Travel with Snowbirds Thursday February 28, 2013 and Friday March 1, 2013, Orange City FL to Silver River State Park, Silver Springs, FL

---

The one about More Rambling

Remember I told you I wrote an email to the CEO of Cold-Eeze about how much I loved the product? I got an answer. I couldn’t resist sharing it with you since I thought it was cool:



Good Evening Kat,

Thanks for taking the time and making the effort to reach out to me and for writing such nice comments.

I hope you don't mind if I share just a little bit about the science so that you know why Cold-EEZE works so well:

Unlike other OTC products, all Cold-EEZE products have a unique zinc gluconate formula that releases zinc ions in your mouth that are absorbed by your upper respiratory tract. These zinc ions have anti-viral properties which experts believe inhibit the cold virus' ability to replicate. (You can learn more about the science and the clinically proven studies at www.coldeeze.com including the Cleveland Clinic and Dartmouth college studies in particular which support our efficacy claims.) These studies demonstrated that Cold-EEZE is clinically proven to shorten the duration of the common cold by nearly half!

By the way, if you haven’t tried it yet, you should also consider our new Cold-EEZE Oral Spray. It's really convenient and only requires two quick sprays in your mouth (which deliver the same active ingredients as one Cold-EEZE lozenge.) Every time I feel the slightest sore throat/cold coming on, I spray a couple of times throughout the day and it's amazing how well it works. (I know this sounds like a commercial but I love the spray and use it all the time now.) Each bottle has 90 sprays = 45 doses - so it's actually a good value too.

Thanks again for your kind words and for being a fan of Cold-EEZE (I am too in case you couldn't have guessed!)

Ps. Cold-EEZE works for me every time so 20 years for you is certainly possible if you consistently take Cold-EEZE right away at that first sign!

Get well sooner,

Ted

Ted Karkus

CEO and Chief Strategist

ProPhase Labs, Inc.

621 N. Shady Retreat Road

Doylestown, Pa 18901

215.345.0919 x 0

www.ColdEEZE.com



Cool. My current disease, whatever it is has progressed to an occasional bronchial cough, an occasional sneeze, blowing my nose about 6 times a day. Not bad. I still think it is allergy related as my eyes constantly water and itch. I know the early taking of Cold-Eeze greatly decreased the severity of this unnamed illness.

I got an email from new friend, Judy B. Now I have two Judy B friends. Judy B from NJ who is an educator. Judy B from Pa is also an educator. Not to confuse, the email was from Judy B from PA. She is at TT Orlando (she and husband Larry gave me the screen, remember??) Her site backs up to a swampy area where she realized are a pair of Sandhill cranes tending a nest. I hope she is there to see them hatch!!! Ginnie is on her way back there on Sunday, and I know she will take up the watch and send pictures of the babies.

Kathy and I agreed to meet at Silver River State Park at the end of our day on Thursday as we each had different places to go and chores to get done only about 80 miles away. I was out of my campsite by 8:45. Remember, I never put down my levelers as they seemed not to be working. Well, when I started Moya, the red JACKS DOWN idiot light was lit – even though the jacks were up. I hit the automatic retract button and I heard one go up a few inches and the light went off. GROWL. Onward to the dump station. First time I pulled up, I extended my sewer hose and was a foot short. Not good. The hole in the ground is on a curve. I pulled up, pulled back, 6 inches closer, but not close enough. Third time was a charm. I was happy there was no one else in line to see my ineptitude. Sometimes it would be nice to have a traveling companion, just for moments like this, but, I did it. First stop Laundromat which I have been to several times already, up the road in Orange City. I feel like a regular. I have plenty of clean clothes to use until the end of my trip, I just wanted to wash my sheets and do underwear and towels. I cleaned Moya’s bathroom and kitchen while waiting for laundry. Next stop, Bed Bath and Beyond for those little elastic thingys you put on the corners of your sheets to make them hold tighter. My choice was $2.99, $4.50, or $14. I went for the $4.50 type that looked like stocking garters. To the end of this story quickly, the garters would not hold on the edges of my mattress pad, it was too thick. So, back in the box and I will return them in Wilmington. On to Michael’s and I bought more yarn for the afghan project. Back to Moya, release Winston from his crate and take him into Petco where we were greeted by the largest smelliest poopie load right inside the front door, almost impossible to get by. I did not see this dog, but he must have been a monster by the size of his droppings. I received a $5 coupon via email that I wanted to use, and once again I looked for Winston’s Nature’s Recipe Terrier variety. No Terrier variety. The very interested and concerned store worker really tried to help me, but he had no clue. I looked up the ingredients from the web site and picked the Toy Variety as being the closest. I packed that baby right in my ‘basement’ storage to have when I get home.

Literally, over the river (St John’s, beautiful view) and through the woods (Ocala National Forest) and on to Silver River State Park. SR 40 traverses the National Forest, probably one of my favorite places to pass thru in Florida. I have camped here many times in a few different places, and love the scrub pine atmosphere. Being up so high in Moya gives me a different perspective. I passed thru a large area that looked like a recent forest fire did much damage. Google told me about 1000 acres along SR 40 burned last May. Thru the prescribed annual burn program, they burn about 70,000 acres each year! Amazing. From their web site:

The Ocala National Forest is located north of Orlando between the Ocklawaha and St. Johns Rivers. Encompassing approximately 383,000 acres, it is the southernmost forest in the continental United States and protects the world's largest contiguous sand pine scrub forest. Although it is centered on high, dry, central scrub ridges, the Ocala National Forest is rich in water resources with more than 600 lakes, rivers, and springs, including three first-magnitude springs. Each an oasis surrounded by subtropical growth, our springs are some of the finest and clearest in the United States. Visitors can swim, snorkel, and dive in these crystalline waters year-round. Established in 1908 as one of the first National Forests east of the Mississippi River, the Ocala National Forest protects many significant archaeological, historic, geological, and botanical wonders.

There are many recreation areas along SR 40 just begging me to pull in, but I travel onward. An easy stop at Wal-Mart and I got to Silver River State Park around 2. This is a beautiful campground, nice large level campsites, great hookups, new picnic tables, close dumpsters, everything you could possibly want in a campground. There is a recreated ‘cracker’ village here and the Silver River Museum. There are many hiking trails, one, the River Trail leading to a beautiful overlook of the Silver River. I set up camp quickly and sat down outside in the sun and crocheted for a long time waiting for Kathy. She got hung up in traffic and was frazzled when she arrived later in the day, but settled in quickly. Happy Hour and leftovers for dinner and wait for the cold weather.

And arrive it did. 48 degrees when I got up in the morning, and that’s chilly. I could see my breath when I walked Winston.

Friday is Flea Market Day at the nearby Market at Marion and I convinced Kathy to take me; she is not a big lover of flea markets. She did have a good time, and we had a lot of laughs. The picture herein shows the bag I crocheted her loaded down with her purchases. We split the cost of 2 loaves of bread. One is something like 41 grain bread, heavy, brown, loaded with nuts and seeds, and cheese/pretzel bread. We weren’t going to eat that until we got home, yeah, right, we finished it easily, quickly. It looked like a loaf of Italian bread, but was a pretzel with ?Parmesean? cheese baked into the middle. Awesome. I bought Corn on the Cob, Valencia Oranges, a strawberry onion (I’ll blog on that one I eat it) coasters that fit in Moya’s drink holders (aren’t they like $4 or $5 in gift shops? $1.75), a swivel nozzle for the faucet. $1.50, and 12 fake Pandora beads in various colors for $7.

After a quick lunch (corn on the cob, 41 grain bread) Kathy drove us and the dogs to the head of all the trails and we selected The River Trail. We followed the trail until we came to the canoe launch area and sat for a while watching the water and wildlife. After a bit a young middle aged couple landed their canoe. The man was VERY tall, and he creaked his back was so stiff, saying he had a good case of ‘canoe back.’ She started mumbling about the 9 alligators they saw and all the monkeys. They put the canoe away, and were gathering their gear, and she asked if we wanted to see the monkey pictures. WTF? This is Florida. She had numerous pictures of monkeys!!! She said they knew they were there when they started out, but not so many. Of course, you know I had to google Silver River Florida Monkeys, and found out so much!!! This is a colony of non-native Rhesus Macaques which were introduced to the park in early 1938 by a tour boat operator, known locally as "Colonel Tooey," to enhance his "Jungle Cruise" ride. A local legend that they are the descendants of monkeys used to enhance the scenery for the Tarzan movies that were shot in the area in the 1930s is not true.

This article makes for interesting reading:



http://www.wildlifesouth.com/Locations/Florida/SilverRiver.html



Another article I read told of this man who trapped the monkeys and sold them for medical research. There is no law against trapping monkeys in Florida. Many are opposed to this non native animal invading this area and happy to have them gone, and animal rights activists are equally as vocal. Anyway, this trapper was keeping the population of these monkeys down to about 80. Since the animal activists won and he was forced to stop trapping, it is estimated there are over 300 and still growing. They do not have a predator. Monkeys in the wild!!! This is Florida!!!! It was a nice walk/hike, a little over 1.5 miles with lots of interesting sites along the way. Tomorrow there is a ‘festival’ at the park. A Knap-In. For those of you that don’t know (and I didn’t until I googled knapping, which is stone tool making.) There will be demonstrators making tools the early inhabitants used as well as food vendors (yummy) and primitive crafters. Kathy is itching to get her kayak out into that river, but it’s a long walk with it on her back; it’s inflatable and she has a pump, but it’s a long, long walk.

Kathy and I have so much unused food in our refrigerators we decided to use some of it for dinner. Happy hour included heated Velveeta and Salsa with chips, one of my favorites. Dinner was a throw together. I diced and browned left over Virginia Style Ham (I think it was Boars Head.) I mixed that with Bow Tie pasta, ½ stick margarine, ½ bag shredded cheddar and a little milk. Stir. Cover with Italian Bread Crumbs (I thought I had Panko, but didn’t) Bake for 30 minutes. I am telling you it was awesome!!!! In addition, I had one of those bags of complete salad…..Lettuce, almonds and dried pears, and pear gorgonzola dressing. We ate the whole thing. The only thing left over was a small amount of noodles and cheese. We ate the whole thing. Burp.

Kat out

---

Photos

Alligator at Blue Spring
Somehow I forgot to add this picture; He was an amazing size!!! Probably 13 feet or so. He was sunning in the spring run.

Kathy at the flea market
note the crocheted grocery sac I made for her - it stretched to fit all her purchases!!!! She posed with a miserable face, but she really wasn't miserable. That's her red Fiat convertible we have been tooling around in.