A Dog day in Deland

So seriously, how often do you go to a Dog Mardi Gras parade?  Me neither, so today was a first for us ~ although Sir was not in attendance.  My original plan was to have him be in the parade wearing some of my New Orleans beads ~ ummm logic seems to have prevailed and I (we) decided not to take advantage of yesterdays good fortune when Sir made new friends at the bark park.

Before I continue about the parade .... Rick and I recently learned that Frick doesn't like peacocks (!?!?!?!?  HUH) so it was most appropriate that I take many photos of this "lovely" poodle/peacock ~ wishing Frick was here to see it first hand.   Since you weren't here Frick, we could only wonder if you'd have stood there watching this dog/peacock or run "for the hills"?? 

The next several photos (as well as the babe above with the coconut bra) are just some sites from, and around, the parade .... 

NOPE, that is not Sir above ... truly.  And below, let me assure you, I am NOT in that photo ~ those are the 2008 debutantes of Deland, FL.  Who knew debutantes were still around!  WOW

Seriously ~ a debutante .... I have a difficult time comprehending that in this day and age .... can someone help me out here ~ Mom, I need you to help me out with this one, cause gosh Mom understood ~ her daughters didn't, but she surely did and tried to instill the "logic" in her three daughters (is there really logic in debutante?)!

And below, yet another parade bystander shot!

We had a great day today and Sir went back to the dog park this afternoon to work of some of that pent up energy.

I've told Rick several times in the three days that we've been here how much I really like this town.  For some reason it reminds me a lot of our hometown of Sioux Falls (Rick and Jaye where the heck are you guys?).  Deland, FL is a very warm and welcoming town with old, lovely kept or rehabbed buildings, streets that are laid out with some logic, interesting shops and very very friendly, inviting people.  I've mentioned several times throughout the last 15 1/2 months that some Lodges are more welcoming than others - well this is one of those very welcoming Lodges.  We've met some terrific people from many walks of life (as you've read that is one of the high points of these travels of ours).  Deland is certainly on our "do return" list.

With all that said (well written) we are leaving here tomorrow to head north.  We'd planned to be out of here today, but I really (read whined) wanted to witness the "parade" today.  Oh by the way, the parade lasted 50 minutes (Rick timed it, it didn't matter to me how long it lasted ... it was a blast!!)

it's a miracle in the Florida sun and air

That photo above is of the Volusia County Barkley Square Dog Park here in lovely Deland.

Barkley Square would be where Sir met his new FRIENDS ~ Charlie above, who had more energy than Sir ~ hard to believe but true ... How does anyone deal with a Jack Russell Terrier anyway?  Charlie truly bounces off the fences and hops like a rabbit (or kangaroo?)

The photo above and the two below are Sir and his new pals George (the sheepdog, unfortunately named after George Steinbrenner ~ bet you love that huh Josh!) and the St. Bernard named Toesha ... 

Sir has never been to a dog park ~ because we were unsure/afraid of his behavior.  At this park there was a very large fenced area prior to this huge huge huge field (also fenced of course) ... we took Sir to the first fenced area and let him get used to the smells etc. and Charlie's person came along and decided Charlie and Arlo would play wonderfully together!!!  Oh a tense moment for myself!  Well it was just wonderful ... then Rick and I figured what the heck we'll walk Sir around the huge area with the pond etc, on his leash .... after he got that part we let him go ... he was so happy to be running around like a whackado with his new pals!!!

Who knew????

I'm trying already!!!

Yes, I am trying to be a better blogger ~ I really am.  

The picture below (since I've had really nice comments on the sunset photos I guess people maybe enjoy them??) was taken last night at the upscale motor coach resort we were at in Port St. Lucie.  No ocean view there but there was a body of water in front of our site (the "resort" referred to it as a lake but .... Champlain or Winnipesaukee or Mead are lakes - this, well not so much) ~ you know, the site that if you wanted to purchase it would be $159,000 plus a monthly maintenance of $249. thank you very much ~ yes we might have been a bit out of our league ~ I'd prefer my very own couple acres but it was a lovely property, just not for us.

These two photos are as we were leaving Port St. Lucie today.  We had to go to the storage facility where the trailer (with the bikes and my bicycle (forgot to bring it with us to said resort) were stored while we were at the "resort" ~ no lowly trailers allowed there!  Down the road was this stadium ~ Frick you know what is is ... Joshua I imagine you do too?

Correct, it is Tradition Field ~ spring training for the New York Mets.  Word has it that the rookies are there now, but there were no practices or games scheduled for several weeks.  Had there been you know we'd have hung around for  few days ~ darn I would have loved that since the Mets are the only NY team I could , with any conscience, cheer for.

So here's a story for the Rick and Tracey travel journal of how interesting things can be....

My sister lives in a small town in New York (Crown Point) where the population is approximately 2100 people.  Well we pulled into an Elks Lodge here in Deland, FL (where the temperature outside at the moment is 35 and predicted to go to 24 ~ seriously, this IS Florida right?  Anyway, I digress ... I noticed that our "neighbor" here (there are only two "sites" here) had VT plates on his rig so when they arrived back here I asked where in VT he was from (I was born in VT a few years ago) and he told me Middlebury and we chatted some about the area and I mentioned I had a sister across the lake (Champlain) in Crown Point and he explained that he had a cabin on the lake there in Crown Point ~! well later in the Lodge we discovered that my sister and his sister in law are friends and my sister works at a store his sister in law owns ... another case of what a small world this is.

And to all a good night as I crawl under the electric blanket .......

I know I know

Without Chester telling me ~ it's been a while since an update, and I better get with the program!  Once again, I've been down a couple days ... what is going on here anyway?  We had my after procedure follow up appointment with the gastroenterologist in the Keys and it seemed I was "staying the course", HMMM?

Anyway, we left the Keys on Sunday for the 190 mile journey up to Port St. Lucie.  Unfortunately Rick's co-pilot was horizontal on the couch for most of the journey so he was pretty much on his own with "smarty pants" (the GPS) as his co-pilot!  I guess sometimes that could be a blessing in disguise because "smarty pants" doesn't tell him to watch out for things or slow down (although I rarely have to request he slow down when he's driving the coach!)

So, here are a few random photos again.  Above is Himself doing parking duty at the Lodge a couple nights before we left.

Below is our last Keys sunset for this season.  We did, however, book part of our stay there for next year.  We have reserved the month of January again.  Once more this was a change of "plans" ~ we had decided a couple months ago that we would probably head to Texas or New Mexico next winter, but changed our minds once we got into the "Keys-attitude" again!

Yesterday, we did a bit of travel around this area.  Arlo went exploring at Jensen Beach.  Poor guy probably wondered where we put his ocean from the Keys ... as he hadn't see ocean for 24 hours or so and would go swimming several times a day in the Keys.  He was so funny when we pulled into the parking area for this small beach area yesterday!

This man at the fish cleaning table there was really attracting the pelicans!  Pelicans ~ did you know their beak can hold more than their belly can!

Below is Sir at some restaurant we stopped at in Ft. Pierce (I think it was).  For the life of me I can not remember the name of the place.

The beaches and waterfronts in these parts are beautiful.  This Jensen Beach and Fort Pierce area is a peninsula separated from the mainland by the Indian River.  It reminded me somewhat of the Outer Banks in North Carolina.  However this area was much much friendlier and more accessible with many many beach access areas ~ neither of which were our observations when we were at the Outer Banks.

We are staying at an "Outdoor Resorts of America" park in Port St. Lucie for a few nights on a deal someone told us about ~ four days and three nights free ~ you do have to listen to a sales speech, but you know it's nice to have these opportunities once in a while.  This is a gorgeous place but out of our league to say the least!  As Lucy said about a place she and her husband stayed "we have nothing in common with the Prevost crowd"  We can't even have the trailer here so it is in a storage facility a couple miles down the road!  

Today we are off to get a connection to hopefully solve an issue we are having with one of our tanks!  After which I'm going to a farmer's market I read about, then to go stock up on stuff we need before we leave here tomorrow and continue our northern journey.

Just some photos ..

Lots of sunset photos I guess ... comments I get tell me sunset photos are good .. so here's a few more.  As with everything else, some are better than ever, but I haven't seen a bad one yet!  This was taken a couple evenings ago at "Snooks Bayside" in Key Largo.  It was a very cloudy evening so it made for an interesting sunset (or lack thereof).  About 10 minutes after I took this photo the clouds were so beautiful and pink but there was a body in the way by the time I turned the camera back on.  Below are two more from the same place, same evening.

The next three were taken last night from our "campground" here at the Elks.

Moving on from sunsets are a few pictures I took the other day at the "Ocean View" motel and bar/restuarant in Islamorada (this is the place where we took great pictures of how we spent Chirstmas 2007 down here).  It is one of our favorite place to go in these parts ~ they are very dog friendly, the have a terrific outside seating area, a pool that the restaurant patrons can use (we haven't), a playground area for kids, a dock a bit down from the restuarant where the picture below was taken of Sir playing in the water surrounded by mangroves!

We are winding down around here - leaving on Sunday so Saturday will be spent cleaning the coach, loading and securing the bikes in the trailer and a few other things in preparation.  As I'd mentioned before it is bittersweet to be leaving here.  We had sort of planned to stay in Texas next winter for a couple months but are rethinking that "plan".  We have had another great stay here and still have things we want to do and see.  We shall see ~ as most people know, we aren't so good at making plans and keeping them!

Rick is out on his bike ~ I'd planned on going but it seemed best I stay close to home for a while, so hopefully we'll get out together tomorrow and for a couple hours Saturday morning.  We are parking cars here at the Lodge this evening for a Conservation Commission event after which we will go out to dinner - man these $50. lunches and $100. dinners are truly catching up with us ~ as in waist lines!  I said to Rick the other day, when we leave here and get back to our "normal" eating habits it will be like we got a huge raise we'll be saving so much money!  We have been very out of control down here!

Guess that's all for now.

The Fish Song

Not much doing with us these days ~ kind of winding down our stay here in the Keys ... bittersweet that it is.  Rick and I are both looking forward to getting back on the road but hate to leave this beautiful place and the beautiful weather.  Remember how concerned I was seven weeks ago about staying here for six weeks and the thought of getting bored?  Well that didn't happen, maybe because I lost about three of those weeks being sick but whatever the reason, I never got bored!

Above is a video Trisha sent me last night of Connor performing "The Fish Song" he learned at school ... I laughed so hard I peed my pants (too much information you say!) and my back was killing me.  Hope y'all find it even half as entertaining as I did!  I do have some sunset photos to post but I'll do it "later" on a different post.  Also, Rick pointed out to me the other day that I've been very lax with the picassa albums!  My bad ...

Back to "normal"?

I think ~ knock on wood (what is the meaning/purpose/signifcance/origin of that saying anyway?).  So, I seem to be just about there to "normal" or as close as I'm capable of being!

On with the post, below is a picture of Vovo, Vovo (Portugeuse for grandmother and grandfather, but I can not get the proper accent marks inserted) (Roy and Betty ~ Bethie's parents), Grampa Rick and Tracey .... hanging out in the Keys waiting for the baby to arrive in New Hampster (about three weeks from now, but I'm sure Bethie would say now would be fine!).  Roy and Betty are spending the winter in Delray Beach which is about 100 miles from us.  They headed down to Key West yesterday for a couple days, and we all had lunch together yesterday.  A very enjoyable time with very enjoyable people. 

Below is more big news from these parts ..... yup I was initiated last night!