Woke up ready to go this morning. It's wonderful what 8 good hours of sleep will do for you. A nice easy morning watching the birds and the squirrels outside the window. It's also nice to see the locals doing their daily routine. The middle aged lady walking her little 'poofy' dog down the road, stopping at every tree, bush and dirt clod to sniff. Or the two older guys out for their daily constitutional. Fun.

   This afternoon it was time to dig the new bike out and take a short ride. The bike works fine, my butt, not so much. Even now it feels like I've spent days atop some broken down horse that has nothing better to do in this world than to make my backside sore. It'll get better eventually, but it may take a week or two before I'm use to it.

     Went into town this evening for a night at the theatre. The Hippodrome was doing the play 'King O' the Moon'. Basically a sequel to a play they did, and I saw, last year called 'Over the Tavern', it follows one families life as they move from the 50's on into the 60's. Set against the backdrop of the Apollo 11 flight to the moon, the show catches up with all of the characters from last year. The older brother is now married and has a wife who is 5 months pregnant. He is due to ship out for Vietnam the next day. The younger brother has run away from the seminary because he is starting to have doubts about the church now. The sister is married to a model train nut who hasn't been out of the basement for 3 years and the youngest brother, who is mentally challenged, has just been promoted from making bags to making cardboard box's. Their abusive father died three years ago and now his best friend and business partner wants to marry their mom. So with all of that going on you can see that there is a ton of material to work from and this team of actors does a wonderful job of bringing it all together. I liked it.

    Need to hit the rack earlier than usual tonight. A friend from Colorado is down here in Florida visiting one of her sons and daughter-in-law and I am to meet them over in St Augustine tomorrow for lunch. So it will be an early morning for me tomorrow. Will see after lunch whether I'll go ahead and drive over to Tampa afterwards for the contra dance in the evening. Yes it is a long way, but via the highway, it is actually only a few minutes longer than driving straight back to the trailer. Of course there is that two hour drive to do after the dance, but hey, I'm retired

     Actually got up and moving at a respectable time this morning. Respectable being anytime after 7:00 am and before 10:00. So 8:30 fit in there very well today. Still took my time doing breakfast and reading the comics before doing dishes again and getting a shower. Needed to do some outdoor trailer stuff today, but that only took an hour or so. All of it is just routine stuff, but since a few people have asked me what it is like to do what I'm doing I thought that maybe it would be nice to give a fuller description on some of this stuff so that they can all see that it isn't all just going out and having fun. The rest of you can just skip down to the pictures.

   So first on the list was emptying all of the tanks on the trailer. My particular trailer layout has 3 of these tanks. Two of them are near the mid point of the trailer. The forward most one is for the shower and vanity sink and is about 45 gal's of 'grey water'. The next one is the nearly 50 gal 'black water' tank for the toilet. They both drain out a single mainline just in front of the port side (left) wheels and have separate gate valves for each tank. Now understand that I am in a private campground that actually has sewer hook ups, and I have run my own main sewer connection line from the trailer over to the inlet pipe they have, so you may be wondering why I need to go 'empty' them when you would think I could just open the slide gates and just let them drain all the time. The one thing most people don't realize though is that when you flush the toilet the liquid part always outruns the solids. So pretty soon you would have this huge clog somewhere along the line because there wasn't enough liquid in one use to carry it all away. So what you learn to do is to hold it in your tank for a few days and then open up the black water tank valve first and let as much of it run out as will. Once it starts to slow down you can open up the grey water tank and not only help to flush it all the rest of the way down but that the venturi effect will also help pull the rest of the stuff in the black water tank out. Once empty you just close all the valves again and wait until it needs to be emptied again or because you are leaving.

    Now I also have another 45 gal grey water tank in the back of the trailer that drains the kitchen sink. Once I'm done up front I disconnect my line and run it to the back connection point and drain that one out also, further cleaning out my own connecting line along the way. Not a very romantic thing to have to do, but very necessary if you want to keep everything working well, and believe me, the last thing you want is to have problems with your plumbing.

    Once the tanks are drained and closed back up I usually end up having to re-level the trailer a little bit. With all of the tanks close to being full there is nearly 1,200 additional lbs on the frame and wheels. With a couple days worth of rain one side or the other often sinks a bit into the ground. Again, not hard to do, but something you want to check once in a while.

    Finally today, it was time to check the batteries. My trailer has two 12v deep cycle ones up front that run the electrical system when I'm not plugged into shore power. Considering that they are both close to being at least 8 yrs old I'm kind of surprised that they haven't quit on me yet. But I keep an eye on them and keep them topped up with distilled water and check the connections. I didn't do it today, but next time I'll need to pull all the connections off and clean them up again. I also need to pull one terminal off and put a new one on at some point as there is an intermittent short in it that sometimes effects my electric jack. Right now I can get by with jiggeling it though.

    So that was all the stuff I needed to do today. After that the day was free to go do other more fun things. So this afternoon was 'Boys Night Out At The Movies' day. Bullet to the Head with Sly Stallone was the movie choice of the day. Actually pretty good Guys Night Out fare considering. A bit of a plot, but not to much, and plenty of gratuitous sex and violence.

    Went and bought a new bicycle after getting done with the movie. It's only been more than a year since I backed my last one into a post while putting the trailer into a really tight spot in a park in Tennessee. So just a little bit of procrastination on my part. Not a very expensive bike really, but I think it will do what I wanted a bike for, which is basically just something to ride on roads or trails for a few miles. Will have to check it all out tomorrow after I dig my helmet and other bike related gear out of the back of the truck.

   Talked to a few friends in cold and snowy country this afternoon also. They all seem to be doing okay but I am certainly glad I'm not back there with them. Brrrr!

   Finally; made some more soup this evening, Chicken and vegetable this time. Tasted good to me for some reason, just needed some hot, home made bread to make it perfect. Didn't have any though.

    Here are a few more pictures from my day over in St Augustine with my sister and her husband.

St Augustine Florida - Feb 18, 2013   

The first Presbyterian church built in St Augustine. This is also one of my favorite structures. I love the copper roof with it's green patina and the Moorish arches and details. It fits in very well with Henry Flagler's Hotel. ( see photo's from yesterday)

One of my friends thought it looked more like a mosque than a Presbyterian church.... and it certainly does have a middle eastern flair to it.

Primarily built using cast-in-place concrete it is interesting to note that they left the form lines on instead of grinding them off and that they actually give the impression that the main material is cut and dressed stone.

One last photo as the sun is starting to go down.

The building that is now used as the church offices.

Give them enough moisture and sunlight and plants will grow just about anywhere.

   

This is the first Baptist Church in St Augustine. Henry Flagler cut a deal with this congregation giving them the land the church is on as well as the money to build the church if they would meet a couple of his conditions. First off they would have to trade him a piece of ground he needed in order to build his hotel on. Secondly they would have to build the church, complete, in no more than a year and third, they could never have a bell in their church. They apparently met all of them.

 

Once owned by a rich friend of Henry Flagler, this home was finally bought sometime in the 40's or 50's, I don't remember when, and turned into the very first 'Ripley's Believe It Or Not' Museum.

The cross in the background marks the spot where the very first mass was said on the American Continent. It also marks the location of the very first European settlement on these shores in 1513. That was when Juan Ponce de Leon landed with 5 of the 13 ships he had set out with. Of course the native people had only beaten him here by 3,000 +/- years, but hey, who's counting.

A nice oak lined road that evidently shows up in a lot of movies set in the south. It is a whole lot prettier than this photo shows.

This is the wall surrounding the site of the Fountain of Youth. Made up of pretty much just oyster shells and concrete mortar, It seems that it is more resilient than it would first appear to be.

 

A closer view of the wall and all of the oyster shells it contains.

 

One of the original gates into the town of St Augustine. This one would of been located in the outer wall, or redoubt, surrounding the fort and part of the town. It was saved from the wrecking ball by a group of women who belonged to the 'Daughters of the Revolution' who 'occupied' the site until the city fathers finally gave up their plans to destroy them and left them to the care of those women.

In an old part of the original town of St Augustine you have the oldest wooden school house in the U.S.

And finally.... just a restaurant located out in the bay. Haven't ever had a chance to eat here, but one of these days.

   Really not a whole lot going on today. It was raining this morning so there was no real reason to get up early. Slept in a bit and then had a pretty normal morning. Breakfast, the comics, the crossword all while listening to NPR news.

    Picked up the trailer some and got the dishes done before taking a shower. This afternoon was spent reading and then taking a nice long walk around here in McIntosh. Clear, but windy and a bit cooler than it has been. Did some banking stuff and other paperwork, but otherwise it has been pretty quiet.

    Downloaded the camera and sorted through a bunch  of pictures I took while over in St Augustine a week or so ago. A few of them are posted below and it is likely that there will be a few more tomorrow if I can get to them in time.

A day in St Augustine Florida - Feb 18, 2013 

 

One of my all time favorite buildings, this is the first of Henry Flagler's hotel's in St Augustine. One of the first buildings to be constructed out of cast-in-place concrete the architech used the lines left by the wooden forms to give the impression of cut stone. Along with the red brick and tile and painted wood details it is a very beautiful building.

The original hotel was sold some time in the 40's-50's and turned into a Liberal Arts Collage for students from around the world. It looked like the kind of place I would of liked to have gone to.

Everything about the design is stylish.

 

The original smoke stack for the boilers. Even it was designed to add to the beauty of the building. The boilers produced enough hot water that this hotel became the first one in the U.S. to have hot and cold running water in each room, as well as hot water heat. Henry Flagler also contracted with Thomas Edison to create a steam driven electrical system that allowed this hotel to also become the first to have electric lights in each room.

 

The Catholic Church spire near downtown St Augustine.

Influenced by the style and architecture of the Flagler Hotel this is the Wells Fargo Building in downtown St Augustine.

Another view of the tower from the plaza in the middle of town.

 

One last view of the Wells Fargo Building.

Known as the 'Bridge of Lions' because of the two stone lions at one end of the causeway. The bridge links the town of St Augustine with Anastasia Island.

One of the stone lions at the end of the bridge. Each lion has it's own name, but I have no idea what they are.

One last view of the Bridge of Lions showing the drawbridge in the center.

One last note for the day; it seems that my blog has now been seen by people in 30 different countries. Thanks to all of you who check in once in awhile. Please pass on the web address to anyone who may be interested and please... don't be afraid to make comments about it if you want. Don't worry, I have no way of knowing who you are unless you tell me yourself. 

 

   Cloudy and rainy for most of the day today. After 3 days of hard dancing it was nice to just hang out, rest the feet and catch up on the sleep I was missing. Tomorrow will be soon enough to get back into some other type of outdoor stuff. Today was nice to read, nap and watch an Elvis movie.

   Bought a pound of lentils the other day while at the store so it seemed like a good day to cook up a big pot of lentil soup. Sauteed a big old onion and some carrot, added in a bunch of turkey ham and a hot braut that was hanging around the fridge and then a couple of cloves of garlic. Would of been nice to have some chicken stock to add but made do with 6 cups of water and a whole bunch of appropriate herbs. Cook it up for about 30 mins and then add in a couple handfuls of fresh spinach, simmer and then eat two bowlfulls for lunch and another for dinner. Yum! Still a couple more meals worth left in the fridge, but it'll get eaten in the next day or two. I think a bowlfull along with a hot grilled cheese sandwich sounds good if it is still raining tomorrow at noon.

    The photo's below are the last from the week of dancing on St Croix. Will have to go out and hunt up some thing else to take pictures of next.

Dancing on St Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands - Feb 2013

You would think that a week long contra dancing vacation in the Caribbean would generate at least a few dancing pictures. Interestenly enough I generally dance most of the time instead of taking photo's. But I did get a few daytime pictures of the dance tent and some of the people there. This is the tent where we would dance every night. The portable wooden dance floor is set up and taken down every year and is laid with rubber supports under the whole thing. The crew that sets up and takes down everything seems to have it all down to a science.  

I think this is the Friday afternoon dance that we did so we would have the night off to go downtown to the 'Jump Up' street fair. I heard from George that the weekend was full this year so somewhere between 150-175 people either dancing or as part of the band or cooking staff.

Most of us like dancing at night better than anytime during the day. It's a bit cooler at night and the sea breeze seems to blow a bit better. But as you can see a little heat doesn't stop us, there were still enough dancers for a full four lines.

The band 'Wild Asparagus'. I've danced to this band many, many times over the past few years and it always seems to hit me that they are much better than I ever remember. An amazing group of talented musicians, they seem to be able to write at least one new dance tune everyday they are there. Over the years they have created many wonderful nuggets with a lot of them having a hint of island music in them. Note that George Marshall is also a part of the band, and often plays with them when he isn't calling.

A few of the dancers.

Our leader, George, explaining some dance move before queuing up the band.

You can always tell contra dancers.... they're the ones with the huge smile on their faces while they are dancing. You just can't help yourself.

One last photo for the week. This is the dining tent where we would all come and eat dinner, and a few other meals, together. Located just outside the pool area at Sugar Beach Resort it was wonderful to eat wonderful food with all your dance friends, both old friends and new. Thanks to everyone who made it such a wonderful week.... I can't wait for it to happen again next year.

Good mornin', good mornin'... it's great to stay up late.

Good mornin', good mornin' to you!  

 Woke up early this morning considering it was after two last night when I finally made it to bed. Had just enough time to shower, get dressed and grab a bite to eat before heading back into town for the last bit of dancing.

    It started at 11:00 and 'rocked' until it was finally over at 2:00 this afternoon. Like most Sunday dances this was some of the best dancing of the weekend. The band was certainly hot playing some tunes that were certainly on the rock-jazz-blues side of things. They had one tune they played that I decided sounded like Louisiana 'Swamp' music, if there ever was such a thing. Very interesting tune and a whole lot of fun to dance to. My only regret is that I didn't get to dance with every one I really wanted to dance with. But that is normal for a dance weekend also.

   I should mention that both of our callers this weekend, Dana and Andy, did a remarkable job, especially on today's dances. They pulled out some real gems that weren't to difficult, (because we're all brain dead by this time), but still fun and interesting to dance too. Seems hard to believe that it is all over already. The hardest part is in knowing that I won't be seeing some of these people until I come back again next year. On the other hand, I already know that I'll be seeing a few of them at a dance somewhere in the near future.

    Went and had a bite to eat after helping clean up some after the dance. Felt good to sit down finally, but it was kinda hard to get back up again. Needed to go get some grocerys I had forgotten the other day. Basically some more english muffins and another bottle of honey. While wandering around though I found a great DVD to buy. It had 5 real classic movies on it all for $10. So since I had been dancing my little feet off, and because it was raining by the time I got back to the trailer, I opted to put  one of my all time favorites, 'Singin' In The Rain', on again and watch it this evening. I still think this movie has some of the best dancing sequences of all time in it, especially some of the duets with Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor. Of course Debbie Reynolds is no slouch either, but who can forget the scene with Gene and Cyd Charisse. I mean, that women had legs that went all the way up to her armpits. Whoee!

   I leave you tonight with a few more pictures from the St Croix week.... they are nearly done and then I'll get onto something else. Tonight the show some scenes from the day my friend and I visited the fort in Christiansted.

Fort Christiansted on the island of St Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands - Feb 9, 2013

From inside the fort looking up at the 2nd floor where the officers were quartered.

Near the fort, and under it's protection was the customs house. This is where all the goods exported and imported were assessed of value so that they could be taxed. On the right in this picture was another government building where goods would be impounded, or stored, until the tax had actually been paid. It was also the scene of slave sales back when the island allowed slavery. In the far background is the steeple from the first Lutheran church ever built on the island, because you know, slavery is a good Christian ideal.

Looking out at the door from the dungeon, or prison cells, underneath a portion of the floor. In addition to the heavy, locked metal door there was also another heavy trap door that was lowered and locked at night. You can believe that no one escaped once incarcerated unless they had outside help.

A view of the main room in the dungeon. Doesn't look to bad with all that light, but the window use to be about 1/4 that size and was also the only ventilation for the room. I can't imagine what it must of been like in mid summer. Along each wall are rusted spots where the leg irons use to be located. Inmates would be chained down in a sitting position for years at a time. No baths, no clean clothes and if lucky a communal bucket that might be emptied once a day. If you were good you at least had some light during the day. Do something bad or piss off a guard and they would simply throw you in 'The Hole', a lightless, airless room off of this one, with a solid metal door to lock you in. On a more interesting note, it is neat to notice how they used arches in the ceiling to increase the strength of the structure.

Nope... not another part of the prison. This was actually where the enlisted men lived. All of their gear and clothing would of been contained in one wooden trunk at the foot of their bed.

What remains of the enlisted men's latrine. (toilet). This room was located at the far wall of the fort closest to the bay. This made it easy for the tide in the harbor to come in twice a day a wash everything 'away'. The officer's latrine was on the 2nd floor of course, and directly over this one. Just another reason why it is always better to be an officer instead of  an enlisted man. (Something I failed to think of a long time ago)

Just a standard open air window. I like this photo because it gives you an idea of how thick the walls are. This fort was never captured by force while it was occupied. It was however surrendered several times over the years.

A view of the armory where they kept hand weapons and worked on broken pieces. On the right are the soldiers flint lock rifles with bayonets. On the rack are all the tools needed to service and load one of the forts many cannons. On the top of the rack are devices for loading preformed bags of powder into the end of the cannon. Once a cannon ball, shot, was placed in behind it the whole was rammed down the throat using the rammers on the 2nd tier. The little corkscrew device was used to pull burning or burnt wadding and the remains of powder bags out of the mouth as well as pulling whole shot out once in a while. The bottom tier holds sponges. These were well wetted with water and run down the interior of the cannon after each shot to cool the interior of the barrel, as well as to extinguish any still burning wadding. Many a soldier ruined his whole day when he put a new bag of powder down the throat before everything was cool and extinguished.

A view of the fort at dusk from the deck of the Roseway.

One last view of the fort. I really like the lighting on this one.

  I want to leave you tonight with a quote I found in one of the books I have recently been reading. Seems to make a lot of sense to me in so many ways.

 

The Pessimist complains about the wind; the Optimist expects it to change; The Realist adjusts the sails.

 

William Arthur Ward

   It's after 2:00 in the morning already, so this will most likely be a brief post. The weekend dance here in Gainsville started last night and it has taken up a lot of my time when I haven't been sleeping, eating or trying to get my feet to feel like dancing some more.

    Last night was wonderful of course. The dance started at 8:00 with a semi local band  called Deux Francois. About 6 people in it, they played some great tunes that were a lot of fun to dance to. The dance was sold out so about 175 people for the weekend. Not all of them arrived on Friday of course, but that was okay as there was barely room to dance with all the ones who did show up. Five full lines of people for most of the night. It was very aerobic and quite sweaty right from the start. Lot's of people that I know and have danced with before so it was a lot of fun for me.

    The Syncopaths played the 2nd half of the dance it it seemed like the whole dance mood went up another notch or two. Great music and some really fun partners for those dances. By the end of the evening I was pretty wiped out and ready to go back to the trailer for some rest.

    I just hung out at the trailer today catching up on my sleep and taking it easy. Went in this evening and listened to the concert put on by the Syncopaths. They just seem to get better and better every time I see them. The evening dance started then at 8:00 and except for a short intermission half way through it was a solid 3 hours of dancing. Met a few new women dancers this evening as they came up and asked me to dance. I try to dance with who ever asks me first if I don't have some one else in mind for that dance. And I try not to do to much advanced booking unless I really want to dance with someone and I know I'll never get the chance otherwise. But most of the time if I book ahead I end up forgetting about it and that ain't cool either.

    There was an after dance party tonight after we were all done dancing. It was at a couples house close to the dance venue so quite a few people went over and stayed awhile. Lot's of fun talking to  a few people that there never seems to be enough time to talk to otherwise. But now it's late and I really need to pop a couple ibuprofen and get some sleep. The photo's tonight are flower and tree pictures from the St Croix dance week. Enjoy!

Flowers, trees and other plants from St Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands - Feb 2013   

 

 

 

Someone told me that this palm is known as the Christmas Palm because of the red and green fruit that look sort of like ornaments. I just thought it looked neat.

I have no idea what most of these flowers and plants are called, so you are all pretty much on your own.

So the trick question on the island is how many different flower colors does the plant in this photo and the one before come in, as you see dozens of different variations of it all over the place. The answer of course is that there is only one color of flower.... white! The flower is the little tiny bit hidden in amongst all the different colored bracts that the plant comes in.  

It's kind of neat to see all these plants that are indoor house plants back where I come from growing wild outside down here.

The banana tree right next to the dining tent had a stalk of banana's growing on it again this year.

This is a bread fruit tree. It is interesting how the buds can grow right out of the side of a main branch at times. Bread fruit are still quite a staple here on the island.

 

 

This one looks like it might be an orchid when you get really close up, but I don't think it is related at all.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a close up of the flower in the previous photo. I think it looks like something out of a science fiction movie.

Still one of my favorite palms on the island.