A great day for ducks and walking a museum

I don’t want to complain about the weather, especially considering what folks back home are dealing with, but…

High today in sunny Florida was 54 here in Tallahassee. If it keeps raining I’m going to trade this trailer in on an ark. We saw the sun on Sunday (how appropriate) but that’s about it since Thursday. Today I was forced to wear a sweatshirt because of the cold and damp conditions.

When we left Michigan we had warm clothes packed for the first couple days, but I never thought I would be pulling them out and wearing them here in Florida. So, no whining, but we are hoping for warmer and drier weather starting tomorrow.

There are some outdoor activities we want to do but right now are not possible with the monsoon that we have been experiencing.

A young couple parked next to us is struggling with an electrical problem with their RV and while I did what I could to help (I think my best suggestion was to read the RV manual section on electrical) it wasn’t much. What I know about electricity and how it works you could type on the head of a pin. But I do feel sorry for them as they have a young baby and are trapped in the park until they get the battery issues solved.

Fortunately the RV works when it is plugged into the park power so the baby is safe and warm, but they are kind of trapped here until it is fixed and I get the impression they are on a pretty strict budget.

I was up early, Joan followed about 9 a.m. We had breakfast and did our weight exercises indoors because of the weather.

With plans to walk outside flooded out, we decided to head downtown to the Museum of Florida History where we could do our walking inside. It turned out to be a pretty good deal. The museum was free, there was a small donation asked for the current John James Audubon exhibit and they waived the $5 parking fee for first time museum visitors.

Anyway the Audubon exhibit was extensive and very informative about the life of America’s well known bird artist and naturalist. But there is plenty more to the museum and we took a short guided tour of a part of the museum. Joan, always the bird watcher, really enjoyed this part of the day’s activities.

The exhibit covers the long and interesting history of the Florida peninsula from its first occupants, the Seminoles and other Native American people to his 9-foot extinct Armadillos and Mastodons to the current economy and ecology of the state.

One of my favorite parts of the museum was the section on Florida’s role in the Civil War. I’ve studied the Civil War and can’t say that I’ve ever heard much about Florida’s part in the War Between the States, so I learned a lot today. The museum also has a nice display of real Civil War flags, weapons and uniforms so I found that interesting too.

Another part of the museum had interesting artifacts from Florida’s many shipwrecks. Considering I paid about $5 a piece for Joan and I to visit Mel Fisher’s Shipwreck Museum last year, this exhibit which had many of the same treasures was a real bargain. Lots of gold and silver was on display from the wrecks. I had to pull Joan away from the gold displays to keep her from drooling all over them.

Also the museum had an extensive exhibit on the role of Florida during World War II and I believe my father told me that he had been here during the war so I found that particularly interesting as well. One display showed the locations of sunken merchant vessels at the hands of German U-boats. We could have spent a couple more hours at the museum, but they kicked us out at closing time at 4:30 p.m.

On the way to and fro we noticed a couple signs that made us laugh. Both were at restaurants, one indicated “additional parking in rear” which was a good thing because there was literally no parking in front or on the busy highway. We put that under the category of “duh.”

The second one at One Fresh Restaurant said “Lunch, Dinner and Breakfast.” Other than the odd listing order we were curious as to what other meal might be available.

Just our weird sense of humor I guess. Also the weather guy on the local ABC affiliate here is named: Casanova Nurse.

Church, strawberries, tangerines, sun and Superbowl

We climbed out early today to attend St. Peter's Anglican Church this morning because that's how we roll on Sunday. We've missed church for two weeks and so we wanted to find a nice church to attend.

A little online work brought us to St. Peter's which is a large church with three Sunday services. We attended the packed 9 a.m. service along with about 600 other folks. Great sermon and wonderful music. We felt refreshed when we left. Lots of nice people welcomed us to the church including a nice woman who is a transplant from the Grand Rapids area.

After church we headed back to the RV park and saw a roadside fruit stand so we stopped and picked up three quarts of fresh strawberries (and they were gooooood) and a bag of tangerines, which were equally great.

The sun finally came out and we sat outside in the sunshine and read for awhile this afternoon. We met a couple of our neighbors and chatted with them.

Later we had veggies and dip and a taco salad for dinner in preparation for the Superbowl game which turned out to be surprisingly good. We had a back up plan to watch a new Dateline program if the game was bad, but there was no need for Plan B this game.

Dinner and a movie highlight day

Another quiet day in Tallahassee. Up late and out later. This afternoon we opted to see a matinee and we picked the Spielberg remake of "True Grit." We drove the AMC theater near the campground for the 2:45 p.m. showing.

As a John Wayne and and the original "True Grit" at the top of the Duke's favorite list I was curious how the remake would hold up to the first movie.

In what was a big surprise to me, the new movie outshone the original. Jeff Bridges eclipsed John Wayne's performance as Rooster Cogburn, but only because he made the role his own and didn't try to be the Duke.

Wayne's performance still shines, but I have to admit I really liked the new version better than the old. The theater was very nice and had the cushiest seats I can remember at a theater.

After dinner we went to Ruby Tuesdays and used a nice coupon that was gifted to us by Abby Q during her stay with us in Key Largo. (Thanks, Abby).

Without a doubt Ruby Tuesdays has one of the best salad bars ever. Tomorrow it's church and Superbowl.

Chores today, that's about it

This was a catch up day. Laundry, shopping, oil change for the Tahoe, interior car cleaning, Joan got her nails done and that about sums up the day.

Bought a Walmart Lemon Pepper chicken for dinner.

Joan is now a Tallahassee Lassie

It wasn't easy, considering an hour long monsoon we had to drive through near Gainesville, but we are tucked in nice and warm at the Big Oak RV Park in Tallahassee.

The first half of today's drive along I-75 was very eventful, the second half along I-10 was unremarkable. I-75 had lots of traffic, I-10 was practically deserted. I believe with today's drive I have now driven all but five miles of I-75 from north to south. The five miles I missed were the bottom five in Florida, east of the Turnpike. I'm not broken up enough about it to go back and do it again.

There were times today that the rain was coming down so hard you could barely see the taillights just ahead of you, but I tucked in behind another SUV-trailer rig and we traveled together for nearly an hour, including the monsoon portion of the travel through Gainesville.

We arrived at Big Oak RV Resort in Tallahassee and the owners put us in a nice space. We were unable to level the trailer perfectly because I simply need to carry a few more spacer type wood items in my storage. So we're a little off kilter from east to west (the narrow part of the trailer), but we are perfect north to south (the long part of the trailer.) We've had much worse, so we are not going to worry about it.

As I write this there is a light rain outside and it is not particularly warm outside (about 58). Tomorrow will be a chill day and perhaps a little shopping, but no plans of touring at least through the Superbowl on Sunday. After that, we'll see.

Note: I'm not very happy with a Shell station in Ocala, Florida. If I can avoid them I will not buy Shell gas again. From the freeway, the gas sign said '$3.09' per gallon for regular. When I pulled up and started the process to pump the gas, the pump said '$3.15' per gallon.

So I went inside with my receipt to complain and the clerk pointed out a minuscule sign, which could never be read from the freeway, that said the displayed gas prices were for cash or Shell Credit Card purchases only. Told the young lady politely to tell her boss I would run out of gas on the freeway before I ever bought there again.

Mileage out: 56134
Time out: 10:19 a.m.

Mileage in: 56329
Time in: 1:50 p.m.

Florida wineries: Who knew?

Joan found a couple of wineries near Ocala, Florida so with a little spit in the air we decided to make the hour drive to visit both of them.

The first one was Florida Estates Winery and the second was Strong Tower Winery. Both had small, but nice tasting rooms and Joan found a couple wines that she enjoyed at a reasonable price so we purchased them.

During my Internet research on the wineries I Googled "Ocala wineries" and up popped up Ocala Winery. So I looked up the address to find out it was just one hour outside Toronto. Obviously the wrong Ocala.

Temperatures today were in the mid to high 70s depending on where we were, but the slight rain made it unpleasant to be outside for any length of time.

The beautiful bathrooms I bragged about yesterday left me with only cold water for my shower today so I am not as high on them as I was.

Other than that it was quiet today and we are watching the unfolding events in Egypt on TV tonight. With everyone at home trapped because of the heavy snow I'll likely use the time to call my blood drive folks and get them lined up for next month's blood drive at the American Legion.

Tomorrow we're heading to Tallahassee.

Moving Day: The Laredo is planted in Ocala

After a nice four-day stay in Venice, we moved camp to Ocala, Florida for a couple days to cut down the travel time to Tallahassee on Thursday.

Once again we had some nice stiff winds which make driving the trailer just a little trickier than it usually is.

But we arrived safe and sound to Ocala Sun RV Resort and so far, this has been our warmest day with temperatures in the 80s. Things are predicted to change for the cooler starting tonight, but nothing like the horrible weather predicted at home.

The bathrooms here are the best we have ever had. Each shower room includes a hotel style sink, a modern shower and a privy, all behind a locked door in a new building. We give them an A+ for the bathrooms.

On our walk around the park we talked about how this would be a great place to come back to and spend a month or more in some future winter. Not a great deal to do around here, but the park is nice and so are the people.

We have come to the conclusion that almost no one in Florida actually lives here. There are more out-of-state plates than Florida ones and I can only imagine how much money all these outsiders are spending in the state.

Not related to anything, we learned over the last two days that the term "Cracker," which I always thought was a derogatory term, is really just a name for a Florida "cowboy." The term comes from the crack of the whip they used to round up cattle. In other parts of the country the term may, in fact, be derogatory.

With that great bit of knowledge I'll close this edition.

Mileage out: 55812
Time out: 10:05 a.m.

Mileage in: 55966
Time in: 1:10 p.m.