Unexpected trip north

We’ve driven a lot of miles since the last post from Florida and we are now camped in Newark Delaware. Yes we’ve gone from 80 and sunny to frigid and overcast!

1200 miles, Clermont Florida to Newark Delaware

We departed Wauchula Florida on March 5^th and returned to Clermont. The Orlando Thousand Trails Campground here was our first stop back in December and is usually our last stop on the way home. We had originally made reservations for 14 days, but we were getting anxious to return to our “new to us” house and get back to work on our current projects. We had tickets to see Jimmie Fortune at the Strawberry Festival on Monday and had to go to the IKEA store in Orlando to pick up a purchase. Then if the weather looked good in Myrtle Beach we would head home by the end of the week.

On Monday morning a call from my brother changed those plans, my mother who is 94 with a failing heart was not doing too well. We quickly decided to miss the Jimmie Fortune show, pick up our purchase at IKEA on Monday and head home early Tuesday.

We departed Clermont at 8am and drove north for 550 miles, arriving home in Myrtle Beach in the afternoon. By now it was clear that my mother’s death was eminent. The new plan was for me to fly or drive to Delaware while Millie stayed home with our dog, Maggie. Sadly my mother died before we could implement the plan.

Mary A Midash in fall of 2017

As soon as funeral arrangements had been made, we reloaded the motorhome and made the trip north. We traveled up RT 17 because of the Nor’easter that was depositing snow on the I-95 corridor. Winds from the storm were very strong all day and when we got to Norfolk we decided to wait unit morning to cross the Bay Bridge and Tunnel.

The following morning we drove up the peninsula to Lums Pond state Park near Newark, adding another 550 miles to our travels.

March this year has been colder than February in the Mid-Atlantic, temperatures are forecast to be well below freezing each night for the next week. Inside the motorhome is comfortable, outside is another matter altogether!

Pioneer Days

Our Canadian neighbors are staying in south Florida for several more weeks, fore spring does not come to the provinces until May. The northeast is being battered by a strong nor’easter as I write this; I don’t miss those cold rain swept winds. For Millie and I, winter is about over. Spring is popping in Myrtle Beach and we are migrating home. 

roughly 200 mile trip to our next stop

Leaving South Florida this year we drove a different route north, for no other reason than we’ve run the spine of the state (route 27) many times and wished for some different scenery. We left Southern Comfort RV Resort in Florida City on Krome Ave, the straight as-an-arrow road that runs north between Miami and the Everglades. At the intersection of Krome and the Tamiami Trail we turned due west onto the 75 mile causeway across the ocean of grass and water. 

We're not the first ones to think it would be a good idea to "Drain the swamp!"

The state has already built one long bridge on the Tamiami Trail and has another longer one under construction. The adjacent causeway is being removed to allow a more natural flow of water through the glades. It is man correcting the mistakes of those in the past whose master plan was to drain the swamp for farmland and development. Where did they think all those alligators and mosquitoes were going to live!

On the western side of the state we moved onto I-75 to avoid the congestion of the gulf coast cities. Much like the rest of Florida there is a lot of commercial and residential building going on in the southwest coast. Most of it looked high end to me, no poor people retiring over here.

Just shy of Ft Meyers we angled northeast on secondary roads into the very rural interior. Cows grazing on the tropical savanna dominate the landscape with an occasional village or small town at the intersection of long lonely roads.. One of these towns, Wauchula, is our destination for the weekend.

Before the electrical power grid these stationary engines provided power for farms and industry.

Hardy County Pioneer Days is an annual festival held in Zolfo Springs. It has grown each year we have attended with its main attraction being the antique tractors and stationary engine gathering. There is also a large flea market, food trucks, live entertainment, and historical displays. 

This tractor was sold with the claim it would run on almost any combustible oil and would pull its rated horsepower.  That was probably a good selling point back in the great depression.

In addition to walking past miles of flea market tables we watched the Antique tractor parade and enjoyed a performance by a local gal who sings in the style of the British singer Adel. Nineteen year old Nola Price was a contestant last year on “The Voice”, and made it to the battle rounds. 

"The Voice" contestant Nola Price

Our campground for the weekend is the Thousand Trails campground which is just down the street from Pioneer Park. About half the campground sites are out of service due to damaged electric and water lines. They say they are waiting for construction permits to rebuild, I suspect the county is taking a serious look at the wisdom of rebuilding in a flood plane of the Peace River. This part of the campground floods several times a year.

Now closed lower campground was built in a flood plain

Swedish meatballs!

As we near the end of February, things are winding down here at the campground. When Millie and I went for our bike ride this evening we counted at least 35 empty sites. Up until last week the park was full. That’s not to say the snowbirds are going home, just starting their northward migration.  We too will be leaving next week, we are moving to Wauchula so we can go to Pioneer Days, the annual antique tractor and stationary engine show held there.

We had an interesting road trip last week; we went to an IKEA store. The big blue and yellow stores are a familiar sight, but the inside was somewhat of a mystery to us. We knew they sold Swedish styled furniture that you assemble yourself, but neither of us was prepared for the presentation. 

The store is literally a maze, from the entrance you follow the arrows on a tile road that twists and turns its way through all of the departments of the store. You write down part numbers of any item you want for later retrieval. At the end of the showrooms you pass through a cafeteria. If you stop to eat and then spend $100 in merchandise, you get reimbursed for your meal. Yes, they do have Swedish meat balls!

Part two of the maze is the merchandise mart, still following the directional arrows, you may now fill your bag or cart from a large selection of household items including, kitchen, bedding, lamps, decorator items, etc. 

The shows not over yet, next you get a flatbed cart and enter the warehouse. Finding your large items is simple using the aisle and bin numbers that you wrote down when you made your selection in the store. You load the flat boxed furniture yourself and finally get to the checkout and vehicle loading area. 

While it’s not “Man” shopping, it’s not a bad experience. One plus is, with the arrows on the floor you don’t have to ask for directions. Time wise, it does drag out a bit, but you don’t have to talk to salesmen, nor wait for someone to bring your stuff to the loading dock. 

I don't think I will be a regular customer as I’m a practitioner of true man shopping; plan your attack, (make a list), execute your battle plan, (go directly to your wanted items) make a swift escape, (get out without browsing around.) This plan is for regular stores and does not apply to Harbor Freight, Tractor Supply Lowes/HomeDepot, or BassProShop!

Crazy Canadian's, but in a good way!

Our Florida campground would be a lot quieter if it wasn’t for our Canadians. Not that I’m complaining, they’re not wild and crazy, but they clearly come here for winter with a "have fun" attitude.

Just this week we were witness to two displays of their exuberance for life.

Every Friday a makeshift band (Jammers as they are known in the campgrounds) performs here at Southern Comfort. It’s actually pretty amazing how these amateur musicians become a band in a few short weeks.

The 2018 Southern Comfort band

One of the interesting things about their performance is the varied genre of songs, this years band plays Pop ballads from the 70’s, classic country, song’s sung in French as well as English and even teen Tragedy songs from the late 50’s/early 60’s. When was the last time you heard “Patches” sung by a County Rock and Roll French Canadian American band?

Our Canadian neighbor Susanne

Every year on Fat Tuesday the campground hosts a Mardi Gras parade. I suspect most of the costumed participants are our neighbors from the north. They’re just having too much fun to be American!

Jell-O Shooters for everyone!

One of the parade members was handing out “Jell-O Shooters” When I told Millie that a Shooter had vodka in it, she said “Oh good, I’ve never had one, it’s another thing I can check off my bucket list!”

Good girl gone bad!

Bits and pieces

Millie just read the blog posting and reminded me that I didn’t mention the nice restaurant on Marathon were we had lunch during our Keys tour. Its called the Sunset Grill and sits on the southern tip of Marathon overlooking the seven mile bridge. We ate there several years ago and I don’t remember it being this nice, they must have remodeled it. 

At the Sunset Grill in Marathon Florida

It is an open air restaurant under a large tiki hut style thatched roof. We had a table overlooking the swimming pool, which by the way, we thought was an odd location for a pool. While a few of the bathers were visually scrumptious, most reminded you to at least look at the lite fair section of the menu! 

Seven Mile Bridge

We did have an excellent view of the seven mile bridge and the surrounding waters. Note: the section of the old bridge that is used by walkers, bicycles and fishermen is being repaired and not open to the public. I don’t know how long it will be before it is reopened.

Poor Maggie is not having a good winter. She’s no longer bike riding and we have stopped her swimming pool use.

Some of you may remember when she was a puppy I built her a sidecar for my bike. She seemed to enjoy that and we pedaled several hundred miles around the campgrounds of Florida, lights flashing and bubbles streaming out the back. 

Maggie and the sidecar circa 2010

I took the sidecar out of storage last winter, reconditioned it with new paint, lights and bubble machine. Maggie didn’t like it, she went along with my foolishness but I could tell she didn’t like it. When we got back to Myrtle Beach I gave the bike and sidecar to a local Shriner who is going to use it in parades. 

Maggie and the sidecar in 2017

This winter, undaunted by Maggie’s antipathy for the sidecar, I rigged a basket to the handlebars of my beach bike, Millie made a pillow for it and we assumed the family would be pedaling around the campground together, albeit without the lights and bubbles.

Maggie doesn’t like it. We’re not sure why but we’re not going to force her to ride, she now watches us from her window on the world (the dashboard of the motorhome) You might ask how I know what she’s feeling, after nine years together we have kind of an unspoken language. I can usually pick up on visual cues and know what she wants or needs. 

Maggie and her swimming pool

The swimming pool is the opposite emotion for her; she is obsessed with looking for bubbles in it and will walk around in the shallow water for hours. Unfortunately in the past year she has developed a persistent skin rash. We have been to the vet several times for it and we thought we had it cleared up but it has reappeared. We had our wonderful veterinarian (Veterinary Clinic of Myrtle Beach) send a prescription to the Costco down here and we are working to clear it up again. Thinking that Maggie being wet for hours might be a contributing factor we have put the pool away. And thus was borne the phrase, “not a happy camper!”

ZooMiami

I’m not sure what’s happened to the blog; I’ve started writing many times and always end up deleting the post. Nothing I write seems to be blog worthy anymore; maybe it’s just run its course.

We’re still in south Florida, Millie said this is our fourth year staying here at Southern Comfort RV, I think it’s only our third. We have had the same neighbor from Canada every year; they’ll be back again next year, as will we. 

We still go to the gym four days a week, this week on our day off, we visited the Miami Zoo. Like a lot of south Florida, they are still repairing damage from hurricane Irma. They didn’t suffer the devastation like August 1992 when Andrew just about destroyed it. Most of the Irma damage appeared to be trees blown over; many of them have been pushed back upright and are supported with braces.

The zoo animals are contained in large natural settings, usually with a mote and/or a shock fence to keep the them in their designated areas. There are no animals in steel cages like zoo’s of my youth. This means the zoo covers a very large area, it is over 300 acres all total. 

So if you visit here, you better have your good walking shoes on, because you will walk many miles on the paved trail through the habitats. Your only other options are renting a 2 or 4 passenger pedal car or taking a guided tram tour. The monorail which was destroyed in Andrew is back in service but it really doesn’t offer a good view of most of the critters. It’s just a good way to move from one section of the zoo to another. 

Photography club from a local school

Most of the animal residents are endangered in their natural environments, almost always from loss of habitat and hunting when humans move into their neighborhoods. The other reason is more troubling, that is poaching to profit from selling animal parts.

 I try to keep the blog topics light and it’s usually when I venture into controversial subjects that I end up deleting the whole thing, but our zoo visit has left me with a nagging question. Is it ok to keep animals in these artificial environments just for our amusement? The zoo supporters say we are saving them from extension. While these chosen few creatures are safe, putting animals on display in the “civilized” world has done absolutely nothing to stop the destructive nature of man.

It’s a conundrum, I don’t have any answers.

Short visit to the Keys

It’s hard for us to believe, but January is almost over. We’re kind of surprised the time has passed so quickly because we haven’t really done much while waiting out the winter here in south Florida. 

This past Wednesday we finally took time from our busy schedule (that’s a joke folks) to ride down to the Keys. We were curious to see what damage was done by the Hurricane Irma. Irma was the Mega storm that had the whole east coast watching its path and hoping it would not hit them. The September storm cut a swath thru the Caribbean islands before turning north and taking aim at Florida. 

Here in the campground we had heard descriptions of “Complete devastation”, very few businesses left running and all the hotels on Key Largo wiped out. Next we were told all the businesses are going broke because there are no tourists. The only way to know the truth was a road trip to see for ourselves.

First a disclaimer, we only drove halfway down the chain of islands and did not go past Marathon. The eye of the storm hit the lower keys between Marathon and Key West. 

Sombero Beach in Marathon still being restored

Not to discount the personal tragedy of those who did lose their property to the storm, the keys have survived. We did see evidence of a lot of storm damage and there’s still some debris being cleaned up. We saw some businesses closed, but most of the structures survived, in fact I think there are more roofs still covered in blue tarp here in Homestead than in the Keys. 

As you would expect most of the structures that were lost were waterfront and hit by the storm surge. The newer homes built to hurricane code all seemed to have faired very well. We saw several trailer parks that some of the homes closest to the water were destroyed and all the ones several streets back are ok.

My last boat was like the one in the background

At the southern end of Marathon the Knights Key RV Resort is completely gone, but it had nothing to do with the storm. It is another campground that is being replaced with housing. There will probably come a day when there are no RV parks left in the Keys, the land is just too valuable. 

Knights Key Campground being redeveloped as condo's

The road is open, send the tourists, Life goes on in the Keys.