KEEPING BUSY

I was glad to receive an e-mail from Tom and Helen saying they were here in Florida at Deer Creek. Tom and Helen are from PA and belong to our Sidekick country dancing club. They had just gotten a new tiffin allegro open road. Since they were so close to us (about 10 miles) we went for a visit and to see their new RV. We had a nice meal at the club house restaurant and then played card bingo. I won big, splitting the $1 round, winning $18.

On Tuesday Thousand Trails ran a bus to the Hard Rock Casino near Tampa.

You paid $30 to go but received $25 in vouchers and $5 off for food. I broke even winning back all of my $25. Larry lost his $15 but got most of his $10 back. The buffet was very good and the price was right at $5 for each of us. So we had a day at the casino and a nice lunch for a total of $30. We would have spent that in gas just to drive there with our car.

I saw an article in the paper for a play being put on at South Lake High School in Groveland. We made reservations and went Thursday night.

The play was The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. Our seats were right on stage so you could see and hear perfectly. The show was well done. It was 2 hours long with only a cast of 9, with 6 of them having most of the lines. How they memorize all those lines I'll never know. I couldn't! It was an enjoyable night for only $5 a ticket.

I was feeling a little drab lately so I went to Banz inClermont and had a little darker color put in my hair. So here is my new hair cut and color.

Most evenings Larry and I have been playing Bananagrams. Here I played by myself and was able to use all the tiles in my crossword.

JANUARY ACTIVITIES

We went to the Tampa RV show on Wednesday, January 11.

We met our friends Larry and Jeanie who were looking at all the RV's. They had sold their RV and are thinking of getting another, but were just looking today.

We weren't looking for a new RV, we are very happy with our Phaeton.

We do have a new toaster. We needed one after I toasted a pen the other morning. Lucky I didn't start a fire!

The second Saturday of each month there is the car show in Longwood. We went and vended Waterless car wash Saturday night. It was a cool night but we sold a lot of product so it was worth our drive. It is hard getting show car owners to switch from the product they use to clean and shine their cars. The people who run the show use and love our product. They talk it up all the time. This car owner just got sold on our waterless and detailed this car with it.

Longwood fire company had a housing of two new pieces of equipment on Saturday.

There was also the Rescue 4 truck from New York City. No one on this truck survived on 9/11.

Saturday night the temperature went below freezing. We left Clerbrook RV park early Sunday morning and there was ice on the slide outs and roof of the RV. Driving to Thousand Trails the fog over the lakes was impressive. That is a fog cloud over a lake.

We got to Thousand Trails early so we could get some propane. We then were lucky enough to get site E 21, a 50 amp site. Since we were here early we set up at the craft show in the rec hall.

Linda and Wendell invited us over for some Louisiana gumbo on Sunday evening. Very tasty.

Sunday evening we were entertained by the Hyssongs. A family gospel singing group.

They had very nice voices and were good entertainers, even posed for me when I took this picture. They have entertained here at TT for many years but this was the first we had seen them.

JANUARY GET TOGETHER

Jan 4th to the 8th we camped with the Blue Herons, our NCT chapter, at Old Mill Stream RV park in Umatilla,FL. It has a lovely rec room for us to use. We held all our activities inside since it was a little cool the first few days.

Jan and Mimi planned the meals for the camp out, and Helen gave a helping hand. We had hobo soup, corn bread and brownies and ice cream the first night. For hobo soup everyone contributed a can of soup, it turned out quite tasty. One night had a pot luck with each rig having a whole roasted chicken. Saturday morning there was sausage gravy, biscuits and scrambled eggs. Saturday evening there was pork barbecue, beans and coleslaw. Every meal was delicious.
.

Marty getting breakfast from Mimi.

We all went to the Quarterdeck in town for fish fry on Friday night.

The business meeting was held on Saturday morning.

Jim, Lois, Charlie, Helen, Chuck, Pam and Audrey waiting for the business meeting.

Dick, Roberta, Lois, Jim , Helen and Charlie enjoyed playing cards each evening.

Charlie, Helen, Mimi, Jan and I put together three 500 piece puzzles.

Then we decided to tackle the 750 piece puzzle my son gave me for Christmas.

We finished it Saturday night. It was quite a challenge, we all were seeing red by the time it was done. ( I'll save it for you Ruthann.)

CHRISTMAS VISIT

My sister and son left Phila on Wednesday night and arrived at our RV at 10pm on Thursday,Dec 22. Friday I baked more cookies and di food shopping for Christmas.

Saturday we went to Gatorland.

One of my gifts to Larry and Bob was to go Zip lining.

All dressed and ready to go.

There were 12 of them in their group. The guys in the yellow hats were their guides.

This was were it all started. That is Bob taking off.

Followed by Larry.

After more than an hour, seven zip lines, and crossing a swing bridge they were racing each other to the finish.

Larry won. They loved it (all but that bridge).

We watched them feed the alligators. The weather was a little warm for now but still the alligators were a little docile.

All the signs were very informative.

It is a white alligator not an albino.

I think this is him, but he wasn't the only one in the water and they all looked big to me.

A lot of gators!

When we weren't looking at gators we had plenty of birds to look at.

Our last show of the day was gator wrestling.

We went to a 11 o'clock Christmas Eve service and then spent Christmas Day celebrating together. We had a very nice day. Lynda and I gave Bob a laptop computer. He knew he was getting it but hadn't been given it till Christmas. It kept him busy while he was here.

Monday we met Barb and Mike at Plant City and had strawberry sundaes. Bob hadn't seen them for awhile so it was a nice visit. I went to college with Barb and Bob's dad was working with Mike in Nigeria when Bob was born.

Lynda and I are the strawberry queens.

We left Plant City and drove to Clearwater,FL. It is over by Tampa.

Bob hadn't been to the gulf, so of course we had to get our feet wet. The water was nice and if the sun had been out it would have been great.
People from Phila know about Clearwater because it is where the Phillies have spring training.

No game today but we had to stop in and look around.

Wednesday we went to Kennedy Space center and spent the day.

We took a bus tour that allowed us to go in the vehicle assembly building (VAB) and out to where they launched the rockets. This is one huge building.

This is the actual Endeavour.

Launch pad A. The last time we were here Discovery was on pad A waiting for it's night launch - it was cancelled at the last second.

It is a long trip from the VAB to the launch pad.

1968 was the first time man made it to the moon. As we waited to go into this building there were a lot a interesting facts about that year. (It rained while we were in this building looking at all the exhibits. It was the only time it rained during the week.)

This is the Apollo 14 capsule

I'm not sure who was in that space suit.

Everyday Bob spent time at the lake here at Thousand Trails looking for alligators.

It was great that the weather was pretty nice because he slept outside under our pop up tent in his sleeping bag on an air mattress. Only one night was it a little cold. I think he found it all an adventure.

Their last excursion was an air boat ride where we saw alligators in their natural environment.

Aior boat rides are fun but noisy.

We saw two good size alligators. opps I missed his head.

To end the day Lynda took us to the Elephant Bar for dinner. She had heard us talk about it so much she wanted to go. We have never had a full meal here before for we always went at happy hour. Everyones dinner was excellent. They want one in Phila now.

Friday we spent a leisurely day around the RV. I made pork and sourcrout for lunch and they were on the way home by 2. They had no problem going home and arrived in Phila at 4 on Saturday. It sure was a nice visit. The good part of their leaving is Bob is going home to a job on Monday, after being unemployed for a year. Happy New Year!