Long Time, No Blog!

Elko, Georgia, Sunday, April 18

It's been a while since my last post (9 weeks, to be exact, but who's counting?)

Since my last post, quite a bit has happened. We took a couple of weeks off from doing shows, from Feb. 16th to March 5, to relax(???) after a busy January and February. I will not bore you with more pictures from shows we've done since my last post. Guess you've seen enough shots of our booth and our shows.

During our hiatus we've visited with Dick and Elaine in Venice, FL at their new condo, which is very, very nice, by the way. We had lots of laughs with them. Be sure to ask Dick about his "haircut experience" in Venice. We had quite a laugh over that one.

After returning to Port St. Lucie from Venice, Chris, Jen and Aaron flew down to visit us for a few days. They arrived on a Thursday afternoon and stayed until Sunday morning, when they departed for Venice to visit with Jen's grandmother. While they were here, we visited a couple of zoos, a nature preserve at the seashore and, of course, the swimming pool at our resort. Mimi and Pepere had lots of fun with them and wished that they could have stayed longer.

After Chris, Jen and Aaron left, Don and Toni came in on Monday afternoon, after flying into Fort Lauderdale and driving up to PSL. Meanwhile, Uncle Bob and Sidney came over from Cape Coral on Sunday, but they waited until Monday to come out to visit us at the resort. We spent the afternoon chatting, while waiting for Don and Toni to arrive. When they finally did arrive, we all went out to dinner to Olive Garden. Bob and Sidney stayed over on Monday night, since it was too late to drive back to Cape Coral after dinner.

While Don and Toni were with us, we had lots of fun and lots of good food. We visited some of our favorite "haunts", plus a few new ones. One of the "highlights" of their visit was the infamous "lot crawl" at our resort. This has become an annual event at the resort and it involves the participants driving around in golf carts to various "themed" lots for drinks and hors d'oeuvres. The drinks flow freely, and everyone has a great time. At the end of the evening, everyone returned to the clubhouse, where there was a live band and dancing and MORE DRINKING!

A "not so High-light" of their trip came on the afternoon we had planned to go to lunch down in Stuart, FL, at a neat little restaurant called the Key Lime Tiki Bar and Grill. As we were heading out, we got a call that the wicker dip coolers we had ordered were being delivered. We decided to turn around so that we could meet the truck at the resort. On the way back, we got a call from the driver that they were lost and were not able to find us. After ascertaining their location, I advised them to park their truck and we would find them. Getting their exact location proved to be a problem, since they are Mexican, and their English skills were somewhat lacking. I finally figured out that they were parked in a school parking lot, and the name of the school was "Citrus Grove Elementary School". We tried to find the school with the GPS, but could not. However, since we had a kind of general idea where they were, we headed out to find them. After driving around for about 30 minutes and not finding them, we stopped at a Fire Station to ask the whereabouts of the school. As luck would have it, they never heard of the school. In fact, the ONLY school with that name that they knew of was up in Vero Beach, some 30 miles north. Undaunted, I climbed back into the Odyssey and continued down the same road we originally were on, thinking that this HAD TO BE the right way, based upon the last conversation I had with them. As luck would have it, after another 15 minutes of driving, we found the school!! The reason it would not come up on my GPS is that it was a brand-new school, and it was in another county, south of St. Lucie.
Two hours and twenty minutes later, we had our delivery, and Don got two bags of "HOT" peanuts from the Mexicans.

After Don and Toni left, we headed north to Titusville, FL, to spend the month of March with John and Nancy. While staying in Titusville, we did two more shows in Orlando, which is only about 40 minutes away. We also had an opportunity to set up our booth at the Great Outdoors Fun Fair, which is an annual event at TGO. We had a ball doing the fair. While at TGO, we met lots of John and Nancy's friends and shared a few meals with them. We decided that we really liked being up in Titusville for the month, since there was so much to do there, and it is centrally located (more so than Port St. Lucie) to the shows we do in Florida. We have made a decision to try to rent our lot at Port St. Lucie next season and spend the season up at The Great Outdoors.

We left TGO on March 27th to travel up to Red Bay, AL to have some work done to the coach. We spent 5 days in Red Bay while our coach was being serviced, but they were enjoyable, relaxing days. The work was finally completed on Friday afternoon, so we headed out of Red Bay with intentions of going down to the Florida panhandle to spend some time relaxing at the shore. We got just south of Birmingham, AL before stopping for the night at a Walmart. While there, Kathy spoke to Nancy and we learned that there was going to be a shuttle launch on Monday morning. Nancy suggested that we come back to TGO for Easter dinner with them, then we could take in the launch on Monday morning. Needless to say, we quickly changed our plans and headed back to Titusville, arriving there Saturday evening. Easter dinner on Sunday was wonderful. We were with all of the people we had come to know while we were there in March, and we were treated to a sumptuous repast of lamb, turkey, lots of salads and vegetable dishes, and some fabulous desserts! Mmmmmmmmm!!!!

On Monday, we arose at 4AM to get ready to go down to see the launch. We went with a group of about 8 people, and we went to the local Moose Lodge, which is located right on the intra-coastal waterway, directly across from the launch pad (about 8 miles away). We arrived at the Moose Lodge at 5:15AM, and they were serving coffee and donuts prior to the launch. This is a BIG DEAL down here every time they launch a shuttle. People come from everywhere to see this! The parking lots are filled with cars and motorhomes; there isn't an available parking spot on the road or along the parks bordering the waterway. We were fortunate enough to have John, since he is a member of the Moose, and that's how we ended up there. Anyway, the launch was scheduled to take place at 6:21AM, weather, et al, permitting. As it turns out, the weather was perfect - clear skies, almost no wind - ideal for the launch. The actual launch (click this) went up at exactly 6:21AM, and it was SPECTACULAR to see in person!! If you ever get the chance, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Unfortunately, there are only 3 launches left before the shuttle program is dismantled. We are so glad we got to see one before the program ends.

We left TGO again on Tuesday, April 13th, headed for Dothan, AL for another show. We are now in Elko, GA relaxing before we head into Perry, GA for another show this Thursday. From Perry, we will be heading up to Concord, NC to do another show before we finally begin the trek back to MA. Our only other stop will be in Rye Brook, NY to visit with Mike, Lisa and Ava.

See y'all real soon!