Busy Week at the Church

This is a man known around here as Frank the Baker. We met him and his wife at Mass last time we were here and he told us an amazing story about how his fishing boat capsized several miles off shore and he and another man were rescued after several days clinging to the overturned boat. Another one or two (I can't remember all of the details) didn't survive. He was head of the bakery department at several Publix grocery stores and started baking on his own after he retired. He sells his wonderful pastries and bread at a local farmer's market on Saturdays. I enjoy listening to his many stories and I really enjoy eating his pastries.

On Tuesday night we went to Mass to celebrate the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We started in the parking lot with a procession into church across this beautiful sand painting on the sidewalk. 

After Mass there was a celebration in the parish hall with much singing and dancing and food.

 Our favorite was the Dance of the Old Men. Young kids were dressed as old men with masks and walking sticks and danced like old men. They really made it realistic.

This is one of the plants here, even the leaves have thorns.

Trip to Lakeland, FL

Our trip down to Lakeland went very smoothly. We drove down Monday at a leisurely pace mostly on back roads. We passed near Orlando and from there on we saw a high population of RV parks, some of them were very high end and some not so much. We were able to stay at the window installation shop and plug into 50 amp service there and they made us feel very welcome and comfortable. On Tuesday morning they installed the new windshield before lunch. Mike and Sarah, some friends from Saylorville who have a winter residence about an hour from there came over and we went out to lunch together and spent the afternoon visiting. We thought about doing more sightseeing down there on Wednesday and come back Thursday, but we both wanted just to get back to our quiet spot back here. We took a different route home and we were glad to be back here again. This is the driveway coming into our campsite here. Yes, that is all white sand with a little clay spread on top of it in spots.

This is our spot here under a big live oak tree on the edge of a pasture.

I really like these big live oak trees here, they remind me of the burr oaks back home.

 Many big trees like this were toppled around this area during hurricane Irma.

The pasture next to us is ringed with trees, some still standing and some down from the storm.

Thursday and Friday I spent out on the back hoe again, clearing brush and trees. I really enjoy my time spent doing that.

We have to watch when we open and close motorhome and jeep doors here, as we have been invaded by little tree frogs like these.

In my last post, I promised pictures of the cane press here on the property. It hasn't been used for a few years. The cane is fed between the big rollers and the juice collected at the end of the tin spout. The big branch attached to the top is used to rotate the rollers. 

There is a cane kettle near the press.

Yesterday I went up to the Waldo Flea Market and looked around for awhile, and then did a little shopping at WalMart. Our TV tuner had died, so I picked up a replacement TV and mounted it last night. I still have to rebuild the frame that goes in front of it. Today after Mass we visited with some of the friends from church that we met last time we were here.

Cane Boil and Fiddle Fest

Today we went to Gainesville to a Cane boil and fiddlefest. It was held at a historic farm area at a nature center there. What is a Cane boil? It is the process where they harvest sugar cane, shown growing here and turn it into cane syrup.

The stalks are cut, the leaves stripped off of them and the stalks are run through a cane press to squeeze the sap out of them. The sap is boiled in a big cane kettle that is heated with a wood fire. He is boiling about 50 gallons of of sap here and it will make about 6 or 7 gallons of cane syrup. They were serving home made biscuits (baked in a wood fired cook stove) with the syrup on them. Tasty!

What is a fiddle fest? Around the grounds were several small groups of musicians playing bluegrass type music. We wandered around for awhile listening to them.

There were also demonstrations of spinning and weaving.

Reed and Liam would have enjoyed the blacksmith shop with its operating forge.

Janice enjoying some music.

There is a cane press and a cane kettle here on the property where we are parked that is no longer in use, I will try to get some pictures of them because I didn't get a picture of the press today.

Monday we will be driving down to Lakeland, FL, about 3 hours from here to get the windshield in the motorhome replaced. It developed a large crack from bottom to top while we were in Georgia. They will replace it Tuesday and we will return on Wednesday hopefully. I have been enjoying the "work" here, operating a backhoe clearing several acres of brush and trees.

Melrose, FL

Yesterday we left our Georgia family and headed to Florida. We spent the night in Albany, GA and continued on to Melrose, FL today. We will be  working for a friend here that we worked with three years ago at the Ordway Swisher Biological Research Station. We are parked on a RV site on some land that he owns across the road from Ordway. We will be here until the end of December when we will move over to Ordway and volunteer for them until the end of March. We have a beautiful site here, will try to get some pictures tomorrow. Beautiful weather for travel the last two days.

A Walk in the Woods

We stayed home yesterday afternoon, so I took the opportunity to take a walk in the woods here in the park. The fall colors are beautiful and the weather was warm.

Georgia Life

As we near the end of our second week here, I realize that time has passed quickly again without me posting on here. I am having issues with transferring the iphone pictures to this computer, and my blogger ap won't work with the latest firmware upgrade on the phone, so long story short I have to transfer the pictures from the phone to Janice's computer, load them on a thumb drive and then copy to my computer. First of all I have a few from when we were in Alabama. There are a lot of nice hiking trails at the campground there with views like these.

To celebrate Vicki's birthday, we went to the Red Pearl in Birmingham. It is a Chinese restaurant and market. They have a lot of interesting foods for sale there like these ducks.

The next day was Saturday, so Phil and I headed to the Collinsville Flea Market. I love these big southern flea markets, so many things to look at. 

This has been a busy week at the soup kitchen where I volunteer. I have spent every morning there in the kitchen.

They have a really nice dish washing station that I use quite a bit.

Fixing collard greens.

Janice finished up a lap quilt for Mom this week.

We went to the library one day and picked up some more books that they donated for the library here at the campground. Someone had taken all of the ones that we put in it last spring. In my spare time this week, I installed an antenna on the roof for my 2 meter ham radio and installed a new cd/radio in the dash. Our old one finally died on the way down here.

Little Tallapoosa Park in Carrollton, GA

After a very enjoyable week with Vic and Phil in Gadsden (and way too much good food). We had to say goodbye and move to Carrollton today. We have one of our favorite RV sites here in the park and we will be here for a month. Mom's yard and garden here are looking very green still, but after a week in the humid 80s over in Alabama, the weather has turned cooler. After setting up the motorhome, we went over to Mom's for a short visit before coming back here to relax. I have upgraded to a smart phone finally, so I may be taking more pictures to post here since I will have a camera with me all of the time. (I know, my old phone had a camera, but the screen was small and the picture quality wasn't very good. Hope this one is better.) Still learning how to use all of the features on it and trying to remember them the next day.

Gadsden, AL

I'm a little behind in our daily travels. We left Bowling Green Wednesday morning and spent the night in Cape Girardeau, Thursday we went from there to West Memphis, AR. We had a spot in a campground on the river bank and spent most of our time watching barges go by on the river. Today was our longest driving day and we are in Gadsden, AL. We met Vic and Phil at our favorite restaurant tonight and will head over to their house tomorrow.
Here are a few pictures from West Memphis.

Heading South

We left Sioux City on Saturday and drove to Des Moines. Our daughter Sarah and her family have a convenient driveway with full hookups for the RV there. We spent Sunday with Andrea and her family and Monday with Sarah and her family. Lots of good food and fun with the families. This morning came way too soon and we had to say our goodbyes and hit the road.  We stopped for the night in Bowling Green, MO at the Cozy C RV Park. It is one of our favorites with easy access and long pull through sites. The owners are very friendly and there is a nice laundry room here.

Sioux City

We are back at our daughter's house in Sioux City for a little while. Friends to catch up with, some fixit projects and time to spend with family.

Mitchell, SD

Stopped at the Dakota Campground on the south edge of Mitchell. We had about 300 miles to reach home today, so we cut it in half and stopped here. Nice shady campground near the interstate.
This is a new statue at the I 90 rest area at Chamberlin overlooking the Missouri River.

Murdo, SD

We took a detour through the Badlands National Park yesterday on our way from Sturgis to Murdo. We stopped at a few places along the way to enjoy the beauty of the land.

I thought that it would be a quick trip through the park, but we stopped at a few places and along with losing an hour crossing into central time, we didn't get to our campground until 5:30. The only Mass in town here is at 6:00 Saturday night, so we parked on the campsite and hurried up the street to Mass. It was raining when we got back and then a storm came through and knocked out most of the power in the park. It came back on before we went to bed.
Today I walked over to the Pioneer Auto Show museum and spent a few hours there. Their collection is mostly automobiles, but they have a lot of other stuff too.

An elephant to greet you near the front door.

Anyone who watches American Pickers will recognize this van.

A car with a wooden body

I hadn't realized that the Case tractor company also made cars. A 1915 Case.

 
This car of Tom Mix's was interesting to me because we had visited his museum before.

You really start to feel old when you see something that you used to repair in a museum. A betamax VCR.

How about a three wheel stage coach built on a VW chassis?

I hadn't seen one of these before. An antique self-adjusting crescent wrench.

A taxidermy two headed calf.

One of my favorite cars, the 1937 Cord.

They even had a motorhome made in the early 20s.

 
I took this one for Brendan so he would know that he has a museum quality antique.

I guess if Case can make cars, Lamborghini can make tractors.

No comment needed on the next three pictures.

And last, a reminder of home.