Thursday, November 22, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!

We'll be working this holiday.  We're on the road to Miami for the Carnival Breeze inaugural.
Saturday, we'll take the day off and watch the Buckeyes with the Broward Co Alumni Club.
Sunday, we'll drive back to Orlando and spend 3 nights at Walt Disney World.  Lots has happened since we were last there and we need to put some eyeballs on them.
Hope you have a great Thanksgiving!

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Our first week in New Smyrna Beach and we were busy...

Veteran's Day, we were happy to go over to Altamonte Springs (north of Orlando) and meet with Bob's cousins (Greg and Kaye), and Bob's Uncle (Harlan) along with Greg's daughter and Kaye's son.  We toured Lake Brantley HS (where Greg has worked since the 80's) and then went out to dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse.  Bob's Uncle Harlan is a decorated WWII veteran who was in town for a reunion in Florida.  He was a member of the Navy's group that would later become the Navy Seals.  Great time catching up and a lot of laughs.

Finally got down to the beach and did some walking along Flagler Avenue on Tuesday.  We were going to have a beer at Toni and Joe's, but they were cash only and we didn't have any (which isn't unusual).  Ended up at the Breaker's which had windows looking out on the ocean which was OK for the type of day it was.  Connie picked up some knicks for the rig, and Bob got some T's and tanks.


Friday, we got the girls a section of 24" X-Pen to go under the new rig.  Works terrific!  Will break down and travel easily and allows us to make the big portion of the X-Pen into a U.  It will give us plenty of flexibility.

Saturday, we did what we do best:  sit and watch college football and, in particular, the Buckeyes take on Wisconsin.  It was a great day for sitting out and the game was "big enough" to warrant the projector coming out.  Also got extensive use out of our propane heater which was perfect for the evening once the sun went down.  To make it all perfect, the Buckeyes win and people in the park were yelling "O-H" after the win.




Connie made a new dip for our "tailgate", and it was delish!  The recipe is here:




This coming week, we'll get ready for our upcoming cruise on Thanksgiving Day and our trip to DisneyWorld.  Work, work, work.  :-)

Monday, November 12, 2012

We arrive in New Smyrna Beach...

Wednesday, we toured the lodge room at the Tallahassee Elks which features the original furniture from Elks Lodge #1 in New York.  Pictures just don't do it justice.  The furniture is so ornate, the cushions, the stained glass look pristine.  The furniture included "pews" for everyone, not just the officers.  It was tremendous.

Thursday, we arrived at the New Smyrna Beach RV Campground.  We stayed here before for our first extended place in December 2010 through January 2011.  Love the area and the campground.  New Smyrna Beach has such an "old" Florida feel, just an area that hasn't really bit on the tourist bullet.

Today is Veteran's Day, and we're headed over to see Bob's cousins Greg and Kaye in a suburb of Orlando about an hour away, along with his Uncle Harlan who was a WWII hero and was recently inducted into the Ohio Military Hall of Fame.

Our favorite place is....

#1 question we get asked without a close second (although "how do you get your mail" is up there) is "where's the favorite place you've been?"  Usually irritates people when we don't directly answer them.

Love it here in New Smyrna Beach.  But we love it in Portland (TX), too.  And we loved Tucson.  NSB is different than Corpus, Corpus is different than Tucson, Tucson is different than NSB.

Maybe we're not old enough yet to be in such a routine where we ALWAYS come back to one spot for the winter.  It will probably happen, but right now the three winter spot rotation suits us just fine.  Each one has its plusses and minuses, but the positives FAR outweigh the negatives for each location.

NSB and Portland have beaches, Tucson has the desert.  Each of the parks have a close knit, "family" feel and great weather.

Sorry not to answer, but we don't have a favorite place there's something about each of them we love.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

From Memphis to Tallahasse....

Sunday was getaway day for us.  We really enjoyed Tom Sawyer's Mississippi River RV Park.  Electric and laundry were included, making it a great value for a month stay.  We'll miss our walks to the river and just there and watch barges go by.

Sunday, we left at our typical 10:30a and was a pretty uneventful ride to a suburb of Birmingham, AL (Bessemer) where we stayed at an Elks Lodge.  Road was surprisingly good, spare a few miles that looked like they were the last to be repaved.  When we entered B'ham, we noticed some storm damage from the April 2011 tornado that really raked some damage on this area.  Parking at the lodge was one of our first challenges with the new rig.

Monday morning, we took off with the girls to Tuscaloosa to see the home of the Crimson Tide.  Again, before reaching campus, we saw the devastation that they really haven't recovered from with that awful storm.  Very hurricane-ish the way there was just a swath of nothing where the storm touched down.

Bryant-Denny stadium was nice.  They've really done some nice work on the walk up with statues of all the coaches who have won national championships, plus brick work that includes the names of all the players on those teams.  Lots of reminders of Paul "Bear" Bryant


We took a quick run out to see the Sewell-Thomas baseball stadium and Coleman Coliseum.  Both were impressive, especially the basketball arena.  From the outside looks like a barn, but once inside they've done a great job with their facilities and looks like a wonderful place to watch a game.

After some work upon returning to Bessemer Elks Lodge, we went out to dinner with our old friend Dick Turner and his new wife Cathy at the Southern Legacy BBQ in Hoover, AL.  The food was fabulous, half price beers and appetizers through 7p.  We had some BBQ nachos that were splendid.


Catching up with our old friend was a treat.  It had probably been around 15 years since we've seen Dick.  We spent the night laughing, catching up on everyone we knew, our families, their new life in Birmingham and our business and RV'ing lifestyle.


Tuesday was an easy getaway day.  We came upon a wreck in Birmingham just after it happened, and was about a 45-50 delay getting out of town, so that up and going at 8a was wasted.  It's really one of the first long delays we've had which is pleasantly surprising.

We're in at the Tallahassee Elks, which has really secluded, wooded sites.  Not sure what tomorrow will bring, which is as it should be!

My last post on this blog

This blog was started as a way to communicate to everyone in long form about Connie and my adventures.  It turned into a way to long form gi...