December 31, 2006

How much fun is allowable during retirement? Are we enjoying ourselves too much? Since we retired at the end of June, we have traveled through twelve of the fifty United States. We visited with family and old friends along the way. We have made some very wonderful new friends that we can’t wait to see again. We attended a Balloon Festival in Central Illinois. We saw the World’s Largest Ball of Twine and, one of Charlotte’s favorite’s, the awe-inspiring Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. We have been educated at NOAA’s National Weather Service in Goodland, Kansas and many small and large Museums in various places. We have driven on dirt roads and super highways. We have eaten in expensive restaurants and beautiful community parks. For me, the best is having the perfect traveling companion. Charlotte is talented, beautiful, intelligent, and everything I could ever want as a partner. We can only hope this wonderful life will continue far into the future.

We hope this has been a good year for everyone reading our adventures. We wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

December 25, 2006

It is Christmas Day and we awoke in a different Park. We are on the west coast of Florida near Tampa at Seffner. The temperature is still beautiful even though we are getting rain and waiting through a tornado watch. You can see in the following pictures the beauty of this place. We are very close to the coach next to us.

Santa was very good to us this year. We got a new Motorhome. RV sales are slow this time of year so we got an exceptional deal. Jill and Karl don’t worry; we spent very little money. That was a note to our daughter and son in law our financial advisors.

We have a 36Z Bounder made by Fleetwood. It is thirty-seven foot long with two slides. The bedroom is larger and a lot easier to find things in the closets and drawers. In the galley, the panty is approximately four times larger. It will hold all of our can goods and most of our cookware. No more crawling into the cabinet for Char to get something to cook with. The basement storage space is phenomenal. We moved everything in and still have room for more. This doesn’t mean we need more. It means we can organize better and take less time to find things. The above picture of the two coaches close together is so we can transfer our “stuff” as easy as possible.

Here are a couple of pictures of our new home.

We hope everyone received everything they wanted this year. We did.

December 23, 2006

It is two days till Christmas and we are in sunny Central Florida enjoying the warm nights and even warmer days. In the last few days, we have thought often of our daughter, Jill, her husband, Karl, and our fantastic granddaughter, Abby. They are recovering from a thirty-three inch snowfall and temperatures in the twenties. That’s a lot of snow to shovel. They sent us some pictures of their adventures. It does look like fun but we don’t miss this kind of fun.

Even with all this snow, Karl’s family managed to get to Colorado for the holidays. It was not easy because of the airport closing for a couple of days. Hopefully, the weather will be better for their return home flights.

Mike is out on the Atlantic Ocean somewhere. This time the Disney Magic is on a ten day cruise instead of the regular seven-day trip. We plan to drive to Port Canaveral on Tuesday to have lunch with him and learn about his adventures on the extended cruise.

We will close this entry with one thought for all. We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.

December 17, 2006

Pasadena has the Rose Parade, New York has Macy’s Parade, Hollywood has The Hollywood Christmas Parade, Lake Orion, Michigan has The Orion Area Lighted Parade “Christmas on Broadway” and there are many more parades at Christmas time around the country. Today we had the opportunity to watch the Ponderosa RV Park Annual Christmas Parade in Kissimmee, Florida. This popular parade was broadcast live to our Granddaughter in Highlands Ranch, Colorado thanks to the CHAR WEBCAM SERVICES. Char provided the commentary from her Motorhome along the parade route. If you didn’t get to see the actual festivities, I am including some pictures.

The Grand Marshall led the Parade.

We had a Christmas tree riding a bike. This was the 1st place entry winner.

There was a Genie on a flying carpet. This was the 2nd place winner.

A colorful butterfly floated passed us. This was the 3rd place winner.

Santa walked along entertaining everyone on his trombone.

It was a fun afternoon. Later everyone enjoyed a barbecue at the recreation hall.

December 12, 2006

What a terrific day! We had a wonderful time at Sea World, thanks to our good friends, Albert, Shelly and Brittany. They gave us the best gift of two tickets. We arrived around 10:30 this morning and left at around 7:00 this evening. It was not very crowded so we were able to see and do almost everything available in the Park. We stayed for the nighttime Christmastide Holiday Fountain Show and then enjoyed the snow flurries on the way out.

As always, we really enjoyed the Shamu Show. We were high enough up in the stadium so we didn't get wet.

One of our favorite Holiday decorations was the large white stars behind Shamu Stadium. If you stopped and watched for a while, you could almost see them dancing to the music.



Of course, the spectacularly decorated Christmas tree was beautiful both day and night.



While we were waiting for the Christmas Holiday Fountain Show to start, we met a family from Wisconsin. They were with their Daughter and her family from Maryland. Their Great Grandson, Noah was six years old and very entertaining. He used our camera to take the following picture. He did a great job. He is very talented.

This truly was a great day thanks to great friends.

December 9, 2006

Today we sewed the edges and put grommets in our new grass mat. It will help keep all the dirt from being tracked into the Motorhome. Thanks to Richard and Vera we were able to get the material from Beasley Manufacturing. They took us to Beasley to get a sunshade made for our awning. We also purchased extra material and they helped us make a shade for inside the front window. It gives us a lot more privacy. We can see out but no one can see in during the day. At night we still close the regular curtains so people can’t see in our home. The front shade also helps keep it cooler inside on the sunny days. You can see in this picture we are ready for Christmas with our little spiral tree beside the Motorhome.

If you are in Central Florida and need shades or material, stop by and see the folks at Beasley. They are open on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 9:00 A.M. – 3:00 P. M., November 1st through April 30th. They a wonderful couple who do great quality work at reasonable prices. For you do-it-youselfers, they have everything you will need to make sunshades, grass mats or windshield covers. They have all the accessories including tie-down stakes, tie-down straps, grommets, fabric slides with grommets for your awning track, the tool for installing grommets, suction cups, holding clips and anything else you would need. The address is:

59 South Maryland Avenue
P. O. Box 637
Center Hill, Florida 33514

Phone: 352.793.5055

They spend their Summers in Indiana near Shipshewana. Here is a picture of their place in Florida.

It is amazing all the things we will do to keep up with the neighbors. Thanks Richard and Vera for showing us how to make life more comfortable on a small budget.

December 1, 2006

Now that Thanksgiving is past, our thoughts are turning to Christmas. We went to see some of the lights at Walt Disney World with Richard and Vera. We had a little rain at Disney’s MGM Studio but still enjoyed the wonderful light displays.

At Epcot Center the weather was perfect. We saw the Holidays Around the World Candle Light Processional. It is a very moving experience.


We decorated our tree for the motor home a couple of nights later. Charlotte and Vera did a fantastic job. Rich and I helped by staying out of the way and teaching each other more uses of the computer.