FRIENDS AND FOOD

 I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We celebrated on Wednesday night with some friends at the Clermont Methodist Church and then we had a turkey dinner again at the activity center at  TT. The only problem was the very slow moving line to get our dinner, but there was loats of good food.

 There was a table full of appetizers and another loaded with desserts.

We sat with Russ and Jodi, fellow pickle ball players.

 Today Keith and Marie organized a lunch trip to Yalaha bakery.
 14 fellow pickle ball players enjoyed a nice lunch of delicious sandwiches or salad.

And of course we had to enjoy some of these tasty pastries.

BIKE TRAIL

 On Tuesday morning at 9 o'clock Lazydays offered a seminar on Driver's confidence. We took the class portion and found it very interesting and helpful.(I had taken it 7 years ago). you can watch some good videos at  betterRVing.com, key phrase RV Driver Confidence.

 We were at Clerbrook RV resort for a week. We golfed a little and on Saturday we took a bike ride on West Orange Trail. The Killarney station is on Route 50 just before the turnpike entrance. You can rent bikes here if you need to.

 The bridge over the Florida Turnpike.

 We decided to bike to Winter Garden. We made it, and enjoyed walking around the town. Unfortunately the street fair was just closing when we got there, but the town has a lot of cute shops and restaurants.

 We passed this preserve on the trail so we stopped and walked around a little.

We left Clerbrook on Monday morning to go back to Lazydays for our jack repair, but when we called at 8:00 we found out they weren't there. We sure were glad that we hadn't driven all the way there to find this out. We are now at Orlando TT.

NOVEMBER CAMP OUT

 Our Blue Heron camping group gathered at Sun Lake RV resort in Ruskin,FL on November 7.

 Thursday night we had a great time at this German restaurant. The food and beer were authentic German and  delicious. We were entertained by a German musician / singer throughout the evening. There was a lot of audience participation. We did some singing and even a little dancing. It was great fun.

 For the pot luck dinner we made a turkey and had an early Thanksgiving feast.

 Our Saturday breakfast was a fun omelet. We took a quart size freezer bag and put our name on it with permanent  marker. We broke in two eggs, closed the bag and squished them. Then we added lots of goodies - olives, peppers, onions, tomatoes, bacon, ham, cheese, sausage,mushroom.

 Marty then put the bags into a pot of boiling water for 12 minutes.( He was the master mind of this meal)

 What a quick, easy and fun way to make omelets for a crowd.

 We always enjoy sitting and chatting.

 Larry conducting his first meeting as MOT (master of travel). Chuck and Tam did great job as our wagon master and mistress/secretary. It was a very enjoyable rally.

 The guys telling tales. Don, by the window on the right, is our newest member. We sure enjoyed having him and Nan join us at this camp out. 

 Some of us went over to the Manatee viewing center.

 It is hard getting a good picture of them, for they just stick their nose out to breathe. Can you see the baby? I think we saw at least 50 manatees but it is hard to count.

 A nature path told you about this estuary and the mangrove trees that grow here.

 We stayed Sunday night and left early Monday morning for an appointment at Lazy Days to get some work done on the RV. Our slide hasn't been closing easily, the inverter has started to make a strange ping pang noise and the front jacks won't retract all the way so Larry has had to put them up manually.

 Since they would have it all day we called Jim and Liz, our NOMADS leaders at Vandemere,NC. They live in Winter Haven and we met them at Lakeland for lunch at Mimi's Cafe. It was nice seeing them again.

 We are sleeping in the bay tonight. Our slide and inverter have been repaired, but we will have to come back in a week for new jacks to be installed. Tiffin covered it all, even though it was a year old in April.

FLORIDA FRIENDS

 We were greeted back in Florida by the sand hill cranes.  They seemed a little overly friendly. Some people are feeding them which I think is wrong.

We played a few games of pickle ball, as people started showing up.  It was great seeing Rich and Dee again, since they were traveling out west the last two years. Charlotte and Travis are waiting to play. We also saw Paul but he was being kept very busy driving bus for Disney, so he didn't have time to play pickle ball.

 At RV Connection Larry was told to contact Sam to get the RV fixed and painted. We called and he did the work right at our site on Monday morning.

It looks beautiful again. We were very happy with his work and would recommend him if you need some work done. Give him a call - Sam's Coach Detailing at 407-536-1220.

THE RALLY

    We had a new ice cube maker installed in the RV and the repairman felt that our water pressure may have caused the problem.  Larry wanted to get something to keep the water holding tank safe and clean and then we will keep it on to increase the water pressure.  So we decided to go to Good Sam Rally for the day and browse the vendors booths.  Daytona is 85 miles away, up I-4 to I-95.

 The rally was at the Daytona speedway. It was neat seeing it. On Larry's bucket list is to take our RV to a race. I have never been to a race and not sure I want to be parked in the middle of all the noise.

 We only spent a couple hours at the rally and then we decided to go to the beach. I had never been here before.

 You drive right out onto the sand.

 It was a beautiful, sunny warm day. We sat and enjoyed it and then took a walk in the water.

 This is a different type of gull then we see in Jersey. I like its orange beak and black feathers on its head. I need to look it up to see what it is.

 We asked a gentleman that was fishing where he would recommend to go to eat and he sent us to Aunt Catfish. Apparently it is a restaurant that has been in this area for over 30 years and is very popular. We arrived right before the rush hour and got a table with a great view.  We both had flounder. They have a great salad bar and everything was delicious. We had a very enjoyable day.

View from our table.