Have to admit that it was almost boring here today. This was the 4th morning of waking up to cold temperatures outside and rain on the roof. By cold I mean it never got much above 40 today. So I spent most of the day inside, just as I did for most of yesterday. Some of that was taken up with reading various books and magazines, some in cleaning up the place a little bit and some in watching nearly endless YouTube videos about anything I thought might be of interest. Yesterday it was more movies about how to prune trees, mostly fruit trees, and bushes. While today I watched a whole series on how to safely cut down trees, cook chicken fricassee, and how to install DCC sound decoders in a couple HO scale locomotives I bought long before DCC was so prevalent.


    However; yesterday I ended up escaping for a little while in order to finally go and track down a 2014 calendar for the trailer. Found one in the Barnes and Noble store down in Ocala that should work. It is another sailboat one and it cost less than $5 since it is nearly February already.  Also went and bought one more floor rug for the trailer while out and about. This one is only 2'x3', but it fits very well at the foot of the bed and kind of fills in where the other rug stopped.


  I also had to go out again this afternoon as I was starting to go a little stir crazy in here. Stopped by the local Tractor Supply store first, mainly because it was the first store of that type I passed, and just wandered the aisles looking at all the cool stuff they have. Had hoped to pass a Home Depot or Lowes along the way also, but alas, no such luck. I went on to the local Winn Dixie after that and did some grocery shopping. Didn't need a lot of stuff, but figured I might as well get it all while I was out. Besides which, it was still raining.


    Tonight has been pretty much more of the same as I said. More videos on the computer and more reading. Did watch a little bit of news and watched the latest taped segment of the Big Bang Theory. It was a hoot of course! It is suppose to clear up and start to get warmer tomorrow sometime. I sure hope so because I am really getting tired of being cooped up like this. There are also all those 'looks' I've been getting as I walk around in my cut-off shorts and sandals with my jacket on. Probably looks  dorky, but I can't stand the idea of having to put on long pants while in Florida.

   Started out to be another wonderful day here weather wise. Nice blue sky this morning and just a little breeze to keep the humidity at bay. I had a nice easy morning just hanging out doing my usual routine, the only difference was maybe in reading a little more than usual.


    It was time to get going after lunch however, as there were a couple of errands I wanted to do in Gainsville today. First on the list was going and finding some new rugs for the floors in the trailer. My standard trailer came built with a pretty much white linoleum sheet over the whole floor system. It's easy enough to clean, and when it is clean, it looks pretty decent with the fabric and cabinet colors they picked out in the factory. It does get rather cool to the old tootsies most nights however, so I have gotten use to having a couple narrow runner type rugs in the living area and hallway as well as some smaller area rugs around the bed and at the back entry. Unfortunately, the ones I had, came with the trailer when I bought it, so they are now at least 7? years old, if not a total of 10 years. So they were beginning to really show their age after having beaten them so many times and actually washing them a few. Long story short, it was time for new rugs. Ran into Gainsville and found just what I wanted in a light brown this time, and picked up two 2' x 5' runners and a 24"x 36" entry rug. They look nice and the only problem is that I should of bought one more runner rug to go across the bottom of the bed. May have to do that on another day.


    Once that was done it was off to my now favorite Mexican restaurant in Gainsville. Once again I forget the name of it having no further need to remember it now that I know where it is. But I'll try to remember it next time I go there and write it down because it would be nice to recommend it to any one who passes through here. So today I continued my tradition of going down the burrito listing and trying something new. I did the carna asada (grilled steak) first, Chivel (goat) next and today was Lingue (beef tongue). Still chicken, scallops and a couple different pork ones yet to go. But today's was very, very good. Haven't eaten tongue for a long time, but I remember that I always liked it in the past, so it tasted just fine. Along with their homemade refried beans and rice and salsa's, both a red chili one and a green tomateo, it was delicious.


    One last errand was to go over to the Barnes and Nobel and finally pick up a new calendar for this year. I know I had been in there sometime before Christmas because that is where I picked up some of the ones I gave out as gifts. But low and behold, when I turned into the parking lot the whole store was now empty, bummer! I guess I now need to find out if it just moved somewhere else in the city, or whether or not I need to go somewhere else. I'll bet there is one in Ocala.


    Failed to mention earlier that about the time I climbed into the truck to start this minor adventure, the rain finally started falling. It has been raining like crazy most of the afternoon and early evening, but it has at least slowed down a little bit now. The good news is that the roof leak over the bed now seems to be fixed. Unfortunately, there still seems to be a little leak going on somewhere around the skylight in the shower. There seems to be much less urgency in that one right now, probably because it is in the shower. But it will need to be dealt with also at some point because all that moisture in the roof framing can't be good for things. There is also the point that if I leave the shower curtain open and it rains, one of the drips hits right on the top of the tub and splashes on the floor.


    Just hung out this evening. Watched a couple of past NOVA episodes, read and played on the computer. It is suppose to remain rainy for at least one more day, but there aren't any freezing temperatures forecast for the rest of this storm. Supposedly it will all be done and gone by Thursday morning and the forecast is for sunny skies and temps in the 80's. Already looking forward to that day.

   Just a short post this evening because, well, because it's already way on it's way toward being morning. And really, there isn't all that much to talk about anyway.


    That being said; it was a very nice day again today. I woke up somewhere around 4:00 a.m. this morning with rain hitting the top of the trailer and thought it might be the change in weather they had been predicting. But by morning it had all blown through and the temperature was steadily climbing to the low 70's again with lots of sunshine, not that I'm complaining. It did sound like there is still yet another cold front coming in tonight sometime, so there is really no telling what the temperatures are going to be like tomorrow. As long as there isn't a foot of snow to go along with it though.... I really don't care.


    Still hanging out at the trailer for the most part today. Did go out for a very nice walk late this afternoon and took a bunch of pictures. Need to get them down loaded onto the computer yet, but hope to have some photo's to upload in the next day or two.


   Spent most of the evening watching 'Youtube' videos about all kinds of things that I find interesting. So I watched several on how to build concrete block walls, all kinds of chicken and pig videos, straw bale gardening and more videos on pruning fruit trees and bushes. Not sure if any of it will be of use, but ya never know.


   Need to go into town tomorrow and run a couple of errands and do some grocery shopping. I'm already out of banana's again. May take in a movie if it works out time wise, but it will also depend on what the weather is doing. Either way it should be fun.

    One last day of nice weather before it is suppose to turn off cold and rainy. I spent most of the day just hanging around the trailer and walking around town. It was a nice day to be outside and I spent a little time just straightening the inside of my truck out. I spend so much time in it that sometimes I tend to forget that it shouldn't have two coats, extra socks and shoes and at least a dozen previously read magazines in the back. So I cleaned all of that stuff out and then checked all the fluids and topped everything off that needed it. There's nearly 178,000 miles on it now, and other than a rear window controller, that I still haven't gotten around to fixing, it has had very little go wrong with it since I bought it. I would sure like to keep that record intact, at least until the end of this travel season, if not through next year too.


    Also spent some time wandering around town this afternoon. It is really a nice little hamlet here in the middle of Florida. I like that you can wander the streets and see orange and grapefruit trees in some of the yards as well as several different types of palms. But what I really like here are these absolutely huge live oak trees that seem to be everywhere. I would really like to be able to get a picture of some of these because they are stunning, but I don't have a lens that shoots wide enough angles. There are several trees here that are more than 12 feet in diameter at the base. By the time they spread out they have to be 150'-200' wide and at least 150' tall. I'm talking a tree so big that it holds enough wood for not just a single home, but maybe for a whole block of them. I'll try to get a photo of one before I leave, but I don't think I can back up that far.


    Otherwise I spent the rest of the day reading books and magazines and checking out a few videos on 'Youtube'. It's amazing what you can find, but I was specifically looking for some stuff on model railroads as well as the real things. Will have to look at my schedule again in a couple of weeks and see if I will be able to fit in a visit to some old time live steam railroads and railroad museums that I have been wanting to visit for the last couple of years. Oh, I also took some time to watch another one of my movie videos. This time it was the original animated one, 'Ice Age'. What a hoot!


    Right now though it is past 2:00 in the morning and I need to go to bed. Here are some photo's I took a couple weeks ago when I was in Morgantown WV for the contra dance week they have there between Christmas and New Years. Took a trip over into Pennsylvania one day to see Frank Lloyd Wrights signature home, Fallingwater and then took a side tour on the way back to the resort to stop at Cucumber Falls in Ohiopyle State Park. The lighting that afternoon wasn't all that great and it was snowing, but it was a nice view anyway.

Cucumber Falls in Ohiopyle State Park in Pennsylvania

Dec. 2013

A view of the falls from the trail at the top. This is only a minute or two off the main road, so it is one of the easier waterfalls in the area to access.

Even though it's winter and there is snow on the ground the rhododendrons still had green leaves on them.

Another view from the top.

I liked this view from about half way down the trail.

You can see the little river as it rushes from the falls out towards the Ohiopyle River, which is only a few hundred yards downstream.

One last view.

   Busy, busy day, but no surprise since it was so nice outside for a change. Normal morning of course, get up, eat some breakfast, a bowl of green chili left over from last night, and then some time reading the comics and doing the crossword. Did a sink full of dishes to get the hot water heater to kick on and then went in for a real nice, relatively long, shower. About 3-4 minutes in other words.


    Went south into Ocala first, as I wanted to stop at a hobby shop I knew of there. The idea was to pick up a couple more Code 83 turnouts, or switches as some call them, for my planned HO scale mini railroad layout. But the display there had been picked dry also, except for a couple from the Peco brand that he wanted nearly $50 each. Not wanting them that much, I did find out why Atlas brand track has been in short supply for more than a year. Seems that the company got kicked out of China for some reason two years ago and when they went to set up shop in some other, most likely Asian country, many of the 'dies' they use to cast their track in were destroyed. So they are just now starting to come back on line with some of the new stuff, but in the mean time anything out there is being held really dear. Which explains why my order last August didn't show up before I left in September. Oh well.


    One cool thing is that the owner of the hobby shop there told me that the local model railroad club was holding an open house today, and that it was only about a mile from where I was. So I hopped in the truck and went over there to look at what they had. It turned out to be a very nice HO club layout of about 25'x40' in size. They had several trains running and there were a whole bunch of kids there starring at everything going on. I didn't stay long, but there are always a few things you see that get your mind to going.


    Headed east out of Ocala towards Silver Springs next. I was there a couple of years ago and the word was that they were hoping to sell out to the state and have them turn it into another one of their State Parks. Evidently there isn't enough money of course, so everything has been put on hold, but I am hopeful that one of these days the powers that be will figure out that they are only going to have a certain amount of time to make it happen after which the area will be lost to the public for good. I went in and wandered around some of the trails and walked down to the spring and along the river. Really pretty there this afternoon.


   On east after that and just a short drive out into the Ocala State Forest before turning south and then west again and then back north in order to come back around and into Ocala once again. Rather hungry by that time so I found a local Chipotle's for a bite of late lunch. Haven't eaten at one of those for several months now, so it was nice to once again eat my standard chicken burrito. Yum!


    Got back to the trailer with about an hours worth of sunlight still left so I took a short walk around the RV park and part of the town. The lake here that the RV camp borders finally has water in it again. Two years ago I could hike nearly a half mile out into the lake bed, now there is nearly a foot of water right up to the end of the boat ramp. Still a need for another 5'-6' feet in the whole lake, which is an amount of water I can't even wrap my mind around. But if you had told me even last year that water would be up to the boat ramp again I would of thought you loony.


    The town is still cute and quite, like always. Lots of big live oaks with Spanish moss all over them. There are a couple of houses here that I always like to walk past and look at. One Victorian here is maybe my all time favorite house, although that is a hard one to quantify as my tastes are always changing.


    Read some more this evening, still trying to get through this one Grisham novel that I've been sporadically opening. It's slow going but I'll finish it one of these days. Kind of late right now, but I'm back to my old schedule of staying up late and sleeping in mornings so I think I'll work on a few pictures. Perhaps I'll even get something posted in the next day or two.

   Slow, slow morning today. Woke up to a very cold, for this area, day. About 30 degrees outside at sunrise, which just seemed to mean it was a good idea to go back to sleep for another hour or two. Maybe it would warm up a few degrees by nine or so. It did finally warm up to the mid 50's this afternoon, and with the sun shining, and very little wind, it was nice enough to spend some time outside.


    Drove up the highway a couple of miles and into the south portion of Payne's Prairie State Park. I have camped there several times over the years and one of the nice things about it are all the trails they have wandering through the woods. Nothing particularly remarkable about any of them, but they are all well marked so you aren't likely to get lost, and you are never sure what type of wildlife you might see on any particular day. Today there was a good variety, having seen white tail deer, turkeys and armadillos while wandering through the woods, and then out over the prairie part, there were several pairs of sand hill cranes, a couple of osprey, lots of buzzards and a couple different hawks.


   After a couple of hours of walking around out there I went on into the town of Gainsville and did some grocery shopping. Needed some fresh fruit and veggies and a couple other specific items I wanted for some meals I had planned. One involved a couple different types of peppers as well as a piece of pork of some kind so I bought a small pork roast for that. The other meal needed some boneless/skinless chicken thighs, cremeani (sp) mushrooms and some sour cream.


    So tonight, after I made it back to the trailer, and while the movie, 'Ice Age', was playing in the background, I put together a nice big pot of green chili. Roasted both Problano and Serrano chillies over my gas burners, and then put them in a bag to steam the skins off of them while browning the cut up pork roast in some oil along with some onion and garlic. A few spices, a can of chopped tomatoes, some water and an hour or so on the stove and it was ready to eat with a couple of warmed up tortillas. Tasted pretty good to me and I have enough for maybe two more meals. The other meal with be chicken fricassee, but I don't plan on doing that one for a couple more days yet.


   Read a book and a couple magazines this evening as well as caught up with some news on the computer. The RV place here has free WiFi so at least I don't have to go out all the time to find some. It even works pretty well, although I tried to watch a 'This Old House' video and had trouble waiting for all the pauses while it streamed. Guess I shouldn't complain too much though. Right now I think I'll go see about getting some sleep. It is suppose to be even colder tomorrow morning, down around 25 degrees I heard, so I am glad I have some heaters in the trailer with me.


  

    Off running errands about mid morning yesterday. Headed north and east towards Daytona Beach and of course.... the beach. Actually I headed over there because there is a hobby shop there in town that I wanted to visit. Way back in September, I had stowed a whole bunch of model train track in the trailer with the idea of putting together a small HO switching layout that I could play around with and practice switching box cars to different tracks on. Long story short though, the turnouts, or switches as most people call them, didn't make it to my P.O. Box before I left, so I needed to find 6-7 of them to start building.


 
  Got over there with no problem, even though I took the back roads just to see something different. The hobby shop was rather a small place, they actually specialized on O scale stuff mostly, the next larger scale from mine..... Oops sorry, there is actually an "S" scale in between HO and O. (Maybe too much info I guess). Anyway; they did have some regular HO scale stuff including a little bit of track so I found 3 code 83, #6 turnouts there. Only half the number I'll end up needing eventually, but I probably made the owners day by buying them all up, as it didn't look like there was going to be very many other customers that day.



  That errand only took 15 minutes at the most, so I thought it might be fun to go on over to the Ponce de Leon Lighthouse afterwards. It's been several years since I last visited, so it was fun to wander about for an hour or so and take a look at all the exhibits. Had to make the climb to the top of course.... 203 steps in all, and the legs start to feel it by the time you get to the top. A beautiful day out though, so the view from the top was spectacular. Spent an hour or so on site taking lots of pictures and enjoying the day. After that there was just enough time to head over to one of the beaches and walk on the sand for 40-45 minutes.




   Headed back to the trailer after that as tomorrow was moving day already. So I needed to pack up and get ready for that. Did indeed pack up some of the misc. stuff that was out, but after that there was plenty of time to sit back and watch a movie on the computer. Started in on the Lord of the Rings trilogy a couple days ago, so it was time to watch the 2nd movie of that series, The Two Towers. I have now seen the movies several times since they have come out, and read the books at least 4 times that I can remember before that, so the story is pretty familiar, but it just never seems to get old. The only problem is that at about 3 hours long, it meant not getting to bed until after midnight.


   Was up early this morning anyway. It really doesn't take very long for me to pack up and get on the road any more. I've now done it hundreds of times and even doing it all alone, it still only takes about an hour to put everything away inside, hitch it all up, disconnect everything that needs disconnecting, stop and empty the tanks and get on the road again.


   Today's destination was only going back North and West to the town of McIntosh. Only about 100 miles and 2-3 hours on the road, I was hoping to find a nice spot over there where I can keep the trailer for nearly a month. Other than stopping for an hour long lunch break around noon, it was a pretty uneventful day of driving.


    Pulled into 'Sportsman Cove' in McIntosh around three this afternoon and found that they had plenty of room for me. I have camped here in the past and really enjoyed it as it has felt kind of like a place time forgot. But today it seemed a bit more chaotic to me. Could be that the park is nearly full of long term residents, or that there were 3 dogs barking full blast when I pulled into my site. But I got all set up fine, and my site is right at the end of one row, plus the dogs soon stopped barking and really haven't barked since then.


    I went for a nice walk around town just to re-familiarize myself with what is here, and then came back and made a quick dinner. Have just been hanging out this evening. Finished the last Lord of the Rings movie just a while ago, the good guys won by the way. Probably going to go get some sleep now, I have been feeling in need of a nap all evening so I might as well just hit the hay. Still cold outside and it is suppose to be that way for a couple more days, but at least it was sunny all day today.


  Hope to have some more pictures ready to post in a day or two.

    One more day of nice weather down here in Florida before it turns cold and grey for a couple of days. I was up and out the door and headed for my friend Jan's place before 11:00 a.m. Met up with her and after a couple minutes of discussion decided lunch out at the beach would be a nice way to kill a couple of hours.  We headed north out of Orlando and ended up at New Smyrna Beach where the choice was between a more upscale place overlooking a marina or an 'Old Florida' place over on the inland passageway canal. We ended up at J.D's on the waterway, which turned out to be a wonderful choice.

    A bit run down, maybe even a bit disreputable, J.D's is a funky old place that looked like it would be right up my alley. We secured a nice table out on the dockside, but one that was covered because the wind was picking up and the clouds were rolling in, and sat down for some lunch. Jan ended up with a lunch of crab cake and hush puppies, while I had a crab sandwich and fries. But let me explain about my sandwich; first off it was a 'mound', about a cup and a half, of pure crab meat, stuck on a nice roll, with cheese, lettuce, tomato and onion slices, a little mayo and that's it. It was amazing! Oh, and the fries were good too.

    We had a great time sitting there eating lunch and talking while the rain came in and just poured down on us for a while. So ends any hope of a walk on the beach, but what the heck. Instead we headed back to her place where we sat and talked a bit more before I finally headed off to the trailer.

    A short pause on the way home while I hitched a ride on some free WiFi, but I'm nearly done here so I'm about ready to pack up again and finish up the trip back to the park. It is suppose to clear off this evening and then get really cold for the next couple of days. Really cold! As in, just about freezing by morning, and a high in the low 50's tomorrow. I guess it's better than the blizzard and 6"-10" of snow they are getting north of here. I think I'm ready to go make some hot tea now.  

    Beautiful day here in Florida. Temperature somewhere around 70 degrees with lot's of wonderful sunshine. I unfortunately wasted some of it this morning by sleeping in way to late, but then staying up until 2:30 in the morning will do that to you.

     Finally made it up, had some breakfast/lunch, read the funnies, did the crossword, goofed off, etc. Once the shower was out of the way, and I made a couple phone calls, it was time to get outside and wander around. One of the best, and closest, for me is right next door at Wekiva State Park. A wonderful little place that I have camped at several times. It is always fun to wander around over there looking for deer, turkeys and armadillos, all of which I had a chance to see. Thought about renting a canoe and paddling around for an hour or so, but for some reason that concession wasn't open today. Something that seemed strange on a big holiday weekend. Oh well!

     Needed to go do some grocery shopping afterwards. There wasn't a lot that I needed, mostly just some fresh fruit and veggies, but I also ended up with a couple more cans of refried beans. I have found that I am very fond of my own version of nachos. Actually more of a tostada, but you get the idea of what goes into one. They make a good, quick and easy snack late at night. Might not be the healthiest thing at that time of night, but sometimes I just get tired of bananas or a pear or something.

    Right now I'm sitting at a Micky D's using their WiFi to load up a bunch of pictures, some of which I'll post tonight, and check on email and other stuff. Will head back to the trailer in a little bit and probably spool up another movie. Not sure what yet as there are plenty to choose from. Will let you know tomorrow. For now though enjoy some photo's I took a couple weeks ago while in Morgantown WV. My friend Rima and I took a couple of hours off from dancing to drive over to Pennsylvania and visit what is probably Frank Lloyd Wright's most famous structure, 'Fallingwater'.

A visit to Frank Lloyd Wright's home, Fallingwater - Dec 2013

The 'water' that flows under the house that is 'Fallingwater', Bear Run. This was a beautiful little stream that I heard actually has some pretty nice trout in it. As you can see, it was snowing the day we visited, so some of the photo's will be a bit foggy looking.

The entrance bridge into the home crosses over Bear Run Creek. Around the base of the house are some small areas that were landscaped to form still pools to contrast with the running water of the stream.

Getting close to the front entry of the house. The guides will point out how there will be little sight lines built into the structure to draw your eye outdoors and to distant views. Unfortunately there was a 'No Photo's' inside policy, so I can't actually show you some of the really neat design features FLW came up with. He really was pretty good at this stuff.

Looking down the driveway at the back of the house. You will note how the house was sited so that it felt like it was nestled in amongst the trees and rocks on the mountain side. 

Looking at the west terraces from the rear side of the house. FLW built the house so that the outside area's would be as important, if not more so, than the inside living space. In every room he provided views, and often access, to an outside area with fabulous views. The top terrace, or third floor, was originally a library with visitors bedrooms, but later became the private space of the owners son. The room you can see with all the windows is the main living area.

You can see how the house is tucked in among all the trees and rocks. 

Many of the outdoor terraces are cantilevered out over the water of Bear Run to allow for unobstructed views. I asked the guide about them because I had seen a show on PBS that detailed all the structural rehab that had to happen because Frank didn't listen to his engineers and install enough steel support members. The guides take on it was that it was a minor inconvenience, but I remember it taking nearly a year and over 10 million dollars to fix everything. Sometimes it pays to listen to the boring people I guess.

I liked this view because it makes me wonder how they actually did it. I'm assuming that there are large steel beams and columns securely attached into that rock outcropping that then cantilever out and hold up that terrace. However it was done, it turned out really well and blends in perfectly with the landscape. 

You can start to see how the house sits out over the creek. This east terrace is outside the main living area. The semicircular concrete wall extends inside the house and on the interior opens up onto a set of steps that go down to a platform located right above the water surface. 

Another view of the east terrace where you can see that the interior living area is covered with windows and doors that could be opened up to the outdoors as well as providing easy access to the decks on either side. 

In this view you can see the little concrete platform that sits just above the top of the stream. Access to it was from a glass enclosed door system located in the main living area. I have to admit that this is pretty cool. 

Rima enjoying the snow and the view. 

Looking up the hill at what is the area where the servants lived and the cars were parked. It was really snowing at this point. 

The owners of the home, the Kaufmann's, had wanted FLW to include garage space for several vehicles, but he didn't really want too so they compromised by installing what are considered the first 4 'carport's' in the country. They have, for the most part, been enclosed now to be used as a place for showing movies to tour groups. 

The view most often seen of the house. Even with all the snow you can see what the name 'Fallingwater' is a perfect description.

The next few photo's are just different takes from the same vantage point. 

 

 

I like this one just because of the lighting on the tree. 

Two last pictures showing a view looking down on the house a little bit. You can see that the house is actually pretty big for it's time. Built between 1936 and 1939. I can't remember the price that was thrown out there, somewhere around $150,000, which doesn't sound all that much. But it was more than 10 (?) times more than the estimate and was thought to be a huge amount of money in a time where a nice standard house could be built for about $3,000.

Last one. 

     Finished up the dance weekend at 4:00 this afternoon. Like usual, the last hour or two of dancing was pretty much the best of the whole weekend. This on a weekend which was pretty darn good to start with.
At the very end both bands, Perpetual e-Motion and Moving Violations, were on stage playing like crazy. Not sure the 'new' band should be called Moving e-Motion or Perpetual Violations. What was obvious was that the level of music went up two or three notches from the already high level it had been at.

    So now it is going to be another two plus weeks before I have another chance to contra dance at this level. Since I screwed up and didn't put in an application for the 'Snow Ball' in time to make it in, I'll just have to wait until I head off for St Croix for that. I may be able to do a weekly dance somewhere along the way, but I think I'm just going to have to figure out how to entertain myself in other ways until then.

    So looking ahead; I'm going to see what other things there are in this area to see and do. On Thursday I'll be headed back over to the Gainsville area where I hope to set the trailer up for at least a couple of weeks. So I hope the weather will continue to stay nice and I will find some fun things to do out doors.

    In the meantime; here are a few more pictures from a couple of weeks ago. They show my friend Rima and her grand daughter on the day she and I baby sat her for most of the day.

Rima and Brynn feeding treats to the horses - Dec 2013

Back at the horses one more time, Brynn just seems to like them.... and they seem to like her too.

Fuzzy was remarkably calm.

My favorite in this batch.

Cousins. Brynn and Gabriel at the Holiday dinner.

   Really not much going on for most of today. I slept in rather late this morning after getting back from the dance around midnight last night. It always takes me at least an hour after a good dance to come down from the dance high that builds up. Sometimes it takes even longer than an hour, and that seemed to be the case last night. But I did finally drop off sometime after 1:00 and managed to get a good 8 hours of deep sleep in.

    As I said, it was kind of slow this morning. Had a nice breakfast and took my time reading the comics and doing the crossword. It was beautiful, though cool, outside so that finally pulled me out doors for a couple of hours. Just hung out here in the park and wandered around a couple of the trails around this area. Got back in time for a late lunch and then watched a movie that I had stored under the seat. Rush Hour was the movie, one of Jackie Chan's better ones I think. I had actually seen it before, but it was a long time ago so it was fun to watch it again. This DVD also has the 2nd Rush Hour movie on it, so I'll be watching it at some point too.

   Actually took a short nap after the movie and then took a shower and got ready to head off for the dance this evening. Such good fun this evening. The bands were really hot and the callers all did a superb job. Perpetual e-Motion were up first and they are always a fun band to dance to, but I have been properly impressed with this weekends secondary band, Moving Violations. The first time I've heard and danced to this 4 person contra band, and I am very impressed. Two guys on fiddle, one piano player and one guy on bass guitar. I have seen all 4 of these guys as members of other dance bands before, but this is the first time I've heard them in this group. I think they could pretty much headline any dance weekend out there right now. Give them another year or two together and they are going to be a real power house that will give other top notch bands a run for their money.

   Anyway; I had a wonderful 3 1/2 hours of dancing before my allergy meds finally gave out on me and I felt compelled to quit. That did include another fun medley dance where we danced for a good 30 minutes or more with the caller changing the dance on the fly every 5 mins or so. Only one more day of dancing to go, but it should be a lot of fun. I think this dance has really come a long way from where it was last year. There is still some room for improvement of course, but they did a good job of it considering it is only the 2nd year for it.

    Now for some good news. I found out that the problem I was having loading up photo's had to do with the search engine/server I was using to log in on. Evidently they decided at some point that plane old Google was no longer going to work and only Google Chrome was going to do the job now. Bottom line is that I can now load up pictures again so here are a few from several weeks ago that I have loaded up. These were all taken on a day when Rima and I got tapped to babysit one of her grand kids, Brynn. It was actually  kind of fun, but I remember being very tired after 8 hours of that. Here are a few shots of her feeding the horses treats and her chasing bubbles that Rima was blowing. I'm not really sure which one of them was a bigger kid that day.

Rima and Brynn chasing bubbles and feeding treats to the horses - Dec 2013      

The horses had a fun time checking out this new little person. They seemed to be very interested in Brynn. 

Two horses, Fuzzy on the left and Bolivar on the right. Brynn was absolutely fearless around them. 

Grandma blowing bubbles.

She was very intense. 

What you are missing are her giggles as she chases down the bubbles. 

I really liked this one with all the bubbles around her head. 

One last view of Fuzzy.

    Pretty late already, so this is likely going to be rather short. Left the trailer around 9:30 this morning and caught a quick breakfast at McDonald's while checking email and reading the comics. Was soon on the road south however, my destination for the day, Lake Kissimmee State Park, just south of Orlando.


    Have been trying to get a camp site down at this park for the last couple of years because it is much closer to the weekend dance I'm attending this weekend, than the one I'm camped in at the moment. So I thought it might actually be a good thing to go and look at it before hand just to see if it is worth while to keep trying to get a reservation there some time in the future.


    Like most of the state parks down here in Florida, the park is a wonderful place to go visit. Plenty of wild open space to explore with lots of hiking trails and lots of lakes and canals to boat and fish on. I spent several hours there walking on a couple of the trails and wandering around some of the docks and boat ramps. It was kind of a strange day for me though because I not only left the trailer with out taking my cell phone with me, but I got all the way down there to the park and found that my camera battery was dead also. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to remember what I saw in my own mind this time.


    I headed back towards South Orlando and the dance late in the afternoon. Got to the dance venue, a rather large middle school gym, around 6:45. With a little more than an hour to go before the dance started I tilted the truck seat back and took a nice nap for nearly and hour. Woke up just in time to check in and get ready for the dance then.


    I was sitting up in the seating stands prior to the dance watching all the people coming in and was struck with how many of the people I recognized. It was also fun to watch as people walked in the door. They invariably looked around to see who they might know, and as soon as they saw some one, their face would light up with this big happy smile. It's one of the nicest things  about this type of dancing. It's just hard not to have a great time.


    The music tonight was provided by the band 'Perpetual e-Motion with calling by Lisa Greenleaf, at least the first part of the dance. So the dancing was hot-fun right off the bat. I had a great time dancing with lots of people I have met all over the south and as far north as Michigan and Ohio. Unfortunately my allergies were working overtime this evening, either because of the dust, or maybe even the smell of the floor finish. Whatever the cause, it meant having to take a break once in a while in order to blow my sinuses clear or stop coughing. It wasn't so bad that I missed very many of the dances, just a couple of squares which I probably would of skipped anyway. I did leave just a little early, maybe because I walked several miles today in addition to all the dancing and was kind of tired. What ever the reason, it now feels like time to hit the sack. More dancing to do tomorrow, so time to go and get some rest.

   A very nice, if not quite warm, day today. Was up early for breakfast and took a quick look at email and fb before packing up and hitting the road. Was on my way over to my friends place by 11:00 a.m. Met up with Jan at her place and we were soon on our way for some lunch at a local burger joint she knew of. Pretty good stuff, we both had a good meal and had fun catching up with what we have both been up to since I was here last year. Jan is doing well considering she is now in remission from stage 4 cancer. She almost has more hair on her head now than I do.


    After finishing up at lunch we headed over to the local movie theatre and took in a matinee. The movie of choice, picked by Jan by the way, was 'Lone Survivior' starring Mark Wahlburg among others. Based on a true story about a platoon of 'Navy Seals' in Afghanistan, it was, in a word... 'Intense'. Not a movie one could describe as enjoyable, it was still rather spell binding and kept you riveted in your seat even after drinking several large glasses of mango ice tea.


    After the movie, and the required stop in the bathroom, it was off to 'Paco's' for dinner with Jan's daughter Marie. Paco's is a local dive of a Mexican restaurant that Jan started taking me to several years ago.  Serving up healthy doses of decent Mexican food and cold beer, it's a great way to spend an early evening.


   Now though I'm sitting here in a Micky D's hitching a ride on their WiFi signal. Was hoping to finish up some Internet errands that I needed to do, as well as put out another issue of this Blog. Looks like that will happen, but it will have to go out with out any attached photo's. I'm still having trouble uploading photo's on this site, so nothing new in that form for today. Will try one more day and see if anything changes, as well as seeking help elsewhere. Perhaps some 8 year old genius will have made a youtube video about this problem by now. If that doesn't work then I'll be seeking another Blog site in a day or two, so stay tuned. Right now though I'm tired of sitting here in this rather sterile environment. I think it's time to head back to the trailer and curl up with my book.










  

     Somewhat frustrating day for me today. Have had a bunch of pictures done that I would very much like to post and for some reason my Blog site won't let it happen. Not sure what the problem is as I can't think of anything that I have been doing differently. It's just that now nothing will load up for me. So.... this will be a rather short post tonight since I spent several hours already today trying to get this to work and the only thing it has done is make me frustrated.


 
 That being said; the rest of the day was actually quite enjoyable. It was cloudy and overcast for most of the day, but still pretty warm outside. Warm enough to get out and about for a couple of hours at least. Spent the whole day here in the park and the surrounding area walking a couple of the trails around here. Lots of deer in the area, as well as a couple armadillo's and lots of birds. It was also nice to spend some time over at the spring staring down into it's crystal blue depths. Lot's and lots of fish swimming around in there. Every once in a while you would see one take a leap at one of the thousands of dragonflies going by. Pretty cool.


 
  Spent the evening reading a John Grisham book, The Brethren, as well as watching a couple cheesy movies. Found two in the store the other day called 'The Librarian'. Guess they never made it out to the actual movie theatre, but might of made it onto TV at one time. Basically a cross between the Indiana Jones series and the Mummy series, they weren't too awful. But then again they weren't all that great either. Entertaining enough I guess, and most of the time that is all they need to be.


 
 Looks like it is going to remain cloudy, and even a little rainy for the next couple of days. It might even get a bit cooler at night. Still better than being up in the cold and the snow I think. Am headed off tomorrow to meet up with a friend who lives here in the Orlando area. Not sure what is on the agenda for Jan and I yet, but I think it will at least include dinner out at Paco's. Looking forward to seeing her again and having some half decent Mexican food. Will continue to try to load photo's, but not sure what else to try right now.

   Awoke at 6:30 yesterday morning, and was up by 7:30. Not quite sure what is up with that, it just isn't normal for me is all. But once up and going it became a little easier to function.... until I had some breakfast anyway. Then it was back to bed for another 30 minute cat nap.




    Once I was finally up and going, things went along pretty smoothly. Got all the dishes done and put away, put all the food away that needed to go into storage and closed up all the windows and vents tight. Outside it was time to drain all the tanks and start hooking the trailer up to the truck. It went smoothly through the whole evelotion so it was only a bit past 10:00 when I pulled out on the highway and headed east.




   The destination of the day was Kelly Park over near the town of Apopka Florida. It's located just a bit north and a little west of Orlando and is about the closest place I could find to camp in for this next week. As it is, I still had to make reservations more than a month ago just to be sure I could get in okay.


    At only 130+ miles away it didn't take long to do the drive, even though I did stop for a couple of hours and got some lunch. Made it into the park around 4:30 and got all checked in. The front office had my reservation ready to go so it was only a matter of minutes to grab my windshield tag and get my site number.


    This is a pretty nice little campground over all, with big level spots that have enough room between them that it doesn't feel to crowded. There aren't many here at the moment anyway, only 5-6 other campers in the whole place. I got the trailer unhooked and all set up and then had a bite to eat for dinner. It was still a little light once that was done so I went out for a short walk around the area. Saw lots and lots of deer and squirrels and could hear an owl off in the distance. No one else around so it was really quite nice to walk in the dusky light.


   Back at the trailer I tried to read my book for a couple of hours but I kept falling asleep. Finally gave up and went to bed around 11:00. Slept pretty good until about 8:00 this morning when I woke up to the sound of rain on top of the trailer. It sounded good and put me right back to sleep for another 30 minutes or so. I'm up and about now though and getting ready to go run some  errands. I need to go do some grocery shopping first off and then maybe go on over to a local state park or two and do some walking. Kinda just depends on what the weather does.

   A beautiful day here in central Florida, a bit cooler than yesterday, but bright blue skies and fluffy white clouds for most of the day. Spent a good part of this morning just goofing off around the trailer. Got all my dishes done and cleaned up around the place a bit. Have found that the window shades on my windows are all filthy. They are all the metal blind style and every slat has an incredible amount of greasy crud like stuff on them. The real problem is in getting them clean. Spent over 30 mins on just one set this morning so I am going to have to come up with a better way for the next ones.


   Also spent an hour or so 'trying' to get my new tape deck installed. There is no problem getting the old one out, and it looks pretty straight forward as to just cutting and splicing all the different wires together. But I hooked up the power and ground lines, which do have about 14v dc coming out of them, and couldn't even get it to blink. So I may have been premature in buying a new tape deck.... it may be that I have a wiring problem going on instead. Unfortunately one of the things I least like to do is fool around with electrical stuff. For some reason I just don't have an intuitive feel for it like I do for most other things. But for now I'll leave it be and then see about checking the old lines out, or possibly running some new lines in.


    Also spent a couple hours early this afternoon just out walking. It was so nice to be out in the warmth and the sunshine again. By 5:00 I was in the truck and headed for Gainsville. I had a ticket to the theatre there at the Hippodrome this evening. The play for tonight was 'Good People', a very interesting tale about 6 people who grow up in the bad part of the south end of Boston, and the ones who got out, and the ones who stayed behind. A real interesting study in human nature and the thin line that differentiates between what we call good and bad behavior, and how individual circumstances can make a big difference in how we interact with each other. All in all, a very interesting work.


    Back at the trailer right now and just about ready to call it a day. Tomorrow I'll be packing up and heading over to the east side of the state for a week or so. Will pull the trailer over to Kelly Park so that I'll be close enough to go to the dance in south Orlando next weekend. Still having some problems with my sinuses today. They are much better than they have been, but still have that post nasal drip thing going on, and the subsequent little annoying cough that goes with it. Looks like more salt water snorting is on the agenda for tonight. Ugh!

    Wow!  It is raining outside really, really hard at the moment. Had been hearing weather warnings for more than an hour early this afternoon, and sure enough it has hit as expected. But to be fair it is still just a really good rainstorm with some thunder and lightening to go with it so far, and I hope that is all it ever becomes. No tornado's or flooding going on that I know of, and I would just as soon it stay that way.


    The day actually started out pretty sunny and warm this morning. By noon it was in the mid 70's already and feeling pretty good. I took off to do some errands early on and have been happily running around since then. First on tap was a hair cut. The place in Chiefland that I have used several times was closed for some reason. Pretty hard to understand on a Saturday, but what the heck, there was another place just a couple blocks away that always seemed interesting. I stopped in there and had my haircut in 20 minutes or less. Got it cut pretty short this time, but I think it looks okay. Doesn't really matter all that much though. After all, the difference between a good haircut and a bad one.... it's still about two days. Living with it after that amount of time is a non starter.


    Went and had a quick bite of lunch after that and then headed over to the town of McIntosh, about 25 miles south of Gainsville. There is a RV campground over there that I have stayed at several times over the past couple of years. I kind of like it because it's a little bit seedy, generally has an interesting cast of characters, is cheap and is located in a cute little Florida town that makes me think it is what a lot of Florida must of been like back in the 50's. It is also located on a rather large inland lake, that several years ago shrunk up so much in the drought, that the shore line ended up about a mile away from the boat ramp at the campground. One of the main reasons the 'fishing resort' hasn't really done all that well these past few years. My thought was that maybe with all the rain over the last year or two, maybe the water was back and the whole place was going to be wall to wall campers with no room for me when I needed it. So I went over and checked it out and found that there is no reason to worry. The water is much closer, and all their 50 amp sites are booked, but they seem to have plenty of 30 amp sites such as what I need. So I'll give them a call in a couple of weeks and get something set up then for the couple of weeks I'll need to be there.


     My last errand was to go and find a new 'car' radio to install in Esmerelda. The radio/CD player in the trailer went out a couple of months ago and I have been getting by using a portable radio that I had bought. But it really doesn't work very well and it is kind of a hassle to try and tune in a radio station using an old analog style tuning system. After checking out a couple of stores I finally ended up with a basic Pioneer Digital Tuner/CD car player. Not sure what I will have to do yet to make it all fit, but I don't think it will be to difficult to get it installed and working. Will keep everyone updated on this latest project.


   Right now though I can see that the rain that was coming down in buckets only 30 minutes ago, has now pretty much stopped completely. I'll finish up a few things here and catch up on some news before unplugging and heading back to the trailer. It will be interesting to see if there has been any leaking going on since then. Sure glad I closed the vents this morning before taking off.




One final note of interest; I anticipate that with the posting of this post, my Blog will pass the 10,000 individual page view mark. I know that doesn't sound like much in an age where some Blog's can get that many views in less than an hour, but it far exceeds any thought I ever had. I just thought a few hundred, at most, might take a look at it and then go merrily on their way. It appear likely that there are actually a few misguided souls out there, :) , who actually follow this. Keep it up.... another couple years and I may actually hit 50K.