Exploring The Area...

Yesterday we drove over to Old Town to check it out. It had been 10 years since I'd been there last. Best time to visit must be on a Saturday evening as it was really dead for mid-day on a Thursday. Thursday is bike night so probably later in the evening there would be a large number of bikes there to look at but none when we were there. A sign said the largest number of bikes they've had was 1275....not too bad.

This switchboard was in the General Store. My
great aunt was a switch board operator at one point.

When we left the Kissimmee area we decided to take rt 50 west back towards Bushnell. If you think that all of Florida is heavily populated, it isn't. We drove through some very barren areas of nothing but fields and very few houses. Not what I would typically think of for Florida. We drove to Weeki Wachee area, along the coast. They boast that they are the only town with real live mermaids...yep, sure. Drove out to a park area so we could catch a glimpse of the water and then headed home. It made for a very nice drive through the non-touristy areas of Florida. Boomer loved riding with his head out the window, breathing in all the smells and seeing the cows grazing in the fields as we drove by.

Today we wanted to check out the Florida National Cemetery that we keep seeing signs for. It's very close to our RV park and as soon as we drove in we could tell it was going to be a gigantic place. We picked up literature at the visitor center and found out that this particular one has been open since 1988 and is the second most active national cemetery of all of them. They do 7000 burials a year here. It is a cemetery for those who served in the military for at least 24 months and is completely free for the veteran and his spouse. The plot, marker, opening of the grave and perpetual care is completely free to the family. This facility is huge...there's 517 acres here.

Open areas for today's burials (by cremation)

They have services on the half hour but services can only be held at committal shelters throughout the cemetery. There are no graveside services. There were a number of groups gathering at various locations throughout the cemetery for these services to take place...it was very busy. I've always heard of Arlington as a National Cemetery but didn't realize there are so many others. There are seven of them in Florida, serving 1.9 million Florida veterans. It was a dignified and fitting burial place for those who have served our country.
On the way back to the RV park we went to the Wild Cow cemetery to see what that was all about. In the shadow of I-75's overpass, there is this little, old cemetery with only about a dozen plots in it.I was glad to see that it wasn't a final resting place for wild cows, as I thought that would be a rather extravagant gesture. The majority of the headstones are very old....most around a hundred years old....weather worn, with that ornateness that you see on ancient headstones. There was a recent plot, a woman who passed away in 2007 and would have been around 54 years old. She must have had a fondness for this place...tucked away at the end of a dirt road, under a canopy of oak trees.

It's now raining...a cold front is moving in from the coast. The area where we were yesterday in Weeki Wachee was an area of concern a short while ago when a tornado warning was posted...Our area is under the watch until 8 p.m. tonight. Linda went up to the club house around 2:00 to watch the last hour of the "Jam Session" - when musicians gather to play and sing together. She said the place was crowded and it was a good time. Now we're hanging out at the house while it pours outside. Gonna be a quiet night..

Cinnamon Sticks

Today we met our friends Carolyn and Roy at a restaurant in Inverness for lunch. Cinnamon Sticks is known for its home-made meals and every time Linda and I have gone there, they are packed. Linda and Carolyn had the lunch special....pot roast. Roy had the Soprano sandwich which was gigantic. There were several types of meat piled high on a bread that looked like sourdough, with provolone cheese and a special sauce. Wow, was that thing huge. Roy could only finish half of it and the rest was destined for a later meal. I had the veggie panini with fresh cut fries. It was very good. Linda and Carolyn also tried the 15 bean soup, which created lots of oohs and aahs from them as they ate it. The food was great, the company outstanding. We laughed about "Rv'ing antics" and had a great time. We're making plans to meet their again before we leave the area.

After lunch Linda and I went to check on our friend Jan. She looks much better and sounds better until she starts coughing. The sidewalk out in front of her apartment was all ripped up and they were building forms today to put in a new sidewalk. Should look pretty spiffy once they get it all done. We've always been impressed with her housing development and how nice things look there. They seem to really try hard to keep everything looking nice....from fresh asphalt in the parking lot recently and now new sidewalks leading to the tenants entrances. I'm anxious to see how it looks when we go back in a few days.

Rain continued through the morning hours but finally subsided around mid-day. No known plans for tomorrow. We're thinking about going to Old Town on Thursday.

Bump In The Road

Originally the weather forecast said that rain was going to be here this afternoon. We left, for the Webster Flea Market this morning around 10:30. While driving there my phone rang and turns out it was the repair shop calling...the place we were supposed to take our rig on Wednesday. Seems the main mechanic there went in the hospital over the weekend and won't be back to work for several weeks. UGH !! Can you believe it ? Unbelievable but there has been a full moon out and ya know that things go awry when there's a full moon. So.....we called Tri-Am RV Center, in Ocala and scheduled an appt there only we can't get in till Feb. 24th. Great, huh ? We had called them previously when we learned that the RV tech couldn't handle this large a job but they couldn't get us in till Feb 15th....guess we should have put ourselves on the schedule then. Now it'll be even later unless we get a call from our work to ship out to a new assignment and then we'll leave without getting the repairs completed. I think the thing that is really disappointing is that when Linda originally called Peterson Industries, our manufacturer, on the day the tech was here a guy in the service dept said he would do some calling around and see who might be able to get us in to work on the problem. You'll be surprised to know (or not)that we didn't get a call back from him. I feel like now that the original bumper to bumper warranty has expired, owners are left on their own to fend for themselves. Either that or that customer service isn't what it used to be in this business. Neither reason is acceptable. Businesses can make or break their business with the customer loyalty that they create. Pointing a customer in the direction of another service center is a reasonable expectation from a manufacturer.

In the meantime, we're hangin' out here. A lot of rain coming in this week. The weather man says it's an El Nino year which means rain comes in every five days. We're planning to go over to Old Town sometime this week which should be fun. I was there ten years ago and I really liked all the unique shops and the setting. Just need to time it right to get there in between rainy spells. We'll post more on that once we get there..

Fort Morgan, Alabama

Today Linda and I took the motorcycle to Fort Morgan, which is down near Gulf Shores....way out on the tip of the coast. As a coastal fort it was designed to control the main ship channel into Mobile Bay. With its star shape it could put a heavy concentration of artillery fire on an enemy fleet as it approached. There are only a few structures that remain of the 100 structures that existed in its heyday. Construction on the fort began in 1819 and it was completed 15 years later. The fort was even used during WWII but after that was deactivated in 1946.

It was a gorgeous ride out to the Fort, which is 37 miles from our campground. The temps were in the 70's today...blue skies and a light breeze. Since the fort is located on the coast, we walked down to the beach after we toured the fort. This is not a public beach so no groomed white sand....actually there are still washed remnants of recent hurricanes on the beach. As you look off the coast, there are lots and lots of oil platforms as far as you can see.Standing on top of the fort I counted at least 20 platforms that I could see. I wonder how many of them are operational since I know some of them were impacted by the last coastal storm to come through here.
When we left the fort, we headed back towards Summerdale and stopped at the Coleman camping Outlet, The Old Town Pottery store and the Gulf Shore tool store. Had fun looking at gadgets and gizmos in all the different stores we went in. Got home around 5 p.m....
Tomorrow our friends leave so we got to spend a little time with them this evening before they pull out in the morning. We wish them safe and wondrous adventures ahead !!