M arch 12 - Tues.

Today was a chilly, rainy day. Definitely not a beach day! We decided to take a ride to Marco island. Along the way we stopped at a huge market we heard about called Sun Harvest Citrus. They had a window where you could watch how they process the oranges to make orange juice. Besides the usual o.j., they had several other varieties of o.j. And free samples of each. The cranberry/orange & strawberry/ orange were delicious. There was specialty wines,honey,etc. and a wonderful bakery. They also had ice-cream. Richard had a vanilla/orange cone & I had chocolate/key lime, yummy!! While we were sitting eating our cones we talked to a lady who lived in the area. She told us about Wiggins Park where there was a nice sand beach. So, of course we had to go check it out. It was nice, we are going to go there the next warm day ( whenever that is!) we made it to Marco island. And that certainly is my kind of area. It had beautiful homes & motels. The public beach had a parking lot with a boardwalk to the beach (distance about a block) it was raining so we didn't walk it. We saw an RV park not far from there, so we stopped to inquire. Boy did we get a shock, the sites were $60.00 a day!! ( a little, rather A LOT out of our price range!) we usually pay $11 - $20 a day. But as pretty as the area was, we decided it would be too far to drive there every day from our campsite & too far for us "seniors" to lug all our beach gear from the parking lot. We did a lot of driving today. We put over two hundred miles on our car!

March 8 - 11 - Fri - Mon.

Fri - We arrived at our next site, Ortuna campground in LaBelle, Fł. It is a super nice campground, extremely well maintained. It is a Core of Enginers park, and their parks are usually kept up very well and are almost always by water. Our site is concrete, which is great for keeping the RV level & it is right next to the waterway by the locks. So we see a lot of pleasure boats going by. It is a good thing we had reservations, because the park is filled. We spent Sat & Sun getting familiar with the area since we will be here 2weeks. We found a church and went to Sat evening mass. The one draw-back to this park is that it is out in the "boonies" the nearest town to LaBelle (which is very small) is Clewston which is also very small.

Mon. - It was a very nice morning, clear blue sky, about low 70's we decided to check out some beaches. We drove to Ft Myers about 1hr away. Well it is spring break &the traffic was terrible! We knew we would never get a close parking spot and there were people EVERWHERE!! In the area near the beach. That is not for us, Ft Myers for all it's hype did not impress us. So we went a little farther south to Sanibel Island which we also heard a lot about. Parking also is terrible, but there were areas along the beach road where you can park right by the water, which we did. We put down our chairs and had the lunch we packed, but it was more of a fishing beach. Sooooooo, we got back in the car and headed to Bonita Beach but we were told it was more of a shell beach than sand beach but were told "Lover's Key state park" had a sand beach. Soooooo off we went again! From the parking lot they had a free tram which took you to the beach which otherwise was about a half mile walk. Needless to say we took the tram, but it was already about 3:30 and the last tram from the beach was 4:30, so we had about 45min to spend on the beach (because we were not about to walk back to the parking lot) it was a nice sand/shell beach. I sat and enjoyed watching the waves &Richard did some metal detecting. He found 42 cents! It was an interesting day!

THurs.

Today is our last day at the "J&J Resort". The morning was spent doing "fun" things like laundry, and cleaning. Even an RV needs housecleaning. Then some grocery shopping to stock up the RV. RIchard checked the tires on the RV and made sure everything was set for the drive tomorrow. We were going to go for a boat ride, but it still was chilly, so we decided to go for a bike ride around the lake. Then we played a rousing game of croquet. They have a huge backyard, so it was a distance between loops. It was fun and of course Richard won. We had another delicious last meal of chicken & rice. Jan had made an angel food cake for dessert. It looked great when she took it out of the oven, but when we got back from our bike ride the cake had cooled and flopped! We had a good laugh at that. But she salvaged it by making it into a delicious dessert with strawberries &cool whip. We ended the evening with a game of spades which Jack won. We had a great 4days with Jack & Jan and we thank them for their hospitality.

Wed

Today the weather was still a little too chilly to go on Jack's boat out on the lake their house is on, so RIchard and Jack went to browse the junk yards. Richard was looking for a tail gate for his truck back home ( the one on his truck is starting to rust) so of course Jan and I went --- you guessed it "shopping"! Later in the day we went on another bike trail. This one was in a park, although it looked more like a forest to me. The trail was packed sand through the trees, no alligators, but the farther we went, at any minute I thought some sort of animal was going to jump out of the trees. (I am not as adventurous as the three of them) we then had to go across this wooden rickety boardwalk. It had just a open rail on the sides, & it was long. i walked my bike all the way because it was narrow and I thought it would be just my luck I would fall over the side ( we all know I tend to be a "little unlucky " with things on wheels! ) ALong the boardwalk there was a huge strange tree. It was like twin trees from one root. Of course RIchard had to climb over the rail to get a picture standing in the middle of it. I was so afraid he would slip and fall, but there is no stopping him when he is set on doing something! (See pics to follow) when we got out of the forest trail, we went on another trail which was paved (my kind of ride) Richard and Jack saw a wild boar, Jan & I were farther back and missed it, which was fine with me - I really don't like animals in the wild,I prefer seeing them in a zoo! We relaxed with a good dinner of Italian sausage & brats,fries and salad. And ended the day playing cards.

March 4 - 7 - Mon. - Thurs.

Haven' t blogged for a few days. We were very busy enjoying our 4day visit with Jack & Jan in Orlando. It was a beautiful travel day, weather clear & sunny . It wasn't a very long trip only about 120miles, 2 1/2 hrs. We arrived early afternoon at what we like to call "The J&J RV Resort". Richard had worked all winter on a "panhard" bar, which goes under the RV &will give it more stability on the road & a part he needed he had ordered and had it sent to Jack's, which arrived the day before we did. So he & Jack worked on installing it while Jan & I went and did some girl shopping. The installation of the bar went great! We then had a delicious pot roast dinner jan had prepared. After dinner we played the card game RAKO, which we taught J&J to play.

Tues.

The second day at the "Resort" we packed a lunch, loaded up our bikes in Jack's truck & went to ride a bike trail through the wetlands. And what a ride it was! There were signs along the trail to be aware of alligators and did we ever see them! Every few feet along the trail we would see one laying at the side of the trail in the sun ( the trail ran alongside the water) we saw baby ones and HUGE ones! At one point Jan was in front and saw one & pointed at it to warn us, RIchard hollered "ALLIGATOR" and that thing jumped into the water! I had know idea they could move that fast or that they could leap like that!!! They say they are more afraid of us than we are of them, but that was a little too close for me !!!!!!! It was a 4 1/2 mile trail & I was so glad to get back to the truck! We also toured through an old historic pioneer settlement where you can actually go in the log houses. It is amazing how sparse they lived. On the way home RIchard saw a sign for a pork chop dinner at the local Moose Lodge, so we went. When we walked in we were told that the dinner was just for members. We said we were from out of state &didn't realize that. As we were walking back to the parking lot a fellow hollered for us to come back. Being we were not from the area they wanted to show hospitality. Boy were we glad because the meal was delicious! The people were very friendly to us. ( pics to follow, but the ones Richard took with our iPad of the gators didn't come out -he did something wrong)

March 3 - Sun.

First thing this morning we found a church in Ôrmand Beach. After mass it was too cold for the beach so we went to another huge flea market in Datona, ( Fł has a lot of flea markets!) This one was extremely large, it was a lot of walking, we were both tired and we didn't even walk half of it. And of course Richard wanted to get back to the RV to watch the NASCAR race!! We were leaving in the morning for Orlando, so we also had a lot of organizing for travel to do. (At least I had a lot organizing to do - my motto - "a place for everything & everything in it's place") all Richard has to do is drive the RV pulling our car &making sure we are on the right road to our next destination -not so hard (ha-ha).

March 1 - Fri

We got to our next site at Tomaka St Park in Datona. After we got hooked up we went to our favorite beach Ôrmand Beach, which is only about 15min from the park.It was a little chilly, but we thought we would at least watch the waves. Richard did his metal detector & found 12 cents (1dime & 2 pennies)! I sat & watched the waves roll in, it is very relaxing. But it really got cold by the water. I put on a sweatshirt and had two beach towels on my legs and was still cold, so we went back to the RV. It was already getting dusk. The weather said The Datona area was getting hit with a cold front (of course we must have brought it with us) We couldn't believe how many people were in the park in tents. I can't even imagine how they kept warm. Our heater kicked on last night.

March 2 - Sat

We decided it was too cold for the beach, it was also very windy. We went to this huge flea market about1-1/2 hrs away. We had been there last year. On our way back, we saw huge billows of smoke and was backed up in traffic. There were police directing the traffic. I checked my iPad which I had with us and found out that there was a large forest fire in the Datona area. Thank God it was not in our camp park. When we finally got back to the park, we saw that there was live music at the park store 6-8 , so we went. It was a husband & wife team. She sang and they both played several instruments, guitar, mandolins, banjo. They were very good. Pie & hot choc/coffee/tea was served.(pics to follow)