Work Day

We started working today and survived the first day! Gail organized a resource room and did a lot of sweeping. I spent all day power washing and scraping peeling paint. All in all we had a great first day. Several of the guys replaced rotten wood under the building eves and tomorrow we will finish prepping and maybe even begin painting.

The group is a lot of fun to work with. All of them are veterans with multiple sojourns in their past. One couple has been doing this for almost two decades! Not sure if we will last that long but who knows.

Sanibel Island

Gail and I spent a wonderful day visiting historical Sanibel Island, Florida. We have had several people tell us over the years how wonderful this little island is but we have never visited it until today. We loaded our bikes in the back of the truck and took off for the adventure. The island is known best for shelling. The beach is literally covered with shells and the pickins are easy if you get there early. (we didn't) Really a nice visit for us.
We visited Fort Meyers on our way back to our campsite. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison had winter homes here and we rode by there quaint rather small homes. On the way back we stopped at Five Brothers Hamburgers. We had read that it was rated #1 hamburger in the nation at one time and thought we would see for ourselves. WOW! Gail could barely get her mouth around her "small" burger and I had no chance with my regular one. Great taste also. I give it a 10!!!
Across from out RV park is a large shell factory place. When Gail took a picture of the sign she cut off the s and the Y and it says hell factor! We have been laughing about it ever since. I also had my pic taken with John Wayne although Gail says it does not look like him. What do you think Mom?
We leave tomorrow morning for Avon Park for our first real Sojourn.

Tarpon Springs and St. Petersburg

Tuesday we spent the morning in Tarpon Springs which is known for the sponge divers who moved here from Greece. There are lots of Greek restaurants and we found a good one for lunch. The afternoon was spent at the trailer visiting with neighbors while watching the skies. Tornado winds were blowing and then the rain hit. We were blessed to be north of the really bad weather. Wednesday the sun was back out and we went to St. Petersburg to the Art Museum and walk on the pier downtown. It was pretty. We thought the day was going to end bad when we returned to the car and had a parking ticket on the windshield. However, St. Pete offered a one time amnesty if we presented the ticket with a receipt of a $30 purchase. We did have that with lunch and the museum.

Snowbirding

We are in the Tampa Bay, St Petersburg area and enjoying some warm weather finally. We have spent the previous 10 days or so with sub freezing temps every night! The temp is supposed to get up to 75 today.

We are in a “snowbird” park for the first time. As I write, a man is belting out over a loud speaker that shuffleboard starts in 5 minutes!! What a hoot! Last night that had bingo and when the announcement came I looked at Gail…….”no way!” she said!

My neighbor across the street had his ten speed with a for sale sign on it. It had a lot of rust but it had one great asset. A bigo wide pan seat!!! My butt is so sore from riding that skinny thing that seat looked real good. So I asked him how much. He said $10 bucks……sold! So now we have three bikes! Brenda said I couldn ‘t find a bike for 10 bucks….well here it is. Some people get all the luck!

Lets here from the rest of you. Rick

Razorbacks in Gainesville

Well it was an exciting thought to see the Razorback men's basketball team play in Florida, but the game did not go so well. We are camping in Old Town about 40 miles west of Gainesville. We purchased tickets on the internet and headed over to the game. The campus is pretty and the auditorium nice. It wasn't long into the game when we realized our guys were having a real problem with just about every aspect of the game. We had great seats and the people were very nice around us. We saw other Razorback fans but didn't speak to any. Hopefully they will get their stuff together before the next game. We worshiped this morning in the Old Town church of Christ and heard a wonderful sermon. Now football is on and tomorrow we head toward Clearwater.

gail





Rick getting ready with a tailgate party!

Arriving Florida

After spending the night in Mobile we headed toward Florida. Before arriving Mobile we stopped at Stennis Space Center where rocket launchers are tested for space shuttles of NASA. It was very interesting. I was able to get this picture of Rick even though he was in the middle of a phone conversation with Greg! The drive along the coast was beautiful. We arrived in the RV park in Destin in time to take a bike trip along the beach. We will stay here until Saturday.

“NAULINS”

“Jumbo liah and a crawfish pie,and a feila gumbo…. Ah tonight I’m gonna see my mesha meiro!” I can just hear Dad clearly singing this tune from my first memories. Yesterday we went to the Gumbo Shop in NO and had some great Cajun cuisine. Our favorite was the blackened catfish PoBoy sandwich.

We have seen most of NO from the seats of our bicycles! I did not think we would ride them much but we have used them a lot! We probably rode them 10 miles yesterday and we have the sore rears to prove it. The highlight of our stay was the WW II museum. It was really well done and helps to put the whole conflict together in your mind. We got caught in a driving rain storm two blocks from our park last night and before we could peddle home we got drenched! Oh well, good memories.

We are headed to the Mobile Alabama area today and then east from there. We have decided to try and take in the Arkansas Razorback-Florida Gators basketball game Saturday in Gainsville. Should be great fun!

HERE WE GO!

We are finally off on our first sojourn and it feels great. We got off on Saturday morning at about 9 am and made it all the way to Vicksburg Mississippi! We had several arguments with the GPS lady and found out she was right most of the time. That lady drives me nuts sometimes but she breaks up the monotony on long stretches so I made Gail turn her “voice” back on after we had muted her earlier. We arrived in Vicksburg around 3 pm and found our RV park with ease. We sailed thru check in and everything was peachy until we could not find the trailer keys! Unfortunately we had left both sets hanging on the rack next to the back door at home! Oh well. We cut the lock off of the hitch with bolt cutters and pray someone does not empty our camper while we are sightseeing! Haha.

We went to church this morning and attended a delightful small congregation. The church was unusual in that it was 50/50 black and white members. A grandfatherly white gentleman taught the class while a charismatic black brother preached the sermon. He taught on why God lets Satan have his way with us and he was spot on. Gail held a spirited 2 year old boy for most of the sermon. He was very interested in her white skin but more so her big black purse!

After church we headed for the Vicksburg National Civil War Park. We took a couple of hours to drive around a 16 mile tour with a audio narrative on CD. The North held the city of Vicksburg under a siege for something like 47 days. Grant came close to losing his army on several occasions but finally wore down the heavily outnumbered southern defenders. It was very interesting how the narrative was sensitively bias toward the south. The Texas brigade didn’t perform too well but we won’t tell the folks back home. They are still in denial over who won!

Headed to the “Big Easy” next. Whoo hoo! Will write more later. Rick