0066 - Time off

Yesterday we visited another winery. They're all different in the way they present themselves, the wines they produce, the size of their operation... each one is unique and I like trying them out. This time it was Strong Tower in Spring Hill. They had watermelon wine, which was strangely like the muscadine we got from Del Monaco in Tennessee, same sort of earthy flavor with a honey finish. In short, I loved it. That is hands down my favorite. They have several wines that are delicious... strawberry... white muscadine and red... They grow their own grapes on the grounds and outsource the other fruits from local organic farms. You can actually pick musadines by the pound, but just as we arrived... another storm. Last couple of days we've had big thunderstorms with lightning strikes rather than the showers we usually get. I also liked the Springhill Red with (and without) mulling spices. Instead of serving it hot, they serve it chilled (summertime anyway). It was delicious.

I never used to like wine. I think I was exposed to a very dry red the first time and it turned me against wine completely. My friend Robin always loved wine, that was her thing. She was the first to expose me to it again. For years I would try it from time to time, preferring white wine to red, and sweeter wines over dry, but I didn't really appreciate it until my friend Debra's birthday. We went to Messina Hoff and it was such a fun day that it changed my perspective a bit. Last year, Mike and I decided we were going to start trying different wines, and it has been fun to experiment. He knows more about them than I do, I'm a novice. Maybe if we get to California we'll do a wine country tour. In the meantime I'm enjoying all the local wineries along the way.

I still don't have a palate for it... I can't call out the individual components of the wine... the spices, the fruits... I just know if I like it or not. I haven't gotten the hang of which wine is which... I know pinot grigio has a very limey taste. I know I like Reisling. And Haak's Blanc du Bois. Other than that I take my chances and seem to prefer fruit wines and sangrias.

Earlier this evening I stalked a herd of deer. I wish they would come out when the light was good... but they come out at dusk, so my camera is fighting a losing battle. There was one brave deer that stuck around after most of the herd ran away. I didn't get terribly close, my shoes magnify the sound of the grass crunching underfoot, and with their big ears I'm sure it doesn't even take that to clue them in to my presence... plus I was wearing perfume. Still, I have to admire his tenacity, to hear me coming, look at me and decide I'm not a threat. And... I'm not a threat, most animals seem to sense that.

This morning there was a knock on the door and a lady invited us to play botchi ball. They play three times a week. It was very nice of her to invite us to join in. We were headed out this morning, but if we're here on Monday I may take her up on it, just because I appreciate the invitation. A lot of places around here are 55+ and seem cliquish in that respect. I've always hung out with people older than me, and somehow, becoming an adult has meant that I have friends of all ages.

We're trying to move toward Orlando early next week. Still want to take the RV to the same place we originally intended, but maybe we can find a park with cabins on that side of Florida. Plus I want to be able to do things like Busch Gardens and Gator World. I still want to see The Wonderful Wizarding World of Harry Potter... Mike doesn't, so I'm trying to coerce a friend into taking a vacation and joining me. He'll do it, but it's not as much fun if the person you're with isn't interested. Also have friends in Cape Canaveral and would love to be able to see them while we're here.

Speaking of which, with our timeshare, if you want to come out and visit us, we can probably get you a good deal on lodging. We don't always know where we'll be in advance, but if you can do a spur of the moment trip, we'd love to be able to meet up with our friends and family along the way. I know we'll be in Shreveport at the end of August for a family reunion. After that, probably Arizona or southern California. I've also heard talk of Oregon and Washington. It's hard to say... but yeah... there are many possibilities. :)

0065 - Pictures

Because you can never have too many dragonflies, cranes or deer...

Mike might get a day off tomorrow, which means a trip to the winery and maybe some interesting pics of something other than dragonflies, cranes or deer. :)

Mike took most of these.

Gorgeous sunrise

I got this one, the rest of mine were blurry... it was dusk and my camera was uncooperative.

Back to Mike :)

I can only guess that he was playing around with macro mode, hahaha

So... this is pretty much what I see all day... a lot of dragonflies...

The three witches... they flew by this afternoon, that was sobering...

Rain so hard it creates a waterfall off the eaves, and steam... because it wouldn't be Florida if there wasn't humidity later...

Gracie-poo...

And Mike comes home about sunset.

See you tomorrow, it's time to put my husband to bed. I might get to see the jobsite tomorrow. We have driven by it a couple of times, but the job is finally done and there are only a few loose ends to tie up.

0064 - The Days March On

I find little ways to keep busy... somehow that makes the time pass a little more quickly. Yesterday's projects were to change the linens, do laundry, and clean up the area around the dining room table as that's where all the crap tends to collect. It's where things go to die. I also went through the shred pile and cut out only the things that actually need to be shredded so I could toss the rest into the garbage. I talked in an earlier post about reducing weight... doing things like that reduce weight, significantly in some cases, but truth be told, it was more about keeping myself occupied. Mission accomplished. One more day of sanity... some may argue that, but seriously... I didn't go insane...

Mike got to come home a little early yesterday so we went to dinner. I chose randomly again, and this time came up with a winner. It was Mexican. I may have a problem... an addiction... Los Vallarta, is about ten miles down the road from us. We lucked out in more than one respect - there was a shopping center nearby and it had a Dick's Sporting Goods, which in turn had a rainsuit and boot dryer that Mike has been looking for. Dinner was tasty, so were the margaritas... I have missed a good margarita. Last one I had tasted like frozen Gatorade. Disgusting.

Today went a little slowly. It rained again... a hard rain for a short period of time. Saw the three witches walk by. Watched tv (thank goodness for cable networks that make things available on the internet). Yawn. Then Mike came home a little early again, and the rain started in earnest... thunder, lightning, sheets of rain... four hours later and it's still raining, albeit with less gusto.

Spoke to my dad briefly today. And my friend Debra. Learned that one of my friends is probably about to start the same journey we're on, living in an RV and traveling. He makes leather goods so he and his wife are going to go to Ren Fairs and bike rallies. I think he'll like it and with his line of work it will probably open a few doors.

Also saw the trailer for my friend Michelle's movie, it will be premiering on the Lifetime Movie Network on August 31st and it looks amazing, it's called The Preacher's Daughter. She wrote and directed it. I can't wait! I was a little worried that I might not have access to cable at the time, but then I went to the LMN website and they have movies you can watch so worst case scenario, I hope I can watch it there. We're supposed to be in Louisiana for Mike's family reunion at that point, so maybe we can make it into an event. In the meantime, I learned that she has always wanted to direct a musical... which is ironic, because once upon a time I started a screenplay that was supposed to be a musical. Maybe that's my motivation to get back to it. I just got a little stuck but whenever I go back and read it I don't hate it. Which is a good sign...

We're probably here for another week or so... I am ready to move on. There's just nothing here. I would like to meet up with my friends Sandy and Rene, and then head north. I hate being next to the maintenance building, it's noisy. I'm running out of things to photograph, not that the last few days have been particularly impressive in that respect. Speaking of which, the hawk flew by my window this afternoon... taunting me... I saw the perfect perch, but who knows if it ever goes there.

Need to figure the mail situation out. If we're going to be here for another week I can probably have the post office forward it to us, or maybe I need to check out a service that will do it. At first it didn't make sense, but 2-3 weeks at a time without mail kind of sucks. We won't always be in a position to receive it, but once a week or so would be nice. Right now we're waiting on a couple of refunds, so it's a little more important. :)

So that's the last couple of days in a nutshell. I'm sure tomorrow will be just as exciting...

0063 - Early Sunday Morning

Remember how I talked to the lady in the office about the sirens, and I was only supposed to be concerned if I heard the five short bursts? Well, guess what happened at 4 am? If you guessed that we were awakened by five short bursts of the siren, you win the prize. It's more than a bit disconcerting to wake up that way, especially when it's pitch black out because you're basically blind. Then it occurred to me that if there was a tornado out there... there is nowhere to go. Most of the parks we've stayed in have bathroom and/or laundry facilities, so that's where people would go. This one doesn't have those things available. There is a maintenance building close by, but it is locked. The fire station is fairly close, I don't know if it's open or not. There is a community hall, and during the day the back door is open... it would take a couple of minutes to run to it, and it's probably locked after dark.

All in all, we still don't know why it went off. I looked out the windows... of course I saw nothing... I looked at the weather info on my phone... nothing... turned on the tv and found a weather station... nothing. So eventually we managed to fall asleep again.

The whole night I slept sporadically. I remember a couple of different episodes of Psych, a show I've never seen before but is so fun to watch. Then there was a Keanu Reeves movie where he was fighting demons... the most interesting thing about that was a new Puscifer song, or if not Puscifer, something by Maynard from Tool. Then there was an infomercial for something, and at that point I turned the tv off.

So about an hour and a half after the siren went off, it was time for Mike to get up. I told myself when we started this journey that I was going to get up in the mornings to see him off... cook breakfast, pack snacks, make a lunch, what have you. I haven't been doing that. Instead I stay in bed, and he comes and kisses me goodbye on his way out. This morning I decided to get up and see him off. It is nice to just have little moments together, and something as simple as putting snacks into containers is quality time that I enjoy.

I made good on the promise I made to myself yesterday - I walked to the front of the park and started making my way down the road to see if there was anything picture worthy out there. About that time it started to rain. Unbelievable. Every damn day. So I turned around and noticed that it wasn't raining in the park yet. I scouted out a few places to take cover should that situation change, and decided to soldier on. I hadn't explored the golf course so I went down one of the paths... nothing interesting there. I hadn't explored the woods behind us, so I went back that way. There was a large hawk that swooped down and flew pretty close to me but my camera wasn't ready... so no pictures of that... I hate all the great shots I've missed by a millisecond. Also saw a raccoon peeking out from the corner of the maintenance building, but didn't get a picture of that either.

This is all I got:

Rain clouds... every day they blanket the sky.

Interesting side road I didn't get to explore.

More twisty roots.

Giant beehive in the woods behind us. I didn't hear any buzzing so I figured it was safe to take my time. This thing is probably as big as a human torso.

Cool old tree.

This just looked cool... like cotton almost.

Sunset on the lake.

They've started cleaning up the garden a bit. Not that you can tell from this picture... this is just a pretty plant.

0062 - Mike's Awesome Pics

On the way to and from work, and at the jobsite, Mike has been taking some great pics. I'm a little jealous. :)

I never really thought about farms in Florida. Orange groves, sure. Farms? Not so much. They have a lot of moo cows here, and a few longhorns.

This is cool to me for some reason.

Me trying (futiley) to capture the sun in some clouds. Every time I almost got a pic, there would be a tree, or a powerline, or something else in the way. It didn't really photograph well. :(

He chased down this armadillo... and it's not dead on the side of the road. My friend Laura would be pleased.

The tower he's working on.

Really cool shot of a turtle he saw. I think this one is amazing. He said there is a bunny somewhere in the RV park. I have a new mission.

Tree frog jumped right when he snapped the picture.

This was me taking pics of a(nother) rainy afternoon.

Dry soup. Before.

Dry soup. Properly mixed.

After dinner I look out the window and see a couple of deer. I quietly go outside and see three more standing under the trees. All of a sudden there is a good sized herd out there. Only thing that sucks is that it was getting dark, so the pictures are grainy.

Back to Mike's escapades. He got the male version of the huge cranes I've seen around here (I lovingly refer to them as The Witches because they always come in a gaggle of three).

Awesome rainbow.

0061 - Eh.

Yesterday Mike came home early. It was the first afternoon he's had free since we got here, usually he works twelve hour days. Seems like we've been here forever. Sucks for both of us. He's exhausted and sore. I'm feeling dull because there's nothing going on except tv and housework so I don't have much to talk about. When we do go out I would almost rather be home... I can't seem to find anyone that makes food I want to eat. I don't know what there is around here and get frustrated when I try to search for something... I either get too much information, or not enough, but mostly I usually don't know what I want until I see it so it's pointless, and I have no information beyond a name to help me know if it's worth a damn.

I have no transportation, so simple things like buying stamps are beyond my abilities, I can't just run to the store to grab little things here and there - because as big as this place is, they have no store and the closest convenience store is about 5 miles down the road. Mike is good about it, but I know he's exhausted when he comes home, and like I said... I would almost rather be home. I've always been more active during the day and I want to relax in the evenings. I'm a homebody, perhaps too much of one sometimes. I don't have cabin fever yet, though I do get frustrated. In Tennessee we got bored from time to time, but exploring was fun and we had a small social circle going.

There's no one here to talk to, not that I leave the trailer much because it's hot and humid and gross, and the minute I walk out the door I start to sweat and itch... it's not just the mosquitos, there's something else out there, invisible and bloodthirsty and relentless... and there are creepy maintenance guys outside. I went to the office to pay for more days and talked to the ladies up there, and it was the first interaction I've had with anyone other than Mike since the last time I went up front to pay. I talk to people on the phone from time to time but it's not the same. I wish I had my car and I wish we could hang out with our friends every now and then. We were supposed to go to Cocoa Beach this weekend but it looks like Mike will be working... forever. Because of rain delays, personnel issues and red tape, this six day job is growing by the day, and there are no days off. We still haven't taken the RV or the truck in for repairs. I got the name of a lady who *might* have a trailer we can rent for a week or so... no guarantees. Haven't heard back from the park with the trailer with the floor being fixed.

So I got a little off-topic... back to errands... after Mike got cleaned up, we hit the road. First we had Mexican food for lunch. It was the best we've had in months. No cheese soup on the nachos...actual cheese! The meat was tasty! The salsa needed a little help, but when I asked for cilantro and some limes they obliged... that's all it needed. It was a happy day indeed.

After lunch we went to see an acupuncturist. Mike's wrists and hands have been bothering him, which makes it almost impossible to climb. We got a couple of wrist braces for him to wear at night, figured the support couldn't hurt. It didn't seem to help. I called a couple of rheumatologists, one was closed by the time I made the attempt, the other one recommended a neurologist... for potential carpal tunnel? I think not... This guy put three needles in Mike's hands and then told him how to stretch to prevent furthering and/or reverse the damage. A lot of what he said made sense, but I think the stretches were the most valuable part of the visit.

Then we drove. And drove. And drove. And I hate traffic. I felt like crap. I made a chocolate pudding the other night and something must have been off, it was upsetting my stomach in all kinds of ways. I started feeling queasy and weak and dehydrated. I was in a bad mood. Mike had some Gatorade in the cooler so I drank some of that and it helped a lot. I was able to go grocery shopping afterward, and then we ate at Beef O'Brady's. It was a lot like a Bennigan's to me. I  wasn't impressed by my meal, I'm sure they have good food, but my salad obviously came from a bag and I hate that... I got a sangria margarita... it could strip the paint off a wall... it was too syrupy and too tart at the same time. They said it usually comes frozen and that helps with the tartness... why it didn't come frozen the first time, I don't know... so they brought me a frozen one. It was less tart and syrupy, but still disgusting. I got a coke instead. I felt bad for sending it back twice, but I couldn't drink it. I don't know why, but things just don't taste good to me right now.

I ended up getting out of bed just after Mike left this morning. Usually I go back to sleep, but I couldn't, so I got up. I still don't feel right. I was planning on walking down the road to see if I can find some of the trees Mike pointed out... huge trees with twisty, strange limbs the come down to the ground... may be too far away on foot. And it's hot. And it will probably rain. It rains every day, which makes the humidity worse. Taking pictures is about all the entertainment I have that doesn't come from a television or computer. I'm trying to make myself get out once in a while, and I'm trying to get some exercise while I'm at it.

Pictures... Mike got an awesome picture of a tree frog jumping, but it's on his phone so when he sends it to me I'll post it. Other than that:

Interesting rock.

Can you find the butterfly?

Lizard.

Looking up a tree.

Golf.

Sky through the truck's skylight.

Gracie's perch.

Pretty blue eyed baby.

Mike's hand. Ouch. :)