APRIL 18 - Thurs.

Well our Florida vacation adventure for 2013 is over! :( The last leg of our journey we woke to a dark, rainy morning. We only had about a 4 hr drive home, but the first two hrs it was heavy rain and windy, but after all the miles behind the wheel of our RV,(4,200 plus)Richard again handled it like a pro. I on the other hand was a nervous wreak! The last two hours it was just light rain. I had mixed emotions as we pulled into our driveway, a little sad that our trip was over, but at the same time glad to be home and so thankful to God for a safe trip. I hope you enjoyed "being along with us" via our blog. So until Pauper's Pride is on the road again, so long. :)

April. 16 & 17 - Tues & Wed

Well today we started on our way home, vacation is over :( ! We had a super great time and saw & did so much! But as the saying goes "there is no place like home". We left Jack & Jan's in Orlando about 9:00 a.m. It was a pretty blue sky day, so we drove till 6:00 p.m. We stopped for the night in Millbrook,AL, near Montgomery at a small campsite K&K campground. We got back on the road at 8:00a.m. Wed morning. Another clear day, so we drove through the rest of AL, through Tenn, through KY and crossed over the state line into IL!! The two towns we thought would be busy with traffic, Burmingham,AL & Nashville, Tenn were not that bad. We knew we were in IL because the roads got rough, ha-ha. It was about 7:00 p.m., another 10 hr driving day, 546 miles, but the traffic was light and weather good, so Richard kept going. He said the I trac bar he made and installed on the RV made a difference on the driving, no swaying when the semis went by. We stopped for the night in Effingham,Il at a nice little campsite, Camp Lakewood right by Lake Pauline.

April 14 & 15 - Sun & Mon

Sun we left our campsite for Orlando back to Jack & Jan's (J&J Resort), about a 3 1/2 hr drive.That will be our last stop before we start for home. We spent a relaxing afternoon and they took us for a boat ride around the lake their house is on. We enjoyed a delicious meal Jan had prepared. Later it started to rain, really hard. You could hardly see the lake from their screened in porch. They said it was the first measurable rain they had in a few mts. It rained most of the night. In the morning their canoe was filled with water and their boat had several inches of water in it also. By late morning it turned very hot & humid. Jan & I decided to go play golf. It was a neat golf course not far from their house. because of my foot surgery, I haven't played for about a year and I really did not do well! But it was fun, but after 9 holes, I was beat, so for the remaining 9 holes I just drove the cart well Jan golfed (she has more energy than me!) when we got back to the house, Richard had been helping Jack with a storage shed he is building and it really got hot. So we went to a park swimming pool near their house. The water was relaxing & it cooled us off. We decided to go out for dinner at a restaurant their neighbor told them about, called Black Hammock Gator Grill. They have live alligators in pens by the water & we also saw some swimming in the water around the restaurant. The food was very good. The specialty was "gator meat", Jack was the only one of us brave enough to try it (which he said was good) Richard & I had ribs and Jan had fish & chips. We ended the day with a game of spades and key lime pie for dessert.Yummy,yummy!!!

April 11,12,13 - Thurs,Fri,Sat

Thurs & Fri were typical "Florida Sunshine" days. So of course we spent them at the beach. The waves were strong, but the water was comfortable because it was really hot out. Richard's metal detecting treasurers amounted to about $2.00 in change! We thought he found something by the chair I was sitting in, but then realized it was the metal plate I now have in my foot !!I Ha-ha. It is so relaxing to sit by the shore & watch the waves roll in. There were also a few dolphins playing in the water close to shore.
Rain was predicted for Sat. So we decided to check out a few more flea markets. One was a "dud",but the other one which we saw on the way to the beach Fri. was huge and very neat. It didn't rain after all, but it was very hot & humid. It was too late to go to the beach since we were planning on going to church for 5:00 mass, so we did laundry instead. This is our last night here. Tomorrow we head for Orlando to Jack & Jan's (which we call J &J Resort) for a few days before we start our journey home.

April 8,9 & 10 Mon, Tues & Wed

Mon was a warm, sunny day, soooo off to the beach we went. We went to Lover's Key State Park, the beach with the tram. We had a nice relaxing day. The waves were not strong so Richard was able to float on his air mattress. Tues was another nice sunny day, but Richard had an upset stomach so we just stayed around the campsite. Wed in the high 80's again. Richard was feeling a lot better. We went to another beach at Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park, about 40 miles from our campsite. It has a nice parking lot close to the beach and white fine sand. We decided this is one of our favorite beaches. We definitely will be spending a lot of time there being that we are at this campsite for eight more days! Richard had a good day with his metal detecting on the beach , he found 4 quarters, 1 penny And a Cuban pesco (which he at first thought was a gold coin) ha-ha!! It was a hot,sunny day, then about 3:00 a dark cloud all of a sudden popped up over the water. People started to pack up their things. I was sitting down by the shore and felt a few raindrops. I quickly went and woke up Richard who was taking a nap on the sand (again). We just threw everything in the car and it down pored. As we were driving, it was raining so hard we could hardly see the road. We were glad we had closed the windows on the RV and turned the air conditioner on low. Then all of a sudden it stopped and the road ahead of us was completely dry. It had not rained at all at our site. As I am writing this, our grandson Jacob called me to tell me that I have been posting the last several entries as March and he informed me that it is April. So I am going to have to go back &correct them. Thanks Jake!
P.S. The pic of the road is the road that leads to our campsite, it is lined with palm trees & I thought it made a neat picture.

April 7 - Sun

We left St Lucie this morning for our next site. As we were hooking up our car for tow, the lady who cleans up the campsites to ready it for the next occupant came over by us and said "you people are just too clean, I have nothing to do at your site, we sure would like to have you stay here again" that made us feel good. It was about a 3 1/2 hr drive to W.P. Franklin campground in Alva,FL. It is another Core of Engineer site, which is our favorite sites because they are always by water and very well maintained, which is why we have to get reservations 6mts in advance. After we got hooked up, we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon. Richard watched a NASCAR race (of course) and I caught up on my reading. Later we decided to go watch the sun set on the beach. We went to Fort Myers beach, about 40 min away. During the day this beach is extremely crowded, Including the beach stores around it. There were rain clouds rolling in so the beach this evening was empty. We got a close parking place and watched a beautiful sunset. We also saw a rainbow over the water (see pic) The weather is to be in the 80's this week, so that means a lot of beach time, finally!!

April 6 - Sat.

We woke to a sunny,windy morning. Since we planned on going to church for 4:00 mass, we wouldn't have enough time to drive to the beach, and with the wind we knew the waves would be strong. We had a good breakfast of bacon &eggs Richard made out on the griddle. We decided to go to a flea-market we saw ads for not far away. We spent a couple of hours there. They had a little bit of everything there. We did a lot of walking, but only spent $4.00. We stopped at a few garage sales ( which Richard likes to do), and did some neighborhood sight-seeing. After church we came back to our campground and sat by the water watching the boats go down the channel. We leave here tomorrow, so we had to get things ready for travel.

April 5 - Friday

It rained all night Thurs. and was still raining in the morning. So we got the laundry done and Richard did some maintenance on the RV. One of the headlights had water in it so he took it apart and found a crack in the lenses so he had to grind the crack down and he went to the hardware store &got a special glue to fix it. Later afternoon it stopped raining so we saw a neat mini-golf nearby and played a game. Wouldn't you know it on the very first hole Richard got a hole-in-one!! I got a 7! Of course you can guess who won --- the final score was 54 to my 68. We treated ourselves to a delicious supper of steaks and hash browns on our griddle. Richard was the cook.(see pic)

April 4 - Thurs.

Today was a rainy day. Definitely not a beach day. We decided to go to the Elliott Museum which we saw a few days ago while checking out beaches. It is a museum of history, art, & technology which just opened last mt. Very interesting. There was a lot of hands on inventions, many were invented by Leonardo DaVinci. I thought he was just a painter (Mona Lisa) he actually invented many objects used today. There was also many old time cars on display and a baseball gallery. From there we went to the Florida Oceanographic Park. It has outdoor exhibits ( thank goodness it stopped raining) there was a huge lagoon with many fish, including sharks and sea turtles. Also a sting ray tank which let you touch them. I didn't but Richard did. There was also a self-guiding nature trail which we went on. We did a lot of walking! We had packed a lunch and sat at a picnic table to eat it. We had just finished when it started raining again. We took a ride to the Johnathan Dixon St. Park which was nearby, it has a campground which is very nice and close to Juniper Beach, which we intend on going to tomorrow if it doesn't rain. We might consider staying there next year if we come back to Florida.

April 2 & 3. - Tues & Wed.

Tues. - A very Happy 20th Birthday to our grandson, Jacob! We called him at Notre Dame to wish him a great day! It was another warm, sunny day, so we decided to take a drive to the beaches in Miami, which is about 107 miles away.Our first stop was to get Richard a new pair of sunglasses, and a floatable strap! We went to a beach in Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park called Key Biscayne. A really nice sandy (not shells) beach. The parking lot was close to the beach. The water was not very cold and was very clear. The waves were gentle. I was able to walk out to my waist on sand. We spent the day there. The drive back was bumper to bumper traffic. Driving in Miami is like driving in Chicago!

March 30 - April 1 - Sat., Sun, Mon.

Haven't written for a while. We have been busy.
Sat. We arrived at our next site. St. Lucie Locks in Stuart, Fł. It is a really nice Core of Enginers campsite, only 9 campsites are here, because of that, it is very hard to reserve a site. We were lucky. We got in from a cancellation, which Richard was able to book 6 mts ago. After we got all hooked up, we inquired as to where a church was. St Andrews church had a 7:30 p.m. Easter Vigil mass and it was not far from our site. It was after 10:00 p.m. When we got "home". This time we wrote down the code for the gate being that it gets locked at sunset.

Sun. - Hope everyone had a very Happy, Blessed Easter! We missed not being with our family, but Jack & Jan invited us to spend the day with them and their family. Orlando is about a 2 hr drive, so we left around 9:00 a.m and was able to spend a nice day at their lake with 2of their daughters and 11 of their grand kids. The weather was wonderful, low 80's. a fun time was had by all and we enjoyed a delicious meal. Again we got back around 10:00. We have this gate code down pat.

Mon. - The weather has finally become "sunny Fł" weather, at last! We packed a lunch and headed out to the beach. The beach we were going to is Jenson beach, only about 40 min away. It is a beach we checked out earlier in our travels when the weather was so cold and windy. Well we got there only to find that the beach was closed & fenced up because it is being refurbished. There were large bulldozers and huge mounds of sand they were bringing on the beach ( we forgot to take pics) We were told their were other beaches down a ways. One of the beaches was set up for a wedding to take place there later that day. (Again we didn't take pics :( ) we finally found one with a parking lot not far from the beach called Stuart Beach. It was sunny & warm, but the waves were very strong,but that didn't stop people from going in the water. So of course Richard went in and a strong wave knocked him down and both his regular glasses and sunglasses which go over his regular ones flew off his face! I saw what happened when he stood up. I thought oh damm, he lost his glasses!! When I got on the shore near him, a kid just happened to find his glasses. He said he felt them with his foot! Luckily they were in one piece, but his new sunglasses were gone. We and several other people were watching the waves to see if they would wash to shore, but no luck. They are somewhere in the ocean! At least his regular glasses were saved!! Richard did a little detecting, but didn't find anything except bottle caps. But we enjoyed the day.

March 28 & 29 - Thurs & Fri

We did a lot of sight-seeing these last two days. Yesterday we went on a guided trolley ride given by one of the park rangers through parts of the park not accessible to the public. Saw several alligators also a mother alligator with her babies. He explained the different habitats of the animals and also the different vegetation grown here. It was interesting, just glad we didn't see any of the snakes that live here in the park! There is a lot of swamp areas deep in the park. It was 1-1/2 hr ride. When we got back we went for a 2mile bike ride. Later there was a family camping here that played Cajun music. They had a guitar, mandolin, violin, and a decider (sp?) it looked like a small lap harp. They were very good.

We went to church for Good Friday. While there the lady in front of us dug in her purse and turned around &handed me a Kleenex packet! I was shocked! I didn't think I was sniffing & I whispered to Richard if I was, but he didn't have his hearing aids in, so of course he didn't hear if I was, but thought it was funny! I was insulted. I know that sometimes I do sniff and not realize it (at least that's what I have been told) but I thought that was very rude of her! Oh well, So be it, i'll never see her again in my life. After church we treated ourselves to a fish dinner at Captain D's restaurant Tomorrow is a travel day to our next site.

Sorry no pics today, forgot to take the camera on the trolley ride.

March 26 - 27 - Tues & Wed

Tues. - We arrived at our next site, Hemmock Highlands St Park. It was only about a 3hr drive through a lot of vast land. I never realized FLorida had so many cattle and horses. I always thought of it just beaches &palm trees. We have seen a lot of "faces" of Florida. The park is very well maintained and it is filled with tents and RV's. after we got set up, we went for a ride to tour the area. The park is located in Sebring. We saw a large lake which we found out is Jackson Lake. It is more of a boating lake than beach area.

Wed. - This morning was a little chilly, in fact our heater turned on last night. The weather channel said FL is having a cold spell ( of course it would be while we are here) as I was getting myself together this morning, Richard went for a bike ride around the camp. Then he took a walk down one of the walk trails. He does not sit still, he is constantly on the go !! In the park there is a museum on the history of the park that one of the park rangers told us about, so we checked it out. It was very interesting. Later we went to see the Sebring International Raceway. There was a few cars on the practice track which we were able to go by the fence and watch. Richard enjoyed that. Near the racetrack there was an airport. We saw a pretty blue/gold helicopter which we found out was a hospital helicopter.