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Published: September 14th 2006
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We found a fairly inexpensive RV park to spend most of January in. Davenport Florida is the home of the Three Worlds (we never did figure out which worlds they were talking about) Mobile Home and RV Park. We bought membership in this club called “Happy Camper” which allows us to pay half price when we stay at participating campgrounds. This usually means we pay $10 a night instead of $20. We paid $45 for the one year membership and it has paid for itself about 25 times over. We could use Happy Camper at 3 Worlds and it was just south of Orlando so off we went. I know our original plans were to spend January at Patrick Air Force Base. When we were staying in Port St. Lucie, right after the tree lot, we took an investigative trip to the base to check out the RV camp. Not a great trip. You can’t make a reservation and our chances of getting a site when we showed up were slim to none. First we would have to get on a waiting list and while we waited we could stay in overflow field which had no hook-ups. That would have taken a couple of days, then we would get into a water and electric only site (no sewer). When a sewer site opened up, then we could move again to that and the maximum stay was 30 days. And the cost per day was more than what we paid at 3 Worlds. I guess that explains why we didn’t stay at the base. Oh, did I mention the RV camp was next door to the area where the planes take off and land?
3 Worlds was a nice park. Lots and lots of snowbirds there. The kind with the New York and Canadian accents. Most of the park residents were there for the winter. The other birds were very nice. We had several sandhill cranes who made their rounds of the park everyday. In the morning and every evening they would call to each other and off they would go. These were very beautiful blue/gray cranes, about 4 to 5 feet tall with a very unpleasant call.
January was the month we tried to catch up with everything. During the tree lot the only thing we had time for was work and sleep so in January we changed our cell phone plan and I went to see the orthopedic doc to see how much my foot had healed. I had been healing very slowly (because I had been on it too much during our job at the tree lot) and decided we should postpone our Europe trip planned for February until next year. I had been on crutches over 8 weeks by this time and I was ready to move to the next level. The doc appt was a success. I walked out without crutches but the doc cautions my foot won’t really heal for another 6 months so no track meets or walking through Europe until then.
Now that I was under my own power we thought we’d test my mobility and headed to a theme park in Orlando. We booked a hotel in the Walt Disney Resort area for 3 nights (yeah! a bathtub!!!!) and started with a day at Epcot. Epcot was a bit of a disappointment. The area we were most interested in seeing was closed for renovation. The park was nice but mostly educational. The next day we headed to Disney MGM Studios, which was very entertaining but not all that exciting. Mike and I think we have just been to too many amusement parks and have become used to all the thrills and chills. It just wasn’t worth $50 each per day per park.
Yeah, that’s what they are charging now. The very very high point of the Orlando visit was getting in to see Cirque du Soleil. We have seen them 3 times before in Las Vegas and they are phenomenal. We were so excited….!!! The show was fantastic and afterwards we headed over to the House of Blues for a late supper. We felt like we were really part of the “in crowd”. Cirque du Soleil is just like watching a 3 ring circus. You have the big act in the center ring but there are things happening all over the stage that you don’t want to miss, the acrobats, the little Chinese girls and their whirling things, the guys with the hoops and don’t forget the trapeze and the clowns!
Since Europe was canceled we now had the whole spring before us with no plans. We started sending out emails to campgrounds in the warm areas further west. We found a workamping job in Del Rio Texas which is right on the Mexican border. This is where we’ll call home until probably late April. The search for our summer job is now in full swing and we’re concentrating on the Rocky Mountains and the national parks. We’re also applying to some places in Idaho.
We’re in Abbeville, Louisiana now, the heart of Cajun Country. We went to a place called Richard’s Seafood Kitchen last night and watched people eat tons of bright red crawfish. Today was swamp tour day. We headed out to Lake Martin and a 2 hour swamp tour in a small fishing boat. Our tour guide was a true Cajun man complete with the accent.
We weren’t lucky enough to see any alligators but we did see plenty of white egrets, grand blue herons, osprey, turtles and other types of water birds. We learned about the plants and trees that live in the swamp and what a swamp really is. In the picture you see with all the green, the green is not algae but a very small clover like plant with it’s own root system that floats on the water.
Tomorrow we’re on the road again. Our next destination is Houston, Texas and a visit with the best man at our wedding, John Bishop. We haven’t seen him since the wedding and are really looking forward to seeing him again. The next journal will be about Delrio Texas and Mexico! Stay tuned!!!
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