Finally a New Post

March 29th - Tuesday - Hot and Humid

Sorry Folks it has been so long since the last post. I have been sick and have just managed to do what I had to do to get through each day. Thankfully, I brought my nebulizer and all of my medication along with me, and it seems at this point I am over the worst part of it.

Yesterday we have a day of rain. In fact, at last count, we had almost three inches of rain, so most of the pollen was washed away and now just the humidity remains, so have stayed inside today with the air-conditioner and decided to take advantage of our purchase of fresh strawberries from Plant City and make a fresh strawberry pie for dinner tonight.

One afternoon last week Lou talked me into riding up to Plant City to pick up a flat of fresh berries and he got a flat of berries for $6.99 and they are simply delicious. I asked him what we were going to do with all of those berries, and he told me we would eat them morning, noon and night and that is just about what we have done, we only have three boxes left and we want to go back for more next week.

I had found a new recipe for strawberry pie in a new magazine I had ordered just before we left and Krista mailed my magazine to me, and it calls for cooked jello to make the filling, so tired it for our dinner, it certainly looks wonderful.

Lou has caught cold and has a horribly sore throat, so have started him on PCN so we have postponed the air show until later in the week and hopefully the weather will be better and he will also feel better.

It will be nice is we can both feel well at the same time so we can get out and enjoy doing something together. Many of the folks are leaving for the north, but from what we hear from our families, we are very content to stay right here and enjoy the warmth of the 80's, but will enjoy the lower humidity later in the week.

I finally purchased Virgin Mobile for my internet service as I could never get on line before I got sick and think that perhaps this will work while we are traveling. I will try and do better at posting, I know I have missed reading the blogs from my family members also.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

March 17th - Thursday - Beautiful Day 83 Degrees high

Lou and I both slept in late today. We both took Benedryl last night, I had started coughing again so thought perhaps it was allergy induced and Lou for his fire ant bites, so needless to say, we both slept well.

After a late breakfast, we put everything in the crock pot for our typical St. Patrick's Day dinner and then I was off to do lots of laundry. The base has built all new clothes lines and many more, so I was excited about being able to hang lots of clothes on the line, and that is exactly what I did. I stripped our bed along with the rest of the other laundry I had five loads of laundry. What a joy it was to hang clothes on the line in the sunshine. The bed will smell good when we crawl in to it tonight. While the clothes were washing, I did the ironing that was left from last week, so tonight everything in the laundry is caught up.

By the time I got all of laundry done, it was time to get dinner on the table, complete with Irish Soda bread and Key Lime Pie, it was all very good, and I think we both over ate, so to work some of it off, we decided to wash the car after dinner. We had run it through the car wash after we got here, but it really needed a hand wash. Tomorrow, I will clean the inside and do the upholstery with the cleaner and conditioner that Casey and Spencer gave us for Christmas. It will be a pleasure to do it in the warm weather. Once we get caught up on some of the need to get done things, we can do some of the fun things.

We have had some nice phone calls today, one from some friends that are travelling in California and they report paying almost $5.00 a gallon for gasoline. One from a gentleman from our church that is transporting a group of singers in concert around Florida. It is always good to hear from folks from home.

I have posted some pictures of the inside of the RV as we are living in it, thought some of the family would like to see what it looks like on a day to day basis.

Move to New Site

Move to New Site

March 16th - Wednesday Beautiful day 78 degrees

Lou and I were up bright and early awaiting the arrival of the repair man to take care of the slide for our RV. His phone call came at 9:30 AM, he was at the front gate, he needed to have Lou come to the gate to sign him in.

Todd arrived at our RV and went right to the task at hand and found that we needed to have a new control panel for our driver side slide; however, for the warranty to take care of the panel we had to call Winnebago and find a dealer in our area and get an appointment to have it taken care of. There are many details that I could go into but I will spare you all of that. We were able to get moved to our new site, late this afternoon and now we are settled in until Monday when we have to take our RV in to have it serviced.

Lou got tangled up with some fire ants, and has three bites on his arm and fingers. I started him on Benedryl and finally this afternoon, I coaxed him into having a nap, so while he slept, I got everything set up inside and outside, so it finally feels like home.

Our cell phone coverage here is not good, neither is internet service, in fact, to post pictures last night it was around 1:00 am before I could get on line. So don’t know how often I will post.

After Lou got up from his nap, we went to the post office on the base and then back to the commissary, we wanted to pick up corned beef and cabbage for tomorrow. Want to have Irish Soda Bread and Key Lime Pie for dessert. Wish we were in Key West like last year. We had very special memories there last year, but it sure was a long ride to get there. With the price of gas, think there will be many changes this year for many folks. We are in hopes we will be able to get to the beach tomorrow. Sounds like great weather coming up.

MacDill Air Force Base

Mac Dill Air Force Base

March 15th - Sunny Beautiful Blue Skies - High 76 degrees

We arrived here about 4:00 yesterday afternoon and were assigned a temporary campsite with water and electricity. We quickly set up camp and made a quick trip to the car wash and the commissary for some food for dinner. I don’t know what happened to our car, but it looked like someone threw lime and water all over it, the car wash helped it, but it needs a serious wash and wax as soon as we have some time.

We really have a lovely campsite that I would like to keep; however, we don’t have a sewer hookup, so will need to move. The pictures that I have posted are from this campsite.

Lou and I enjoyed a special on Public Television on the music of the 50’s last night and when it was over we drove over to the shower house and enjoyed a long hot shower and our bed really felt good last evening. Think we were really tired out from our weekend and the travel. Will be good to catch up.

Looks like we will spend tomorrow in Camping World for repairs ----- The office here at MacDill called today and told us they had a permanent site for a month for us and we could move, so we got packed up and Lou went to put in the slides and the slide on the driver side would not go in, we ended up calling for repairs and someone will come out in the morning to manually put the slide in then we will need to go in to have the problem taken care of, so we unpacked and went back to the office to keep the spot where we are for another night and then go to the new site.

Lou did have a nice surprise this afternoon, two men he used to fly with, came over to visit with him this evening, the stories really flew and both of them promised to return in the morning to see if they could help with the problem. Always good to have friends around.

More on all of the later. We have limited access to the internet here.

Weekend With Daisy

Live Oak, FL - Visiting with Daisy

March 11 - March 13th Beautiful weather 70 degrees to low 80’s

We arrived at Daisy’s around 4:00 on Friday afternoon, it took a little longer than we had thought as we had to stop to stop to fill with gasoline and with propane at Flying J. Lou thought gas would be higher once we crossed over into Florida and he was right.

We had spent the night before at Mossy Pond Camp Grounds in Lake Pond, GA with is the camp ground that goes with Moody Air Force Base.

At Daisy’s house we just had a good time catching up on what had been happening with our families since we last saw each other last spring. Daisy lives way out in the country with lots of farm land surrounding her. She loves her gardens, both flower and vegetables and it indeed shows. Inside, she sews, and quilts along with reading, as her sewing room and books shelves reflect. She like most quilters I know do many quilts for charity and gives them away freely, she is doing a project right now for gentleman in the VA hospitals and she is doing her squares in the shapes of bow ties and I thought they were really neat for the men.

She made Lou and me a beautiful one for our new RV and the colors are just perfect. I had to take it right out and put in on the foot of our bed.

I forgot to mention that we ended up parking in her yard and dry camped, as the camp ground that we usually stay at in Live Oak was full, so it was really convenient. With all of the space that she has we could make a complete turn around and back out again.

She has every bird you can think of and Lou and I enjoyed having our breakfast in the RV each morning with the Bluebirds perching on our mirrors watching us, and then we watched them come and go to their house, was the perfect place to watch birds. She had Ground Robins and I wanted to get a picture and I see that I didn’t get one.

Of course, a lot of our time was spent watching the horrible details of the earth quake in Japan unfold. Lou was very thankful to be someplace where there was Fox television coverage to get the latest and up to date new coverage.

Daisy is doing a special quilt for Krista’s new baby and wanted me to pick out colors for the squares she is going to hand embroider in the center of the quilt. That was fun to do, it was like coloring a picture. She plans on using farm animals for her theme, which will please Krista, as she has a soft place in her heart for the farm. The colors Daisy had picked out before I arrive were the same colors Krista had picked out for the baby’s room, so all was perfect.

We were also treated to Daisy’s home cooking. The first morning, she made us homemade muffins to go with a fresh pot of tea. Her muffins were bran with cranberries and nuts and so tasty, she even made extra for us to take on the road with us. Knowing that desserts are favorites of ours, one day we had apple crisp and one peach cobbler, all were served warm with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Tina and her husband, Gary were over to visit with us and Gary made us a beautiful bird feeder that he custom made from lumber that he had burned designs into then used a preservative

Over it. With the large platform that he has built into it the Cardinals will love to feed from it. We will be anxious to put it up and watch our birds feed from it. Daisy had one and the squirrels had found a way to open it and feed from the inside, prompting Gary to restructure the roofline.

Tina and Gary brought their granddaughter Gracie with them, the last time we saw her she was a little gal, so it was nice to see her growing up. She was fond of Estee until Estee decided that she would like to have the carrot that Gracie was enjoying.

We left Daisy’s house Monday morning around 11:00, we had intended to leave earlier; however, we were welcomed with an early morning fog and we awaited the departure of the fog.

We were back on Route 51 to 27 and to 75 and on to Tampa, FL.

Grassy Pond - Lake Park, GA Moody AFB

March 9th Wednesday - 81 Degrees

We arrived here today at 3:00 Pm after numerous tornado warnings along with severe thundershower warnings. We are about five miles from the Florida line. We were able to get in to our site and all set up before the rain hit and it has been raining ever since. Thank God for His great timing and safety.

We left Dobbins AFB at 8:00 AM and Lou drove through the bypass around Atlanta (285) at 8:30 am and it was bumper to bumper going out and coming in it was stand still for approximately 10 miles. Lou's comment was he would rather be at home on the farm shoveling manure than commuting back and forth in Atlanta each day. It took an hour to get through it.

We stopped in Bolinbroke, GA for a snack at 10:00 at a rest stop, it was rather unique, as it has a special spot for RV's with picnic tables, a free dump station. It was very windy, in fact, we watched a pine tree break in half and fall to the ground.

We called Warner Robins and found they had no vacancies, so decided to travel on to Moody AFB and on our travels we saw many peach orchards in bloom and pecan orchards in Cordele, GA.

We stopped for enough gas, in Adel at $3.51. to get us to the next Flying J that is when we started to hear the tornado warnings.

We made an emergency stop in Valdosota for a RR jack that came down partially. One thing that

is neat about this RV is when we put on the emergency flashers the microphone on the outside of the RV comes on, so you can hear what is going on outside. Makes communication much easier.

So now we are here for two nights, then off to my sisters for three days then on to Tampa. Probably no internet until Tampa, but am caught up to date as of now.

The picture is of some of the many of the Bradford pear trees that are in bloom.

Leaving Fort Campbell

March 8th - Tuesday

We left Fort Campbell at 11:00 AM taking route 24 to Chattanooga, TN, the day was cloudy. I am showing a pictures of the Nashville skyline, and I really didn't take many pictures, as there is a screen over my window so it isn't as easy to take a picture out of the window from this motor home as from our other motor home.

We traveled up and down Lookout Mountain and saw several truck run away ramps and one had been recently used.

We saw many Red Bud trees in full bloom, green grass some forsythia in bloom as we reached the foot hills of Lookout Mountain.

This was not a good day to make time as we had planned on going to Warner Robins, but ended up at Dobbins Air Force Base and parked in the PX/BX parking lot for the night. Their camp ground was full and the MP's said we would be safe there so that we where we put our anchor down.

I fixed home made lasagna and a tossed salad and a glass of our favorite wine and our bed sure felt good, we set our alarm for 6:30 for an early start.

Four Days at Fort Campbell, TN KY

Fort Campbell

We were on our way to our campsite near Lake Tahl, when we looked up and saw a familiar red Mustang with a familiar service man waving at us. It was Spencer, to accompany us to our campsite. He helped Lou unhook the car, and then he and Lou were off to check out the “motor pool” before it closed while I got the motor home ready to live in for four days, all went well, with the exception, that I did not have any electricity, so I lit a candle and enjoyed the quite and watched the duck play in the creek.

Lou and Spencer soon returned along with the rain and found the problem with the power supply and got the rest of the necessities hooked up and we were off to one of Spencer’s favorite Steak Houses (Charlies) and was it ever good, we all came away with full tummies, not only were the steaks huge and wonderful, the baked potatoes were also huge, no one had room for dessert.

We made an early night of it and were glad to be in bed by 11:30 and made plans to be ready to tour the base by 10:00 am on Saturday morning. It rained hard all night long and when we awoke Saturday morning, the creek by where we had parked was nearly over the bank. We braved the weather and Spencer drove our car and we took a driving tour of the base and I took many pictures of the huge base. He took us to the area where he had taken his special Air Assault classes. This base was the home of the 101 Air Borne Division, and on the last day we had a quick tour of the Museum which was very interesting, and I would love to have had more time to have spent there, and that should have been something we should have done the first day then we would have understood why the street were named as they were. Next time we can do differently.

We went to Spencer’s house and met his house mate, James and Lou got to try on his bullet proof armor and decided it was a bit heavy to carry around for very long.

Saturday night our young soldier was off with his buddies from college to Nashville, so Lou and I went shopping at the Commissary and enjoyed a night of leisure.

Sunday, I fixed a home cooked meal for all of us, thinking that Spencer didn’t get home cooked food often, I fixed a pork roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, fresh broccoli, apple sauce and cranberry muffins. Think every one enjoyed the change. We all enjoyed visiting in the evening.

Monday, Spencer and Lou had lunch together while I got caught up on our laundry and of course, Spencer was back at work. He stopped back after he finished with his duties and we went out to dinner at a new chicken place, or at least new to Lou and me. Zaxby’s, it was a wonderful meal. Lou and I both had Blue Chicken Salad, and it was so tasty. Grilled chicken salad with chunks of blue cheese in it and blue cheese dressing. After that Spencer drove us around some more of the base we hadn’t seen until it got dark and then he helped Lou hook the car up ready to pull out this morning.

There are many other pictures that I could post, but probably shouldn’t go overboard with them. I know that I enjoyed my four days with this young man more than I can express. I have never had the chance to get acquainted with him before and have come to have a great respect for him in these four short days. Besides that he went out of his way to make sure his “gramps” and I had a good time and saw everything that time permitted. A great four days thanks to Spencer.

Breakfast with Speedy and Eleanor

March 4th - Day 4 - Leaving Pigeon Forge

We were up early as we had plans for breakfast this morning. I could not go through Tennessee without seeing my deceased husband’s brother and his wife.

I called them last evening and asked them if we could meet for breakfast and we made arrangements to meet at a Cracker Barrel at 9:00 this morning. After Speedy and Eleanor talked about meeting us, Speedy reminded Eleanor her about the difficult time I had last time finding the interstate from their house. Ha!! They decided to call us back with better directions!! I am not the best with directions, hence the reason I invested in a GPS; however, my husband is a map man!!

It was 8:30 when we left our campsite, so it was about 9:30 when all met in the parking lot and what a reunion it was. It had been four years since I had seen them. After introductions they toured the motor home, held Estee, they have two small dogs themselves, then we all went in to have breakfast, it was a wonderful morning, with many stories shared all around. Speedy had also been in the Air Force; therefore, he had been to many of the places Lou had been to. All in all it was a very rewarding morning, and it was almost 11:30 when we left. With hugs all around we were off and back on 640 on our way to Fort Campbell in Tennessee.

Lou and I had many stories to share on our way to meet us with his grandson Spencer at Fort Campbell.

Quest for Spring - Day 3

Walmart, Salem, VA - Pigeon Forge, TN

March 3rd = Day 3

We left Salem, VA at 9:50 AM, it was sunny and 43 degrees. It really was a very quiet night in the parking lot and if there was a need for security we were unaware of it. We didn’t unhook, so there wasn’t a lot to do to get ready to move on. I felt it was warm enough this morning, I could shed my knee sock and did that feel good.

Near Wyetheville, VA where they is a lot of mining being done, of which if I remember it is for zinc, we saw a car fire which is something that you don ’t see very often, thankfully.

We also noted that the roadways had all been groomed. Where we normally see wildfowers growing, now we can see hundreds of daffodils coming up promising future travelers beautiful sights to behold.

We hit the Tennessee line about noon and this is where we found our Quest for Spring. We noted baby lambs, daffodils bloomed trees budded, green grass, mile-a-minute-vine green and growing, and the red bud trees beginning to show some color. Yes this is definitively spring in Tennessee. Makes me think of Krista and the last time we brought Al to Tennessee to see his family. Good memories.

We arrived at our reserved campsite in Pigeon Forge, TN at 3:00 PM, a lovely “pull through” site, the temperature was 72 degrees and the sun was bright a perfect day to clean out the motor home and cook a good dinner. I quickly changed into a short sleeved shirt and shorts and went to work, while Estee and Lou had a walk and got everything hooked up and changed some filters. I started dinner. I fixed pork tenderloin, baked sweet potato with cream cheese and pecan topping, fresh cauliflower and cranberry orange muffins. It tasted good to have a home cooked dinner. After dinner, I set to the task of cleaning up the motor