February 2008

Saturday, February 2 was a busy day for us. Pat and Richard Belanger, motorhoming friends for Connecticut stopped off to visit during the day. When we were just learning about this motorhoming life, they spent some time teaching us how to survive while traveling around the country. We spent an enjoyable few hours with them, with each couple bringing the other up to date about our wanderings. Then we went to dinner at the home of our friends, Vicky and Ed Mount, of Paducah, KY before going to the Regal Pointe clubhouse for a birthday party for anyone born during the month of February. Sunday found us back at the club house for a pulled pork barbecue followed up with the Super Bowl. Shelley went back to the motorhome, while Norm stayed to watch the game amongst a group that was almost completely rooting for the Patriots. Not only did the Giants come through for Norm, but he also won $50 in the Super Bowl pool.

We awoke on Monday morning and got the coach ready for travel. As scheduled, we left Deer Creek at about 10 AM and drove to a Wal-Mart in Brooksville, FL where we joined up with 10 other CHAI coaches for a short caravan to the Hernando County airport, where the Southeast region of FMCA (Family Motor Coach Association) was holding its annual rally. [Hernando Country Airport - Brooksville, FL - 28.28 North/82.28 West] We all parked together on the runway, and after we got our rigs set up, we did what all motorhomers everywhere do. We got out our chairs and tables, brought out the wine and nibbles, and exchanged stories with each other. All 21 of us were there. We went to dinner with the Singers and Ploessers at a local restaurant, and believe it or not, Smitty and Irene, 2 of our friends from Block Island were there. What an amazing coincidence to run into people we had last seen 4 months and over 1,000 miles ago. And then, believe it or not, Ralph and Sue Marino, friends from Lake Ashton, about 25 miles south of Deer Creek walked into the same restaurant. Unbelievable. We had a nice day on Tuesday. Along with Aaron and Estelle Spandorf, we drove to Tarpon Springs, about 45 miles away. Its a small town with lots of Greek influence, and a booming sponge business. We wandered around for a while, ate lunch in a Greek restaurant, and Aaron and Norm went for a boat ride where they learned more about the sponge business. They even got to see a sponge diver go overboard with a hard hat and air hose and about 140 pounds of weights and find a sponge that he brought back to the boat. We were not sure whether the sponge was planted there earlier in the day, but it was fun to see and very instructive. We got back to our coach for another late afternoon of wine and nibbles. On Wednesday, we both went to some seminars in the morning. In the afternoon, we were shocked to hear that our friend, Jim Ploesser, was taken to the hospital with chest pains. They did a number of tests, and all appeared inconclusive. They kept him overnight in the hospital for observation, and we all hope that he'll be back with us tomorrow. Late in the afternoon, we had another wine and nibbles get-together which segued into a pot luck dinner. We sure had lots of fun and lots of food. Thursday was more of the same. Fun and Food. We also got the good news that Jim was ok...all the tests had come out negative, but they would keep him another day for just one more test. On Friday, some of our Deer Creek friends came to visit. We wandered through the large tent where hundreds of businesses were looking for someone to buy their wares. We had a brief business meeting for CHAI, and then about 50 of us went out to dinner together to the Golden Corral. Saturday (2/9) was really the last day of the rally, and people started to leave for home. We said goodbye to many of our CHAI friends and started getting ready to leave. We had dinner in our coach with Shelley and Laura and Jim and Judy and then went to a "Legends of Du Wop" show that was a real blast. The big tent was really rocking.

Sunday, 2/10 was a bit of an adventure. As we were getting our coach ready to leave the fairgrounds, one of the steps was to bring in the slideouts. Well, you can probably guess. The big slideout didn't want to slide in. We were finally able to get it almost all of the way in with the aid of some muscle power. But we were afraid to open it again for fear that it would really be stuck out, making us immobile. So we drove about 50 miles to Lazy Days, the RV dealer where we bought our motorhome. We left the coach there and drove down to visit with Aaron and Estelle Spandorf, CHAI friends who live in Sarasota. After touring their beautiful home, Estelle and Aaron served us (Laura and Shelley Singer were also there) a delicious lunch. Then Aaron and Norm went sailing in a 21 foot Precision that Aaron is a part owner of. The first half of the sail was wonderful, and we sailed along at a comfortable heel doing about 5 knots. Then we tacked to start home and all of a sudden we heard a series of thunks and bumps. We knew that we had not hit the bottom, and initially we were at a loss as to what happened. But Norm recalled a friend having a similar experience and how the issue was solved, so we took care of the problem the problem and motored home. [For those who care, the pin came off the centerboard, allowing that piece of fiberglass to be relatively free, and it just bounced into everything on the bottom of the boat. We pulled a line along the bottom of the boat, and were able to snag the centerboard and make it fast].

On Monday, 4/11, we took care of getting our slideout repaired at Lazy Days. They made an emergency appointment for us, and the whole service experience was very positive, as opposed to the usual frustrating time we have. And we even got away with spending less than $200 for the repair. On Tuesday we drove to Fort Myers to meet Shelly and Laura Singer. [Fort Myers - Fort Myers Beach RV Resort - 26.30 N / 81.56 W]. The RV park was pretty old, and the roads were only about 10 feet wide...note that our RV is 8.5 feet wide...and the individual sites were very small. The place had obviously been built when RVs were much smaller. But Shelley and Shelly helped direct and we got into our space just fine. We socialized a bit, and then battened down the hatches as the local weather forecast was for severe storms and a chance for tornadoes. Although we had lots of rain, we never got the high winds that we were worried about. The rain ended Wednesday afternoon, and a beautiful blue sky emerged, with temps about 70. Norm had been suffering with a annoying runny nose, and this problem seemed to abate somewhat as the weather improved. Everyone but Norm went shopping during the afternoon, and after dinner in, we all managed to make our way to Love Boat, a homemade ice cream shop with delicious ice cream that was right next to the campground. We had ambitious plans for Thursday, but when someone who shall go unnamed slept until 9 AM we got a late start, and our plans didn't quite materialize. We drove to downtown Fort Myers and strolled through a Farmer's Market, sampling some delicious oranges and grapefruit. We had lunch at Joe's Crab Shack overlooking a marina and then drove back to the campground for a brief nap. Then we drove to the nearby Fort Myers Beach, a typical shore area with narrow roads and lots of traffic, and numerous souvenir shops and fast food places. We did manage to find some tranquility as we wandered down the beach for about a mile or so. For our Valentine's Day dinner, we went to a local, family owned restaurant called Micelli's where the food was delicious. On Friday, we drove to Sanibel Island, where the beaches are world famous for the shells that one can collect. We spent about 4 hours at the beach just soaking in the sun. The island feels very chic and trendy, much more so than Block Island. As we left, we hit bumper to bumper traffic as we approached the bridge/causeway to the mainland. After a shower and a short nap, we went to visit Phyllis Fried, a CHAI member who lives really close to the campground. We had a delicious dinner in Phyllis's beautiful home. Saturday morning, we took care of some chores and then went to visit the Edison/Ford Estates in nearby Fort Myers. Edison purchased the estate in 1885, his friend Henry Ford purchased his in 1916.The Edisons spent winters here until 1931, the Fords stopped coming in 1934. The Fords only visited for the week before and the week after Edison's birthday. The estates are both on the Caloosahatchee River, and both of these famous men enjoyed the river. Harvey Firestone, the tire magnate often visited here. In 1925, Firestone gave Edison a present of a banyan tree; it was then about 4 feet tall. Amazingly, since then the tree has grown to cover an acre, and it is supposedly the 2nd largest banyan tree in the world. During World War I, Edison, Ford and Firestone realized that the supply of rubber to the US could be cut off in time of war. Together, the three of them set up the Edison Botanic Research Company. The objective was for Edison to find a source of natural rubber from a plant that could grow in the U.S. In 1936 the company was shut down because rubber production was not a commercial success. While we were on the estate, there was an antique car show (only Fords, of course) with cars from as far back as 1912. A model T from 100 miles away, with the original motor, made the trip in 4 hours. During Saturday evening, the largest night time parade in the country was held in Fort Myers. People reserved places to watch the parade by sticking duct tape to the sidewalk with their names written on it. Apparently, this takes place as early as 2 weeks before the parade. Saturday was hot and we didn't want to hang around downtown Fort Myers until the parade, so we returned to the campground, went swimming, had dinner, and watched the parade on TV with Shelly and Laura. On Sunday, we went out for a "fancy lunch" at Costco, where we each had a gigantic Hebrew National hot dog and a large soda for $1.59. Nothing but the best. Then we drove a short distance to the Six Mile Cypress Slough (how would you pronounce that word? It rhymes with stew) Preserve. A slough is an area of slowly moving water much like a bayou, and this slough is about nine miles long. We went for a nature walk with a volunteer guide over a boardwalk that was about 3/4 mile long. Among the interesting things that we saw were (1) a bald cypress tree, one of the few trees that has needles like a pine tree, but sheds them during the winter, (2) a mother alligator that had 44 babies last July, but only about 10 are still alive, with an expectation that only 2 or 3 will survive until adulthood, (3) trees covered with lichen, apparently a sign of improving air quality, and (4) many birds, including cormorants, anhingas, ibises, crows and egrets. It was a really neat walk at this county park. Since the weather was hot and steamy, we returned to the campground and dove into the pool to cool down. On Monday, we did some housekeeping. Norm did some work on the motorhome batteries and Shelley did some shopping. At 5, 5 CHAI couples (Shelley and Norm Topf, Laura and Shelly Singer, Fred and Bonnie Zelich, Bob and Janet Corwin, and Bev and Lew Stern) got together for wine and nibbles and then 8 of us went to dinner at Miseli's. We prepared everything to leave the next morning.