It was up early for me yesterday, part of it was that the rain that had been going on for nearly 10 hours finally stopped, but more important was that it was time to pack up and move the trailer north to the Gainsville area. Having the rain stop was a wonderful coincidence, as it meant not getting drenched while hooking up the trailer. The actual packing up went pretty smoothly, each practice run I do makes it easier and faster to do.
    So I was on the road north just a little bit before 10 this morning. Traffic was a little crazy getting out of the Tampa area, especially around those parts of the highway that had construction going on. Of course some of those sections of highway seem to have been under construction for the last 5 years and it is hard to tell when any of it will actually be done.
  That being said, it only took a little more than 3 hours to go the 150+ miles up to the town of McIntosh. I pulled into a little private RV campground, Sportsman Cove, and pulled up to the office there. I had called them the day before to be sure they had room for me and they said that they would have several sites I could pick from. I got lucky in that the lady I talked to was walking down the access road toward me when I pulled in. We sorted out which site I wanted to occupy and got the trailer backed into and set up before heading in to the office to do all of the paperwork.
   The campground was actually sold off to some new owners last year, so I was prepared for an increase in rates. But I decided to stay for a total of 33 days here so they gave me a base monthly rate of $490 for the whole time, and included in all of the utilities with it. The nice thing is that I will be able to leave the trailer right where it is, with the electric still plugged in, while I fly off to St Croix next week.
   Once the trailer was set up I spent some time inside straightening a few things out and getting some late lunch but once these few errands were finished it was time to head into town for a few fresh groceries. Mostly I just needed some bananas and other fruit and veggies, but also ended up picking up a fresh rotisserie chicken, one of my all time favorite meals.
   Of course with all of this fresh food in the truck it was then time to go out to a local restaurant for dinner. I had been having cravings for weeks for a pulled goat or beef cheek burrito at a local Bodega Rima and I had happened upon a couple of years ago. So I ended up there munching on the 'Cabeza' burrito and it was as wonderful as I remembered it being.  From there it was back to the trailer to unpack stuff and spend a quiet evening reading my book.  

*brk

    I finished up watching the last of the original 6 Star War films last night. I am a bit dismayed to note how dated they seem too be. I am also disappointed in my self for thinking they were so wonderful when they first came out. And there is the real conundrum, because they probably were pretty good when they came out 30 years ago. Now though they seem a little tired, the plot is pretty hokey and the actual dialogue is almost painful to listen too. That being said; I still think they are still fun to watch. I just know that it will be a few more years before I need to watch them again. Maybe by then someone will have figured out a clever way to kill off the Jar Jar Binks character, he is just annoying.
   So it was nearly 9:00 this morning before I was up and about. A leisurely couple of hours to eat breakfast and read my book and then outside to finish up some maintenance items around the trailer. By noon it was warm enough to finish up some caulking along the trailers front panel seams. I had a single can of pressurized caulking which was more than enough to finish up the caulking part of the job. I'm beginning to think that the pressurized cans are the way to go unless you have a whole lot of caulking to do, but this went on easy and there seemed to be enough caulk in each can to make it worth it's slightly higher cost. Of course the real trick to caulking is in smoothing out the seams once it is in place. Lucky for me I knew that all of this would be covered over so perfection wasn't called for. Still; I did strive to keep it as neat as possible, which meant that only a little bit of it actually ended up on my hands or elsewhere.
    Once the caulking was done I installed several layers of exterior duct tape, Gorilla Tape brand, which is UV stabilized and should therefor last longer. It is also quite a bit stickier, so it was kind of tricky to hang off of the ladder while trying to apply it in a nice straight line. It is all done now though and with a cold front, and a lot of rain coming in tomorrow. I guess it will be a good test to see how well it works.
   I'll be leaving the Tampa/St Pete area tomorrow morning and heading up the highway towards Gainsville. I contacted a RV campground up in Macintosh that I have stayed at in the past and they said they would have a place for me to land. Looking forward to being up in that area again as there always seems to be plenty of things to do. I need to finish up here though and get back to camp and start putting stuff away. The photos below are the last of the ones from my trip to England last year, it was a great trip over all and I am hoping that I will get to go again next spring when my friend Gwyn is planning on putting it on again.


 Contra Dance Week in Ely England - April 7 to 16 - Part XV
  

One of my jobs when I got there was to help the electricians set up the lights and sound system. Of course with the tight work rules there in England, there really wasn't much there that I could do. I did manage to steady a ladder or two and make suggestions on where lights could go and what color spectrum they could use for their 'up lights'. The guys doing to work were great though and we had a good time hanging out together.

I suggested using a warmer red-yellow spectrum for the background colors and it did seem to make a lot of difference. It kind of reminded me of my high school prom but with better music, better dancing and much better people to dance with.

Interestingly enough I have no pictures of the actual dancing, most likely because it was more fun to dance than it was to take pictures. I did get a chance at a couple photos of the band, Wild Asparagus, when they did an hour long concert before dancing that night. It was fun to hear some of the tunes that we wouldn't normally hear during a regular dance night.

Amazing musicians all, all of them have played on dozens of CD's of their own or on others, including on other big name folk and country musicians around the country. They are a real joy to listen and dance too.

*brk

   Another nice day here in Florida. It wasn't all that warm, only getting up into the low 60's, but with a bright sun and no wind to speak of it was a good day to spend some time outside.
   For me it was a good time to do a few more outside maintenance chores. To that end I finished up installing a line of screws and fender washers along both sides of the trailer up at the front corner seams. It is hoped that these will hold the side panels in while the trailer is underway instead of billowing out while on the road. I also removed a bunch of old caulking along those seams, so it seems likely that this has been a long term problem. Since it wasn't warm enough today I decided to hold off applying new caulking until tomorrow when it is suppose to get into the low 70's. Once that is done I have some special white Gorilla Duct Tape to go over each seam as a final layer of protection and hopefully that will be all that is needed.
   I also had a couple more cans of spray of roofing mastic that I used around the final two roof vents. It appeared likely that the stuff I sprayed on the other day dried well, and I am hopeful that I have stopped any roof leaks that may have been there from getting worse, and hopefully fixed them for good.
    This afternoon was pleasant as I took some time to run out to the actual Fort De Soto site and explore the ruins of the gun emplacements. I also spent some time walking on the beach and looking for sea shells and odd birds. I watched several ospreys hunting for fish in the shallows out by the mangroves. It was fun to watch several of them dive down and grab fish right out of the water. They seemed to be a lot better at it than several human fishermen who were competing with them. One wonderful thing about this area is that there does seem to be plenty of osprey in the area. On the road in and out of the park there is on average at least one bird sitting on every 3rd or 4th street light pole. Often times they are all sitting there munching on their recent catch.
    I also spent a little time this morning working on some more pictures I want to post. They are also from several months ago when we were in Norway. But for today, and one more day after this, here are a few more photo's from our trip to England last spring.


 Contra Dance Week in Ely England - April 7 to 16 - Part XIV
  

Another side trip to a local attraction, this one to Bletchley Park, the estate in England where very smart people were gathered together during WWII to see if they could break Germany's secret codes which were produced by what was known as the 'Enigma machine'. This is the entrance to the estate from the bus park. From historical photos this small lake was a very popular spot for workers to have picnics at in the summer and ice skate in the winter.

Another view of the grounds. The actual main estate can be seen through the trees in the middle. Surrounding it were many other buildings that housed and fed all of the workers there as this was also the site of most of England's intelligent services during the war.

The main estate, an interesting amalgamation of many architectural styles.

Perhaps a better view. This was where all the big wigs in the intelligent services lived and worked. It was during this time that England started what would later become the 'SAS' MI-5 and 6. The equivalents of the United States CIA, FBI and NSA. But for me it was the work done by Alan Turing and his team in breaking the Enigma Code that was the most interesting. This was ably shown last year in the Hollywood movie 'The Imitation Game'.

This small display seemed to explain what the Enigma Machine was the best. It was the use of this machine that allowed Germany and its allies to send coded messages for many years without worrying about them being broken.

Alan Turing, a mathematical genius, and a group he put together, finally managed to build a machine, the fore runner of a computer, that could make the billions of calculations that were needed to break the code.

This is actually one of those machines that they built and used during the war. By breaking the Enigma code it is believed that they managed to shorten the war by nearly two years and saved many hundreds of thousands of lives. Unfortunately the hero of the day, Turing, was disgraced after the war because he was gay. He ended up committing suicide after being convicted of the sin of ----- being human.... just not the right kind evidently. One wonders what other problems he might of solved if he had lived and been given the accolades he deserved.

Beauty and the Beast. Rima with a Griffin statue. They had a wonderful audio tour you could take of most of the buildings. As usual we didn't have enough time to see everything.

*brk
 

    I was up pretty early this morning, quite a feat in it's own right since I didn't get to bed until after 2:00 a.m. last night. I've been hooked on a couple books recently, and it was a matter of just not being able to put it down. Even now it is calling to me back in the trailer, but I am trying to finish up a few other things before succumbing to the call of it once again.
    The reason for being up earlier than I should of been was that the last session of the Florida Snow Ball contra dance weekend was starting at 10:30 this morning. I wanted to be over there in time to dance as many of the dances as I could. The dancing was everything I thought it would be. The first half was anchored by the 'Syncopaths' doing the music. There must of been at least 200-250 dancers still in the hall and it was 4-5 long lines for the whole hour and a half. The second half had the 'JEMS' playing with calling by Cis Hinkle. I did have to sit out two of the dances, my feet were starting to hurt, but it was hard to not want to dance them all. As always, it seemed that some of the best dancing of the whole weekend happened during this last session. So now I'm done, my feet hurt and my back aches somewhat and I probably need a nap. All will be okay in the end though, and it will only be a day or two before I am looking forward again to the next dance.
    Right now though I am eating a late lunch after doing some grocery shopping before hand. I hope to be back at the trailer in the next hour or so. As it is now bright and sunny out, and almost warm now the the wind has calmed down, it might be time to go out and watch the sun set over the Gulf.


 Contra Dance Week in Ely England - April 7 to 16 - Part XIII

We continued our sightseeing outing by getting back on the bus at Castle Acre and driving on to the town of Cromer up on the NE coast of England. Not so much a sea port as it was just a town on the sea it had a nice old feel to it as we walked into downtown from the bus park. I feel in love with all of the old brick buildings.

A typical street in the old part of downtown Cromer.

Eating lunch at a local pub with fellow dancers and friends. I had shepards pie along with a nice pint of some local English brew they had on tap.

Looking along the strand with part of the North Sea in the background.

They had a nice public pier jutting out into the water where alot of people were sitting on benches eating lunch and enjoying the warm sun. There were several small shops out there selling knick-knack's and food. They also had a Royal Navel Lifeboat Service station out on the very end.

You could go into the actual station and wander around and read all of the signs they had hanging up that explained who and what they were. I was surprised to find out that this stationed was an all volunteered entity, the people that went out on calls being local fishermen for the most part. What a nice way to give back something to the community you belong to.

Many years ago the U.S. and British Coast Guards had very similar heavy weather and surf lifeboats. These were all 44' MLB's, Motor Life Boats, similar to ones I ran long ago when I was in the U.S.C.G. It appears that the two countries have diverged a bit in their boat design with the U.S. going with a new 47' long design, that I hear is wonderful to drive and work on, but will never replace the 44's I drove. This British design in kind of interesting and looks like it is a capable boat also. I would love a chance to go out on one, but alas I don't think I'll go out on the ocean and get into trouble in order to do that.

brk*

   Last night was the start of the Florida Snow Ball here in Gulfport. The Snow Ball is a yearly weekend contra dance that draws people from all over the country. The dancing started last night at 8:00 p.m. and I saw friends from Minnesota, New York, Connecticut and a few others.
   The dance has the 'Syncopaths' and the 'JEMS' as the two main bands with a caller out of San Diego that I have never heard before, but who seems to be more than competent.  I'm not sure how many dancers there are this weekend, but at it's most crowded last night we had 6 lines of dancers with between 60-75 dancers in each, so 250-300? It was almost too crowded there for awhile, but everyone here is a good dancer and there were no bruised feet or busted noses that I heard of.
    I was happy to note that I could dance every dance in the first hour and a half of the dance, except one I sat out of in order to go too the bathroom. I also stayed for about 2/3's of the second half but finally gave up at 11:00 when the leg started acting fatigued again. It took about an hour for me to come down from my contra high when I got back to the trailer, but I sure did sleep well after that.
   It is sunny outside today, but very windy and cold for the most part. I am still very thankful to be down here though rather than being north of here where they are experiencing blizzard conditions. Brrrr!  I'm holding out until this evening before doing any more dancing. It should be another fun night and I look forward to wearing my feet out once again.


 Contra Dance Week in Ely England - April 7 to 16 - Part XII

Castle Acre Priory Ruins and surrounding area.... One of our daily sightseeing trips took us over to the town that holds the remains of Castle Acre Priory. We didn't actually have much time there as we were continuing on to a final destination of a small town out on the north coast of England. Unless you wanted to stay for the whole day, in which case we would have the bus stop there on the way back to Ely and pick you up. I decided to go on, so only took in the nearby town and the old ruins of the actual Castle Acre Castle. This is part of the fortified gate into the priory grounds where the bus parking lot is.

From a distance... some of the actual priory ruins. I left this for a longer visit next time.

There was a lot of brick used in the gate structure as well as many of the surrounding buildings. What was interesting to me was the use of locally mined rock for use as accents. I am not sure, but think that much of the stone used was a type of volcanic obsidian with lots of quartsite  inclusions, I'm not sure though. I do know that it 'flaked' into very sharp shards however when struck in the right way.

A newer church near the local town. Most likely only a few hundred years old.

A stone gate over a highway leading through town.

There was another site nearby of a large fortified estate. I never figured out if it was actually Castle Acre or some other rich Lords land holdings. This sign was amongst the ruins and help describe what it was you were walking through and seeing.

The remains of what was once a surrounding motte (moat). Some of the main estate ruins are located on the hill to the left.

Referring back to the sign shown earlier this bridge would of been the main entrance to the Castle Keep over the surrounding water filled moat.

More fortified ruins in the distance. Most likely part of the wall that would of surrounded the part of the village inside the walls.

What is left of one of the fortified entrance gates.

A friend and fellow dancer Christy.

Another friend and dancer Susanne.

Looking down on yet another fortified gate with several rooms, for the guards I would think, on either side.

Looking past the remains of one of the stone gates with the existing town in the distance. For some reason I really like this picture.

John and Liz, additional friends and dancers.

A happy couple.

Jane... standing near the top of the hill where the main house would of been.

Ruins of what was most likely the main residence.

The local pub in town 'The Ostrich'. I would of liked to spend an hour or two eating lunch there and having a pint. But it was still mid morning at that time so it was off on the bus to other fun things to see.

Christy,  taking a break in the gate house stairs before getting back on the bus with the rest of us.

brk*

    Evidently a big weather front is blowing in over most of the country. North of here it means very cold temperatures and a lot of snow, several feet of it in some parts of the country, including Floyd Virginia. I am sorry it is going to be nasty outside for awhile, but am thankful most of my friends seem ready for it and are all tucked in safe and warm at the moment.
    For me the shift in the weather meant hard, hard rain for most of the morning here in Florida. I am so thankful to have had some time yesterday to get up on the roof and do some much needed maintenance on the vents and such. As far as I can see there were no leaks from any of the places where I had seen water in the past. There is still some additional work to do on a few things outside, but that will have to wait until the weather clears off once again and the temperature edges up into the 70's again.
    So I stayed in for most of the day and read my book and watched another Star Wars movie. I have to ask; was there ever a movie character more annoying than Jar Jar Binks? They really should of killed him off as soon as they thought him up. Barring that, a happy little accident with a blaster or light saber would of been nice.
    It did stop raining finally, though it is due to rain more later on. Right now though it is almost nice outside. I am just having a bite of dinner out before heading off to the first night of the Florida 'Snow Ball', a weekend contra dance which is always among the best of the year. I am so looking forward to dancing again and just wish my sweetie was here to dance with me.

 Contra Dance Week in Ely England - April 7 to 16 - Part XI

Sandringham Palace, one of the Queens summer homes. This is a view of the grounds as we walk into the site.

Our first view of the actual palace. This was one of the many side tours that you could take while attending the dance week in Ely. Our host, Gwyn, made available buses for people who wanted to go if enough interest was shown. Then everyone who went was responsible for paying their own fees and bus costs. It was a great system that seemed to work out very well.

From what I could figure out the Queen, or her relatives, would visit this home for only a few weeks out of a year. In the past they would keep a complete set of workers there just to care take the place and keep it ready for someone to show up. These days they also allow commoners to come and visit and see how the upper crust might live, and to help defray the costs of course.

A cherry or crab apple tree in bloom.

A nearly whole view of the "home". It was hard to get it all to fit into a single picture since it is so large and spread out. And I have a pretty wide angled lens to boot. Of course this doesn't show any of the other large out buildings that go with the estate.

You can't take pictures of the interior of the main house so I will just have to say that it was stunning. This is the outside of one of the satellite buildings that was kind of a garage and museum all in one. I was fascinated by the wall finish on this building as it reminded me very much of some of the old 'Pueblo' building I saw in New Mexico at Chaco Canyon.

One of many of the horse drawn coaches in the museum part. I believe this one is called a Brougham.

A cute little single horse 'cart'.

The workmanship on these wagons and coaches is superb.

This one is interesting as it would of gone out in the field with a group of hunters any time they went out grouse/pheasant or wild stag shooting. It was used to haul the days kill back to the main hall to be prepared for dinner.

Several of the older, retired Roll's that were housed in the museum. These two from the era between WWI and WWII.

I liked this pair of a hand built Range Rover and it's accompanying trailer. Evidently used more for picnics out in the wild, than it was for extended camping trips, it was still a nice little outfit.

A beautiful hand built Roll's with wooden finishes.

A view of one of the buildings that housed some of the workers at Sandringham.

brk*