Epcot globe	Norm taking a rest

As a result of us emailing our itinerary to all the CHAI members, we got a phone call from Harold and Pearl Laroff, also members.  Would you believe that they were in the same campground as we were, and only a few minute walk away!!  We actually biked over to visit.  Life is full of surprises - in addition to us both being CHAI members, we established the following connections:  First, Pearl and Harold are good friends with Todd Lewis and his wife (my cousin) Judy who died about 4 years ago.  When I visited Todd and Judy at their campground in Pembroke Pines, we actually had dinner with Harold and Pearl.  Second, Harold was a teacher in Spring Valley, NY.  There he once taught Lucille Wexler (nee Sitzer), daughter of friends of Norm's parents.  And third, the Laroff's were customers of our friends, Shelly and Laura Singer when they owned a pharmacy in Pearl River, NY.  Unbelievable. At Thousand Trails they had BINGO twice a week, and Shelley and Norm contributed to the prizes won by others. Norm got sick a few days after we arrived at Thousand Trails.  It wasn't a cold....he just felt crummy and had absolutely no energy.  After about a week he went to a walk-in clinic and was diagnosed as having a viral infection.  He got some meds that finally knocked out the bug. 

We had put up our flags (American, Israeli, and Block island) on the front of our motorhome.  One day Shelley was out front and a couple biked by and yelled Shalom!!  After getting over the initial surprise, she struck up a conversation with Lois and Arnie Strauss, full-timers from Denville, NJ.  We instantly struck up a friendship with them, and on Tuesday, 12/13, we all went to Disney's MGM Studios to see more of Disney.  While there, we went to (1) Lights, Motors and Action (a car stunt show, (2) Star Tours, (3) the Studios Backlot Tour, (4) Voyage of the Little Mermaid, and  (5) The Great Movie Ride.  Although the park seemed pretty crowded, we were able to get into these all pretty quickly.  We also met up with Joe V., who, with his wife helped us to move our stuff from our old motorhome to the new one when we purchased it at Lazy Days last December.  We don't often get to see his wife Susan, because she is always still home working in Greenport, NY!!  Following our trip to Disney, we went out for dinner with Lois, Arnie, and Joe.  We all got along together and had a really nice evening.  The following day, we stopped to visit Sue Marino who lives in a beautiful house in a beautiful development called Lake Ashton in Lake Wales. Her husband is in rehab for hip replacement surgery.  On the way back, we stopped at Deer Creek to look into the purchase of a campsite at that resort campground.  Arnie and Lois spend lots of time there and spoke highly of the place, which is only 10 miles from Disney.  We left the Thousand Trails park and drove about 25 miles south to Deer Creek where we had looked at campsites.  They agreed to put us up for the night, so Arnie and Lois came over to visit and give us more information about the place.  We ultimately decided to buy a campsite at Deer Park RV resort.  Hopefully it will be a good investment and will also give us a place to stay while in the Orlando area.  Later that day, we all went to Disney with them!!  We saw the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular and then Fantasmic, a light/laser/water show that was pretty incredible.  We also walked around through "The Streets of New York" which were decorated with millions of Christmas lights. There was even artificial snow falling - Disney had bubble machines all over, acting like it was snow!!  This place never ceases to amaze me.   [Clermont, FL - Thousand Trails - 28.38 N / 81.67 W]

Arnie & Lois Strauss	Arnie, Lois & Shelley	Lights! Motors! Action!	Streets of NY, decorated for the holidays

On Friday we left Deer Creek and headed further south to Lake Okeechobee.  There we met up again with CHAI members Pearl and Harold Laroff.  We also hooked up with George and Myrna Wolkoff who came from Boynton Beach in their motorhome to spend the week-end with us.  Pearl made a grilled chicken dinner for us all.  What a lot of fun.  On Friday evening we all went to play Bingo, and Pearl and Harold both won. [Clewiston, FL - Okeechobee Landings - 26.45 N/80.55 S]

We stayed at Okeechobee Landings until Thursday, 12/22.  During that time we were joined by our friends Shelly and Laura Singer who live in Middletown, Delaware.  There isn't much to do in the area, and both of us (Shelley and Norm) sufferred from colds during that time.  We hung out with our friends, played bingo, and looked for something interesting, but we found nothing.  The main industry in the area is sugar cane and there seem to be lots of pretty poor folks around.  In addition, the area was hit pretty hard by Hurricanes during the past year.  Shelly and I went for a haircut, and the barber told us that his home was without power for 3 weeks when Wilma hit.  As opposed to the stories that we heard from LA, he spoke very highly of the help that the area received from FEMA.  Apparently, in the downtown area, 500-600 utility poles were toppled during the storm, and they were all replaced within a  very few days.  The "highlight" of our stay in Clewiston was Wednesday evening's dinner at the Clewiston Inn,  We had stopped in there during the week, and the place seemed pretty classy.  But alas, our experience didn't match our expectations.  A quick summary shows that the menu was not very interesting, Shelly's main dish and Norm's soda never arrived, Laura's grilled chicken was cold, the other dinners were mediocre at best, the bills were all screwed up when they arrived, and the computer malfunctioned, making it difficult for them to take our charges.  But we all took it with good humor, laughing at the wonderful dinner at the Clewiston Inn.  The weather was cool and cloudy with off and on showers for most of our time at Okeechobee Landing, but on Thursday was we prepared to leave, the sky had finally turned a bright blue.

Myrna, Pearl, Laura, Shelly, Shelley & Rags, George, Norm and Harold	George, Shelly & Norm

On the 22nd of December we left Okeechobee Landing for the short trip to John Prince Park in Lake Worth.  We drove through lots of sugar cane fields, many of them afire as part of the harvesting process.  All of a sudden, as we approached the east coast of Florida, the surroundings changed from agricultural to development after development as we faced the reality of the massive building that has taken place in the area.  There was still evidence of the terrible storms that had struck the area during the past summer.   There were trees down everywhere, parts of roofs missing, and many windows and doorways were boarded up.  In fact, as we entered the park there were huge piles, maybe 50 feet high, of organic debris.  This was being put through chippers, and then hauled away, possibly to be packaged and used as mulch.  Except for late New Years Eve and New Years Day, this process went on during most of the time that we stayed at John Prince.  The park is really large, but everything except the campground was closed due to storm damage.  The people across from us had a beautiful dog named Bella!!  Bella was a 1 year Shih Tzu with beautiful long hair and a brown nose.  She was really taken with Rags and came across the street often to "visit".  We found our campsite and got settled.   We were right in the middle of an area filled with French-Canadians, and they were really friendly.  Shelly and Laura Singer joined us three days later, arriving on Christmas Day.  During our stay at John Prince we went to Hanukah and New Years Eve parties with CHAI friends who owned sites at Vacation Inn Resort RV Park in West Palm Beach. We also visited with Norm's mom who winters in Lake Worth, only 10-15 minutes from the campground.  We did get to the beach on New Years Day - Shelley and I walked the beach and made sure that we got our feet wet!!  Pretty awesome, the beach was very crowded and it reminded us of the NJ beach on a hot summer August day.  One afternoon, we met our CHAI friends from West Palm and went to a craft fair and out to a NY style Jewish deli for lunch.  We were a table for 12 - really neat.  We rode our bikes often, and on 1/2, Shelly Singer and Norm played racquet ball at Palm Beach Community College.  There were about 10 courts and the place was pretty crowded.  Only about half of the courts were used, however, since the other half were in the sun, and it was already hot and humid by 9 AM when we got over there.  The game was different from the one that Norm was used to playing because (1) the floor and walls were concrete, and the ball bounced off these differently then the softer surfaces in the indoor game, (2) there is no back wall, so there are no rebounds from hard shots that get post you and long shots are out rather then caroming off the back wall, and (3) there is no roof so high shots hit a chain link fence on top of the front wall, and these are also out.  But it was great fun.  (Lake Worth - John Prince Park - 26.36 N / 80.05 W]

Laura making latkes outside	Laura and Shelley making latkes	Chanukah dinner in coach