It was bloody cold here in Florida last night. When I finally got up this morning to turn the space heater on, the inside temperature was down to below 40 degrees. Now I know this is nothing compared to some of you further north or in other parts of the world, but this isn't suppose to happen down here in the land of sunshine and warmth.
   I survived of course, cuz I have more than enough personal insulation to keep me warm, but the trailer sure isn't made for this kind of weather. Sure, they say there is insulation in the walls and roof, but it has to be pretty minimal at the least. Lucky for me I still have a few extra blankets and such so it wasn't all that bad for me.
    It was a beautiful day here however. Plenty of sunshine, and while the temperature only got up to around 70 this afternoon, it is still better than much of the country. Plus; I don't have any snow to shovel!
   Other than a short drive into town to grab some groceries, I have been hanging out here at the trailer for most of the day. It's nice to just sit here at the table with the blinds open and just watch the water and swamp right outside. I have to confess that I had planned to give the trailer a good scrubbing before my girlfriend got here tomorrow, but so far that hasn't happened. Looks like it will have to be done in the morning instead.

Photo's from the Snow Ball Dance Weekend in

 Gulfport Florida - Jan. 23-25, 2015

The dance hall for 'Snow Ball' was once a small casino on the beach in the little town of Gulfport. Here you see the water side view of the building with a nice sculpture of brown pelicans.

Birds on the beach.

I liked the 'sparkly' quality in this one.

Not many sailboats at anchor this year, but still enough to be interesting.

Nearly half of these birds had their heads tucked under a wing and were standing on one foot when I walked up. What was interesting to me was how stiff their waking appeared for the first couple of steps after putting their other foot down. As if the leg they had been standing on had locked up on them and made them arthritic.

I'm not real sure what is going on with this boat. I am going to assume that it has a 'winged' keel that it is sitting on so it could be that the owner actually came in while the tide was high and moored in a spot where it would leave the hull high and dry. But it seems more likely that the boat drug it's anchor into shallow water and then the tide just went out. In which case he was lucky it stayed upright like this. Either way it seemed a little odd.

One last photo of some of the dancers inside, as well as a view towards the band and caller. I had to go put the camera away at this point and get into the next dance.

brk*a

    Up at 8:00 this morning and on the road by 10:00. It was moving day and today I was heading north and a little east of where I was there in the St Petersburg area. It was only 150 miles, but it still took almost 4 hours to drive up to the town of McIntosh Florida.
   This little town is located just about halfway between Ocala to the south and Gainsville to the north. I found an old run down RV campground there on the east edge of the town about 4 years ago, and I have been coming back every since.
    'Sportsman's Cove' probably had it's hey-day back in the 50's-60's when people came here for a weekend of fishing and camping. It looks as though it has been going down hill ever since then. Still, it reminds me of what I picture 'Old Florida' as being like, even though I have no idea what it was like way back then.
    The campground is laid out with camp spaces every which way. Some sites are missing electrical hook ups, some are to small for most of todays trailers and some are just too muddy to pull in and out of. So it is surprising to find that most of the available sites already have units on them. So I had a choice of a couple different spots but ended up out on the very end of the high land in a site off by myself. Discribed as the 'best' site in the place, I have to admit that the view is certainly the nicest. It looks out over what use to be the main attraction, the lake. These days after more than 5 years of drought a few years ago, it is just now starting to fill up again after the heavy rains of the past two years.
    Of course there is a reason while no one was in this spot when I showed up, that being that the shore power is kind of iffy out here. While it is suppose to have a standard 30 amp, 240v  hookup, which is what my trailer uses, it evidently cuts out quite often if the load gets much above what a standard 120v outlet has. Since the things in the trailer that draw the most current are my micro-wave and my electric kettle, I figured I could probably be okay, and so far that has been the case.
     I managed to get the trailer in position and unhooked finally. I had a bit of a problem in that I didn't get one of my safety chains completely unhooked when I reached under the truck to let it loose. As a result there was a good jerk when I tried to drive away from the trailer with the truck. Lucky for me I was going really slow as there isn't much room out at that end of the peninsula, so all I did was pop the front of the trailer off of one of the blocks before stopping and figuring it out. It all got sorted out in the end and so now it is all set up and working fine. I'm looking forward to a couple nice days here before my girl friend flies in on Friday. We are going to hang out for a few days and then head off to the island of St Croix in the Carribean for a week of contra dancing and laying on the beach. I can't wait.
   I'm tired right now though, so I'm going to finish this up and go to bed. Below are a few pictures I took this afternoon after setting the trailer up. They show the view from my kitchen door.

Lake at Sportsman's Cove RV in McIntosh Florida

Jan. 26, 2015

The view out my kitchen door. Looking out on what was only a grass prairie a couple of years ago. With all of the rain the water is now back up to the bottom of the banks where my trailer is setting.

Lots and lots of birds out there. In just a few minutes I picked out coots and several species of ducks, herons, white ibis and egrets, a bald eagle, a osprey, several buzzards and a whole flock of sand hill cranes that landed out there in the middle somewhere.

Nearly sunset, my favorite time of the day.

On the other side of my trailer is the rest of the RV campground as well as the old marina. There still isn't enough water in the lake for a motor boat to get out, but I would sure like to have one of my canoes or kayaks with me right now.

A view of my trailer and truck. We have now been together for more than 7 years. We are all starting to show our age, but still ready to go explore some place new.

brk*

   Started to pack up the trailer this evening. Seems hard to believe but it has been a week since I first pulled in here, but I'll be hooking up the trailer in the morning and pulling out way to darn early. My destination for tomorrow is Sportsman Cove RV camp in the town of McIntosh. That's about 150 miles north and a little east of where I am at the moment.
  Gave them a call this morning and the lady there said they had a spot for me when I got there. I've stayed with them several times over the years and have always enjoyed it even though it is pretty run down, and downright dilapidated in so many ways. But the office ladies are always pretty friendly, as are the permanent residents. I just want a decent hook up and some place to park the truck and they can usually accommodate that.
    Today was pretty quiet so I spent the morning just hanging out and reading a book. Got bored this afternoon though so I took the truck and headed south to the town of Sarasota. Wandered around their old town and went out to the beach. Had a beer and some fish tacos for dinner at a little beach bar there. It was quite nice to sit out in the sunshine and watch as the brown pelicans sky dived head first into the ocean in their own search for fish.
    Headed back north to the trailer after dark via the Sky Bridge on I-275. It was fun to watch from the roadway as the lights of the boats in the entrance channel to Tampa Bay winked as they rocked in the waves down below. A pretty night, and no real wind for a change. It is suppose to get cold tonight though, and it isn't suppose to get any warmer than 65-67 tomorrow. Still.... it's a lot better than some of my friends on the upper east coast have it after the blizzard that hit them yesterday. The idea of having to shovel 2 feet of snow off the walk and driveway is enough to make me thankful that I am holed up down here in Florida where it is warm(er).


brk*

    The last dance of this years Snow Ball happened late yesterday afternoon. As is often the case the last few dances of the last day of dancing were some of the best. By the time the music ended after the last waltz everyone one was so happy and so very tired. Hard to believe I actually got up at 8:00 in the morning. Especially after such a great night of dancing on Saturday. I came back to the trailer after 4 hours of dancing that evening and simply collapsed. So much fun, such great music and so many fun and pretty women to dance with. When my head finally hit the pillow around 1:30 in the morning it hardly seemed possible that I would be able to get up and do it all over again.
   And yet there I was at 10:00 a.m. looking for someone to dance the 1st dance of the session with. For those who have never contra danced, it should be noted that most people change partners after each dance. It is also nice that anyone can ask anyone else for a dance, so both men and women can ask someone for a dance. You don't have to actually agree to dance with anyone, but it is usually polite to do so. It also makes sense since there isn't a lot of reason to turn anyone down, as you will generally be dancing way more with the other people in the line than you will with any particular partner. And yet, it is also nice to dance with good friends as partners if you can swing it. I generally just wing it and dance with who ever says yes to me or asks me first. I get to meet lots of new people that way, plus, if she isn't a great partner for some reason you only have to dance with her for a very short time.
    Needless to say, it also helps that there are generally a few more women than men at any particular dance, so finding a partner for me is usually not a problem. Indeed, the only problem for me this weekend was in trying to find some time to take a break once in a while to drink some water or go to the bathroom. In any case it was a terrific couple of hours of dancing yesterday, the only problem was that it always seems that it ends way too soon.
    It is always a bit of a let down once a dance weekend has ended. For me it is always a struggle since I am a pretty well defined introvert. It seems like a bit of an anachronism that a self professed introvert would even consider going to a dance with 200-400 other high octane people. But for some reason it works for me most of the time. It just means that at some point I will have to go somewhere and decompress by my self. Sometimes that means setting a dance or two out once in awhile, and sometimes it just means not dancing much during the day during weekend dances. For me it meant turning down a couple of very nice invitations to lunch and dinner with friends yesterday and then going someplace where I could just sit and become human again.
    So it rained sometime around 3:00 this morning. I know this because it was noisy enough on the top of the trailer that I woke up. Good thing I guess since two of the roof vents were open an inch or two and needed to be closed up. What really interested me though was that only a few minutes after the down pour started I could feel my sinus passages closing up and found myself starting to cough again. Most people think that a good rain would help people who have allergies, but it is usually just the opposite, in that instead of washing everything clean, it just stirs all the dust and pollen up and back into the air. Lucky for me though it didn't last very long.
    I am lucky to have a campsite here at Fort Desoto that backs up to one of the wash/bath houses as they also have a coin operated washer and dryer at each one. So I managed to get a couple of loads of laundry done this morning. Now I'm good for a couple more weeks or so.
    I'm headed out for a movie this afternoon, wanting to go see 'American Sniper' so as to see what all of the controversy is about. I imagine my feelings will be stretched in several directions.... but that is okay. I would maybe worry more if I could only see one side of this argument.
     What isn't up for argument however is how much fun this weekends dance was, so here is a video of one of the dances. Filmed by a friend who strapped one of those small video cameras to his head, it is somewhat disconcerting to watch at times as he is well over 6 feet tall and the swings can be quit fast at times. What you can't miss however is the look of sheer fun on everyone's face. Enjoy! 

Seth Tepfer calling with the Stringrays 

 Florida Snow Ball 2015 in Gulfport

            








brk*

    Sorry.... way to much fun these past few days to write much. I managed to drive from the east side of Florida to the west as expected on Wednesday. I pulled into the campground at Fort de Soto park around 3:00 in the afternoon and checked in at the front office. My space, #119, backs up to one of the bath houses as well as one of the kids play grounds. It also has a nice view out the back of the beach and the bay the park sits beside. Plenty of palm trees to set up under and provide some shade from the hot sun.
    Got the trailer backed into the site without problems and disconnected the hitch and electrical line. It only takes a few moments anymore to get it all set up and ready to go. This time I also pulled out and set up the side awning, thinking it might be nice to have a shady place to set in outside at times. So far I haven't had much time to do any of that.
    Have been wandering around checking out old and new sights around the area since then. Thursday there was time to check out the beach's here at the park. Lot's of neat shells on the beach and plenty of shore birds to watch. You can also explore the old gun emplacements that were built at various times for protection of the passageway into Tampa Bay. The last time being during WW II when they were afraid of German U-boats coming right into the entranceway channel.
    There was also time to go see a movie on Thursday afternoon. Went and saw 'The Imitation Game' about Alan Turing and his struggle to break the Nazis 'Enigma' code during the war.  A fascinating view of an obvious genius and his struggles growing up in England during the earlier 1900's. Beside being a math prodigy he also had to deal with the fact that he was a homosexual during a period in Englands history when it was possible to be arrested and sent to jail for that 'sin'.
     He, and the group he led at Bletchly Park did manage to break the code of course, thereby saving more than two years of war and 14 million people. In return they arrested him and made him take hormone shots that finally drove him to commit suicide. An interesting movie to say the least, and even though the end for Turning was sad and disappointing it was still a wonderful tale of a group of people who came together and accomplished much.
    I have still been fighting off the vestiges of what ever yucky flu like crud I have had these past couple of weeks. The cough is finally falling by the wayside, but I have been tired all of the time. Yesterday I wasn't up until nearly 11:00 in the morning. Then after some lunch I suddenly felt tired and had to go in for a nap of another couple of hours. I was surprised to find that I actually woke up in time to go over to the first night of the Snow Ball contra dance. Very glad I did however as it was wonderful to be dancing again.
    The first 2 hours featured the Clayfoot Strutters playing with Seth Tepher doing the calling. Lots of high energy right from the start of course. I am guessing that there have to be at least 400 dancers here as there were 5 lines the whole time with at least 80 people in each line, and quite possibly, even more. So lots of people that I know. I had some wonderful partners through out the evening and did well the whole time, only sitting out during the two square dances during the evening.
    After a short break around 10:00 we were back to dancing with the band the 'Stringways' with calling by Lisa Greenleaf. Dancing was only better from then on. I made it all the way to the end at midnight. I headed back to the trailer afterwards and had to contend with heavy wind and rain the whole way. It was a real pain once I got back to the campground as they have an electric gate at the entrance that you need to type a 4 digit code into to open. The main problem is that the key pad is located on the passenger door side, so you have to get out in the rain to punch the code in to open the gate. There was of course a 4"-6" deep puddle right in front of the keypad also, so the shoes and socks also got soaked.
    One nice thing is that there was no leak going on over the bed. Still a little one over the shower area, but that one can wait for a better chance to see about fixing it once again. Right now though I  think it's time to finish this up and go take a nap. There's still a whole lot of dancing to do later tonight.
   Enjoy this video I found of Andrew and Noah of The Great Bear Trio and one of their fireside concerts at this years Contra Dance Holiday dance in Morgan Town in late December.

The Great Andrew and Noah Concert

brk*

   Packing up the truck and trailer this morning and getting ready to head west. Hope to be safely tucked into a camp site out at Fort de Soto, on the west coast of Florida, by mid afternoon. A couple of free days, then the 'Snow Ball' contra dance starting on Friday, The sun is shining, looks like it's going to be a wonderful day.
   Will try to get back to this later and post more.


brk*

    Yesterday was the last day of dancing at the Orange Blossom Ball. I didn't dance all that much.... I'm finding that I am still suffering some residual symptoms of the flu, or what ever it was that I have had for the past two weeks. What ever is going on is still making me very tired at times and I can still feel a bit of a nasal infection way down deep near the back of my throat. It seems like most days I get up, eat breakfast and then immediately go back to bed for a two hour nap. It is getting rather old.
    So I went, I dance for a little while, and then I went back to the trailer and watched a couple of movies. All in all it was a pretty uninteresting day..... oh, and I also took another nap later in the afternoon.
    Today has been beautiful out, and while I can still feel some congestion in the back of my nose, it was to nice to not spend all day indoors. So I took a nice long walk around the park where I am staying. Even though it is MLK weekend most of the campers that had pretty much filled the place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights are now gone. So I got a chance to see the turkeys out searching for acorns under the oak trees again as well as try to sneak up on a little armadillo. That is really hard to do by the way. They have such a small head that there can't be a whole lot of brain power going on there, but they certainly have a good set of ears because I never got closer than 20 feet to one of them.
   I went over to the store this afternoon and picked up some more fresh veggies and fruit and now I'm at a local McDonalds glomming on to their internet signal. Just about done however so I'm going to go ahead and finish this up.
   One good thing about just wanting to hang out at the trailer is that you get a chance to check out all those photo's you took weeks ago and then never got around to posting. The three from below were taken in early December on my trek east from the west coast. These are all from the highway that runs north to south along Lake Havasu in Arizona. I like all of the emptiness out there.

Desert Vistas near Lake Havasu in Arizona - Taken Dec. 2014

What I really like is how flat most of the land mass is out there. Then all of a sudden you have this whole mountain range that just sort of pokes itself up out of the ground.

I guess what happened was that this use to be an old lake or ocean sea bed that was uplifted long ago. Then a period of volcanism started that had magma coming out of large rifts and cracks that developed, and these mountains got built up layer by layer. Then over many more thousands, or millions of years, the surrounding area was eroded down leaving what you see. Pretty cool!

More nothing.....

brk*

    I always sleep well after a night of hard dancing so last night was no different. I slept well and was up reasonably early this morning. A beautiful, warm, sunny day was waiting for me. So after a quick breakfast I was out the door and taking a walk over to Kelly Spring before the expected hoards of kids and adults arrived for another day of swimming and tubing fun. Nice and quiet for the most part with just me, the squirrels and assorted birds flitting about. I had one flock of about a dozen wild turkeys cross in front of me at one point. Osceola's I assume, because of where we are. They were quite sturdy looking and had some beautiful green and blue coloration to their feathers. Of course I didn't have my camera with me.
   I goofed off the rest of the morning and then had an early lunch before loading up the truck and heading out for adventures. Drove up to Blue Springs State Park on a search for manatee's, but found that the weather was too nice for them to be holed up in the spring waters. They had all moved out into the main channel of the St John's River and probably wouldn't be back until the next cold spell. It was still nice to walk up and down the boardwalk along the spring and peer into the depths looking for large catfish and mullets and other assorted fish. Even saw a couple of turtles swimming by.
   I've been sitting in a McDonalds now for an hour or so and got a few photo's downloaded and cropped up for posting. Will probably stay here for a little while longer and then go take a short nap in the truck. I want to be well rested for tonight's contra dance. It will start at 8:00 again this evening and I'm looking forward to getting hot and sweaty all over again.

Blue Springs State Park near Deland Florida - Jan. 17, 2015

Hard to believe but that really is the color of the water. The water itself is pretty much clear with the color coming from the reflections of the sky and trees on to the white bottom sand.

I love being down here among the Spanish moss. It makes everything feel ancient.

No manatee's in the spring today. With 72 degree temperatures and sunny skies it was to nice so they were all out in the main channel of the river eating.

It is hard to believe that all that water is coming out of the ground less than a 1/4 mile away. This is a Class A spring meaning it vomits out 10 million gallons or more of water every day.

brk*

   Yesterday..... it rained all day.... nuf said about that!


   Much nicer outside today. Plenty of sunshine for most of the day and temperatures in the high 60's. I went out and wandered around the park for several hours this morning. Saw a couple wild turkeys and an armadillo rooting around in the brush. Otherwise it was just a nice quiet morning for me.
    Came back to the trailer after noon and made up some lunch after which I took a nice, though short nap. Awoke around 4:00 and wandered the park for another hour or so before coming back and taking yet another nap. Not sure what is going on with the nap thing but it just seems that my body is craving more sleep these days. It seems that I am still suffering from the after effects of being sick last week. Still a little bit of coughing once in a while, but otherwise I'm feeling pretty good. But it did mean that my nap made me slightly late for this evenings dance.
   It was the first night of contra dancing at the Orange Blossom Ball in Daytona Florida.  I got there slightly after it started at 8:00 p.m.  and danced to the hot tunes of the band Perpetual e-Motion. Later dances were by a new band to me. I can't remember their name right now, but it was 3 fiddlers and a guitar player and they were very good too. Lot's of old friends to see and dance with, but I'm tired now and it's time for a quick shower and then some sleep.

     Many, many miles have passed beneath the tires of the truck since last time I posted. Early Monday morning the truck was packed up with all the stuff that was coming back south with me and I headed out on the highway once again. Snow, freezing rain and fog were my companions as the whir-r-r of the tires took me down off the heights of the Great Smokies. Down through the Piedmont region of N. Carolina and on into S. Carolina as the rain warmed up and finally died away to just fog. As night was falling it was into the salt marshes and swamps of northern Georgia where it was time to pull in for the night. $35 bucks can still get you a decent, though well used hotel room. But it was dry and warm and didn't appear to have bed bugs, so it was a good place to land and grab a few hours of sleep.
    Yesterday was just another long day of driving. Down through the rest of Georgia and on into Florida, the day continued to warm with every mile the truck went south. There was no real hurry to get back to the RV park where Esmerelda was waiting, but I did want to get there while there was still light out to hook everything back up and pull her over to a regular camping spot.
    I made it into the park a little bit after 4:00 and picked up all the paperwork at the front office. I had called ahead a couple of days earlier so they had everything waiting for me and my signature. Esmerelda was still parked in the empty field where she had been left a month ago. It took only minutes to hook up the batteries and turn the propane back on. Hooked up the main hitch and pulled her out of there and over to a standard camp spot. Only needed to hook up electric for the night, so it only took 15 minutes or so to set everything up and move back in.
    Other than needing a good airing out Esmerelda was in pretty good shape. There was a bit of mold in the fridge that was rather unexpected. It appears likely that all of the water from the melting ice that occurred when it defrosted the day I left, never completely dried out. But a few squirts from my bottle of Clorox and water cleaned it all right up. I spent the rest of the evening tucking stuff back in where it belonged and then reading some more of my latest book.
     I really slept last night.... it was well after 9:00 before I was finally up and going. Lucky for me there wasn't too far to go today, just a bit more than 120 miles in all. Got the trailer hooked up, dumped everything else someplace where it wouldn't flop around, and then hit the road once again.
   A very pleasant drive all in all, cloudy but still nice and warm. I was back to wearing shorts and a t-shirt and a pair of boat shoes so life was good. About 4 hours got me over to the town of Apopka Florida and the campground at Kelly Spring County Park. Once again a brief call ahead had all of my paperwork waiting for me and a short 5 minute check-in process had me back in the truck headed for my campsite.
    Got the trailer all set up this time and hooked up the water as well as the electric. Sewer waste will be taken care of at the end of the week at the dump station on my way out of the campground. Grabbed a bite to eat and finished up my book, and then headed out to the grocery store to pick up some supplies. Just finishing up checking up on everything while sitting at a Micky D's. A few more moments and I'm out of here.
     I up loaded this video from 'youtube' a few days ago. One of our friends, who prefers to remain anonymous made it after he/she noticed some discontinuities occurring at some of the local contra dances. It is a humorous way to look at some of the few problems that crop up at dances. There are others, but for the most part they all seem to be pretty harmless. So sit back and enjoy the cartoon.

Cool Hip Dancers

brk*

   Packing up the truck and heading back south in the morning. It has been wonderful up here in the north during the holidays and time spent with Rima is always great. So there is a little sadness to go along with the excitement of being on the road once again.
   The last couple of days have been pretty slow really. Both Rima and I are still suffering with this lingering cough that seems to be going around amongst the population. Most days I wake up feeling like it is pretty much done, but by bed time it is right back in the top of my chest where it causes me to cough uncontrollably for several moments at a time. Then it's time for more aspirin, cough syrup, vix and assorted other medications. What seems to work best is just sleeping a lot, so I have been taking a lot of naps lately.
    Got out and about for a couple of hours yesterday in the afternoon. Wandered around and even piled up some more slash that needed to be picked up. Rima also had a couple loads of wood delivered and I helped stack one of the loads into the wood shed. She should be able to make it through the next couple of months now, or at least until I make it back up here in March.
    We drove into Roanoke this afternoon and spent an hour or so at the camping world there. I had wanted to see about picking up a new trailer leveler system to replace the current one that broke a part a few weeks ago. Turns out that they are a lot more expensive than I ever thought. So I'll likely keep the one I have and try to get the part re-welded again in the next week or two.
    Tonight we just hung out and watched a movie on the DVD player. Tonight's choice was 'Frozen', the latest and greatest from Disney. Frankly I couldn't see what all the excitement had been about, I thought there have been several recent comic style movies that were better. Still, it was well done and I can certainly see the appeal it might have for young girls that still believe in being a princess.
   Still time to pack a few more things up before getting some sleep. The plan is to drive 6-8 hours tomorrow and then find a cheap hotel for the night and go the rest of the way on Tuesday. That way I can get the trailer out of storage and have one day and night to get it back in shape before heading east towards the coast. I hope to actually have more time now that I'll be back on the road. We will just have to wait and see I guess.


brk*

    Went to bed last night thinking the flu, or what ever it was I had been suffering through, was pretty much over.... boy did that turn out wrong. Actually woke up more congested and with a much worse cough this morning. So now I am in emergency mode and have gotten out all the big guns. So in addition to snorting salt water up my nose several times a day, there is now saline mist that can be sprayed up it at any time. It helps keep the nasal passages moist and unclogged between bouts of self induced water boarding.
    There are also new fever and pain meds to be downed on a regular basis throughout the day and night. It seems apparent that I now have a full blown nasal infection.... as usual, so it may take some time to over come it this year.  For the cough there is now Nyquil and Vix as well as cough drops. But what really seems to be helping is a thick sanding mask I picked up at the hardware store the other day. By wearing it, it seems to shut out much of the smoke and particulates from Rima's duel propane/wood furnace, and that stuff always has a way of plugging me up.
    So needless to say, not much has gone on here today. I tried earlier to go on line and set up my new phone. It is one of those you pay a small monthly fee, in my case $30, for 1200 mins of talk time, unlimited texts and even some band width for data streaming. Although with this new phone, a very simple flip phone, there won't be much texting or streaming being done. I'll be happy if it just functions as a phone. But even that was being screwed up. It seems that in order to migrate the info from my old phone to my new one you needed to sign on to their web site. Seems simple enough until you find out that the password that you are going to need to do that is going to be texted to your old phone.... you know, the one that went swimming two weeks ago and hasn't worked since. The one you had to go out and buy a new one to replace it with. Jeezh!
    Next best thing is to wait until Rima gets home and then use her phone to transfer the old telephone number over to the new phone and then activate that. Of course it has now been several hours and there is still no response on the new phone, it continues to sit there and blink that it needs to be activated. It's kind of a pain.... but eventually even it will be fixed and all will be right with the world once again.
    So otherwise the only thing done today was to take a couple of naps and try to stay warm. It was snowing this morning when I woke up, but that soon stopped and just the cold, cold wind was left to remind me that it is still winter.
     Hope to feel better once again tomorrow. There are still things that I would like to get accomplished while I am here. There is still firewood to be cut down and then up, but top on my list is to go into town and get a hair cut. It was wooly enough nearly a month ago, so it is way past its prime right now.
    There is also a stop at a Camping World that would be nice to get done. It isn't absolutely necessary, but it sure would be nice to get that chore off of my list. I do really need to look at my scheduling book tomorrow also. I need to be back in Florida sometime in the next few days and it would be nice if I had a camping reservation in place once I got there.  Right now though I could really use a good nights worth of sleep. But as that is not likely to happen I will close here anyway and go read a little bit in my book.  Sorry that it is another video being posted this evening, but that is what happens when I'm too sick to be out taking pictures of my own. I hope they are at least a little bit entertaining and that they give those of you who have never seen or experienced a live contra dance a chance to see what I am always off doing. Tonight's viewing is from several years ago at the Great Bear Trio Groove in Oswego NY. I was actually at this dance and if you look close you will see me a few times. I would recommend you look for my girlfriend Rima however. Not only is she better looking, but for some reason she shows up much more often in the film.

Great Bear Groove 2013 - Benton's Hallucinations

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    Seems hard to believe, but after nearly 6 days of feeling pretty puny, I finally woke up this morning feeling like maybe the cold/flu/whatever the heck it is that I have, was getting better. Still been coughing off and on for most of the day, and there have been plenty of nasal lavages today, but I actually got up, shaved, took a shower and even got dressed. Rima was very grateful.
    Most of the day was still spent indoors, but there were a couple of hours this afternoon where it seemed warm and calm enough to go outside for a while. Mostly just walked around and enjoyed the fresh, brisk air. But I did spend some time to stack a few more limbs into the slash piles out by the fence line along the main road. It felt good.
   Also spent some time trying a new method for making sour dough bread from my sour dough starter.  Last time I ended up with two small balls of dough that were more like building bricks than bread. Though they did have an intense sour dough taste and tang to them. This time I left out the overnight rest of the 'sponge' in the fridge and instead just let the dough rise only two times instead of three. It did give me a puffier loaf when it finally came out of the oven, you can actually use it to make a sandwich with at least, but it didn't rise nearly as much as a regular loaf of homemade bread. It also didn't develop nearly as tart of a sour dough taste as the last time. So there seems to be plenty of room for improvement yet. I'm thinking that the next time I'll go back to letting it rest overnight in the fridge. I also think that the biggest problem is that the house hasn't been warm enough for it to have a good rise. Will try to make it better next time.
   So other than that it has been a slow day for me, with lots of book reading and napping going on. It is hoped that tomorrow will be a lot more interesting. For one thing, I need to run into town and find a new telephone. So far I have been okay without one, but there is still a need for me to keep hooked into friends, family and business's that I need to talk too.
     There are other reasons to head into town of course, but I think it will just be a matter of waiting to see how the health is in the morning.
     In the meantime; here is another contra dance video that I like. It has a different band doing the music, 'Contrazz', out of North Carolina. This dance takes place in the Tampa Bay/St Pete area of Florida every January. This '2008 Snowball Dance' was the 2nd dance weekend I ever attended, and after dancing there all weekend it just made me want more. I am in the video at several points, but you have to look quick. Enjoy!

CONTRAZZ at the 2008 Florida Snowball Dance Weekend

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   Just a quick medical update while I am temporarily upright. The cold/flu/whatever it is that I have, is now in it's 5th day. I would like to say I'm feeling better..... but that isn't true, so I won't. Not sure if this is a positive or not but it seems like there is now less nasal congestion and more top of the chest/lungs coughing and congestion going on. It makes my ribs hurt when I cough.
   Am continuing to rinse the old nasal ducts every hour or so with my saline rinse/waterboarding technique. Dam do I hate that.... but it feels so much better after flushing all that gunk out again. You know it must be pretty horrific when your girlfriend has to leave when you do it, or suffer through a bout of sympathetic vomiting right along with you. Yuck!
   That being said..... I think it might actually be on the downhill side for me. Unfortunately Rima seems to have her own version of this stuff and she isn't feeling all that well either. I don't think I have ever seen her stay in one place for so long..... or take a nap before. So she must be feeling pretty poorly.
    So of course we are both disappointed in not being able to go over to Jonesbourough TN this last weekend and dance with everyone there. I am hearing through the grape vine that others who went to CDH are having similar illness's these past few days. It may be that sickness may be the price to be paid for having fun that weekend. On the other hand registration for CDH 2015 opened up today on line. Great Bear Trio again along with the Mean Lids. Add in Toss the Possum and Beth and Sara calling and you can see it is going to be another fun filled week. I already signed up on line and now just have to send in money.
   So while still thinking about contra dancing; here is another short video from last year. It does feature the Great Bear Trio again, but this time we were in Memphis TN at their Memfest weekend.  Rima and I are both in this video about half way down the center line.









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    Hey there..... One day after getting back from a weeks worth of contra dancing in Morgantown and I am feeling pretty puny. Ended up catching something the last day or so there, very easy to do when you are in direct contact with hundreds of people, and by last night it was a full blown case of a cold or flu or some other upper sinus/throat kind of thing. For all of that it hasn't been all that bad except at night when I try to sleep and my nose plugs up with so much gunk that I can no longer breath. yuck!
   So I have been eating a lot of aspirin and snorting salt water up my nose as well as taking naps all day long. I would like to think it is somewhat better today, but it really isn't.... so maybe by tomorrow.
    In the meantime it has meant not being able to go to another dance weekend over in Jonesbourough Tennessee this weekend. That would of been starting in about 30 minutes if we were there, but since I can't even bend over and tie my own shoes with out my head exploding it is probably better that we, or at least I, didn't go. I still think Rima should of gone over without me.
   So I have been staying busy reading books and checking out pictures and videos from this last weekends dance. There are always a few people who take pictures and videos of the dances and most turn out about the way you would expect them too. But there are several very good photographers out there and they produce a lot of very nice photo's and a few nice videos. I am hoping that a few videos from this last week will start to appear on facebook and youtube as I would like to upload a few of them to this site.
   It came to me that I have been talking about contra dancing for several years now, but most of you have probably never seen or heard any of it done before. So today I learned how to upload off of youtube and I am going to start out with my all time favorite contra dance video.
   Taken several years ago in Oswego NY it is a very professionally done video shot during the Great Bear Trio's own hometown dance weekend, the 'Groove'. So you can actually hear the music and see the dancers even though the cutting is pretty quick at times. Please notice the smiles on every ones faces and that the dancers are of all sizes and ages. The great Bear Trio are comprised of the young guys on guitar and fiddle with their mom on keyboards. The guy playing trombone, Nils is also the caller while the two sax players are friends as is 'Pokey' on drums. The tune is an old contra dance tune, but certainly played in a different way. The video was shot over the course of 3 nights and while edited, still gives a good idea of what contra dancing can be like at times. Enjoy.

Great Bear Trio at the Groove - 2009?

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    The dancing in Morgantown is now over again for another year. As in past years it will likely become the dance highlight of the whole year, even though there have been many wonderful dance weekends throughout the months since last Christmas.
    Dancing actually stopped around midnight on the 30th when Great Bear Trio played their final waltz of the session. It was an end to a wonderful week of entertainment and fun, so it was bitter-sweet in many ways. I unfortunately felt like a cold was coming on, so I didn't dance much that night. Opting instead to sit out in the library area where I could still hear the music and see the dancers without having to decline too many dance requests or pass on some of my germs.
    Yesterday morning was a time to say goodbye to many good friends during breakfast. I still wasn't feeling all that bad, but had enough of a raspy throat to try and avoid direct contact with anyone. We spent an hour or two having some breakfast and saying our goodbyes, before packing up the truck and heading back to Virginia.
    Everything seemed to be normal back at Rima's, place other than the house was pretty darn cold. We soon got a fire started in the furnace however and heated up some soup and tea water. Once everything was unpacked from the truck, we just flopped down on the couch and watched a couple of episodes of The Big Bang Theory before heading for bed.
   My sinus's were all plugged up by that time and I could feel a sore throat coming on, so I grabbed the upstairs bed and tried to find a position where my nose would drain enough that it didn't feel like someone was suffocating me. It was a struggle for most of the night, but I eventually slept enough that I woke up around noon feeling like maybe I was on the mend already. That is maybe the one bad thing about the whole dance week up in Morgantown, it seems like every year I come down with a cold or the flu no matter how careful I am with washing my hands and keeping sick people away from me. But at least this time it didn't manifest itself until pretty much the last day of dancing, so that is a plus.
    I am hoping to continue to improve over the next 24-48 hours as believe it or not, we are heading out to another dance weekend tomorrow afternoon. This one is only over at Jonesbourough TN, but it should be a fun dance with Perpetual e-Motion providing the main dance music and a couple other bands filling in for the waltzing and other dance programs. So right now I think I'll go brew another cup of tea and maybe take a nap. Happy New Year everyone!