Happy Easter Sunday!

Judy and I attended Easter Services at Holy Cross Church in Winter Haven on a beautiful Sunday Morning.

As you can see, it was sunny, and very warm this morning...

 

Right after the Service, the kids all got to go outside and run around looking for Easter Eggs! There were lots of both... kids and eggs that is!

We enjoyed a great Easter Brunch put on by the Church before heading home.

The rest of Sunday was spent taking the day very easy, and this included Patra who loves to lie on the couch beside her window...

Check out this rig that pulled into our Park this afternoon!

 

This is a 45 foot Continental Coach! What a machine, and not that nice little truck that was pulling it! This thing was a monster!

We heard they ended up parking over at the Walmart beside us, as our lots here are not really meant for anything this big. Probably the owner did not want to dis-connect the truck from the trailer.

Hope you all had a great Easter Day!

Till tomorrow...

 

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Beautiful day in Paridise!

It was a real nice 80 degrees F. here today, just beautiful. We took life easy again today, with no big plans... Stopped down to Kohl's store today, as Judy had a small balance on her Credit Card with them that had to be paid off, and we made a few new purchases just for good measure! One item was a nice new Merkury Blue Tooth Keyboard for me!

I had a nice Apple Keyboard, but one day a while ago, I kinda dropped it one day, and it crushed the corner where the power switch was, and it was very hard to get it turned on properly, so Judy suggested I get this new Merkury that was on sale to begin with, and she had a $10.00 coupon, so that sealed the deal, and the blog will live onward with the iPad and Blogsy!

I was talking to one of our good RV neighbours today, Turk from West Virginia, and RV Maintenance came up in the discussion. He was asking me how I like our two Duotherm Roof Mounted Air Conditioners. I said they were great, other than the rear bedroom unit had developed a vibration when it was running. Turk scratched his head a few times, asked a couple questions, and then said he though he knew what the problem may be. I said 'oh ya"... what! He thought it could be a "mudhen" nest, built on the inside of the squirrel fan inside the unit!

So, after lunch, I jumped up on the roof and removed the cover. Turk got up on the roof with me, and within a couple minutes, he had his hand in the squirrel cage fan and sure enough, found a nest!

Above is 1/2 of the nest... it weighted so much, it threw the balance of the fan off, causing the whole air conditioning unit to vibrate, that you could feel right through the unit! Amazing! THANKS TURK! Saved us a service call.

 

I am cleaning the remaining debris out of the unit with our vacuum cleaner. The squirrel cage fan is right below my wrist.

I was a little upset that I did not have a recent picture of Emmie to post yesterday, however Dr. Shawn fixed that for me today without even knowing it.... They are in Mexico, near Playa de Carmen, and he posted a couple pictures on his facebook page... Mexico weather looks pretty nice.

 

Shawn is holding Emmie, Jenn is holding Paige...

Looks like the girls got all dressed up for a night out in Mexico!

Here is a big shout out to my Mom, up in Orillia! Thanks for dinner out tonight Mom for Easter Weekend! We decided to go to Olive Garden, and it was terrific! Happy Easter!

Till tomorrow...

 

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Yes... our weather is back!

Although it has been nice lately, today was terrific! It was over 75 deg. F. today, with nothing but sun!

Seems Good Friday, is not a real big holiday here in Florida. We used to have it off each year when I worked at the Bank, and Judy always had it off working for the Feds, but everyone down here seemed to work today, including the huge State Farm Office across the road from us. All the stores were also opened here today, and Lego Land was as busy as ever!

This morning I had to get my Honda 750 out of storage, as it was dirty from travelling all the way to Key West and back, and I just cannot live right knowing one of my machines is dirty!

 

It was such a hot morning, I had to do the cleaning inside my RV Garage, under all our sun shades! Worked perfect, and all is clean again.

Received a phone call from Edgewood Drive Shoe Repair, over in Lakeland, telling me my motorcycle jacket was all fixed and ready to pick up. They had replaced the zipper that had worn out. We decided to drive over in the Jeep and pick it up. On the way back we drove right by Circle B Ranch so we just had to drop in and do the Alligator walk!

 

This is by far our favourite area to walk... you get to see all the water birds...

 

These three turtles were fihting for the same small chunk of log, in very murky water...

 

The only camera I had today was my LG Smartphone, and it is real hard to get pics of an egret in flight, but my superior camera skills came through for me! This bird is flying over lake Hancock, home to 4,000 alligators! There are over 1,000,000 Alligators in Florida!

Rest of the day was spent taking life easy, and talking to some neighbours... all who are in the process of pulling out of here! Three of our good neighbours will leave this Easter Weekend! It will be deserted here next week! Judy and I will be hanging around a bit more, as there is still snow at home!

Till tomorrow...

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Key West hang over....

After an action packed 5 days on the road in Key West with John and Pat, you could probably guess what we did today... not a lot!

This morning though, Judy had the laundry on the run real early... I had decided to take the RV over and have the propane tank filled... we have been using the furnace a bit in the mornings, and did not want to run out... that is for sure. So as you can imagine, it takes a bit of work to get the RV drivable in order to take it out and have service done to it. Takes about 45 minutes.

This afternoon I relaxed a bit, and got Judy's Burgman out of storage and cleaned it up after the Key West trip... one day it rained a little bit on us and everything got instantly dirty! Nice and clean now, mine still to do!

Check out these pictures I found of Gwenny on my phone while I was away...

Kristina had her out in the Park with still a bit of snow around! That better be gone soon!

 

Looks like she is all set for the Easter Egg Hunt this weekend...

Here she is on her big girl bed where she sleeps all the time now... looks like she is reading rather than sleeping!

I got this picture of little Paige, who just celebrated her 3rd Birthday over in Ottawa... yes, she too is a happy little girl... not quite sure where she is or what she is up to, but she has her Princess Purse, so all must be well!

Happy Easter everyone!

Till tomorrow...

 

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Key West all over again!

Well we are back home tonight from Key West... had a great time...

Never actually got around to doing up a blog during the trip, just too busy, too tired, having too much fun... you know... basically slacking off again!

I have a bunch of pictures of the different things we did and saw, and will not try to do a great big huge blog to tell you about it all... will just hit the highlights of the trip.

 

On this trip we decided to base ourselves out of Marathon Shores, on Marathon Key. It is about 1/2 way down the chain of Keyes. The Siesta Hotel was only OK to stay at... really I was not impressed, only because you have to pay so much for accomodations in the Keyes, and you do not get much Hotel. Nuff said, won't dwell on the Hotel, as we really only slept there.

 

We stayed in this secondary building to our Motel, and got to park the machines right out front.

The weather was not typical Florida weather for this trip, other than Sunday when we drove down. It was 85 degrees and really hot, but we survived. The rest of the trip, the temperatures were down a bit, mid 70's, but we had a lot of Key West Wind!

The night we arrived, we took a walk through the area behind our Motel, and there were beautiful homes, on a canal that led to the Atlantic Ocean... these were Million Plus Homes, with boats to match.

 

The first full day there, we drove right down to Key West, about an hours drive south for us. We got parked on a road, and walked about a mile downtown. It was a nice day, bit breezy, but warm enough for shorts.

 

We enjoyed a walk down Duval Street, where all the action is, and ended up on the waterfront later in the afternoon, when it started to cool down.

Charter Fishing is a big industry in Key West in boats like above... we walked down to the Dock area and had dinner.

Above is a tarpin fish, and some pellicans who are enjoying food from a local restaurant at 4:00 each afternoon. The restaurant draws a large crowd as they feed the fish... there were lots of them.

Above is our walk around the board walk area...

We made it down to the famous "90 miles to Cuba" sign... lots of people were lined up to get a pic.

The second day we were on the Keyes, John and Pat had interest in going to see The Dolphin Research Center. I have blogged about this place before, and will not bore you with a bunch of pictures of Flipper again... We had a good time, and it is very easy to spend 1/2 a day at this great spot!

We took a walk down to Sombrero Beach. This is a great "free" public beach, but it was cool, as you can tell by the sweaters...

Of course, leave it to Judy to spot an off shore Manatee swimming by... he was big!

Today we drove back home through the Everglades... visited the Welcome Center and had to get a Gator pic for you! He was a big one!

Here is a view of the famous 7 Mile Long Bridge heading south out of Marathon... we were at a Restaurant having dinner when I took this one...

Told you so... this is the Restaurant. We sat outside by a big pool...

Anyways... that gives you an idea of how our trip went.

Pat and John are up in St. Pete's tonight, staging their flight home on Friday morning. It was a pretty quick week, but got a lot done! See you back in the Homeland Guys!

Till tomorrow...

 

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The Blog will return...

We have been having a great time in Key West, but too busy and tired to blog.... Will be back soon...

Till tomorrow...

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Getting ready to go...

Wow... the humidity sure came back here again today... beautiful day, temps well over 85 deg. F. with a southerly wind.

We enjoyed breakfast in the RV with the Morrisons, and then right away, hit the road on a little tour around the Winter Haven area.

Started off by taking them down to see the Florida Natural Orange Juice Facility, as John is a Farmer, so wanted to check out growing oranges!

 

Here is Johnny above, checking out the oranges at the Visitor's Center.

Next we had to take the Florida Natural 1/2 ton for a ride...

We toured from here down to Frost Proof, and wanted to show John and Pat Rainbow Resort, our new Park for next year... we had a nice tour through.

Stopped at a nice little Frost Proof Restaurant and enjoyed lunch sitting outside... the was actually a motorcycle rally going on in Frost Proof but we did not bother to go down to check it out...

We drove west from Frost Proof and into Fort Meade. This makes for a nice circle tour...

 

We went down to show John and Pat the Peace River that flows through one of the parks in Fort Meade.

It was hot, as we load up, to make the ride back to up Winter Haven... great day to ride... we were out for about 4 hours...

John and Pat took us out to dinner tonight at the "I am Pasta" Restaurant beside our Park... one of my favourite spots in all of Winter Haven. Thanks Guys!

Judy and Pat retired to the trailer to watch a movie, while John and I sat in the RV and took in the big Maple Leaf victory over the Bruins tonight! Ya!

Off for Key West tomorrow...

till tomorrow...

 

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Let the good times roll...

This morning we spent getting ready for the arrival of the Morrisons. Judy went into her regular cleaning binge around the RV, starting laundry and good stuff like that.

I took out our motorcycles and made sure they were all set and ready to go down to Key West. That is our objective. We will leave here Sunday morning, and plan on getting down to Marathon where we have some accommodations booked. Our bikes are all set, including tire pressures, brake checks, lubrications updates, spot cleaning... all good to go! Even took them over to Walmart and filled them up with gas.

I was working away around 1:30 when my cell rang and it was Pat and John. They had landed in St. Pete's and had already picked up their rental motorcycle and were just about here... just needed some last minute directions. John and Pat are staying in our Park in the same trailer that Deb and Gerard rented.

Here they are pictured above with a very very new Harley Davidson! What a machine... John really enjoyed the drive over to here, commenting on how the Harley handled better than his Goldwing back home. I said, maybe it was because there is no snow on the roads here!!!! Wait a minute... I think it might be similar to a new Harley that Rene and Jeanette just bought out west in the Yuma area! RV Voyageur check it out.

The only problem we have with our trip, is the weather does not look to be the greatest in the direction we are heading, so we will have to see how that works out.

Till tomorrow...

 

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Kayaking on the Weeki Wachee River...

Remember back earlier in the week, we headed over to the Weeki Wachee State Park... Well, it was time to head back again today, to take on the the River!

They offer a Paddling Adventure along this River, above is the Paddle Shack where you start. It is right beside the Little Mermaids of Weeki Wachee State Park. The Paddling Adventure is 5 1/2 miles long. The best part is you are paddling down River with a nice current at your back.

That is the launch area behind me, as I am watching the guy grab out our Kayak.

 

As you can see they had a bunch of them, singles, doubles which we took, and lots of canoes.

This is the River above... that is the bottom you see. This River is crystal clear, with all the water coming out of the big spring in the State Park... it all flows to the Gulf of Mexico.

This tour was high on Judy's radar list, so we had to make sure we got back here...

It did not take long for the wild life to start showing up... check out this turtle above... the River is full of tropical fish, just like kayaking in an aquarium... hard to believe. We just don't get this up in Canada.

 

Of course as you would expect, there are lots of water birds along the banks of the River. We did pass only one alligator, and no, I did not get a picture of it, however it was only like a 3 footer, and I think I could have jumped out and wrestled it to submission! No Problem!

 

There were a few people out on the River, but it is so long, we spent the majority of the day by ourselves... nice and quite. This couple pointed out two Deer feeding on the leaves along side of the River... not quick enough for a picture of it either, nor the armadillo that was feeding along side the River... the River current carries you at about 5 mph so you have to be steering all the time as the River twists and turns as you go, so it is hard to steer and take pictures. (Well... I thought it sounded like a good excuse...)

This is the tour boat that Judy and I took earlier on our tour of the State Park... we stayed clear of them!

This is one pristine River...

This guy above was sticking he neck out...

 

We were testing Judy's new underwater camera out on this trip, holding it under water and taking the pics... however the water was so clear it is hard to tell.

 

The song birds were just a singing... you would think you were in a jungle.

There were lots of Cyprus Trees along the Banks with the neat root system...

Birds galore...

No, that is not a water snake above, it is a pencil fish... there were a few of them.

AND THEN WE HIT PAY DIRT! We had our eyes open all along the way, as we heard there might be some Manatees as we go along... We were right near the end, and had not seen any, then this guy came out of nowhere and swam right beside us for about a 1/4 of a mile... unbelievable.

I figured he had to be about 15 feet long...

Check out his tail... almost looks like a beaver tail! This guy was the highlight of a fantastic day! Took a big bite out of life today! It took us 4 hours to complete the tour!

Word is out that John and Pat Morrison are going to jump on a big steel bird tomorrow from Toronto, and head down to Florida! Looking forward to it!

Till tomorrow...

 

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