Travels with Snowbirds 2016, February 9 to February 23, Thousand Trails, Clermont, FL

---

The one about catching up for February

There are a lot of pictures here. Make sure you look after the end of the text to see them all. KM

Good thing I check in so many places on my Swarm app. I can just go back to 2/9, scroll forward, and bring back some good and fun memories.

So, memories in no specific order, here we go.

We went to Disney Springs which some of you will remember as Downtown Disney. It has been undergoing a multi year expansion. One new HUGE parking deck completed, another being built. When you walk out of the multi story deck, you are put into a new area of moderate to expensive shoppes and restaurants. A half mile walk puts you to the ‘older’ more familiar area, near the Lego store, Ghirardelli, and the huge Disney souvenir store. I searched there for a new Disney Character embroidered denim shirt, no luck at any price. But, there is a new Vera Bradley Mickey pattern which is really cute. We lunched on tasty sandwiches at Earl of Sandwich and instead of sharing one sundae among four at Ghirardelli as we said we would do, we each had our own. Less calories that way….Kim remembered a launch that provided transportation across the lake instead of walking back around it and it was a great but windy ride. We met a woman who was visiting there for the day; she and her husband run a large equipment leasing business, and they were attending the very large sale in Orlando. Who knew? Not us. They go all over the country buying and selling large farming and construction vehicles……and relocating their machinery from one sale to the next.

We went to Sea World two more times, and will go once again this week. In conjunction with their BBQ and BREW fest, they offer free concerts. We were lucky enough to see Gladys Knight who really put on a great 1 ¼ hour show – excellent for a 71 y/o entertainer. She had one Pip with her, her brother Bubba, and he was very entertaining. I forgot to bring a jacket and ended up buying a SeaWorld hoodie. Neon green. See Picture.

Winston had his picture professionally taken. Jeanne, from Close Encounters of the Furry Kind met us at a park in Minneola, FL (they spell it wrong here). She used to be a groomer, now she photographs breeds of dogs and sells them to card companies, calendar companies, etc. She is always looking for new dogs to have in her portfolio. Unfortunately, Winston is way out of groom, but she slicked him and cut a few places. She put a thin stabilizing cord around his neck, tucked it into the ground, got him to look at her and off she went. If ever you want your dog to perform, it’s at a time like that, and he was a different dog than I have ever seen before. He looked at her, he sat, he stood, he turned……She has my written permission to use the photographs in any way she wants, she will send me a note if she does, and she will send me a few prints of our shoot. He made me proud that day. This park is right near Donut King; of course we had to get some. I didn’t realize they are open 24 hours and serve a full breakfast and lunch (hamburger on a donut). It smelled so good.

I finished crocheting a baby blanket to add to my supply at home, and started another one. I now have a few for boys and a few for girls, and a few that could go either way.

We went to Miller’s Ale House for Lobster Special on Wednesday to find they didn’t offer it; lobster too expensive that week. We went to Joe’s Crab Shack for Lobster Special on Thursday and found other things on the menu we wanted more than lobster, and special fruity drinks!! Seems like all we do is eat out…right? Cici’s pizza buffet is always a favorite for me and Ginnie. $5.35 senior price including soda. Includes salad, pizza and pasta bars, and dessert bar. There were a lot of seniors there, as well as large families with lots of kids. There’s a large game room and a large, but dilapidated, miniature golf course with that fake very dark blue waterfalls attached. Then we satisfied my urge to visit one of those mega gift shops with cheap TShirts. We didn’t buy any.

I won at bingo! My first time ever. $25 – ½ of a $50 game - I had to share with another winner.

The weather warmed up. For the past week I have not needed to turn on Moya’s furnace. I need to turn the A/C on when I go out; I don’t want to leave Winston in a potentially hot rig, and, honestly, it needed to be on. Nights are cool and pleasant.

We said farewell to Kathy who heads to a FL state park for her fix of wilderness, then slowly heading north. Sad to see her go, but so happy she spent a lot of time with us this year.

Kim went to visit a friend in Ft. Lauderdale and they went to see BRUCE!! She said ‘it was the best ever.’ Remember, Kim lives in Oceanport, NJ, so she has been a big Bruce fan forever. She got a tour sweatshirt and said it was a great show, highlighted for her by a long rendition of Rosalita.

Big news one day was a cow escaping from the pasture and wandering around the campground. Kim got a great picture as the bovine visitor was at the back of her campsite, see it here someplace,

Friends Judy and Larry came back after some time further south. Fun folks, from Hershey, PA, they have a boxer/lab 6 month energetic puppy, who playfully got Judy to the ground, requiring a trip to the ER and crutches, but luckily, nothing broken. She needed to mend quickly – she is having her 2^nd cataract surgery tomorrow!! Her PA eye doctor had a friend here in Florida and she opted to do it while on winter break rather than wait until she returns home in the spring. Gutsy!!

Sometime ago Evelyn reached out to me on ancestry.com. We shared a person on our family trees. Gonna be a long story, so bear with it, this is fun. I had Lena No Last Name as the second wife of my paternal great grandfather, Jack Skelly. Jack was a scoundrel. A boxer back in the Jack Dempsey era, had a sports bar in Yonkers and wrote a sport column when he got out of boxing. I am the family keeper of the Skelly memorabilia, and I have quite a bit including some signed photographs and postcards of famous boxers, as well as original art work for the bar and many of the newspaper articles. I have an etched glass Skelly decanter and a photo of it on the shelf at the bar. “Gentleman” Jack Skelly was my father’s maternal grandfather. He was married to Margaret Martin, had one child, my grandmother, Catherine Skelly. He deserted Margaret and Catherine when she was an infant. The story is difficult to follow, there is no one left alive who remembers, and my immediate family never spoke about it, so I have conjured up this story from the pieces I know. After Jack left, Margaret and Catherine went to live with the Martins who raised Catherine due to Margaret’s ‘illness.’ I believe her illness was post partum depression that never cleared up and probably caused Jack’s departure. Back to Evelyn. Either she got an ancestry.com ‘hint’ from my family tree that we shared Lena (she was called Lee), wife of Jack Skelly, or I saw Lena on her family tree and wrote her for more info. She wrote to me and asked me how come I listed Jack Skelly as my great grandfather, as he was married to her great aunt, Lena Sheiss and they had no kids. I remember Lee as my great grandfather’s second wife. Evelyn and her family were blown away by this revelation; they had no knowledge of Jack being previously married and having kids. Crazy, right? Jack and Margaret never divorced, probably unheard of from a Catholic family in the 1920s. Margaret died in March 1930. Jack and Lee married in April 1930. My family story is that each thought the other had money when neither did. Jack died in 1953, Lena in about 1961. I must have gone to her funeral, as my parents made me go to those kind of things. Evelyn was there as well.

Evelyn’s family has a shaving mug belonging to Jack Skelly. She wanted me and my family to have it. We made arrangements to meet during this Snowbird trip when I got near The Villages. Yesterday was the day. A lovely woman who had fun looking at all my memorabilia. She lived in Hampton Bays, LI, NY (my ex in laws had a vacation place there for years) and moved to The Villages about 4 years ago. The shaving mug is gorgeous, see picture here somewhere. I am honored to have it and will put it next to the etched decanter in my china closet and pass it down to my kids. Evelyn told me she was pleased to have her family give it to me, it was where it needed to be. I need one of the grandkids to show an interest in learning about the family to pass some of these treasures along to…….hint…….hint……

My friend, Barb, is flying down from Wilmington on Friday. We will cram as much into the next 3 days as we can including a visit to the Lippizzan’s , then leave here on Tuesday 3/1 and head north, again cramming as much in as we can, including Salt Springs, St. Augustine, and the GA Sea Turtle Hospital, before we get back to ILM no later than 3/7. While I love my time in FL, I am starting to get homesick. I miss my grandkids, I miss my ILM girlies, I miss my bed, my big shower, and no sand under my feet at all times inside and out. Bittersweetly, time to go home until my next adventure. I will write when I can on the trip home.



Kat out

---

Photos

SeaWorld has changed it's animal presentation since their bad publicity. These whales still perform, but the talk is not so glitzy, more ecological and about the animals and their history.

The SeaWorld app offers 3 different frames to go around pictures. Cute, right?

These are mega donuts
they are dinner plate size....hard to tell tho

The donut display
varities such as bacon topped, boston creme, numerous jelly, reeses topped, good and plenty topped.....lots of choices

Celebration selfie
I need to get a selfie stick. my arms aren't long enough

Santa and Mrs dancing at Gladys concert
I see these folks every year. They drive a santamobile.

The Skelly mug
The color is actually more blue green than it looks here. Excellent shape, real gold trim. Thanks, Evelyn