Goodbye to Florida

Well, the time has come for us to head back to KC. We have had a wonderful time this year here in Florida. We have met some wonderful people, saw some beautiful sites, and have thoroughly enjoyed our retirement!!

We have been busy this week wrapping up things to get ready to head out this morning. Jack washed the trailer and worked on the roof. He thinks it needs to be clean to hit the road just to get dirty again but at least it will be clean for a while. We even cleaned the carpet one day. We went out to eat with our friends a couple times and played cards one more time. It is sad to leave but we are getting really homesick to see our kids and grandkiddies. Can't wait to hug them!

Don't know if we will have WIFI on the way home so probably won't be on the computer much this next week. The weather in KC is not the best today but sure hope by the time we get there it improves a lot. According to the forecast it should be much better by the time we get in there next weekend. We are going to take our time going home - stopping in Navarra Beach, Florida a couple days; staying in Gulf Shores, Alabama a couple days; and then a couple other stops on the way. We will keep our eyes on the weather and see how it works out. Our friends, Bruce and DeAnn, are on the road too so we wish them good traveling as they head back to KC early next week.

Fun, Friends and Florida

We have had a busy week. Our friends, DeAnn and Bruce Hoover, came to our park on Sunday, March 15. They got here about 5:00 p.m. and we had our park's annual Fish Fry scheduled that night. So as soon as they got here we went to our clubhouse to the fish fry. Here is a picture of our table:

The food was delicious - we had crappie fish and potluck side dishes. As most of you know potluck dinners are the best. After the dinner, we went out by the lake to watch the NASA shuttle take off but it was too cloudy for us to see it. Oh well, will have to wait until next year, I guess.

Then Bruce and Jack took the motor home to get gas and DeAnn and I sat outside and visited. Oh my this was not good!! DeAnn got hundreds of bites on her (which turned out to be No-see-ums). We had not had any bugs at all until they found her. As Bruce says she always finds the bug bites. Bless her heart, she had them awful so she made a trip to the doctor to get medicine for them. She was a trooper about it - and kept on going.

On Monday, we met our Quail Run friends, Shelley & Bud; and Wendy and Rick; in Sebring for lunch. Had a nice lunch at the Sunset Grille on their outside patio. Nice weather and nice people. Then Monday evening we went to our favorite catfish restaurant - Jaxon's - for all you can eat catfish. As you can see we didn't miss any meals!!

Tuesday we showed them around the Lake Placid area. Lake Placid is known for its murals on the downtown buildings so we drove around and looked at them and the parts of town. On Tuesday evening, we had a birthday party for one of our new friends, Linda. We cooked out at Becky and Dave's. DeAnn didn't make it as she had her new medicine and stayed in hoping her bites would be better. Here are a couple of pictures from the birthday party.

When we were riding around we discovered this addition that was named "DeeAnn's Estates". Jack and I had seen this sign before and was always going to take pictures and send it to DeAnn but never got around to it. So we stopped and took pictures:

On Wednesday, we decided to take Bruce and DeAnn over to the Gulf side of the state. We stopped at Mayaka State Park on the way to see the alligators, etc. Here are a few pictures we took:

We then drove on over to the Gulf. We stopped by a place called Casey Key which is just North of Venice, Florida. A beautiful beach and area. Here are a few pictures:

After Casey Key, we went on down to Venice Beach to meet our Quail Run friends again for lunch at Sharky's. This is a bar and grill right on the beach. Had wonderful food and drinks. Had another wonderful time with friends. Here are a few pictures from this beach:

On Thursday, DeAnn and Bruce left around noon. They were going to meet some other friends in Savannah, GA, and spend a few days with them before heading back to KC. We had a great time with them and can't wait until they retire AGAIN and we can winter with them again. They seem to like this area so maybe we will winter here with them. Jack and I have decided to reserve our site here again for next year. We have enjoyed the park and area.

Here is a picture right before they pulled out of the park. As you can see, they have a new puppy, Miss Lindi. She is still adjusting to the world but is as cute as bug's ear. Safe travels!

We will be here for another week. Plan on heading out next Saturday, March 28, for KC. We are going to take our time going home so will probably be on the road for about a week.

Coast to coast - Florida

Well, another week has passed and we have been busy traveling around Florida.

Last week on Thursday, we drove over to Punta Gorda - Port Charlotte areas to look at different RV parks. We really like this park but we hadn't really looked at that many parks, so we thought we would just drive through a few over in that area. Of course, the closer you get to the water the more the park charges. We looked at five different ones and found that they are more expensive and really don't offer as many amenities as we have here. There was one that was comparable to this one in most things and costs. It was called Sun N Shade in Punta Gorda. It was a smaller park than this one but it had a pretty good location to the water. But we did not see one that we liked the lay-out any better than this one. I don't know who designed this park but they did a very good job thinking of everything and how it is designed. Oh well, it was fun to go and look and compare parks.

We have been busy here in the park doing the activities, playing cards with friends, and going out to eat (of course)!! Here are a couple pictures of a tree that is on our circle. It is just beautiful but we don't know what type of tree it is. If anyone knows what it is called let us know.

The weather has warmed up some the last few weeks. It has been in the high 70s and low 80s most of the time. That has been nice. Makes the pool feel nice and cool.

Jack has had to have the truck worked on a couple of times the last week or so. We had a service engine light come on and then we had a recall that needed to be corrected. The service engine light turned out that the turbo had to be replaced. So hopefully this will take care of that problem. I sure don't want any problems on our way home. We will be leaving here either March 27 or 28.

Today we drove over to the Atlantic side of Florida. We went over to Port Saint Lucie and the Fort Pierce areas. It was a nice drive and we got to go to the beach and had a nice lunch a seaside restaurant. Here are a few pictures.

Here are a couple pictures we took at Fort Pierce and the little restaurant we ate at today.

We are looking forward to DeAnn and Bruce Hoover coming down and visiting. They will be in here sometime on Sunday and stay until Thursday. It will be like old times (as this is the couple we have "wintered" with the last two years). They are driving their motorhome down and then they are meeting some other friends in Georgia on their way back to Kansas City. So we will have a fun filled four days!!

Cruising - Key West and Mexico

We are back from our cruise and it was wonderful! The weather was great and the ship was nice. Here is a picture of our ship.



On Monday, February 23, we left Lake Placid around 8:15 a.m., after we dropped Brandy at her new home for the week - The Dawg House. She was a little nervous at first but seem to settle in before we left. They had nice dog runs - indoor/outdoor ones so she could go out anytime she wanted.

We drove over to Fort Lauderdale to pick up our friends, Dora and Marlin, who flew down on Sunday afternoon, and then headed to Miami to the ship. We arrived at Miami and got on the ship around 2:00 p.m. This was the first time we have driven to the ship and parked at the port and it seem to work out great. The checking-in lines were not as long as when you arrive with a lot of people who all fly and ride the same bus from the airport. The ship departed Miami around 4:30 p.m. Here are a few pictures as we were pulling out of the port:

Taken from the back of the ship:

Here is a picture of our dream house:



This is going out of Miami port:

Here is a beach on the way out of port:

On Tuesday, we arrived at Key West, so we got off the ship and headed out to explore this island. This was the first time we had been there so we wanted to see as much as we could in the few hours we were scheduled. Here are a few pictures:

Here is Jack at the end of the road in Key West:




Here we are in front of the Hog's Breath Saloon. For those who don't know, Clint Eastwood, started these saloons. I'm not sure if he still owns them or not.

Dora and Marlin in front of the Hog's Breath:

Hemmingways' House:

On Wednesday, we arrived at Cozumel, Mexico. We had been here a couple other times but our friends had not been here before. An hurricane had hit this island in 2005, but they have rebuilt it, and it is much better than it was before. Of course, it is very commercialized but I guess that is how they make their money from the tourists. Everything is very colorful and bright. Here are a few pictures:

On Thursday, we were at sea. We scouted out the ship and enjoyed the activities on board. Of course, we enjoyed all the food venues. Overall, we had a wonderful time. We are so glad our friends came and went with us. It always makes it more fun if you have someone to share it with. Dora was having back problems but I think she enjoyed the cruise and was a real trooper with all the outings we did.

Here is a picture of our tower "character" we had one night. We had a different one each night.

Honestly, we were not sure about this ship because Jack had read some reviews and they were not the most favorable. But you know some people cannot be pleased no matter what and I think that must have been the case. This ship had been completed renovated in 2006 and it was so bright and pretty that it looked like a new one. The service was very nice. So we had no complaints at all. Had a great time.

We docked on Friday morning; took Dora and Marlin back to the airport and dropped them off; headed back to Lake Placid to pick up Brandy. She was excited to see us. She looked good as we had her groomed at the Dawg House.

Yesterday the week caught up with us and we just laid around and rested most of the day.