Travels with Snowbirds 2018, January 15 to January 23, Tampa FL to Disneyworld

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My stay at LazyDays was just that; LazyDays. It is a gorgeous facility with lots of amenities, and they give you vouchers for breakfast and lunch at their café which for me is unwalkable from the campsite. I took the shuttle. This is the complex I bought Moya from 5 years ago, and where Iearned how to drive and back into a campsite. It is imperative that you do this properly at this campground, and I did. I backed in and was parallel and stopped short of the end off the campsite and was straight in the site. Score one for the me - I was very proud. There were lots of people around watching, too. LazyDays has a distinctive method of parking, and I can always tell when I watch someone else park if they are LazyDays trained. It’s easy, it makes sense, and I even do it when backing into a space with my car. LazyDays advertises a shuttle to the casino. It was broken, and it seems to me that it was broken at my last stay here. So, I tried Uber for the very first time. The round-trip shuttle would have cost me $10. The round-trip Uber was $15. Not bad. It was easy to do, and nice drivers.

I fell. I was trying to be cool and get on my bike by hurling my leg up and over the seat and planting my foot on the pedal in one fluid motion and coast down the very slight hill, all holding onto Winston. Fortunately, I was within leaning distance of Moya. I missed the foot plant, the bicycle leaned left, I leaned left and landed on my left knee with the bike on top of me. Where are all those nosy busybodies when you need one to help pull a bicycle off you. Again, fortunately, it was my left knee I landed on. I pushed the bike off, put both hands on the ground, got myself squatting with my toes curled under, and pushed myself to a standing position. No skin broken, just a dent in my left knee. Winston was patient. I never dropped the leash. No real pain to speak of other than my pride. I put my leg thru the opening this time, put both feet firmly on the ground, hoisted myself up on the seat and went for a very short ride. Thank God it was not my right knee. I would have been down for the count. But, to this day that I am writing this, almost 2 weeks later, my right thumb joint pains as if it was jammed hard. I can’t bring it down to touch my palm. I can still crochet.

I have seen several things on my drives that I want to share with you. I have noticed since I have been doing this, easily 10 years now, that some of the large cattle farms are transitioning to large landscape nurseries. It seems like an easy transition of the open prairie, and it is very pleasing to see row after row of neatly planted trees and shrubs. I have also seen large groups of sand hill cranes. I had to investigate why so many in one place, and it seems that sand hill cranes migrate, and while they are migrating they gather in large groups. The Florida sandhill crane is one of 3 different species, and there might be as few as 5000 of the Florida subspecies remaining. They are most threated by habitat destruction. They are protected by high penalties for killing them. It is also illegal to intentionally feed them, bears racoons and foxes.

My Wilmington neighbor, Jean, gave me a loaf of banana bread when I was just about ready to pull out of the library. I wrapped in foil, put it in a plastic bag and froze it. What a nice treat that was to pull it out, slather it up with butter and chomp away.

I met up with long time RVing friend, Joanne, at the entrance to the Florida RV Trade Association Annual Show. Joanne and I have RVd many places together, she was on the Caravan I did to Maine, and I did the Mardi Gras rally with her. Good to catch up with her again. This RV show is four nights of close quarters camping, electric only, with plenty of time to visit all the exhibitors and see all types of RVs. I guess there were about 800 attendees in the campground fields, maybe more. The campgrounds are located in the grassy areas surrounding the Florida State Fair Grounds. There are other, smaller camping areas where large clubs go, scattered throughout the complex. We were led to that area. This was great, because we only had to walk across the street to enter the RV show area and not take a tram as we would have in the other area. We were in the shadow of the crane doing construction at the onsite amphitheater and we used its tall yellowness to direct us to our campsite. The google map picture I have included shows were our campsites were, with the gorgeous view of I-4. The ground vibrated constantly from the passing traffic, kind of reminding me of being on a cruise ship. I found it very relaxing. We toured the RVs we wanted to see and the 2 large buildings housing all types of vendors of gizmos and tchotchkes. I bought windshield wiper covers, $10, (no more need for tennis balls, Tim) and very fancy liquid hand soap, $5. There is very good free entertainment in the evening. I didn’t make the first night, it was a long walk and my knee ached. I arranged for my next-door neighbors, Fred and Margaret, to take us the remaining 2 night, and they were happy to do it. They are in their late 70s and live their retirement in Davenport, FL. Fred is a retired “Computer Engineer.” He kept the early mainframe computers working, Burroughs, RCA – he never worked for IBM. She was an operating room nurse. Nice folks.

Joanne took a free hearing test. It was interesting to watch. Conducted by a charity that gives you results but does not make recommendations, she wore headphones and had to touch the computer screen when she heard different sounds.

Joanne and I walked to the casino, 1.2 miles, a kind of long way for me, but my knee was pretty good. It was the hips and back that ached, but this trip was well worth it. I pulled enough money out of my favorite poker machine ($.25 Super Times Poker triple play, 18 coins per spin) to cover my losses of the other day. We had a nice and very filling lunch at Hardrock Café and took an Uber back to the campground – Joanne’s first.) Long time RVing friend, Malcolm and his fiancé Ginger met up with us and we spent time catching up with them.

We left the RV show on Sunday and found a laundromat and a grocery store and a Ruby Tuesday’s in that order. Then on to Webster Flea Market again. We stayed in one of the fields that provides a few 20 amp electric sites for $16/night. Joanne can’t make those utility poles work on her RV, but I was able to. Malcolm and Ginger were there as well, and we shared Happy Hour until Winston became obnoxious with hunger. We toured some of the open fields again, me looking for The Fiesta Lady. I found The Fiesta Man – her husband. He told me she now has set up shop on a lot they own on the corner, and I should see her there. He told me she would guide me where to park when she saw me drive my rig in. Ginnie, Kim, and another friend, Becky, met up with us late morning, and we moved slowly thru the aisles, buying this and that – produce Mickey Mouse tacky earrings (I even bought some for my Wilmington friends who I will be joining at Epcot and Hollywood studios. You’re gonna love their tackiness, girlies.) I found a very different clay planter with four pots stuck together. I can’t wait to put some succulents in it.

Leaving the Flea Market we went to Par-Gas to top off our tanks – I used four gallons . since last fill up 2 weeks ago. Retracing our route, we went to Lake Louisa State Park for one night, a good staging point for our drive to Disney World’s Fort Wilderness. Lake Louisa is a lovely park, nice wide flat campsites. The surrounding campsites were filled with tiny one-man tents and lots of cars. It must have been some type of youth group, they came in way after dark, showered, and left early in the morning, in the rain, very noisily.

Tuesday morning I dropped Winston off at Best Friends Pet Center for 3 nights. I am thrilled to have the break from him; he has been very whiny and difficult - a cranky old man. He has been talking to me in a language I don’t understand. He wants to go out, when we go out, he wants to come back in. When I give him a cookie, he’s not happy until he gets 4. At bedtime, he paces from his bed to mine and back and forth, all the time clacking his long nails on the linoleum. When I found out the kennel would give him a bath, fluffy dry him and trim his nails for a cheap price for boarders, I signed him up. It was a lucky day for him there as well – he is too tall for the kennel I signed him up for, so they upgraded him for free to an indoor/outdoor kennel with 2 walks a day!! She told me they often upgraded senior dogs to this area because they seem to do better away from the barking younger dogs. All good for me!! On the other hand, it is very quiet here without him. I miss his nose pushing my legs and, yes, I do not miss the clackety clack of his nails.

We took a launch from the marina complex to Wilderness Lodge for dinner at Whispering Canyon café. My grilled salmon salad was great, with warmed tomatoes, bacon jelly dressing, and yummy olive bread. Joanne had a large portion of meatloaf and mashed. This hotel is gorgeous. The dining room is very kid friendly, the staff plays games and can be pushy and disrespectful to the patrons, all in fun. It was very very loud, and probably not what we were looking for in dinner, but we survived.

Looking forward to 2 busy days enjoying this resort.



Kat out

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Photos

The shuttle.
All these pics are tests for me finally learning instagram

Google Satellite image. Look for the Blue Pin just a little left of center
That's where our campers were parked. The spaghetti roadway near the top is I-4, about 60 yards in front of me. In the lower portion of the picture you can see RVs parked for some other event.