We are on the road again. We left Shallow Lake at 6:00am on Wednesday and spent the night in Louisville Kentucky. The weather was good and arrived in Panama City Beach Florida where the 5th Wheel was stored at 4:00 in the afternoon. It was a balmy 72 today. We are joining a group from the park at a New Years Eve party tonight.

We arrived in New Orleans on Thursday. We picked up Todd, Jess and her mom and dad at the airport on Thursday morning. What a weekend we have had. On Thursday afternoon we toured the French Quarter. On Friday we went on a city/Katrina tour that was very interesting and informative. We saw the areas most affected by Katrina, Fats Domino's home, the homes the Brad & Angelina are building to replace homes that were destroyed.The devastation after 4.5 years is amazing to see, lots of homes and business still boarded up. We found some actual cajun music in the French quarter on Sunday afternoon and B and I spent a couple hours there enjoying it. On Saturday we went on a tour of Oak Alley Plantation and drove past Laura...it is amazing how people lived back in the mid 1800s. On the way back there we saw cars parked along the road with men fishing in the swamp. We stopped to see what they were fishing. It was crawfish, the opening of the season. The young guy we talked to was more than happy to tell us about crawfishing and show us his catch. Monday was a quiet day...a little shopping before we dropped our visitors off at the airport at 3:30. Today we are heading out to play a Pete Dye designed course called Belle Terre- $30.00. Beautiful day today, hot and sunny!!!
Tomorow we are off to Bay St Louis, Mississippi and will be staying in the RV park at the Hollywood Casino and playing golf Thursday on an Arnold Palmer design course- $33.00.

It's Sunday and raining but warm. This area of Florida is one of our favourites. We walk and run the beach every morning and watch the dolphins swimming about 100 yards out. It's magical. The beach is even longer than we thought with beautiful fine white sand. We found an amazing golf course about 10 miles down the road. $35.oo includes cartwith GPS and a cooler full of ice for your drinks. We golfed on Friday and again yesterday. It is in a new subdivision that was probably affected by the economy, only about 7 houses and all for sale. I would compare this course to Myrtle Beach courses. Lots of water, sand and wasteland...beautifully landscaped and one of the nicest resaurants and best stocked pro shops so far. The weather was perfect both days on the course. One Friday we golfed with Ed from Honey Harbour ON. He is staying at an RV park up the road and just arrived from Texas. He and his wife go to Texas every year and love it. On Friday the fellow in the trailer next to us was going to Apalachicola(small fishing town about 10 miles to the west)to buy shrimp off the boats. He picked up 2 lbs of shrimp@ $3 a lb for us and we had shrimp lingine for dinner. I have not tasted shrimp as fresh...yummy. I hope we can do that again in New Orleans. Today we are heading off to Tallahassee shopping (about 40 miles away).

We left Lakeland yesterday around 9:15 and arrived at Carrabelle Beach Resort at 3:30. We were getting set up and a group next door invited us over for happy hour. They were down at the docks in the morning a bought 70 lbs of fresh oysters. They were splitting them, adding pesto, salsa and garlic...then baking them in the bbq. Excellent!! We met about 10 couples from different parts of Canada and US. It rained this morning and cool (58)so we took a drive. Booked a golf course for Friday, had lunch at the Wild Hogg BBQ (not that great) and drove west along the shore, across a 2 mile bridge to St. George Island then to Apalachicola, a lovely old fishing village with shops (like St.Jacobs), nice restaurants and fish markets. When we returned to the park we went for an hour long walk on the beach across the road. The beach is about 2 miles long with fine, beautiful white sand. Looking forward to some nice weather hear so we can enjoy the beach.

We had terrible internet strength in Davenport so it was frustrating to update the blog. We golfed a couple of times with Norm and Sue at Cypresswood Golf Course. On Wednesday it was raining so we went shopping in Kissimmee. I don't think I have seen it rain soooo hard. When we were at Gamble's after shopping we learned that a tornado touched down at Greenelefe golf course just 10 miles from Davenport. The restaurant that we chose to have dinner at had 4 guys performing Beatle tunes. Lots of singing that night. Thursday morning we packed up and headed over to Lakeland. Big trip...took 40 minutes. We were set up by 11:30 am. Poured rain the whole time...Rick was soaked. Went to visit Rick's sister Bev and staying for dinner. We had a very windy golf game with Bev and Jim at Schalamar Creek Golf Course on Saturday. The course was very tight...we both enjoyed playing it. Yesterday we met Norm and Sue and Bridgewater Golf Course. Another terribly windy day so it made golfing difficult. Today is a quiet day...maybe a little shopping.

Bob and Nancy arrived at the park on March 3rd and we golfed in the afternoon. It was cold and windy...I will be glad when it warms up. Hardly enjoyable. I made dinner for Bob, Nancy, Bob and Mary. We were ready to pull out by 9:30 Thursday morning and on our way to Davenport where we are staying at Deer Creek RV Resort. We were set up by noon and off to visit the Gambles who are staying only 1/4 mile up the road in a lovely 5 bedroom home with a pool. We golfed with Norm and Sue at Imperial Lakes in Lakeland on Friday. Didn't realize how far it was when we booked it. Nice course with lots of water and sand. Not bad for $18.00. It warmed up nicely in the afternoon but cold by 5:30. Yesterday we drove up to Orlando which is only 1/2 hour up the road to shop a the Prime outlet mall. We should have saved that for a weekday. Crazy busy on Saturday!! Today was a down day. We picked up some groceries this morning and sat in sun reading this afternoon. What a nice way to spend a day.

Friday we golfed with the couple (Bob and Mary) that we met at the golf course earlier in the week. After golf we went to dinner at the restaurant here in the park where they had live entertainment for the evening. Saturday was raining and cool so we took a drive to Cocoa Beach and Cape Canaveral then back home and watched a movie (thanks again Todd). Todd gave us his old Ipod loaded with movies. Sunday we went to the Grant Seafood Festival with Bob and Mary, where we met Bob and Nancy Caddo. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed the entertainment and seafood. They had chowder, shrimp, fish and chips, clams, linguine and oysters.
We golfed yesterday with Bob and Mary again. It was a beautiful, warm day. Lots of cute little alligators sunning around the ponds on the golf course.
There was a thunderstorm early this morning...cloudy and windy for most of the day but warm - 72. It was a good day to do laundry and grocery shopping.

Cold this morning...39 degrees! Frost on the truck. The sun is shining and should get into the 60's. Yesterday we spent the day at the Kennedy Space Centre. We both really enjoyed it. They take you by bus to see the launch pads, the old central command station and the building where they assemble equipment that they take up to the space station. Within the next couple of days they are rolling the shuttle out to the launch pad. It travels at 1 mile per hour and takes 8 hours, then it sits on the launch pad for a month for final checking before launch in April. Too bad we missed that.

We are enjoying our stay at The Great Outdoors RV & Golf Resort. Monday night we had an armadillo scratching in our lawn. Rick shawn a flashlight on him and he didn't even look up. We golfed on Tuesday (beautiful warm day) with a nice couple who stay here every year for 3 months. Had drinks and dinner with them after golf. The golf course is very nice... lots of water. We went biking yesterday morning and I went to the yoga class. It rained yesterday so we took a drive into Orlando shopping. It seems that everytime it rains it cools off...very cold this morning. I am off to Pilates this morning.

Saturday was a beautiful warm day. We went into Fort Pierce in the morning to the Farmers Market on the waterfront. Fort Pierce is one of the prettiest towns we have seen. From there we travelled 40 miles down the coast to the golf course where we golfed with a retired Zooligist. The course was quite nice, not too difficult, but lots of bunkers. We left around 9:00 am on Sunday for Titusville. This park is sooooo big. It has 2 restaurants, 2 heated swimming pools, an RV maintenance shop, golf course (trying it out tomorrow) and driving range. We went for a walk yesterday around the main road. It took 1 1/2 hours. We have a nice large site with cement pad and patio. We are 20 miles from the Kennedy Space Centre so we hope to visit this week. The weather has been wonderful since we left the Keys, however it is supposed to cool for a few days.

Wednesday we biked south of our park for 7 miles along the shore. Nice bike path. It looks like they will eventually have a path that will run the length of all of the keys. We enjoyed the sunshine when we got back home and had stone crab chowder for dinner at the Caddo's. The tempurature is still cool and it is quite windy.
Thursday we went back to the fish market and purchased some hog fish and shrimp for dinner. After beating the Caddo's in 5 games of Pepper we treated them to a nice dinner of fried hog fish, french fries and grilled shrimp.
Today we were packed up and ready to leave by 8:45. Very chilly morning. Arrived at Camelot RV Park in Malabar by 1:30 to find that the site they had reserved for us was too narrow to open all of our slides. We called a park in Fort Pierce and here we are. They can only accomodate us for 2 nights so we have booked a park in Titusville up by Cape Canaveral until March 4th.
We have a golf game booked for tomorrow at noon at Champions Gate. It looks quite nice and Rick will get his golf fix!!

Yesterday we took a drive down to Key West. The weather was a little on the cool side but we thoroughly enjoyed the day. When we arrived we took a 90 minute tour of Key West on the Conch Train . It was a trolly that toured around the island with a narration of the history as well as present life in Key West. Very interesting...we all enjoyed it. After the tour we had a nice lunch at an outdoor pub (Fogarty) and then walked the main street (Duval Street). It runs from one side of the Key to the other. We had a drink in Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville and then down the street to listen to a wonderful black soul singer and finally a stop at Rick's Bar where we stayed until it was time to head back to Marathon.

Yesterday was a nice warm day. We biked along Grassy Key for 10 miles before we turned around to head back. It was beautiful biking along the aqua green water. We were able to sit out in the sun until it started to cool around 5:00. High winds again last night with some rain. It is cooler this morning however we did go out for a nice walk.

Hello From Marathon

We left home on January 26th to pick our trailer up in Jacksonville Fl. Arrived in Bradenton on the 27th. Spent a week there leaving on February 5th for Miami, where we met up with Bob and Nancy. It was a nice park in the middle of their market garden district. Fields of vegetables, fruit trees and tropical plants. We spent a day in Miami where we went on a boat cruise of the bay. Saw many homes of the rich and famous ... Rosie, Julio, Naomi Campbell. We then spent a few hours in South Beach. We golfed a couple of times in the Miami area.

We arrived in Marathon on Friday around 1:30 in hot and sunny weather. What a beautiful drive along the Keys. Friday night gale force winds blew through the Keys. What a night that was. The temperature has been fairly cool since then until today. Yesterday we bought some hog fish and grouper at the fish market and had a fish fry for a Valentine dinner at Bob and Nancy's. Today is supposed to be around 70 so we are hopping on our bikes after lunch and going for an afternoon ride along the shore.