Goin' Mobile-A Dance Gypsy's tour of the country

   Despite a couple of rain storms that passed through the area this afternoon, it was a very nice day overall. The sky was bright and sunny this morning and the temperature made it well into the 80's by this afternoon. As I said, there were a couple of rain showers this afternoon, but they were wide spread and didn't last for very long, and even with the rain, the temperature only dropped into the high 70's. The humidity has sure gone up however. Right now the trailer is pretty steamy and that is with all of the vents and doors open. I'm hoping it will cool down as the night advances.
   Spent the morning doing paper work and working on photos, but took off this afternoon and took a short ride over to a local state park on the east side of the lake I am currently camped near. Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings State Historical Park is over near the town of Cross Creek. She was a pretty famous author early in the century and is probably best known as the author of 'The Yearling' and 'Cross Creek'. The park consists of her old homestead including the house where she wrote, a reconstructed wooden barn, assorted out buildings, including a chicken coop, and a couple of acres of assorted citrus trees.
   I liked the chicken coop the best of course, since it had nearly 20 assorted breeds of chicken in it. Ones I recognised included Buff Orpington's, Dominique's, and Black Austrolorp's. All seemed pretty happy strutting around the fenced coop checking out everything they came across.
   Spent about an hour there touring the grounds and taking a few pictures. There isn't all that much there to see however, so I soon headed off to a hardware store in Ocala where I could find a good selection of LED light bulbs.
   I have been converting all the lights in the trailer to LED over the past couple of months, and now have all of the DC current, (battery power), lights switched over. So there are now only a couple of standard light bulb style bulbs to change out in the 3 reading lights I have running off the AC electrical system. I have been holding out for the price to come down on 100 watt equivalent bulbs to something I can afford. Just two years ago, 100 watt bulbs were costing more than $60 apiece in the stores. Today I got one to try that was less than $9. So far it seems to be just right. Plenty of light and it is a nice warm color instead of that harsh blue-white light old fluorescent lights use to put out. I like it a lot, and the nice thing is that it puts out at least 1600 lumens, more than a standard 100w incandescent bulb, for only 15 watts. So score!
    Stopped off at Taco Bell on the way back to the trailer and had a snack for dinner while reading a couple chapters in one of my books. Looks like it will be another quiet evening with more book reading in my future tonight. Not a bad life overall.
   Today's pictures are the last ones from my contra dance vacation week on St Croix in the Caribbean. They are just miscellaneous photo's of things that caught my eye during the week, so a few flowers, a few trees and several ocean subjects. It was a great week and I am already looking forward to doing again net year.

Misc. pictures from the Contra Dance Week on St Croix

Feb 3-10, 2016

Looking at the beach right out side the resort condos where we all stay during our week of dancing. It doesn't get much better than this.

Another scene shot from the beach in front of the resort. I think I'm probably on a lounge chair under one of the palm trees enjoying the scenery. In the distance on the left is Buck Island, a National Ocean Park with it's own underwater trail for snorkelers. On the right is the far side of the harbor at Christiansted.

Some of those palm trees I was talking about.

This is a fruiting 'Christmas Tree' palm. With the green and red it is easy to see where the name comes from.

One of many flowering shrubs, most of which I don't know the names of.

I've heard this called 'Ugli Fruit', but obviously not the kind that you would find in a local grocery store, because I have also heard that eating it will most likely make you throw up.

In the distance is the two masted schooner 'Roseway' coming back from taking a group of local school kids back to port after a morning of lessons on board. ( See photo's from last night for additional info on the Roseway).

More flowers.

This one is always pretty.

This is the swimming pool and deck at the 'Sugar Beach Resort'. This is one of three resorts, all alongside each other, that we all stay in while here. Just to the right is the common room and kitchen where the staff cooks make the most amazing after dance snacks as well as several full meals for us during the week. In the rear are the remains of one of the windmills that dotted the island during the colonial times. They were used to turn the grinding mechanism that ground sugar cane up and released the cane juice needed to make sugar and ultimately... Rum.

This shrub comes in some 20-30 different colors but the answer to the question of how many different colors does the actual flower come in is always just one.... white. The flower is that little bitty thing in the middle, while the colored part are just bracts, or a specialized kind of leaf.

The view from one of the two restaurants that we would often eat lunch at.

Another view of the Roseway.

This tree is located on the Sugar Beach grounds right next to the main dance tent. Most people seem to concur that it is probably a Calabash Tree. I find it interesting in that the fruit stems come right out of the side of some of the major tree limbs instead of off of some of the smaller ones like apples do. But then, most apples don't weigh 10-20 lbs each.