the other side. It looks like a really fun place to hang out as a beach bum.

Bob & Sandi, friends we met since rving were in the area getting ready for a 60+ day cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale, so we met them for lunch and had a great time getting better acquainted. They introduced us to a good restaurant - Park Avenue-yummy BBQ.

We found a church that has a Teen Mass on Sunday evening. I really like the upbeat atmosphere…probably more than Ron-the traditionalist.

We bought our tickets to 6 Cardinal Spring Training games and are looking forward to seeing the birds play. I bought a Build-A-Bear when we were in St. Louis last fall and have it dressed with a Yadier Molina uniform. Do you think I could get the real Yadi to sign the cap?


We are leaving Jupiter next week for Lake Okeechobee which means we will have to drive in for all of the games. Lake Okeechobee is about 55 miles from Jupiter. If anyone is coming down for spring training, let us know…maybe we can get together.

Even though we are enjoying our stay in Florida…and especially the weather, we have come to the conclusion that we like the southwest better with all of its beautiful canyons, rivers and hiking trails. So we will probably spend winter 2011 out west.

Hope all is well.

JUPITER ....FINALLY!!

We finally made it to Jupiter after spending 6 days at Lazydays for a 45 minute fix. But we now have satellite and Ron is a happy camper again. I wanted to get to Jupiter to decorate for Christmas. My family always put the tree up and decorated the house right after Thanksgiving. When Ron was growing up they did not get their tree until Christmas eve...so he wasn't as anxious about the delay.


Our exterior decorations.





Our interior decorations. Same tree as last year. Every year
since we have been married, we buy a dated ornament. This year
is the shell cross int he middle front


These stockings were from John, Kandy, Ali and Jack last year, thus the Texas Cowboy Boot/stocking. We found the perfect spot to hang them.

The campground is okay...not as nice as the ones in Naples and Marathon but we are on a concrete pad, the people are nice and I won at bingo last night. What more could you ask for?

We will be here until February 1 and plan on spending some time in Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale.

If I don't blog again before Christmas, we wish all a very Merry Christmas!!

Hope all is well.

Naples to Marathon to Naples...we're heading the wrong direction!

From Naples we drove to Marathon, FL alittle over 200 miles. Marathon is located in the Keys, between Key Largo and Key West. Took one day and drove into Key West. A place I have always wanted to see...thanks to Jimmy Buffet. I was somewhat disappointed. The majority of the shops along famous Duval Street were too touristy, selling T-shirts and souvenirs. But if you wanted to eat and drink you did not have to walk far. We walked Duval Street and Mallory Square and ate lunch at Louies Backyard. Also visited the site of the southernmost point of the Continental USA only 90 miles from Cuba. It is such a popular site that you have to wait in line for your turn to take a picture.




Pretty Pelican. It's fun to view different birds than what
we are use to seeing. We've seen blue herons, egrets,
ospreys, seagulls and others we can't identify.





Around Marathon the Christmas decorations are dolphins and lighthouse. Still can't believe its only 2 weeks away.






We also spent a day in Key Largo and another day in Florida City. Everyone we told in Florida that we were coming to the Keys would ask....

so you fish...NO....
so you boat....NO.....
so you like to eat and drink YES.

And they were right. There aren't very many beaches & they are very shallow. There are only a few golf courses and most are private.

The prices in Florida are high but extremely high in the Keys. Gas is $3.12, restaurant are outlandish. Ron got a small bowl of lobster chowder that cost $17.50 not to mention the cost of the campgrounds. It's alittle better as you move
further north.

Our campground (RV resort which they call them, I guess so they can charge more) was great. It was small with only 36 sites but from our spot you could see the ocean. They had a nice area along the water with lounge chairs and a tiki hut. The drive through the keys is beautiful. There is only one highway in and out bordered on one side by the ocean and the other side the gulf.

We also met a vary nice couple - Tom & Barb from Michigan who introduced us to a new game - Sequence. We had a couple of "game" nights then went to dinner together our last night in Marathon. We really enjoyed their company.


Tom, Barb, Ron and me at Castaways.



Our original plans when we left Marathon was to drive to Jupiter and spend the next
7 weeks there. Instead we are heading back to Seffner to the dealer to have the satellite worked on again. Hopefully, we'll be out of there by the end of next week. I want to put some holiday decorations up but don't want to until we are settled.

Had a 2 night stop over in Naples and will hit the road again tomorrow.

Hope all is well!

Joan & Ron

BEACHES...BEACHES...BEACHES...LOVE IT!

We are still in Naples Florida enjoying the warm weather, blue skies & beaches. We celebrated Thanksgiving with a dinner organized by the campground. They furnished the turkey & ham and everyone brought a side dish. Plenty of food and we met some nice people. We've frequented a couple of beaches and played one round of golf. We also drove to Sanibel Island and Captiva. Sanibel has been noted as having the best beaches for shelling. Did some shopping and ate lunch at the Mucky Ducky on Captiva Island. Foods ok, but the best part is sitting outside with the ocean breezes.



Shells on Sanibel Islands Bowmans Beach
A little hard to walk on, but a great
spot if your a collector


Darn!!! They ruined our plans.

The real estate agents here hold 3-4 open houses a week during prime time, so we had to go to one. Beautiful 5 bedroom, 4.5 bath home with the entire back wall of floor to ceiling windows for a view of the ocean and a price tag of $5,750,000. Just a little out of our price range! We thought the condo's we viewed in Naples were expensive at $850,000. I guess the housing recession in Florida we hear about didn't hit this area.

After spending the day worshiping the sun at Naples Municipal Beach and Pier, we went back to enjoy a glass of wine while watching the sunset. An awesome sight.


Naples Pier during the day. Lots of fisherman
trying to catch sting rays and snook.



Sunset at Naples Pier.....Going



Going


Going





Gone...as the ocean swallows the sun.
Another day in Naples




Enjoying a glass of wine on the pier watching
the sunset....until the Naples police came by
to tell us they did not allow alcohol on the
pier....oh well.

Hope all is well!

AN UNIVITED GUEST...

We finally made it to Naples. We got everything done on the coach and by Saturday around 11 am we hit the road. We lost 2 days of our stay here, so we are going to have to squeeze everything we want to do in 12 days.

Woke up this morning to find our electricity running off of our batteries instead of the shore pole. The office sent someone to open the camp electric box only to find a frog had gotten into it and shorted the wiring. After removing the crispy critter, rewiring the box and changing out the 50 amp outlet, we were back in business. This lifestyle is a lot of fun but has it's challenges.


Frog legs anyone? Poor little thing.

We then went on a search for an urgent care facility to have Ron’s elbow examined. For the last couple of months he has experience some pain and swelling in his left elbow. After some home remedies that didn't seem to help we thought it was time to seek professional help. Found a clinic and 1.5 hours later Ron's elbow was lanced & injected with cortisone. Hopefully it will feel better, because they have some beautiful golf courses down here.

It is hard to get into the mood for Christmas when the temperature is in the 80's and your running around in shorts and flip flops. So to try to get into the holiday spirit we went to the Festival of Lights on historic 3rd street. It was a nice event but very crowded. The event featured several choirs, bands and performers along with a small parade and the lighting of the tree. After the tree was lit "snow" was floating from every lamp post. The crowd went crazy, pretending it was real snow. The residents love it because this is the only snow they ever see. The visitors from the northern states were so glad this wasn't the real stuff.


Some of these people take this event seriously
and dress in their holiday digs. Have no idea
who this lady is, but she doesn't look too happy.
Lots of snobs down here.


Streets lined with lit palm trees. The ceremonial tree
they lit was a regular tree but I couldn't get a clear picture


"Snow"


"Snow" and snow machine. You can see the
jug of soapy bubbles in the lamp pots.



Ron had to stand under the snow, like all of the other kids.

Hope all is well!