Hippity Hop & Away We Go~

It's time for us Snow Bunnies to hop back on the Highway and head for home. We hate to leave the beach and sunshine but our family is missing us and we've put it off long enough. Friday morning (April 4th) we are up early and packing our gear. We pulled all the plants inside to the garden tub Thursday evening and pulled in all our awnings. It doesn't take us long to finish up and get things stowed properly, check our emails and have breakfast. We are on the road by 11:00. The wind is blowing pretty strong and storm warnings are out. The sky looks pretty dark so we decide instead of driving in the storm we'll stay overnight at Campers World and have them do a bit of preventive maintenance before we start the trip North. While we are there we pick up some supplies and a new fresh water pump. Ours has quit working and CJ thinks he can install it himself and save the cost of labor. They don't finish with us till 4:00 on Saturday and we're planning on going to my cousin Tracies house in Auburn Alabama. That's about 4 hours away so we don't tarry around. We filled up our tanks at the Loves truck stop and put a couple hundred dollars worth of diesel fuel in Big Blue and away we go. It was about 8:30 when we got into Tracies. She's such a sweetie. She's got supper waiting for us and it is scrumptious. We set and eat it at my Grandmother's dining room table which makes my day! My favorite southern meal, pork bar-b-cue sandwiches with coleslaw on them. She's also fixed some baby red potatoes and salad to go with it. It's so nice to catch up on the girls. She has 3 daughters and this is the first time I've seen them since 2000. They've grown so much. And such fine young ladies with all the wonderful southern charm and manners you find down here. Tracie and her husband Paul are doing such a fine job with them. The oldest girl, Lydia is quite a young horsewoman. On Sunday we drive out to the stables and watch her working the horses. She's only 12 but she's so good with the horses that the stable has hired her to do a lot of training and stable chores in exchange for her boarding fees. Little Katie, the youngest goes along with us and it's easy to see that she's got quite a love for animals and insects. On the way home Tracie drives us through the Auburn campus and shows us around. Auburn is a beautiful community and Tracie and Paul have a gorgeous house in Cary Woods. Their road is on the tour of Dogwoods and they are all in bloom right now. It's breath taking! While we were out at the stables, Marion, who's 10 has a couple girlfriends over to visit and they are excited to see us get back cause they've been dying to take a tour of Big Blue. They all decided it would be a perfect spot for slumber parties. It's just like a little doll house. Sunday evening we grill outside and have chicken and pork chops. I fried some potatoes to go with and we put together a big salad. Soon it's time for the girls to get ready for bed as there is school tomorrow. We are parked right across the street from the house so we don't have far to walk to go home. Monday morning we get up early and see the girls off to school and say our good byes to Tracie and Paul. We drive the motor home to Wallmart by the Highway we'll be taking to Birmingham and leave it there while we go back into Auburn to do a bit of site seeing. Tracie was telling us about the famous college bar-b-cue hangouts called Mike and Ed's. They have T-shirts that would be a perfect gift for my son-in-law Tim who works on a Pork Farm. We stopped there to buy one and sample their bar-b-cue and found it so good we bought a pound of it "to go" to eat on the trip Northward. We also stopped by Tracies Pack Mail store so CJ can see it. We are on the road towards Birmingham by noon.

Our first stop in Birmingham is Oak Mountain State Park. It is HUGE! From the gate to the camping area is over 5 miles. It is full of winding trails for hikers, bikers & horseback riders. They even have a golf course there. I think there's about 3 lakes and more streams than you can count. We got a perfect campsite with trees around us and a view of one of the lakes from our windows. The shower house was only a few steps from our motor home. The 2nd day we are here, Karen, our friend from Pogo comes to spend the day with us exploring. She lives only a few miles from here and has been to the park many times. They have a wild animal rescue and shelter here which we tour. Then a drive up the mountains tallest peak to do some site seeing. It was a beautiful day for it as the sun was shining brightly and it was over 75. When we got back to the motor home I heated up our Bar-b-cue and made some coleslaw and baked beans for supper. Then it was time for Karen to head home to watch "Idol" so I went to the Publix Grocery to stock up on a few supplies.

The next day we puttered around the park. Chuck installed the new water pump under the china cabinet. It was a fairly easy job. I did some laundry and some hiking and took some pictures. It was at least 75 today and sunshine. Then for supper we went and picked up Karen and we to our favorite Birmingham Restaurant to have their famous baked spaghetti. It's called Costa's Mediterranean Cafe and it's on Lorna Road, just past the Galleria shopping center. After supper we went back to Karen's to watch the rest of the "Idol" show with her before heading home to the coach.

Thursday morning we got up early to pack up our things and headed over in the motor home to the Freightliner service center, northwest of Birmingham. When we were at Camping World the discovered a leak in the rear pinion seal which they didn't have the parts to fix. They told us we wouldn't have trouble getting to Birmingham to get it fixed. The freightliner place had the parts and got that fixed along with a new U joint that had some pins missing and we were on the road again from there by 3:00. Which was good cause we didn't want to drive through the major rush hour traffic back to Karen's house in Big Blue. Karen had a perfect place for us to park our rig for a couple days next to her condo building. Thursday night I put together a great big salad for us to all eat on and we opened a bottle of wine to go with it. Friday we all went to the Outdoor Sports show at the civic center and toured a couple dozen motor homes and 5th wheels. We also saw some pretty nice boats. After we left there we stopped at Walmart for some supplies and then one last stop at the Whataburger. Our last chance before heading north. The temperature was 85 and sunny but a storm is rolling in. By evening it's here complete with hail. Karen's friend Angela came over to visit and do Karen's hair and when they finished I cut CJ's hair. It's starting to cool down a bit and we don't have to worry about not having any air conditioner in the coach while dry docked. On Saturday we're on the road again and heading towards Elkmont, our next campsite. It's been a wonderful week here in Birmingham visiting with Karen.

We got into the campground in Elkmont about 4:00 and still have good light. The campsite is fairly level and they've got a nice shower house. There's only two drawbacks. No Kingdom Halls in the vicinity and no Internet! I had absolutely NO signal with my Verizon air card. The campground has advertised free WiFi though so I downloaded the linksys WiFi system into my computer and got online for about 30 minutes while CJ takes a nap and then the camps WiFi crashes and no more Internet. Dang! Guess we won't be staying here two nights. It got a bit chilly tonight and I plugged in our ceramic heater for some warmth. Sunday morning we got up early, took our showers, packed up and hit the road by 10:00am. Leaving the campground my brake warning light came on and stayed on. We stopped at the first gas station and CJ put some brake fluid in and that seemed to fix the problem. We got on Interstate 65 and headed north. We stopped at the TA truck stop just south of Nashville for a bite to eat and then wished we'd made our own meal in the coach. The food was not good and the service was even worse. We had to keep asking for everything, they never did bring my toast with my eggs, they only refilled our coffee once which we had to ask for and it was all way overpriced. And they weren't even busy. We will never stop at another TA again. Not to eat anyway. That was pretty much the first bad experience we've had eating out on the whole trip. We made it around Nashville safely which is always a worry for me. Nashville has the most convoluted interstate system. All kinds of roads crossing each other and merging with lanes appearing and disappearing without warning and no through lane. Of course there's always road construction. I'm always thankful to get through there safely. We got off 65 at Bowling Green KY and headed north on the William Natcher Parkway which takes us through Morgantown where my dads family is from. Off and on we had to drive through some rain but nothing too bad. The temperatures are dropping though. Twenty miles north of there in Hartford is a campground in the Ohio County Fairgrounds. It's just starting to mist when we pull in. We found a site on the edge next to a grove of trees. There's not too many coaches here. It's not a bad place to camp and it only costs us $10 a night cause it's on the Recreation USA list of campgrounds. Monday we get up early and take the car back to Morgantown where I give CJ a tour of the family sights. I even managed to get him to walk through the cemetery with me. We ate at the Farmboy and went to the IGA for some groceries then head back to the coach where I'm finally getting a chance to set and put this blog down before I forget too many details. Tomorrow we're leaving early and should make it back home by tomorrow night. We've only got about 6 more hours of traveling to go. We're hoping to make it up to the Mt. Vernon area (halfway) and stop for a nap. Then on to mom's. Dad's scheduled to have his stint surgery on Wednesday morning so hopefully we'll be there for that.

I've put together some slides for your enjoyment. Click on the link below.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=enxxrx4.33gw6y80&x=0&y=q7bu6k&localeid=en_US

~On a Roll with Sausage~

We wound up our week at a Sausage Festival in Elberta on Sunday afternoon. Row after row of booths of Arts & Crafts, good things to eat, household products, candles, exercise equipment, farm equipment, fire truck displays, kitchen bands, German bands, face painting, all the things that make a great festival with NO politics. Not ONE politician! These people know how to throw a great festival down here. We even ran into Aunt Bobbie and Uncle Bob. CJ is eating a bowl of red beans and rice in this picture. You can see by the picture, he's not sharing, get your own bowl. We had a wonderful time. The day was warm and gorgeous. The crowds were huge. There was a 40 minute wait in line for the home made sausage. After we left we drove over to Loxley to the Burris open air market to pick up fresh veggies and fruits for our low acid meals this week. We've been putting everything from raw turnips & beets to grated raw sweet potatoes to Chinese vegetables and garbanzo beans into the salads. We got some good deals at Burris' but I do notice all the prices everywhere are up. Bananas are as high as 79 cents a pound. Cauliflower is $3 a head. If the gas prices don't go down soon people are going to really be in trouble.

Friday we spent the day on the beach with Aunt Bobbie combing for seashells. We found some really nice ones too. She showed us how to dig for them. She said they'd rebuilt the beach after the hurricane and pumped in sand from out in the gulf. You can sit in one spot and dig and sift through the sand and find all kinds of nice ones. Friday was a beautiful day for the beach. The best day weather wise we've had so far. We hate it that the winter is drawing to a close. We're going to miss the gulf. Soon it's going to be time to pack it up and head north. The weather up home is still cold. Maybe by the end of April it will have warmed up. We have plans to leave the Orange Beach area this Friday. I hope the weather holds well this week so we can spend as many days as possible at the beach. There's a Portuguese man of war warning up right now so we'll have to be careful. http://www.beachhunter.net/thingstoknow/jellyfish/index.htm shows pictures of some of the kinds we've been seeing. Some of them have tentacles as long as 30 ft. There are purple flags up all over the beach warning swimmers. There's also red flags up for dangerous rip tides. No ones sure how long those will last. The waves have been pretty big. I'm sure that has something to do with all of it.

Today was cold and a bit drizzly. We stayed in and caught up on a few things. CJ got the taxes ready to mail. I put the photos together for the following slide show. Hope you enjoy it.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=enxxrx4.7ysoftog&x=0&y=7mw6m0&localeid=en_US

A New Front Yard~

We've moved again. Gulf Coast RV park was not to our liking so we scouted around and found a much nicer spot. We're closer to my Aunt and right close to the beach. We even have a deck outside our door. CJ managed to park the motorhome about 6 inches from it. I've got all the plants out there. With the awning up it's cozy as can be. There's even a resident cat who seems to like visiting. She's sleeping on my lawn chair right now. It's been a busy Sunday but we're all settled in and ready for a day on the water tomorrow. CJ's back taking a nap right now. I wore him out.

Last night was the annual Memorial of Jesus death and Chuck went with me. He was a little grumbly about wearing a tie on vacation but he looked sharp. Afterwards we went to O'Charleys for supper. I think that was his favorite part. The kingdom Hall here is quite beautiful and the friends were all quite happy to welcome us. I went back to the public talk this morning and had quite a few nice conversations with several new acquaintances. I even met another brother and sister who were visiting from Wisconsin. They are staying just down the road at the State Park in a travel trailer. When I got home Chuck already had a lot of the moving preparations under way and we were on the road to our new site within an hour. I was sure glad to say good bye to that mosquito infested park in the swamp on the Bay Secour River! By the time we were settled in to our new spot I was too tired to fix a big Sunday meal so I just threw together some sloppy joes and made some coleslaw. We even ate on paper plates. It feels good to sit here and rest a bit.

Friday we went to Fort Morgan and played on the beach. Chuck of course looked for seashells and I sunbathed on a beach towel. After we left the beach we stopped at the Nature walk trails to do some hiking but before we got too far in we came across a sign telling us it was against the law to feed the alligators. Alligators??? Well needless to say we changed our mind about hiking. So instead we did some driving and sightseeing. The cottages along the coast were precious. They were painted in all the soft colors of the coast. All built on stilts and lots of white trim. We got to see a pelican up close and he didn't mind me snapping his picture. On the road out I made CJ stop so I could take a picture of the alligator sign. I got out of the car checking the roadside ditch carefully for alligators to be safe, walked around the front of the car to snap the picture when Mr. Chuckles tooted the horn and scared the heck out of me. He's such a clown. He got a great laugh out of me almost jumping over the car. On the way back to camp we stopped at several RV parks to check out their spots and prices. We didn't see anything we were crazy about. I'm glad we decided on this spot we have now. It's close to everything including my favorite restaurant, Docs. Can't wait to go there and eat!

Click on the link below for pictures of Fort Morgan:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=enxxrx4.6mu9x228&x=0&y=i2vb5y

Moving Day~

Moving Day has arrived at last. We've been living in Eagles Landing since December the 14th and the time has come to move on. We were up by 7:30 with the urge to hit the road. After a good deal of sorting and packing and stowing we are all set to go. Our friend Glenn from Washington Illinois is also leaving today. We had last minute good-byes with the friends left in camp. Billy helped Chuck air up the tires on the coach and we were on the road by noon. We took the smaller State Rte 90 from Holt to Milton as we'd not really test drove the coach since we had the new part installed and we weren't anxious to jump right on the Interstate with all the holiday traffic out there. Plus we were also nosey to see if there was any police activity looking for the escaped prisoner from yesterday. A Georgia police officer was transporting a prisoner back to Georgia and they had stopped at the Browns grocery store in Holt about a half mile from the park to use the bathroom and when they were returning to the police car the prisoner squirted him with some mace and jumped into his squad and sped away. It was quite a bit of excitement for such a small town. The funniest part was that the prisoner was a black male who was dressed and had the appearance of a woman. Most of the night last nite we could hear helicopters and dogs searching and as of noon when we left the RV park they still hadn't found him. He had apparently abandoned the police car just a short distance from us in a woods and lit out on foot. There are hundreds of questions as to how something like this could have taken place. I'm reminded of Barney from an Andy Griffin episode myself. Who knows what the "real" truth is. It did add some excitement to our last night in Holt Florida.
We didn't have any problems with the coach on the trip over. It ran like a top all the way to Gulf Shores. Not a hitch or hiccup. Chuck is so relieved that we have the problem fixed, for a while at least. I'm sure with a house on wheels there's bound to be a continueing saga of repair issues. We got to the RV park about 2:30 and got ourselves set up. I'm happy to report I have a huge pink azealia bush right outside my door and it's in full bloom. The park is not as nice as Eagles Landing but it will certainly do. There's a pond just a short distance from our coach that has at least 2 aligators in it and it's reported by our new neighbor that you can hear them croaking at night. He said they sound like huge frogs. I'm sure going to be anxious to hurry down there and check that out >> NOT! Well maybe we could drive the car down there and park with the windows cracked to listen.
I fixed us a Tuna Alfredo casserole for an early supper and we took off for the beach. What a beautiful sight! We know everyone says the Emerald Coast is such a beautiful beach but I have to say it doesn't compare to the beach across the road from my Aunt and Uncles condo in Orange Beach Alabama. That beach is just breath taking. I actually had tears come to my eyes when we walked across the access bridge and saw it again. The waves were pretty strong and the most beautiful light blue color and the sand was stark white. It was about 6:30 and the sky was just beginning to darken enough to make the almost full moon show up brightly just above the water. We were delighted to find a whole cache of seashells just in the short walk we took and Chuck managed to find two starfish, one was quite large. I don't remember ever seeing so many seashells on the beach here.
We noticed so much activity too. With Easter being this Sunday there were lots of extra people in the area for Spring Beach. It should be an exciting time to visit. We're looking forward to going to Fort Morgan tomorrow. The weather is supposed to be clear and sunshiny again so we should have a great day for it!

To view pictures from today click here:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=enxxrx4.28rzxv2o&x=0&y=8r179c

One of the members of my campground crafters yahoo group has a great page with some information on the price of fuel at: http://rvecafe.com/oil.html It might come in handy for mapping our travels. The price of diesel fuel is nearing $4.00 a gallon and in some areas it's over that.

Fish Frys, Farewells & Final Flings

Winter is coming to a close. The birds are beginning to sing, the days are getting longer and the weather is warming up. Our evenings of bringing in the plants to avoid frost damage are past. In two days we will be pulling up stakes here in Holt Florida and making our way to Gulf Shores Alabama. Preparations have begun in earnest. A lot of the friends we've made here this winter have already started pulling out and are heading north. The park is starting to have an echo. I think Chuck and I are going to be some of the last ones to leave. It will be sad to say good bye but my feet are getting itchy

A couple weeks ago, our friends Deb and Ty had a fish fry which was our last big hurrah. Debs daughter in Alaska sent her a shipment of Salmon and Halibut so they arraigned a get together for all of us. We all brought food to share & I took Chucks favorite, deviled eggs. He'd been craving them so when Deb asked what we'd like to bring he immediately volunteered them. Just to make him especially happy I put a generous portion of horseradish in half of them. I also braved my unfamiliar convection oven and baked a couple pecan pies with the pecans he's been shelling all winter. It was a wonderful Sunday afternoon of visiting and storytelling.

Chuck and I have been working in some last minute sight seeing. We've been to the beach a few more times searching for more shells. We also did some shopping at the outlet mall in Destin and hit the Chocolate Factory. It was quite windy that day and the visit to the beach was a short one cause it was too chilly and the waves were too too high. We went across the brand new toll bridge at Niceville which cost $2.50. I can't believe how much they charge for tolls down here.

We've made a couple trips into Pensacola with our friends Bill and Amy from here in the RV park. Amy's got us eating wholesome raw vegetables for our diets and she knows of a great health food coop on Garden Street in downtown Pensicola. It's called Ever'mans. We joined it for $12 and got over $50 in free food. Everything there is organic. We're working on getting our pH back to normal and our livers cleaned out. It's supposed to help Chucks high blood pressure and my diabetes and asthma. It should also do wonders for our aches and pains. If it works I'll get mom on it when I get back to Illinois.

We ate at McGuires in Destin where they have over a half million one dollar bills signed and hanging from the ceiling and booths and walls. That was quite a sight! They had a $100 hamburger on the menu which stood out but the rest was mostly good old fashioned Irish food. Chuck ordered a bowl of their 18cent bean soup which was the same recipe as the Washington Senate soup. They brew their own beer and root beer, we chose to have a pitcher of the latter. We also took a trip through their gift & wine shop and found a bottle of imported Irish Meade. It's traditional honey wine made for honeymooners. So naturally we couldn't pass that up.

We also went in to Pensicola to say goodbye to our friends Dave and Laura. We all went out to eat at Smokies Bar-b-cue. Chuck had the all you can eat ribs and I of course had to have pulled pork. Dave and Laura have gotten a new puppy which they named Lady. She's a black and white party cocker and quite charming. She will make a wonderful companion for Goldie. Watching the two of them play is hilarious! We are going to miss Dave and Laura as they've become close friends.

We went to the Crestview Bluegrass Festival where we enjoyed pulled pork sandwiches and coleslaw. The streets were lined with pork choices as they were having a pork cook off that day and all were competing for prizes. We saw a cute golf cart styled after the 34 Fords for a mere price of $16,000. Wouldn't that be nice to have? There was a stage where we saw bluegrass bands playing some really good music. The day was a bit windy but the sun was bright and warm.

We went to the air force museum at Fort Walton and toured the grounds and saw all the old airplanes and fighter jets. We weren't able to go inside because it was closed for air conditioner repairs so we missed seeing all the bombs which didn't really upset me at all.

We got a part put on the coach which we think may have fixed our mechanical problem. Chuck's been in contact with some people over the Internet and found out that the problem could most likely be solved by installing a new fuel shutoff solenoid. Hopefully it will work, it was certainly expensive enough! We couldn't test drive it afterwards cause it was too windy to get out on the highway and get the speed up over 65. We'll find out Wednesday when we head for Gulf Shores.

Yesterday we took a drive over to Andalusia Alabama to check out some RV Parks. We came across a Lawnmower tractor racetrack with red red dirt. It has free admission and races every Saturday night. I can imagine that's a big hit over there with all those Alabama boys! They have a huge lake over there off the Conecuh River. On the way back we found a very nice National Forest Park we might like to spend a couple weeks at next year. There's a small lake in the park called Open Pond. There were some really interesting oak trees around it with all kinds of twisty arm limbs. While we were there checking it out we came across a gecko with a beautiful blue color on it's tummy. He was sunning himself in a nook in a log shelter. He was nice enough to let me get close so I could take some pictures. It was a beautiful day for the drive. We really enjoyed it.

Last week, here at the Eagles Landing RV park an interesting wildly painted motor home came in. The people who own it are traveling ta too artists. There also was a trailer fire in the park a couple weeks ago. A very nice young girl who lives here full time and is a waitress in Crestview was fortunate to get out of her burning travel trailer just in time thanks to one of the other RVers named Todd who happened to be out walking his dog. Thank goodness she has full coverage with her insurance cause her trailer was totalled. Her refrigerator had some kind of electrical problem and caught fire in the early morning while she was still sleeping. She's now staying with friends while she waits to get her home replaced.

We also met a Canadian Couple a few days ago named Peggi and John McDonald. Peggi is the owner of an RVing information web page. She's got lots of exciting things on her site and she has even published a couple hard copy books. I bought her latest and she autographed it. They travel full time and have been for 27 years. She gives seminars at RV Conventions around the United States and Canada. She's done some interesting things with her Luxor motor home. She gave Chuck and I some ideas for ours. Her web site is http://www.rvliving.net/

Today and tomorrow we will spend getting things packed up for our move. Right now Chuck is out spraying down the big rug we had at the door so it can have a couple days to dry. He wants to wash the coach again before we go and it's suppose to be sunny & up in the 80's so he should have good weather for it. We're starting to get antsy to be heading down the road for more adventure. We've been here for 3 months and have gotten to know the area pretty well. We've enjoyed it so much. We love the park we're in and Dick and Judie, the camp hosts are such good people. They've put together their story on a web site also. If you'd like to visit the web site for information on their recreation club and see pictures of Eagles Landing and look up some of their other sister campgrounds go to: http://www.campingandcampgrounds.com/

I've put together a slide show of pictures to highlight the last couple weeks. Click on the link below to view them.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=enxxrx4.abfocn9s&x=0&y=-hanov0

CJ See's Sea Shells by the Sea Shore

Sunday 2/24/08

It's "SUN"DAY!!! The sun is out bright and warm again today. In fact it's a bit warmer than yesterday. We decide to brave the beach. I've made up some potato salad and fresh chicken salad to have a picnic with. Last night we picked up some Strawberry Shortcake fixins. I just got back from a great meeting in Crestview and good visit with the friends there. It's shaping up to be a wonderful day. We've got to go over to Navarre Beach to visit the Camping World. Our friend Bill, here in the park gave us a water filter we needed for the coach and we want to replace it for him. We've not been able to find them at WallyWorld and we heard they've got them at Camping World. I love going there. It's got all the fancy little doo dads a camper loves. Today I even found a couple hot dog sticks for campfires. CJ found some rubber caulk to use as a seal for the new light he's going to put on the side of the coach. We get some more of those little clips that hold our basement doors open while we are fishing through them. They've got an Alfa See Ya Gold parked out front. A used late model diesel that is 40 ft. long with 2 large slides. Of course we had to look through it before we leave. The seats and couches are made of white leather. It's as roomy as a house inside. There's a real oven in the kitchen and a nice size pantry. The cabinets, though, are all made of pressed board and none of them close squarely and you'd have to use a foot stool to get into them. The smell of formaldehyde is present even with the windows all open. It does have a washer/dryer and the closet with the sliding mirrored doors is huge but those are the only 2 pluses. The more I tour these giant new high dollar coaches, the more I love our 36 foot Monaco with the solid maple woodwork and cabinets. We have plenty of room and I can reach everything. We always get compliments on how well our rig looks. It's classic & Chuck and I both love that!

Back on the road again, we head over to the RV Park where my great Aunt Charlene lives. We had a nice visit with her and invited her to our picnic but she's not feeling well today. She's got high blood pressure and it's making her a bit unsteady on her feet. She's 84 and still in reasonable good health except for her blood pressure. She is one of 16 brothers and sisters of which my dad's dad was born into. Her and Uncle Bill are the only ones left now. She's living down here in Florida and all her children are living here within a few miles of each other. She has a travel trailer parked in an RV park that only costs her $450 a month. It's quite a nice one too, right on the water. She told us if she was to live in a small efficiency apartment it would cost over $1000 a month and she'd not have a bit more room than she does now. She loves walking down to the beach and sitting in the warm sunshine. They've got a lovely area finished off with plenty of chairs and chaises and tables with umbrellas. CJ and I checked into getting our coach in there next winter for a month and they told us they'll only accept coaches newer than 10 years old on the monthly rate. Well, La Di Dah for them. Guess they don't see too many 20 year olds as nice as ours!

Before we leave Charlene's we manage to get some nice pictures to show my folks when we get home. I always enjoy visiting with my older relatives. They are full of so many nice stories about the old days. I could stay and stay listening, but since Charlene's a bit under the weather today we don't want to tire her out too badly and soon we are off to our picnic at the beach.

When we get to the beach we discover it's quite cool even with the sun shining brightly. The breeze is coming off the gulf fairly strong. The waves are crashing onto the shore stronger than I've ever seen on the gulf side. There are even some kids surfing. We decided to eat first and then go hunt for seashells. Not far from where we picnic there's a couple hundred motorcycles parked at a bar with an outdoor concert going on. They are playing the old classics and Chuck and I enjoy watching them while we eat. I decided it was much too chilly to wear only my swimsuit so I stay covered up and after we stow our picnic fixings back in the trunk we head to the shore. We have to cross over the dunes on wooden dock type walkways. The beach is quite crowded with families and even a few fishermen. The color of the water is the most beautiful shade of turquoise. Chuck is excited to get down to the water and start looking for shells. It's one of his favorite things to do down here and you know how men are. The love to hunt ANYTHING! He's usually pretty cautious when he first gets started as he doesn't swim, but soon he gets so caught up in the game that he's out into waves up to his knees. Today there's some sandbar areas that stretch out quite a ways with only a couple inches of water before you get into the deep area. After I go out and he sees how shallow it is, he's right out there too. It's too cold for me to stay out very long so I come back to shore and enjoy my time taking pictures of him having so much fun. Every time he gets a big shell he holds it up for me to ooh and ahh over. We stayed out for a couple hours before calling it quits and he ends up with a nice collection for the day.

Just after we cross over the long bridge from the beach Chuck spots a half sunken old boat and he stops to take some pictures. He even met a couple there from up by Chicago taking pictures also. The boat had been damaged in the Hurricane and was waiting a team to come dismantle it.

The next morning (Monday) when I got up he had all his seashells cleaned and layed out on the picnic table for me to admire and I snapped some pictures for the album.

I've been having some problems staying on line for longer than 15 minutes and Chuck gets on the phone with tech help to figure it out. I have so many pictures to upload for my blogs and it takes a while. I can only do a few at a time before I get bumped offline. I'm not sure what the problem but Mr. Fixit manages to get it solved. The day actually makes it up into the 80's and I took a break from the posting on the blog entry to actually lay out in the sun on my lounge chair long enough to get strap marks from my swimsuit. Amazing, it's the middle of February! Chuck went over into the pasture next door to us and collected a bucket brimming over full of pecans... that hunting thing again. I soaked a load of white clothes in the bathtub before taking them over to wash at the laundry and we finished out the day with fresh fried chicken breast and that left over potato salad.

Today (Tuesday) is overcast and gloomy. CJ got a nice picture of the dew covered grass when he got up early this morning. The wind is pretty gusty. It's supposed to get cooler as the day goes by. Not a good day for polishing and waxing the coach so I think we're going to head over to Milton to do some antique shopping. We're still looking for a pecan crusher to make the job of shelling pecans easier and I'd rather have an antique one than a new one. They do have them at Ace hardware though, if we can't find an old one. I think we'll go on down to Pace also and stop at the health food store and WallyWorld. Then we're looking forward to supper at Whataburger before we return home.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=enxxrx4.bbyvxw4g&x=0&y=-n0qkrp

Wine a little ~ You'll feel better!

Saturday 2/23/08

We had another beautiful week end. The weather was gorgeous and warm on Saturday. The sun was shining brightly although the wind was a bit too chilly to go to the beach as we had originally planned. So instead we headed over to DeFuniak Springs to tour the Chautauqua Winery and Vineyards. And of course do some taste testing. DeFuniak is about 40 miles east of here on I10. We've been past it twice but Saturday was the first time we actually drove that far in the daylight. Both the other times we'd left home in the wee morning hours before the sun came up. So this time we got to enjoy the view of the pine forests of both sides of the highway. The winery is located right off the interstate so we had no trouble finding it. They offered free wine tasting so we could sample away and pick out our favorites. They had some honey wine we'd been looking for and it was heavenly. We bought several bottles. All together we got a dozen bottles of assorted wines so we could get the deal price and stock up as we had drank our last stashed bottle the night we watched the lunar eclipse.

The name Chautauqua was chosen for the vineyards and winery because DeFuniak Springs was the permanent home of the Winter Assembly of the Chautauqua Assembly in "The Land of Summer" from 1885 to 1928. The Chautauqua Assembly had it's beginning in Chautauqua County New York. If you're curious to some of the details I've included this link to "History of Chautauqua in Defuniak Springs"

http://www.defuniaksprings.net/chautauquahistory.html

Many turn of the century homes and the Chautauqua "Hall of Brotherhood" still stand, gracing the naturally formed, perfectly round lake that is in the center of the city along with the old train depot, library & ornate churches.

The 40 acre vineyard was planted in 1979 and is located 12 miles north of DeFuniak Springs. The grapes grown by Chautauqua are Muscadine varieties. Muscadine grapes are native and found growing wild in most areas of the southwestern states. I hadn't realized till we got down here that Florida has such an extensive "wine country" A bonus for us since we both enjoy learning about and sampling wines. The variety of grapes grown by Chautauqua, Carlos and Nobel are improved varieties selected and propagated by the native grapes.

Carlos is a white muscadine variety used for juice and wine and is similar to the well known "scuppernong" muscadine. Nobel is a red muscadine variety and is known for it's full and festive flavor.

At the winery in DeFuniak the grapes are crushed and pressed in a state of the art facility which we got to see through an observation room where we also viewed a video showing the stages of processing. The winery was constructed in 1989 and boasts over 70,000 gallons of temperature controlled stainless steel cooperage as well as over 1,980 gallons of barrels for oak aging.

The current wine press was added in 2004 and is a 12,000 liter Europress custom built for Chautauqua by the Scharfenberger Company of Germany. It's currently the largest press of it's kind east of the Rocky Mountains. This press can extract the juice from over 30 tons of fresh grapes, or 35 tons of fermented grapes in a single load.

The vineyards and winery are owned by Paul and Kate Owens of Brewton Alabama.

It was a thrill to learn all about the operation and see pictures of the harvest and festivals that revolve around the harvest time in the area.

When we left the winery we headed into town to check out the Lake. It's one of two naturally formed, round, spring fed lakes in the entire WORLD. (The other one is in Zurich.) A perfect circle. There's a road that goes completely around it and it's lined with turn of the century homes and Victorian architecture. The sidewalk around the lake is exactly 9/10th of a mile

We walked out on the board walk to the little gazebo on the lake and saw Muscovy ducks. They are certainly odd looking. Chuck said they had them in Wisconsin when he was a boy but I've never seen them before. They were pretty hissy when you got close to them and Chuck thought they probably had nests they were protecting. We also saw loons way out in the middle of the lake but they had their winter plumage still and we couldn't see them distinctly . I was hoping to hear some call but they never did. When we were out on the board walk we met an interesting woman who filled us full of all kinds of information on the history of DeFuniak and the Chautauquans. She told us about the lake and how it had been formed. She said it was sitting over the caverns of lime fields that are in what she called their "basement" and that it was connected underground to the Blackwater River. She said in recent times deep sea divers had gone down into the lake and entered the caverns and swam all the way out to the Gulf of Mexico. I certainly intend to do a bit of research on that. I know it will be quite interesting.

The old train depot where thousands of people used to arrive for the annual Chautauqua Winter Assemblies has been made into a museum of area treasures and cultures and history. I wasn't able to get many good pictures in there as the lighting was poor. We did however manage to snap a picture of an ancient aerial shot of the round lake which turned out quite nicely.

When the railroad began operation in 1882, the train stopped in a little town called "Open Pond," named for the almost perfectly round freshwater, spring-fed lake located in the center of town and within sight of the train depot. The town's name was changed to DeFuniak Springs in honor of the Chief Engineer of the L&N Railroad, Frederick deFuniak. The road encircling the lake is appropriately called Circle Drive. T. T. Wright, was an early developer of the Florida Chautauqua and Defuniak Springs. Circle Drive was originally named Wright Avenue in his honor

The town holds several antique stores which we poked our way through. As a side note, the nice part about living in the motor home is being able to enjoy the merchandise but not having room to buy it and bring it home. Chuck and I both enjoy browsing and sharing discoveries with each other and leaving with nothing more than a few choice snapshots.

We got in on the tail end of a concert in the Chautauqua "Hall of Brotherhood" It was old Victorian music played on antique instruments. They were serenading out on the large back porch area and the music drifted over the grounds making a delightful background to our history lessons. The day was quite a bit more enjoyable than just a simple drive over to get a few bottles of wine which is all we had originally intended.

One thing I have to make mention of is the smell that permeated the town. At first, when we were at the winery I thought it was the smell of the wine and the potpourri they were selling in the gift shop and the grapevines out front. The grapes however don't produce fruit till August and they didn't appear to be blooming and it was just a small patch for show as the real vineyard is miles from there. When we got in town around the lake I could still smell it. Something was in bloom that smelled heavenly. The Camilla's were blooming everywhere we looked but they don't have much of an odor. I even went up and smelled a few to see if maybe they were a strain that did have a fragrance but it wasn't them. I have no idea what it was but I could go on smelling it forever it was so pleasant. Between the perfume and the music and the variety of birds and ducks we got to see along with the history and turn of the (20th) century architecture I would highly recommend a trip to DeFuniak to anyone passing through this area.

I've put together a slide presentation of our photos and some photos I got from the Internet to show you the sights we enjoyed. Click on the link below to get to them.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=enxxrx4.94s92vq8&x=0&y=71ag8c