Monthly Archives: February 2020

February 2020 blogs and notes


HAPPINESS is to have EVERYTHING,
you need
NOT the need to have EVERYTHING.

 

02.01.2020- Tripping back to Three-Flags RVP
Last night Carla checked the phones and they were predicting rain all night and most of tomorrow. Today is our day to travel back to Wildwood, FL at Three Flags, and the phones were right. It wasn’t a heavy downpour just a constant heavier drizzle. The roads were shrouded in a rain mist plus the rain itself. Visibility was barely one-tenth-mile. You know the type of weather when your windows are constantly fogging up and same with the outside mirrors. On the positive side it was just over a two-hour drive, about sixty-five miles. Eventually we did arrive in Wildwood. Three- Flags is like a second home; we know it well and know we’ll have no surprises once we get there. Carla just reminded me, Mass is at 4 PM. I can’t recall the last time we traveled on a Saturday. Saturdays present a whole new level of stress, especially when traveling to new campgrounds and cities. Wildwood, as I’ve mentioned before, is like a second home, we’ve been here so many times. We don’t have the stress of locating a NEW Church and even more stressful finding a new campground and getting set up on a Saturday.

02.02.2020-Ground-Hod Day.
It was another one of those do-nothing days, with the exception of the evening movie. It be only fitting to view the movie “Ground-Hog Day.”

02.04.2020-Tues.-off to Lazydays
Today was one of those things to do days. We had a 7:30 appt. at Lazydays for the coach, just small items, but they must be attended too. At 2:10 an appt. with Dr. Thomas for a cortisone shot to, hopefully, ease off this arthritic pain I’ve been dealing with since before Thanksgiving. The shot, as expected, was painful, only hope it works. Still no “Blogs” yet since all we’re doing is watching grass grow until we hit the road again.

02.05.2020-Wednesday
Another busy day but all was done by noon. NO side effects from the shot yesterday and my right wrist feels very good. For the first time in two-weeks I had a great nights sleep. First thing this day was off to Goodwill to pick up another hang-around-the-house shirt. It is difficult for me to give up an item I rely on for long periods of time. I do keep a close eye on my grey and white sweat-shirt I’ve had since my teenage years. After Goodwill it was off to Walmart to beef-up our pantry. Later we’ll watch the voting in the Senate.

02.07.2020-Friday
Today is another one of those “watch the grass grow” days. We did have a very fierce rain storm come through last night. Sounded like a dozen base drums all beating at once for about two-hours. We took a few minutes to go visit Ann Cunningham just down the street from us, just to say hi. She had some investment literature telling of a future cell phone that would dwarf 5G. Imagine, 5G being replaced even before everyone has a chance to experience it. I haven’t mentioned it but yesterday I gave up on this “arthritic pain” I’ve been enduring since last November and we drove over to the local Urgent Care in the area. The Nurse Practitioner listened attentively to my array of symptoms and ordered 4-vials of blood work for Saturday. We’ll see what comes back. Thirty-days to go before we can leave Florida, I’m anxious.

2.09.2020-Sunday-Wash Day
And your saying why do I want to hear about doing a wash. Not much, but aside from doing Sudoku, calling Dennis and watching a little TV there’s not much more to talk about. Yesterday was Mass, of course, at St Vincent Du Paul Church. They have a major constructions project to the church going on and everyone was curious about what they were seeing in the former church business building, no longer there. Prior to the homily Father John explained That what the parishioners saw on the ground were all the walls and supporting structures that will be used to erect the building to be constructed. A Crane will come in in a couple of weeks, allowing the cement to cure a bit, and it will lift each section into place then secure each section to itself and to the ground for support.  It should be awesome to watch it take form in the next 3-4 weeks. Sadly we’ll be gone but will check it out next yer when we return again. Yesterday and today have been almost live-able as far as my arthritis pain goes. As I may have mentioned the blood work has ruled out Rheumatoid Arthritis or RA should I might have misspelled the word. Right now I have no sensation in my left wrist which is why I’m enjoying this typing session but not so good for my left shoulder or right arm, but I’ll take anything I can get in hopes that this condition might be clearing up a bit. My trustworthy writing assistant, Scoots, her spelling is not much better than mine, so I give thank for Spell-Check.

Scoots is sitting on our travel sheet but I think we’ll be at Sumter Oaks RVP in Bushnell, FL. Our scheduled date to leave Florida is march 10th plus-or-minus a day, so the 30-day count-down will begin tomorrow.

2.14.2020-Valentines’ Day
Yes, I remembered. Even Scoots remembered.

I know this isn’t one of my better pictures, but at 1 AM and without glasses I did think it was much sharper than this. I did not think Scoots heard me slip away last night, but she did. It’s protocol now, that when I sit at the table to write or work on the computer, she feels she’s of assistance. I did not realize that my auto focus was not set, and sadly I missed a Hallmark moment. In about 15-minutes we’ll be leaving to go to the Harbor Light Restaurant  about 16 miles from here; Ann will be with us.

Harbor Lights Restaurant
To say the least the food was quite good, service was fast and very cordial. There’s more to be said about the restaurant-go to the blog of 2.14

02.15.2020- St. Lawrence Church

The parishioners in charge of the construction were both smart and frugal. The size of the church reflect the Catholic community it services. At our 4 pm mass the church was filled to capacity. 

02.17.2020-Uneventful weekend
The weekend was just that, uneventful. Today, Monday, however, Carla has made plans for us to visit Giraffe Ranch on Wednesday. More on that trip later. Today at the campground is a perfect Florida Winter day. Temps around 75 with no humidity- bright and sunny.

02.20,2020- Giraffe Ranch
We awoke this morning with great optimism, our first filed trip of the 2020 Travel Year. The weatherman appears to be on our side, low humidity and mid to high eighties. 

We will visit the Giraffe Ranch which is owned and managed by Les Salisbury and wife Elena Sheppa.

02.21.2020-Friday-Is this Florida or New England?
Left the windows open last night but closed them by 4 am. It only got colder from there. No one is wearing shorts today. It’s sweatshirts, hoodies and hands in pockets.

02.24.2020-Monday-Dwight
Today we plan to spend part of our day with Dwight from New Port Richie, FL.

02.25.2020-Michael’s Birthday.
NO, not my Michael but Abby’s Michael. Not knowing this would be his birthday we were not able to prepare for it, but there’s always next year.

02.26.2020-Ash Wednesday.
We did prepare for Ash Wednesday very seriously. We finished off the open bag of Hershey Chocolates remaining in the fridge. We also feasted on “Fat Tuesday” with an awesome pork meal with salad. Ash Wednesday was Mass ans ashes in the morning then we enjoyed the day fasting and abstaining from eating between meals all day. I did wake up last night for Scoots, just after midnight, and treated myself to some Oreo’s before going back to bed.

02.29.2020-Happy Leap Year Day

Today was a moving day. We left Bushnell, FL and traveled thirty-minutes back to Wildwood, FL in Three Flags RVP. Our site is just about right where we were on our previous visit.

Carla contacted Ann, a resident of the park, and told her we were back. Below is a file picture of our last meet with our former Director Cindy Lango, she’s the young lady in the white blouse.

Once Ann left us we gave Cindy a call in reply to a text she sent us. All is doing well with her family. She’s another very close friend to both Carla and I. I often relate to Abby as our surrogate Grand-Daughter, Cindy would definitely qualify as our surrogate Daughter. When she was in our employ she had daughter Kate who attended our Greenacres, FL Child Care Center. I think she was about six or seven and she’s the youngster you see on the right-side of the picture. Cindy told us she is expecting in September 2020. Needless to  say, both Cindy, Paul (husband next to Cindy) and Kate are our virtual extended family.  

We’ll be in Three Flags RVP for only eight-days. Our next trip will be to Clearbrook RVP for another seven days.

Dinner with Dwight


HAPPINESS,
is to have EVERYTHING,
you need.
NOT the need to have EVERYTHING.

 

02.24.2020-Monday-Dinner with Dwight

I’ve mentioned Dwight in the past. It was our pleasure to meet up with him, and his traveling cat companion, Dennis, now deceased, on our Alaskan Tour back in 2016. Dwight acquired a new coach last year and is making plans for traveling this year. Did I forget to mention that Dwight is ninety-years-old. Like all of us over seventy, he too has a medical problem or two. 

Upper left is a quick picture of the two-bedroom home he has in New Port Richie in Florida. His home has a beautiful floor plan which looks and feels much bigger than it really is. His two sons live nearby which is nice. This was our first time to this area. Needless to say, like all of Florida, it’s building like there’s no tomorrow.

The high spot of the day was his choice for an eatery. The Thai Bistro in New Port. The food and service was excellent, especially the calamari. The visit went by so quickly. We continue to keep in touch with him, not as mush as we should, and our happy to hear the different venues he’s gone to, even some that we’ve visited as well. It took us about an hour to travel each way and by the time we got home again it was time to feed Scoots. I treated myself to a fifteen-minute siesta before a light dinner.

Giraffe Ranch


HAPPINESS,
is to have EVERYTHING,
you need.
NOT the need to have EVERYTHING.

02.19.2020-Wednesday- Giraffe Ranch

We awoke this morning with great optimism, our first filed trip of the 2020 Travel Year. The weatherman appears to be on our side, low humidity and mid to high eighties. We will visit the Giraffe Ranch which is owned and managed by Les Salisbury and wife Elena Sheppa.

 

Carla is standing in front of the Ostriches not just for looks. It goes without saying they are tall, they are! Almost six-feet or more. Shown above are Les and Elena, the Zoo-Keepers, owners, guides and, I’m sure, “fill-in when needed staff” as well. Carla and I know that position very well from experience.

   

This location is the registration office and gift store. Above you see the many expedition packages you can opt for. A family of four just ahead of us are writing a check for over fifteen-hundred dollars opting for an experience package much more expansive than what were opting for.

                 (Pantagonian Cavies)             (Lemur pops, I think) 

You’ll have to basically enjoy the pictures since there was no way I could record all the information that was imparted to us this day. Below is a family of rodents. Pantagonian cavies, Actually they are the fifth largest (in size) of all the rodents in the world. Did you know that a rabbit is a rodent…It IS!

There are many turtles on this ranch. These two will be joined by a third at the end of our trip. I’ll let you use your imagination as to what you think they might be doing. It’s Florida. Just wouldn’t be fair not to have a family of alligators on the ranch.

We will enjoy this forty-acres ranch in the comfort of the Safari-Jeep, actually I think it was a Chevy. It may not look like it but it was very comfortable. We were given behavior instructions in the beginning and the group were excellent in following these safety instructions throughout the trip. Carla examines the “bony” horns as our guides and owners give us a short history on the biophysical formation of these structures.

The Camel Expedition. This, I think, might be one of the more expensive day-trips. It’s not shown in this photo but  the owner-guide will give this tour on his Segway. Given the two options I’d probably opt for the Segway as opposed to a camel as well. As you can see in the picture below many of the animals are permitted to intermingle all over the ranch. The objective of the ranch is to provide, as much as possible, an environment similar to what the animals would be enjoying in a jungle.

Above is a portable chicken-coop. Up to two-dozen chickens will inhabit this domicile for 3-4-days then a worker will relocate it to another location which will continually give the chickens a clean and grassy home. I wish my brother Rich was reading my blog since I’m sure he’d be interested in this product.This is a far-away shot of possibly one-third of the cages and caged-walkways located on the farm. Even those animals not permitted to wander over  the farm in general are given rambling enclosed cages to exercise as much a possible.

This is a far-away shot of the Registration building and covered open visitors gathering place. These are the guys we came to visit; Giraffes! They are permitted to wander freely over a large portion of this ranch but have been passively trained to understand that when the Safari-Jeep appears it means it’s feeding time and time to mix with the visitors. Even I got into the act and tried my hand at feeding these awesome creatures.

 

As you can tell from the pictures they are not shy. They are surprisingly tame and friendly. Here you see Carla feeding just one of many that came begging for treats. Our guide, Elena, encourages us to get involved and feed as many as possible. She even turned the vehicle around to allow those on the other side to lend a hand as well. Carla just proof-read the blog and liked it but insisted it was light on Giraffe pictures, so I added a couple more. Sadly this has to be a distance shot. They look like deer but they’re not. In particular please notice the one that is third from the start; just a baby!

(Blackbucks, I think)

The baby, once again. We’re told that this species have a single mind-set; to follow their leader which is always a female-maybe they know something we don’t! Zebras! And others. If I recall correctly we were told that the Zebra to the left is still a youngster. Its’ stripes will develop after a while. A youngster asked if flies bother the Zebras? I never gave it  thought, of course they must! But NO, they don’t! The zookeepers tell us the the stripes of the zebras confuse the flies, so as a result, they just keep picking on the horses. The ranch has no horses but we did notice that flies have no qualms about annoying rhinos.

Enjoy the pictures since I do not remember who these critters are.

The ranch originally was a “dry”ranch with no lakes or small bodies of water to tap into. To acquire water they were forced to drill down over seventy feet to find the water they needed for the animals. Then a couple of years ago they had to endure a three-hurricane season. As a result they lost many of their big oak trees that could not survive the forty-eight inches of ground water the flooded the ranch. An oak tree shows the water line on one of the many trees that survived the ordeal. A small lake was the by-product of these storms and the lake, as you saw in a previous picture, which continues to retain a generous amount of water for all. Below is the Rhino. He and his kind are doomed for extinction possibly in our children’s lifetime. Zookeepers all over the world are trying to breed  and grow the heard in captivity but it’s a slow and expensive process. 

The zookeepers here have been desperately looking to do the same, however. Their rhino is experiencing a dermatitis as a result of inbreeding. This affliction is why they have not been given the opportunity to help the cause. Scientist feel their rhino is not a good candidate for breeding. Once again, just enjoy the pics. If you know what these animals are please comment and I’ll edit the blog with your information.

 

Another shot of the extensive caged and enclosed walkway system this ranch has provided for their  inhabitants.

Our first and most enjoyable trip of this Twenty-Twenty Travel season. Would we recommend this trip…absolutely! This is not one of those venues that are in your face every time you turn around. This is a mom/pop endeavor they have been working at for twenty-one years. Previously Les managed a large zoo for 21-years, so experience abounds. Elena, his wife, is equally credentialed. I have just tried to acquire more information on the Giraffe Ranch through Facebook but failed. We both really enjoyed this experience and will edit this blog as more information becomes available.

It’s been years since I’ve done this but for more information

on this beautiful experience go to: CLICK- Link to Giraffe Ranch

Harbor Lights Restaurant


HAPPINESS,
is to have EVERYTHING,
you need.
NOT the need to have EVERYTHING.

02.14.2020-Valentines Day-Harbor Lights Restaurant

Sometimes a simple task of going out to Dinner may be difficult to achieve. Often times we find ourselves in a new town and even a new state. 

We were not supposed to arrive prior to 4 PM, but as usual,we were about twenty-minutes early. It was only about a twenty-minute drive from the campground. So, we decided to take a promenade around the grounds. Above your first impression might be to say, there must have been something nicer, but it gets better. Below is the back of the diner. Lush green grass and trees embellished with moss  from top to bottom.  

Harbor Light also provides a quaint walking bridge to bring you up to waters edge.

Inside, as you can see, is not sullied with big screen TVs and posters for beers of every type. Just a very simple down-home comfortable feeling. As I mentioned Ann was nice enough to accept our invitation to come out with us this evening. What we could not find were any harbor lights.

Sumter Oaks RVP


HAPPINESS,
is to have EVERYTHING,
you need.
NOT the need to have EVERYTHING.

 

02.15.2020-Sumter Oaks RVP in Bushnell, FL

Our trip here was nothing to brag about. The total distance was about twenty-six miles. We did pick up some fuel so it took us a little over an hour to make the trip.

This campground is a first for us. We have recently joined Escapees, and this is  one of their campgrounds. Above is the clubhouse.

The clubhouse is used for everything involving a large group, like Bingo and/or cards.

You don’t find this to often, a room for Crafts and sewing.

 

Above again is another library and office with all the office toys one would need. Next is an Audio/Video room for DVD or TV watching with 6-8 Lazy-boy lounge chairs.

It’s always nice to find a pool table, one that is in decent shape.Outdoors are Shuffleboard and a community fire ring.

This is about all there is here to see. It’s only a ten-day stay but should I find more I’ll post it.

St Lawrence CC Bushnell


HAPPINESS,
is to have EVERYTHING,
you need.
NOT the need to have EVERYTHING.

 

02.15.2020-St. Lawrence Catholic Church

is a relatively new parish. I believer, from what I’ve read, it was established in 2002.

 

 

 

 

 

The parishioners in charge of the construction were both smart and frugal. The size of the church reflect the Catholic community it services. At our 4 pm mass the church was filled to capacity. 

 

 

 

 

 

This is St Francis of Assisi. Will look for a statue of St. Lawrence next week. St Lawrence goes all the way back to the early church, around 250 ad.