What do you think?

What do you think of when you think of Florida ~ if you think of Florida?  Do you think of Mickey and Minnie?  Do you think of beautiful sandy beaches?  Do you think of freshly picked oranges, grapefruits, lemons and limes?  

Do you think of the beautiful country side in central Florida with all these horse farms?  Huge horse farms on many many acres?  Or vast open, undeveloped acres ~ thousand upon thousands upon thousands of open acres that developers haven't touched?

Just look at this countryside.  We really fell in love with this area - we were struck with the vast  amount of undeveloped land when we were here in January and struck again this time ~ I don't think either we ever thought of Florida as having quite this kind of beauty.  

So our 96.9 mile journey yesterday from Summerfield to Brandon was through much of this nice country side ~ it was a great travel day.

We arrived at the Brandon Elks Lodge where we will be for at least a week.  We thought probably five days or so but, as often happens, looks like we may extend our stay some.  

When we were in the Lodge last night there is a "community Christmas" board so Rick and I chose a nine year old girl to buy for.  The wrapping party is next Wednesday and I would kind of like to be here for that ... 

Also in the Lodge last night they had card night ~ all kinds of games etc. so we played "bar poker" ~ never heard of it before but it sure was fun ...

Especially if you WIN!

As we both did!

Rick keeps calling me a winner ~ yeah I'm a real winner HUH!

This seems to be a very active Lodge ~ and a very very friendly Lodge ... some are some aren't and this one sure is!

Oh, by the way ..... there is a train track right behind the Lodge ....

Thankfully they didn't run last night but started around 5 this morning ..... we sure can pick 'em can't we!!  I used to really like trains.... now, well not so much!

So today we are off to the Harley dealer ~ Rick's bike has developed some kind of noise that needs to be tended to.  I also saw there is a Krispy Kreme near the dealership (Krispy Kreme just another one of my not so good for me weaknesses!).  Then we need to shop for a vacuum to replace the one that burnt out/burnt up at Paul's house (along with the battery tender, the drill charger and Paul's vacuum!)  Then I think I'll do the community Christmas shopping as well as find a hairdresser - my roots are about 1 1/2 inches by now and I look like I have a skunk stripe ~ very attractive I'm sure!