busy busy and busier

Seriously busy since the last post - thank you Bonnie Jeanne for prodding me to get with the program, and Marsha for shaming me (your comment to my last post, however many weeks ago that may have been!).  

We've been in lovely (??) Lake City area for a month now.  There is a lovely mural on the side of a building in the downtown area (that's all I know about it ... lovely and downtown), but I DO love these murals ~ remember the post from LA and the frog capital of the world?  NOW those were some outstanding murals!

If we aren't in "lovely downtown" Lake City we are watching big huge bugs sauntering across our window ... well not exactly our window ~ this is one of the two window in front of which is my chair ... yup, where I sit as I create this literary masterpiece!  Thankfully this creature was on the outside - cause I sure as heck would NOT be capturing it on "film" (huh) if it were on the inside ...

I might have been capturing it in a vacuum cleaner or mashing it with a broom or something!  I did record a video, but once again I am video/blog challenged so you won't be seeing that sloooooooow moving video (consider yourself lucky is what I'd suggest)

And if we aren't watching bugs we might be taking a teeny tiny walk about the campground enjoying a sunset such as these (yes I did close the previous post with a sunset photo~my bad)

BUT, we do sometimes leave the area.  Indeed we do because ......

We've left Sir Arlo at "camp" to go house hunting!  

When we've been in this area before and have flown north from the "local" (Jacksonville) airport we've left Arlo here at Pet Paradise Resort, which we've referred to as "camp" when we mention it in his presence!!  Call us crazy for sure, but we are what we are, and we ain't what we ain't!  Upon our return we always quiz him about the new camp songs he learned and what crafts he did in our absence ... you know camp things, like Popsicle stick houses, leather belts or wallets, funky finger paintings ... you get the gist I'm sure ... Strangely enough Sir won't discuss it with us, in fact we get a glazed pissed off look if he will even look AT us ... mostly its just stare out the back window and totally 'dis us ... for a day or two or three ... 

As for the house hunting, well we've sort of been checking out properties in the areas where we've stayed the last year or so, but the major factors have always been that we need to be close to GREAT hospitals and a reasonably large airport that has Southwest Airlines and hopefully Jet Blue and probably the east coast, but that wasn't as key a factor as hospital/airport ... and Florida just seemed to be what kept coming up, and the Jacksonville area specifically ... 

 We have taken a bit of a break from all that, however, to put Papa on an aforementioned Southwest plane to head north to our Princess Paigie Pie Muffin Face (not to mention Patrick and Beth)

Lucky lucky lucky Papa got to be there for a tea party before our Princess headed off to "school" ... 

How great is it to have a tea party with an almost three year old grand princess and her special friends????  I do think, however that T~T (aka yours truly) should be making some fine and festive place mats for said tea parties.

While Papa was up north having tea parties and fun with his friends at his lodge and birthday celebrations with Beth's family I was hard at work ....

You know, earning our site here at this wonderful National Forest campground (one of the top three places we've been in four years on the road)

And, if I wasn't at my "work job" earning our site, I was home creating .....

Oh what great therapy my quilting is for me!!!  However, my six month old Singer had a mechanical failure the night before Rick returned ... Because Singer has ONE (seriously) authorized dealer here in the huge state of FL it's been a challenging  decision .... send it away for who knows how long or .......  but I can't be without my sewing machine, and I was just starting a project for my Princess ....  UGH .

So, stay tuned for the Singer status as well as house hunting travails .... or whatever might bring you back to  whelanswheels!  

Where the heck are we?

Seriously, where have we been.  Yup I know Sisters Candy and Kimmy and dear friend "Good Paul", wherever we've been I haven't been on blogger!!!  As John, Paul, George and Ringo said ... yeah yeah yeah ... here I am with tales to tell.

I guess the last post was a very brief one (I'm too lazy to even check) when I got my lovely pink, oh so very pink, cast off.  That would have been when we were in the Richmond, VA area (where we'd been before and I did a post or two or three from there on our first, delightful visit there, in yet another area we loved).  The post prior to that was probably when we were in Coatesville, PA, where the "accident" aka, broken arm happened, also did a post from there, more than one I am certain when we were there a couple years ago (another area we LOVED).

With all that said .... after we left the Richmond area this time around we headed to North Carolina.  Again we stayed at the Neuse River campground of the Crotan Nation Forest, just down the road from my son Joshua and his wife and son (Trisha and Connor).  We'd stayed at this lovely, peaceful campground before, but the last time we were there the new ranger had an issue with us leaving the trailer in the parking area where we had put it twice previously.  With that being the issue we stayed elsewhere when we were in the area the last two times, but I really wanted to try there again, so I made a couple phone calls and spoke with the latest ranger there who had NO issue with the trailer being where we'd parked it before!  The forest had suffered some tornado and hurricane damage this past season so it appeared a bit different than we remembered for sure!  Still loved it though!

So, we were with Joshua, Trisha and Connor for Thanksgiving .... ahh what a wonderful time we had.  We were there for about 10 days, got to see Connor and his class perform a Thanksgiving "pageant" for parents and grandparents etc.  Unfortunately I am unable (my ignorance ... damn, damn, damn) to post videos here so trust me when I say it was awesome!

Also a missing video is one of Connor reading Rick "The Napping House" ... oh it was so much fun to watch them.  Connor taking great joy in reading and Rick's antics acting out what Connor was reading!

After we left North Carolina we headed south to .... you guessed it, South Carolina.  Where again, we stayed somewhere we'd been a couple times  - Huntington Beach State Park in Murrells Inlet.  A campground we all love, especially Sir Arlo because he gets to run and run and run on the beach and swim and play in the surf  (sorry, no pictures of that, but there have been previously!)

One of the reasons we stopped here again was to purchase a new trailer .... oh such a pleasure!  (not)  But after replacing tires and axles it became quite obvious that we (the trailer, at this time I am not referring to the human(s)) were indeed overweight and in addition to being unsafe it was expensive!

Yup, she's a beauty!  UGH

Next we are off to  Gaffney, SC for repairs to the coach's exhaust system!  Do ya think it's been an expensive few weeks!?!?

Then, finally we are in Florida and it is Christmas.  Meanwhile, in New Hampshire we are missing our Princess set up the nativity scene made by her Grandmother (Patrick's Mom, Nancy) years ago.  We had the Nativity set up in our house each year, but passed the tradition to Patrick (Rick's son) and his wife and daughter (Beth and Princess Paige) when we sold the house and "hit the road"

Isn't that marvelous picture of our girl with wonder in her eyes!!!  Oh how I wish we were there - I had such a "melt down" on Christmas Eve when we spoke and she was telling me (aka "T-T") about her day and that she was eating ice cream cake that Uncle Tim made - I asked what kind (Uncle Tim is a cook from scratch guy, so it is ALWAYS outstandingly delicious) and she tells me it is "mint pepper" .... (aka peppermint) I had to hand the phone to Rick, I was incapable of continuing a conversation ... I wanted to BE THERE ;-(

Thankfully, we also got a photo of our Princess and her Vovo (I can't get the accent marks correct), Beth's father Roy, wearing "boppers" that we brought last year for the celebration, and thankfully got saved!

Meanwhile in North Carolina, Connor's class went on a field trip to the local airport to sing Christmas carols, sporting shirts they made.  How cute is this?  I can't imagine anything better to greet people getting off a plane than a group of six year olds, sporting these terrific shirts (look closely at what created the reindeer) and probably most of the boys and girls with missing teeth, singing carols!

Meanwhile, Christmas in Florida looked like this ...

On the 4th of January we moved over to the Osceola National Forest (Ocean Pond Campground) where I am doing a volunteer stint for a couple months .... more on that later, but I will leave you with a photo of our view ....

As the saying goes, stay tuned ....

the King's field trip

So while we were in Coatesville, PA (where we were "landed" on our third day back on the road after our volunteering stint in VT from May-October) we went into Philly to meet up with a very dear old (as in long term friendship, NOT age because he and I are the same age) friend of mine.

Robert is the Chief Engineer of his ship 

and graciously offered to give Rick a tour of said ship (he offered the tour to me as well, up until the time I had my mishap and broke my arm, at which time said offer was rescinded - no broken appendages allowed on board!!).   Sadly, neither himself, King Richard, or I took a photo of the "stairs" from the parking area up to the ship ... with or without said broken appendage I don't think this blogger would have scaled those steps ... 

Rick, surprisingly enough, didn't strongly object to the stairs and I think he has a worse fear of heights than I do ... then again, he knew a great tour was in order after the stairs so I guess that may have been what fueled his bravery!

Robert and I have been friends since junior high school ... (yes, that IS a looong time) ... his mother and my mother worked together and our parents were friends beyond that.  

Robert went to Mass Maritime and traveled the world before "retiring" ever so briefly ... some people just aren't meant to retire and he is one of those people ... 

The Regulus ("Robert's ship") is in what is referred to as a "ready reserve" status by the military and can be ready to sail per the military within 96 hours of order!  She (why are ships referred to as she??) is 946 feet long and can carry 700+ military vehicles ~ YIKES!  The link provides some interesting statistics - well worth the quick read.

While on the Regulus Rick got to see the USS Kennedy (foreground) and USS Forrestal docked ("moth balled").  He did find this quite distressing, although he did say that these ships were available as a donation to "anyone" willing to maintain them (??)  I had hoped that the King himself would provide some personal thoughts about his tour here, but alas, that was not to be ... try as I might just not gonna happen ;-(

While Rick and Robert were touring I stayed in the car with a good book and my camera ...

Enjoying a pretty nice sunset and some seagull noise ....  Indeed, a wonderful time was had by all (Thank you Robert, as always, it was great to see you, and hopefully we'll catch you on our April north bound journey somewhere in Baltimore!)

hopefully this post, and lack of cast, will get me back in blog mode .... stay tuned to find out ....

My arm is free free free at last

From its hot pink armor!  

Let the rehab fun begin ... bring it on (and my faithful heating pad and bottle of acetaminophen!  

Oh yes, and himself, King Richard, is certain that I should be back on the trailer roof tomorrow completing the repair I was up there working on when the "mis~hap" occurred!!!!  FAT CHANCE, maybe Thursday but NOT Tuesday!)

Stay tuned.......

Humpty dumpty

(and I)

had a great fall (not autumn, but f-a-l-l).

Additionally, I had loaded 25+ photos to do a post about leaving Quechee last Sunday, it was waiting for text ..... it will be waiting a bit longer since I don't do so well right now typing left handed!!

As the saying goes .... stay tuned ....

the fungi (and fun guy) of Quechee

This, below, is what started this whole pictoral post several weeks alright at this point it was more than a month ago ... We were sitting out at another of our wonderful, delightful, relaxing "campfires" (which often times start around 1:30 in the afternoon) and what to my wondering eyes should appear but this most interesting fungi photograph opportunity .... (gotcha didn't I ~ you thought it was going to be an early Christmas tale since we are in the land of snow ~ a post for a different time)

But seriously, this photo (above) was what started this post oh so very long ago .... As Sir and I had been walking about the campground it "dawned" on me that oh what a plethora of fungi colors and statures there are in just this tiny bit of land we are on (well "tiny" is a relevant term here).  

So off I went a time or two, camera in hand, thinking oh what a photographer of fungi am I ... Seriously, who knew all these colors and shapes, sizes and hiding places these fungi would have.  Well since at this time it has rained, I believe, eleven days in a row, causing the fungus to grow fungus and the mold to grow mold, and the people and canines to, perhaps, grow webs between their toes ... not to mention that some of "them" get just a wee bit "testy" and short tempered and perhaps a bit "irritable" (just thinking a bit, of course)

 and lo and behold I come across a site from my "childhood" (a photo of the site above, certainly not a photo above of my childhood) .... "Indian Pipe" Such an interesting fungi it is, and reading the wikipedia info, I had NO clue there are, somewhere in the world, a red version of said Indian Pipe!!

Who had any clue there were so many shapes, sizes and colors of fungi.  Speaking of fungi, how about the fun guy below .... is that a happy, fun guy face or what ....

Truth be told here (of course the truth would be told), He, the King, was out cleaning sites one day (or something I can not attest to witnessing, because I was not with him at the time, and only heard about it some time after the fact ... and what should He come across .... the fungi of ALL fungi ....

Are you ready for this???  

He was quite proud to be the finder of such a treasure, so proud and honored was he that he proudly displayed it for anyone showing the most remote (really and truly remote) interest, including his female boss (not his wife, but his boss at the campground) ...

Oh yes, he carried this around in the campground pickup in case, just in case, he should cross paths with anyone who might like to see this wonderful specimen of fungi a fun guy can stumble upon in a damp, very damp environment up here in VT ...

BTW, there seems to be an issue with my "spell check" on blogger tonight ~ I did my best, but sometimes, hard as I try it just isn't good enough!

Do stay tuned ...