MOC Luncheon

When we purchased a Montana 5th wheel in 2005 we joined the Montana Owner’s Club, or MOC.  Although Gene was relatively active on the MOC forum, we were never in a position to participate in the monthly luncheons nor were we able to attend a rally.  Today, now that we are no longer Montana owners, we attended the monthly luncheon.

Frank and Sandy

Our friends, Bill and Helen, invited us to accompany them to Orlando for the luncheon today.  It was fun to be with a large group of RVers, many of whom are full-timers, and to put faces with the names we had seen only on the forum.  Not only did we meet a lot of great folks, we also saw a couple we had met originally in Vermont a couple years ago.  We thought their faces looked familiar, but it was Frank and Sandy who remembered we had been parked at the same campground in Vermont.  Running into folks from time to time as we travel about the country is one of the wonderful benefits of this lifestyle.

After lunch at Sweet Tomatoes, Dennis and Judy invited the group to their home to continue our visiting.  Most of the lunch group ended up at Dennis and Judy’s.  This gave us another couple hours to visit, establish friendships, and catch up with those we haven’t seen in a while.  As if we hadn’t had plenty to eat at lunch, we had cake and ice cream to celebrate birthdays.

On our way back to Silver Springs, Bill and Helen gave us a quick tour through a small portion of The Villages.  The 5 o’clock entertainment was just getting underway on the square at Spanish Springs.  We were far beyond eating anything else today and we were far too tired to enjoy the festivities on the square.  We’ll have to go back for the full experience of The Villages another day.

A busy day, but one we thoroughly enjoyed.  Thanks Bill and Helen for inviting us.

Cousins Meet for the First Time

Well, today has been very special and very rewarding.  Gene met his cousin, Rita, for the very first time.  Here’s their interesting story.

In the fall of 2008, we spent a couple weeks in central Ohio doing a little research on Gene’s family history.  Each day during those weeks, I would post on our trip journal (Homeward Bound) where we went and what we learned.  Of course, in tracing your ancestors and visiting cemeteries, family names are important and many of those names would appear in my trip journal.  When doing a Google search, those entries in the trip journal popped up.  That is how Lee and Rita learned we were relatives.

Rita, the Curp, contacted me via the guestbook.  We have been corresponding for several months and have exchanged family history information and photos.  Today, Gene got to meet his cousin, Rita, and her husband Lee.  Rita’s grandfather and Gene’s grandfather were brothers.

We really had very little to add to Lee’s extensive research.  He has been working on recording the Curp family history for some 30 years.  What dedication!  We are very grateful and appreciative to him for sharing that work of love with us.

We spent the afternoon telling family stories, looking at old photos, and sharing tidbits of our lives.  We hope to visit with them again, if not this trip, then one in the future.  We never know when our paths may cross again.

That’s it for tonight.  Tomorrow we are going to Orlando with Bill and Helen for the Montana Owners Club luncheon.  That’ll be fun.

Passing Through Spider Kingdom

Hope everyone had a very fine Valentine’s Day.  We certainly did.  After a few chores in the morning, we spent the afternoon on our computers.  I finally got set up on Facebook.  That had been a hard decision for me to make; I’m not sure why.  The Wandering Wishnies got me to thinking about it over a year ago and I’ve been thinking about it all this time.  I’m still trying to figure out what I’m doing, or supposed to do, or something.

My sweetie took me out to dinner last night.  Even got dessert--how special is that.

Today we went back to Juniper Prairie Wilderness to finish what we started last week.  We drove around to the north end of that section down a dirt road to the small trailhead parking lot.  We had 4 miles to connect to the section we had hiked previously.  It was a good hike, but not high on the scenic meter.  This area had a lot of hurricane damage a few years ago and has since burned.  New growth is started, but it will be a few years before it is back to “normal”.

The trail meanders between and around numerous ponds.  I just love the long grasses of the prairie.

It is easy terrain so we marched right along.  Just before we got to the place where we stopped on our first hike here, we saw smoke in the not so far distance.  We walked on about five more minutes and noticed that the smoke was getting much worse.  Since getting caught in a wildfire was not on the agenda, we immediately turned around and headed back to the truck.

Easy hiking but not so scenic through the burned areas.

We found ourselves a lunch spot between two ponds.  We seemed much farther from the smoke and the wind was blowing in the opposite direction.  We decided we would take our chances with the alligators in the pond if the fire got too close.  As it turned out, we had found a great lunch spot.  It appeared to be a backcountry campsite although there were no posted signs.  It had clearly been used as a campsite.  We settled in on the logs which had been placed in front of a fire ring and ate our lunch while keeping one eye on the smoke.

We always try to do our part to keep the trails clean by packing out trash we find along the way.  We found two special treats today.  Gene spotted a shiny object sticking out of the sand.  When he pulled on it, a watch came out.  Even though it was a Timax, it wasn’t ticking and won’t ever tick again I’m afraid.  We carried it out to the trash can.  The real prize was my find.  While stepping off the trail behind the bushes, I found a Gerber knife.  Gene cleaned it up after we got home and will try to sharpen the blade.  We’ll drop it in a hiker box one of the days.  Someone will be glad to get it.

While Gene was looking up the knife on the internet, he discovered the latest in Swiss Army Knives.  Some now come with 2 gig flash drives.  Remarkable.

Time to get out of here

I have not forgotten about the electric ears.  That story will have to wait until later in the week.  Tomorrow we have a visit scheduled with one of Gene’s cousins whom he has never met before.  We are looking forward to that visit.  The story of how they found each other is interesting and I’ll tell that tomorrow.

That’s all for today.

A Day With Friends

The full-time RV lifestyle is wonderful and we enjoy it immensely.  However, living “on the road” also means we don’t see family and friends as often, in some cases almost daily, as we did when we owned a stick house.  Perhaps the hardest thing for me to adjust to was filling that void that had been occupied by family and friends.  

We had heard of and read about the phenomenon of meeting RVers and then running into those people over and over again as we travel around the country.  Over the four plus years we have been full-time RVers, we have added a number of friends to our base of “Nashville friends”.  These new friendships are one of the great blessings of this lifestyle.

Today, we had lunch with JW, a very fine fellow who was parked next to us during the months of November and December while we were in Nashville.  Ocala is JW’s hometown and he is here now visiting with his family and hometown friends.  For us, he is the local expert on the places to eat in Ocala.  He suggested Murphy’s Oyster Bar for our lunch to satisfy our craving for seafood.  It was a great choice and our fried shrimp were very good.  Gene also order gator tail. I had to try a bite.  No, it doesn’t taste exactly like chicken. It can’t hold a light to shrimp, but it wasn’t bad.

JW also invited one of his good friends to join us.  It was great to meet Mike as well as to visit with JW again.  Hopefully, we’ll have another chance to spend some time with JW.  Since he is a native of Ocala, he is a great source for information about the local area.  As we drove to the restaurant, he pointed out several places that we would not otherwise have noticed.  Thanks JW for the personal tour of town and a wonderful lunch.

While we were waiting for JW to come by this morning, Helen called to invite us to their place.  About mid-afternoon we drove over to their campground, Wilderness RV Park Estates.  It is hard to say when we first became acquainted with Bill and Helen.  They are Montana owners and are very active in the Montana Owners Club.  Since we were also Montana owners, Gene had come across Bill and Helen on the forums.  We started reading Helen’s trip journal, Here We Go Again, long before we actually met them.  But, as happens in this lifestyle, our paths finally crossed and we got our first Escapees hugs from Bill and Helen when they were in Nashville a couple years ago.  We last saw Bill and Helen in Albuquerque last spring.

We got the grand tour of their relatively new Big Sky and let me just say, it is beautiful and Helen has done a marvelous job of decorating.  We visited over a light snack and wine for the remainder of the afternoon.

Besides being anxious to see Bill and Helen again, we were also excited to see Wilderness RV Park Estates. This is one of the campgrounds we are interested in for a snowbird roost.  Helen gave us a quick tour of the park.  It is a very nice place and ranks right up there in our top three.

We look forward to attending the Montana Owners Club luncheon next week with Bill and Helen.  Thanks, guys, for a great afternoon.

Aren’t friends wonderful!!

The Longest Trailer

This has been an uneventful day.  We woke up to very chilly temperatures and strong winds.  We dilly dallied around getting the morning routine chores done and sipping coffee waiting for the sun to warm up the air a little.

While we waited, I stepped out quickly to take a picture of our next door neighbor.  This trailer, the longest I think I have ever seen, pulled in just after dark yesterday evening.  I took particular notice because the trailer seemed very close to the tree outside our window.  The driver noticed, as well, and backed up to make a wider turn.  Because most of our day/night shades were down, I couldn’t see the rest of the trailer.  As I watched the driver navigate to avoid the tree, I was amazed that the trailer just kept coming and coming.  They didn’t unhitch, just hooked up their water and electricity and pushed out their slide.  This morning, outside and with the benefit of sunlight, the true length of this trailer was amazing.  This rig filled up a 60 foot sight end to end.  I feel confident this plain white trailer is hauling a race car (maybe two) of some description.

About mid morning, we headed out for a 5-mile walk.  The sun was bright, but the temperature and wind demanded coats, hats, and gloves.  We moved right along trying to stay warm and were home in time for lunch.

That’s been about it for today.  The highlight for me was this longest trailer.

Tomorrow we have a luncheon date with J.W. who was parked next to us during most of our stay in Nashville during the holiday season.  That’ll be fun and great to see him again.

Scouting A Winter Retreat

We have another rainy day with temperatures in the 50s.  The weather in Florida has been somewhat disappointing this winter.  It has rained more than usual and the temperatures have been much cooler than normal.  I’m not complaining, mind you, just stating the facts.  Every day we are out of the bitter cold and snow in almost any region north of here, we are grateful.

Warm weather is what we are looking for in our winter destination.  We don’t necessarily want it to be hot, but at least rarely in the freezing zone.  Last winter, we wandered around south Texas to see how we liked that area.  Basically, we found it too windy and brown to suit our tastes.  It had its pluses, of course.  We found some really nice campgrounds, the people, both winter Texans as well as the locals, were very friendly, and goods and services were generally very reasonably priced.

We’re looking around northern Florida this winter.  We don’t have the winds like we did all over the southwest and the live oaks, shrubs, and even some of the grass is green despite the cold temperatures this winter.  So far, we haven’t found a campground we truly like which is also within our budget.

This morning we took a drive over to Williston.  This small community is about halfway between Ocala and Gainsville, but a little farther west.  We had heard good things about a new campground there and wanted to check it out.  Williston Crossings RV Resort is a relatively new campground; open maybe 3 years.  There is still construction going on.  It is very highly rated and justifiably so.  All the interior roads are paved, the spacious sites are concrete with concrete patios, and the park is beautiful landscaped.  We spoke at length with Mrs Owner who was very helpful and answered a zillion questions for us.  They have about 140 sites open and almost all occupied with another hundred under construction.  The new clubhouse is gorgeous.  They have a few activities, but certainly not the number we are familiar with at the Escapees parks.  This park has one big drawback for us--it is 20 or so miles from both Gainsville or Ocala where the larger supermarkets are and a Wal-Mart pharmacy.

It is a nice park and we were impressed.  Still, at this time the Plantation in Summerdale, AL is our first choice, but Williston Crossings is a close contender.

After our visit to Williston, we stopped by the grocery for some grub and have been relaxing at home this afternoon.  This is a super day for an afternoon nap, but I have resisted the temptation.  I wonder why?

We have no plans for tomorrow.  We’ll wait to see what the weather is like.

Ocala National Forest

We were back on the trail today; this time in Ocala National Forest for another section so the Florida Trail.

Ocala National Forest is the second largest national forest in Florida.  This 600+ square mile forest was established in the early 1900s making it the oldest national forest east of the Mississippi.  There are a variety of habitats from lakes and ponds (they say about 600 in all), swamps and wet prairies to longleaf pine and the largest concentration of sand pine in the world.

This is a very popular place around here with a wide range of activities to interest almost everyone.  There is hiking, of course, plus canoeing, fishing, swimming, camping, bicycling, and, in designated areas, hunting and ATVing.

Many areas of the forest are free, but there are also many areas which charge a day use fee.  I’m all for the fees and gladly pay at state parks.  We always purchase a yearly pass for the National Parks.  We were surprised that this National Park pass was not valid at Ocala.  It has been accepted at all the other National Forests we have visited as well as many Wildlife Refuges.  Still, we were not opposed to paying the day use fee here when we thought it was $5 per car.  We were shocked to find that it was $5 per person.  Consequently, I have to write a rant.

Juniper Springs Pool

The area we went to today, Juniper Springs, is a popular place.  They have a very nice restroom facility, gift shop/snack bar, picnic area, campground, a nature trail, canoe rental, and a beautifully landscaped area around the spring which is a comfortable 72 degrees for swimming.   However, we didn’t use any of that.  What we needed was a place to park the truck while we were hiking outside the Juniper Springs area.  They had conveniently put up “NO PARKING” signs along both sides of the half mile road approaching the fee booth.  We paid the ten bucks, parked the truck, and walked back past the fee booth and down the road lined with “no parking” signs, to our trailhead.  Then we spent the day in the Juniper Prairie Wilderness area.

Our hike was very nice.  We hiked north along the trail for just over 4 miles.  The first couple miles was mostly open.  Signs indicated that there had been much destruction during the 2004 hurricane season plus there was evidence of a burn.  I guess the starkness left by these destructive forces led someone to amend the sign to read Juniper Prairie Wasteland.  Saw palmetto is coming back along with other small shrubs, but that is about all at this time.  Past the burn area, we got into wet prairie with open ponds, cypress, pine, and palm trees, and long grass.  We found a small clearing for our lunch break then turned around for the 4 mile return hike.

After our hike, we walked around Juniper Springs.  The water was crystal clear with aquatic plants swaying under the surface.  Enjoying this beautiful setting may have been worth the $10 fee.

Tonight my feet are tired so it will be an evening in my recliner.  Tomorrow, who knows.