Bob and Linda's RV Travels: This can't be Florida

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.