Thursday, December 25, 2014

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Hi to all and have a very Merry  Christmas, and Happy New Year and if celebrating Hanukkah or Kwanzaa happy holiday to you.   I'm a little late with getting out this Christmas wish but it seems we have something going on that keeps us busy.  We did just return from a great cruise and need a day to just relax and unpack etc.  We also have to look into soon dieting, especially Bob. Bob, me, returned home off the crutches. Foot is doing much better. So happy holidays to one all. Safe travels to all in the new year.
    Bob and Linda

Sunday, December 7, 2014

This can't be Florida


                          Still in Florida, or are we
Bob scrapping snow, what's with that?  Borrowed a scrapper from son Mark.  This was just a minor snow storm while we were in PA
 

 
     The picture certainly doesn’t look like Florida.  Well it happens to be Pennsylvania. This blog is coming to you after all these events took place, including our time in Florida and PA. We had to make an emergency trip back to Pennsylvania   because Linda’s brother was in the hospital and having some major problems. We took the auto-train from Sanford FL  to Lorton VA. We will get back to the train trip later. Linda’s brother was released from the hospital and back at his assisted living facility. We got him settled and made plans to head back to Florida. We had the car packed and were ready to leave the following morning  when we got a call at 5:30 AM that he was back in the hospital.  He got back out of the hospital and settled in his assisted living facility.  We left the following morning to beat the snow storm that was heading for PA.   We were in PA about 3 weeks.

      It has been quite a while since our last blog. We have been busy doing things around our new home making it own. The house was move in ready but we wanted to do some painting and planting.  But in the mean time we have been busy. One day we took a 45 minute ride to Daytona race track to donate blood. We were given a meal, a tee shirt and a ticket for a tour of the race track.


Thru the tunnel under the tract

 There were about 10 Red Buses there taking blood from donors.
 There were a lot of people there, but it went fast with all the buses ready to collect blood.

     On the way home we took a detour. We went to the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. We stopped at the Haulover Canal area to a viewing area to look some manatees. There were about 6 or 7 in the canal.



 





     Next we took the Black Point Wildlife Drive, a gravel road looking for some wildlife. It was too early in the year to see migrating birds and ducks. We did see a few different type birds and ducks. All mostly off in a distance. It is amazing that just a few miles from this tranquil place is the Kennedy Space Center were so many rocket launch have taken place.

     We also viewed two rocket launches from our deck. Sorry no pictures  

     One day we were watching Animal Planet channel on TV. Dirty Jobs was on and they were at Rocky Reach dam in Wenatchee Washington. We had toured this dam in 2009. It is neat seeing some of the things not so common that we toured.

     One day we traveled to Kissimmee, about a 45 minute drive to attend the Statewide Ranch Rodeo and Cowboy Heritage Festival.  There were about 15 different heritage displays and demonstrations. One of the big events was whip cracking.  The original Florida cattlemen were called “crackers”. They got this name from cracking their whip above the heads of their cattle to get them moving.  There were cooking, weaving and basket making demonstrations. There was also a BBQ cook off. There were 16 stations where for just $6 you could sample of beef brisket, then vote for the one you liked the best. They were also cooking up samples of “swamp cabbage”. We passed on this as we had tasted this in the past and didn’t like it. Linda did try a swamp cabbage fritter and just manage to swallow it.
 
     Then it was inside for the ranch rodeo.  This is a non professional rodeo. It is a rodeo pitting cowboys and cowgirls from 16 ranches in Florida. The stadium is called the Silvers Spurs Arena.  It is a super venue for watching a rodeo. It was about 90 outside so the air conditioning was  very welcoming.   The rodeo consisted of bronc riding, calf branding, stampede race, team doctoring, double mugging, colt riding and wild cow milking.  These are all things that are common to regular ranch work. These events were all explained to us by a rancher sitting behind us.   
All the range teams. Sorry for the bleary pictures




I'm no expert on rodeo events, but I don't think this is how it suppose to be done
What the heck is going on here
I got his tail
The dogs doing a good job of keeping the cattle  in a circle


We also saw a couple of good movies, “Gone Girl” and “The Judge”.
 
I'm going to have to write another blog, as this one is getting a little long. Thanks for following along.
 
 

Monday, December 1, 2014

What happened here

     Hi, hope all is well. Check out the attached photo. Lucky nothing is broken. The most injured thing was pride. Happened on Saturday at Daytona  Speedway.Just before I went down I felt a hand on my back. The only one behind me was Linda, just saying. Then while I was sleeping in the recliner she dropped a book with a very very loud resounding boom that almost gave me a heart attack. I had a full glass of wine, for medicinal purposes, and it went flying over our new recliners. Luckily it blotted up without staining anything. In the near future we are going on a cruise and if you hear man over board and I turn up missing these are strange coincident, just so you know. But all joking aside I fell in the bleachers. Went down so fast I don't know what happened. I fell on my left side. I bruised my face and hit on my shoulder I am having rehab on. I badly bruise my shin bone and twisted my ankle. Had x-rays and cat scans to make sure I didn't brake anything. Cat scan to make sure I didn't have any brain bleed since I am on blood thinner. Just sore today 

 
Look for upcoming blog. Been to busy to write, but an getting caught up.