A Beauty all its own!

Because no one else would want it??

We left Midland, Texas at about 9:15 (CST) this morning and stopped for the evening at 4:15 (MST) in the afternoon at Las Cruces (Spanish for "the Crosses" as in Jesus and the two thieves) making this an 8 hour driving day.

West Texas is unique there's no doubting that.  It is virtually barren.  Here's a picture that Irene took:

 The mountain on the left could be seen from about 100 miles away.  Here's the same mountain as we finally went around its face 2 hours after we first saw it afar off.

Much of the landscape is gypsum rock (along with sandstone and limestone).  We went across numerous washes that had white beds and white stones in them.  Here's a picture of the "lake" that is near Salt Flats, TX.  It is white from the gypsum rock. That is dissolved and turned to sand from the water.  Probably 9 months of the year this lake bed is dry.

All three of the primary types of stone - gypsum, sandstone and limestone are HIGHLY erodible by either water or the even MORE common cause - wind.  The wind was merciless today.  There were easily gusts in excess of 45 mph. The wind is the greatest contributor to shaping the landscape of the area from the Sierra Nevadas in California to the Rockies and from the Rockies to the plains.  With so little rain there is a dearth of vegetation and virtually no grass.  Therefore there is NOTHING to hold the soil as the wind howls.  Here's a picture of the types of mountains that you get from the relentless assault of the wind:

Notice the little "button cap," "nipple" or (South Afrikaans) "kop" that you get from the wind shown on the one mountain in the middle of the picture.  Last year Irene and I went to Monument Valley in Utah where the wind does this to the sandstone:

You can see the similar 45º angle at the base of both mountains.

As we approached El Paso the lower portion of the mountains were shrouded in brown dust.  Three times there were signs advising "High Profile Vehicles" (i.e. - US in an RV) to proceed with caution.  The Trekker dun real good though!  I mean, I could feel the wind pounding on the rig but it was the rarity for it to be moved even a couple of feet by the wind.

Guess what Irene is doing tonight?  If you read the family email #2 you might have guessed (hint: "rewearables")- she's washing the clothes.  It's been since Ocala, Florida that we had water.  We had to dry camp in Red Bay because they shut the water off since it was 11º at night and didn't want the water lines to burst.  Then we got into Camp Bee about 1 hour before Wednesday night Bible Study and didn't have time.  Last night we dry camped again in the Fairmont Park church's parking lot and only had electricity.  So we stopped at Las Cruces at 4 PM to have time to do laundry.  Since there is a fair amount we might be up late and have to leave a little later in the morning.

We will arrive in Tucson tomorrow afternoon.  We are looking forward to seeing Josh and Chris.

Our Phoebe Phix

We left Camp Bee this morning in Marshall about 10 AM and drove to Midland, TX.  For virtually the whole way here there was a 30+ mph wind blowing from the south and we were going west, so the wind was hitting us directly on the "broadside" of our rig.  Our rig was barely budged from its lane by all but the strongest gusts of wind.  It was a pleasure to drive.  Here's a picture of a HUGE flag we saw standing almost straight out from its flagpole looking like a starched sheet.

When we got to Midland we parked at the Fairmont Park Church of Christ.  It's nice because they have an electrical hookup.  Our Son Joel, His Wife Brenda and Our Granddaughter, Phoebe came over and we showed them the new rig "buttoned up" for travel.  Then we had Phoebe stand on each one of the slide-outs as we put it out.   She was very amused.

After showing the rig to the kids we went to eat at Phoebe's choice - Furr's Buffet.  It was pretty good.  Then it was off to see their apartment they moved into about the middle of December.  Phoebe, Irene and I played "go fish."  Irene ended up beating Phoebe by a single pair in the second hand.

Many have been asking for a recent picture of Phoebe.  Her's one of her holding a picture of a fish she painted that Irene took just tonight.

As I'm writing this I am watching the TV show "Elementary" on CBS.  Irene and I watch it virtually every week.   Thursday's are a pretty good night of TV with this show and "Big Bang Theory" on.  It is certainly the BEST comedy on TV at the present time.

Gonna hit the sack soon we continue our trek to Tucson tomorrow.  We hope to get to Las Cruces, NM tomorrow.

Hi, shorty!

Westward, Ho!!

This is going to be a short one.

We left Red Bay at 8:15 this morning to head for Tucson.  I have to give a Sojourners presentation at the church that our son, Joshua, preaches at on Sunday morning so we have to be there Saturday.  Therefore, this was a "make hay while the sun shine" kinda day.  Irene and I are TRYING, really, we are TRYING to S-L-O-W D--O---W----N as we travel.  Use the 2-2-2 rule: 200 miles a day, stop by 2 PM for the day and stay 2 days when you are stopped.  It hasn't happened yet.  Though we just stayed in Ocala for 2 weeks so we need to travel farther, faster and stay a shorter time at a couple of places to get our average back down. Right, Irene?

We were supposed to go from Red Bay to Memphis to Little Rock to Texarkana to Marshall according to our Garmin.  BALDERDASH!  Irene and I LOVE the Natchez Trace Parkway and take it every time we get a chance.  Today we could get on it in Tupelo and take it down to Jackson, MS and take I--20 from there to Marshall.  It's a beautiful drive along the parkway.  No commercial trucks allowed and in the middle of the week like today there is VERY little traffic of ANY kind on the parkway.

One of the amazing sights is the destruction caused by a couple of tornadoes that followed the path of the Trace in 2011.  Here's a picture of some of the trees as they now appear:

Notice how the top of every tree is just sheared off.  Here's another that Irene took today:

Once we arrived at Camp Bee  - the Campground/Headquarters for the Sojourners mission - in Marshall, TX this evening we went to Wednesday night Bible Study at Eastern Hills church of Christ.  The class was an excellent introduction to the Old Covenant Prophets.  Then we went to dinner at Chili's with Brenda and Dave Blair.  We had the Ribs (They aren't a good as Logan's but pretty good).  Brenda and Dave are among our closest friends.  Then we came back to camp and gave them a tour of the Trekker.  Last night it was Brenda and David Bott and tonight Brenda and Dave Blair. Hmmm, very interesting!

Tomorrow we are heading to Midland where we will stop for one night.  We will have dinner with Joel, Brenda and Phoebe - though Phoebe's been sick so we might have to settle for just seeing her at home.  That's it for this post. WRAP IT!

The Completed Cabinetry Modifications

REQUIRED SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING:

A DRIP PAN FOR YOUR "ENVY DROOL" IS SUGGESTED WHILE LOOKING AT THESE PICTURES

Happy Wife, Happy Life!

Well, we are all done the modifications to our cabinetry in our new rig.  They turned out great.  We have some pictures for you in this post

First off the cabinet that we had installed in our Living Area.  You may remember it like this from a previous post:

When TJ Allison first installed it, the doors that he ordered didn't look "good enough, so he reordered them and we went to Florida with it like it was above.  Today they installed the doors, so, here's a couple pictures of it - one with the doors open and the other with them closed:

Doors may be just "aesthetic" but they sure do add to the beauty and make this look like it's right "at home" between the TV/Fireplace Cabinet and the Dinette Cabinet.

The next item we had them replace was the overhead in the bedroom between the TV and the half-bath.  If you were REALLLY alert you may remember it looking like this in an earlier post:

The above picture - if you LOOK close at the top of the cabinet you can see that there is white "ceiling" in front of the cabinet above it.  That's because it was only about 8" deep as seen BELOW, after it was taken down:

Below is a picture showing the depth of the Overhead cabinet going into the same spot showing it is 16" deep.  We DOUBLED the storage space in this cabinet - HOORAY -storage is
E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G to people who full-time in there RVs.

Here's a picture of my hand and forearm fully extended showing the cabinet depth after it has been hung on the ceiling and walls:

Here's a picture of the newly hung cabinet empty:

And here is a picture of the cabinet with what we have kept in it to this time.  This amount of stuff used to FILL THE OLD CABINET to the gills. Now it looks SO lonely in the cabinet and I swear I can hear the cabinet screaming "FEED ME MORE STUFF, IRENE.  I MOCK YOUR PUNY ATTEMPT TO FILL ME!!"

Below is a picture of the cabinet closed and if you look above it you can see very little of the white ceiling because it's all INSIDE the cabinet now.

The third and final modification that TJ completed for us tonight was a makeover of our Main Bathroom Medicine Cabinet.  Previously it looked like this:

If you look closely at the cabinet you can see that the distance from the cabinet mirrors to the back of the sink is about 6 inches and that it doesn't even come out from the wall as far as the box of tissues sitting directly under it to the right of the 4-socket receptacle.

Below is a picture of irene measuring the depth of cabinet while it is still up on the wall:

You can see that is measures 3 1/2" from the back wall to the frontside of the center support behind the center face piece.

Here's a picture showing the depth of our new medicine cabinet:

Irene's NEW and IMPROVED medicine cabinet is a full 8 1/2" deep.  Almost 2.5 x DEEPER therefore it has 2.5 x the cubic footage the old one did.  The REAL advantage is that now larger bottles of medicine easily fit in the medicine cabinet.

Below is a picture of the medicine cabinet open:

In the above picture you can see the 2 ADJUSTABLE shelves (the old medicine cabinet had fixed shelving) which are deep enough to probably use one section of the top shelves to store folded washcloths in.

Below is a picture of the completed medicine cabinet.  The same mirrored glass doors that were on the old cabinet were reused for the remodeled, vastly improved NEW cabinet.

On another note, we spent about 3 hours today with David and Brenda Bott.  We FINALLY got that lunch eaten together.  We talked about our shared Winnebago experience at lunch and then after lunch they came over and we showed them our rig "buttoned up" for travel and then opened it up and showed it to them for use.  We also showed them what modifications we had done TO THAT POINT.

AFTER TJ was done with all of our modifications tonight we invited them back over to the rig - FULLY DRESSED out in all of its new found glory.  We talked for about 1 1/2 hours about the rig we have and the rig they have ordered that starts it's build TOMORROW MORNING at 6 AM.  HOO-RAY for them.

I end this post by noting that our time spent with the Bott's today didn't make "the cut" on their excellent blog "Outside Our Bubble."  Brenda had a long in-depth post about the excitement awaiting them with nary a mention of Jim and Irene.  SNIFFLE, SNIFFLE, BLUBBER :-(.  Where is the love?  Can someone get me a hankie please?!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Just busting your chops, guys.  It was terrific to see you again and spend the time we did sharing the RV "war stories." Your T-Shirt idea is ABOVE top-rate.  Have a wonderful 4 weeks watch your rig go from a bare chassis to the coach of your dreams.

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Back @ Red Bay

Da Botts and Us:

We left Ocala yesterday after church.  We only went as far as Monticello/East Tallahassee KOA yesterday. We got up this morning and ate the KOA campground provided breakfast - a freshly made waffle.  We had Sugar Cane Syrup.  For me it was the first time for cane syrup.  It was better than maple syrup I think.

We ended up driving all the rest of the way to Red Bay, AL which is where Tiffin Motorhomes is.  We have a couple of little things for them to look at (enough to justify us staying in the repair campground here free of charge for the night) tomorrow.

We will meet David and Brenda Bott here tomorrow.  They are a couple that we "met" on irv2.com (an rv information interchange website).  They had ordered an Itasca Ellipse 42GD which is what we USED to own.  They were the ones that informed us about the possible front axle weight issue.  We weighed our rig and found out that even though we weren't "fully loaded" we were already 1200+ pounds over the limit.  That was the final straw that got the ball rolling on our getting Trekker 3.

The Botts had already ordered a new Itasca Ellipse 42GD from Winnebago (Itasca is a Winnebago product line name).  We had stated on the irv2 board who our sales people were at Camping World in Indianapolis and they ended up using the same people (I don't know if our saying they did a good job for us influenced that decision).  Anyway, when they went to Indianapolis (from Upstate New York) to pick it up, we arranged to meet them there and go to lunch with them.  The lunch NEVER occurred because the rig they had ordered was a total mess when it was arrived in Indy.  It was so bad they ended up refusing receipt of it.

(to find out more about the woes that the coach was delivered with, read the post at the following url:)

http://www.outsideourbubble.com/winnebago-no-sale-of-special-ordered-coach-lack-of-build-quality

We've kept in touch with them since we shared the "Winnebago Woes" together (that sounds like a blues song title).  After going through an exhaustive search for a replacement for our "Overweight Ellipse" we settled upon the AB 45LP. We contacted them to tell them about the Allegro Bus 45LP and that we had settled on purchasing one.  We suggested they look into it as a possible coach to purchase.  After a totally exhaustive (and intensive) search of Newmar; Entegra; Tiffin - including visiting all of their manufacturing plants - David and Brenda DID settle on the AB 45LP.  It begins production on Friday.

We knew they we were going to be here for their Bus' production and we knew we were going to be here tomorrow for the installation of our additional cabinetry - so we contacted again and have arranged to FINALLY have that lunch we missed out on way back in July.  It's the longest I've ever had to wait to eat!

Take a hike, Buddy!

o/`o/` When I was 10 years old,
                   It was a very good year
          It was a very good year for tall pine trees
                  Bumps on my knees
                  And 'do as I please'
          It was a very good year o/`o/` 

A verse I made up for "It was a Very Good Year" as sung by Frank "Old Blue Eyes" Sinatra

So I've spent a fair amount of time living in the South.  I lived in North Carolina from the ages of 9 - 11 while my step-father was stationed at Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station.  Then, when I was in the Air Force myself, I went through Basic Training for 8 weeks at Lackland Air Force Base right outside of San Antonio, Texas.  Next it was off to Biloxi, Mississippi for 36 weeks for my Electronic Warfare Systems Training and then I got sent back Biloxi (Keesler Air Force Base) for another 24 weeks on a Temporary Duty Assignment to be trained on a system that used the Original Intel Microprocessor - the 4004 as its "brain."  Later, after I got out of the Air Force I attended White's Ferry Road School of Preaching in West Monroe, Louisiana for 23 months from September 1975 - July 1977.  All told that means I've got a little over 5 years - 1/12 of my life in the South.  We'll just let that percolate for right now and come back to that in a totally different post.

I say all that to say that when I was 9 and 10 and lived in North Carolina I developed a L-O-V-E for walking in the woods.  There it was pine forests - acre after acre of loblolly pine, long leaf pine and short leaf pines.  Climbing a Loblolly was a chore and 2/3s since it was just the trunk with no branches for most of the way up.  Anyway, I NEVER worried about the things I'd worry about today - getting bitten by a snake; falling and breaking a bone, or even getting lost, etc.  I just ran and played and hiked and tried like heck to get up one of those loblollies (though I didn't know their name then - they were just "pine trees").

As I mentioned yesterday today was our last "off day."  We leave tomorrow after church.  So, today I went for a walk, which became a hike through part of the Ocala National Forest.  When I was walking the other day along the road I saw this sign:

Which had this bridge at its base beckoning me into the forest:

The other day I resisted yielding to the "Call of the Wild" and kept walking along the road.  Today, I didn't; today I couldn't; Today I didn't WANT to resist.

The trail was a great one for walking  as you can see from the sign below this part of it is blazed specifically for walker/hiker/runners:

It was a worn-in 2 foot wide path covered with pine needles which had fallen from the trees you can see in the picture above.  It was magnificent and very well up-kept.  Below you can see raised wooden footpaths they had over areas that were even the slightest bit boggy:

About 200 feet into the path I found a 6 ft. high hardwood sapling that had been cut down.  It was about 1" across at its base.  I stripped off the branches that were on it to use it as a "walking stick/snake prod."  Its been cold enough here (in the lower 30s and two nights in the upper 20s) that I'm pretty sure all the snakes (which are cold blooded animals and therefore have to hibernate in cold weather) are still tucked in their burrows for at least another month.  When I was 10, I NEVER thought about snakes and they had all the same ones in North Carolina that they do here - Cottonmouths, Copperheads and Coral Snakes - but with age comes wisdom (or at least FEAR), so I figure I'd better at least have something to scoot them away in case I rounded the corner and a particularly studly one was sunning themselves in the path.

I listen to music when I walk and I purposely make L-O-T-S of noise when I walk in the woods or wilderness areas - both with my traipsing and my singing the songs that I'm listening to.  This is to tell aurally sensitive fauna - deer, skunks, black bears (in this region) and the occasional hunter that I'm coming so they won't be frightened by seeing me.  Again, it seems the wise thing to do.

I also wear a Garmin Forerunner when I walk.  Its charge lasts for about 6 hours.  It plots out on a screen exactly where you are in relationship to the numerous GPS satellites that are in "Geo-synchronous" orbit.  With the Garmin if I mark my original location you can take me ANYWHERE in the world and drop me off and all I have to to is press "Return to Start" and it will show an arrow pointing in the direction of where I marked as my starting point.  I may have to swim oceans; climb mountains or traverse deserts to get there but if I just follow the arrow, I'll arrive back at the start (obviously I'd have to stop to recharge it every 6 hours or so).  They are wonderful tools.

I started walking in the trail and walked and went from the walking trail to walking on some bridal paths they have for horses as shown below:

Then back to the foot path again. And back and forth and back and forth and then I decided I'd better "wrap it up." and head back home to momma who was busy washing clothes and doing some other necessities at the rig.  So now I just looked at the Garmin and my iPhone and found a couple trails that would take me to a dirt road that went the highway with the beckoning hiking path sign.  Below is a copy of my "Walk in the Woods" from Saturday afternoon.  I uploaded the Forerunner to Garmin's on-line site and it shows it on the satellite map.  I just took a "picture" it by doing a "Shift-Command-4" copy on my MacBook Pro.

Time to help my beloved get ready to leave.  She's in full-blown "packin' and sortin' fool" mode already.

THE WALK IN THE WOODS:

And then there were none!

We Have Ignition ....

We woke this morning and headed to the post office.  We had some cards to get in the mail for our "Twin Cousins" - Meada and Neo - birthdays next week.  After that we headed to Williston, Florida about 30 miles from Ocala to look at an RV park we saw advertised at the RV Supershow last weekend.  We got there and while it was nice enough - in fact it had some really impressive "Bling" like a Quarry, a Custom-built RV covered bridge, and a small "mill" which are pictured below - but their rental rates are WAY to high for our tastes.  It won't be happening.

The drive over to Williston was pretty amazing.  It was right through the heart of Marion County's horse country.  The horse farms were really impressive.   We are including a picture of a couple of the horses below.  The most impressive pictures though we weren't able to get since we don't have a panoramic camera.

After checking out Williston Crossing RV Resort we headed over to St. Brendan's Isle Mail Forwarding Service for our final mail pickup.  Now that we have finished that one final item, to quote a line from my favorite movie of all time (Patton with George C. Scott in the title role):

"Das ist das ende, das ende!"  That is the end, the end.

We've done everything we need to do here in Florida for now.  We will be back in the late fall - November ??, 2014 - March ??, 2015.  It's great to be Floridians.

Tomorrow is a "kick-back and relax" day followed by a get buttoned up to travel evening as we get the rig ready for leaving on Sunday afternoon right after we get back from church.

(ALL OF THE TEMPERATURES TO FOLLOW ARE IN FAHRENHEIT - You Canuckians will just have to break out your conversion apps)

Every morning the first thing that Irene and I do is pull up the Weather Channel App on our iPhone and look at the temps.  Everytime we do it reminds us why we've moved to Florida - it was 40º here in Ocala this morning and -8º in Lafayette, Indiana.  Ah, life is good.

The unfortunate thing is that we are heading from here to Red Bay, AL where it was 20º this morning.    Then we head over to Marshall, Texas for 2 weeks.  This morning it was 28º there.  So, for a couple of weeks (while the US is in the "Dry Ice Freezer" due to the "Sky is Falling" imminent onset of global warming, er, "global climate change" - the newest "moniker" for the fact that its NEVER been "this cold" before or "this hot" before or "this wet" before or "this dry" or "this whatever" before) we are going to have to suck it up.  At least until we get to Tucson where it was 56º this morning.  The reallllly nice thing about this is that our new rig is EXCELLENT in the cold.  The floor that can be heated to 104º and an electric "fireplace" heat-a-lator can take the bite out of even the crispest of mornings. Even in Lafayette when it was 0º on Christmas morning we were toasty warm in the rig.

T -1 and Counting

A Little Space Lingo

I was a big space launch buff in the 1960s.  Since my step-father was in the Marine Corps and all of the original 7 astronauts were military pilots the space program was "hallowed ground" in our home.  Alan Shepherd (the first of the Original 7 Astronauts to launch) was in the Navy and John Glenn (the 3rd of the original 7 Astronauts and the first to orbit the earth) was in the Marine Corps.  So every time there was a launch from the first Mercury sub-orbital flight to the landing on the moon - I was allowed to stay home and watch the television coverage.

I remember the countdown: T-2 hours; T-26 minutes and holding; etc.  I didn't know for the longest time what the "T minus" lingo meant.  Finally it dawned on me that "T" meant "Take-off."  So AFTER the Takeoff was Takeoff + 1 minute; 2 minutes; 4 hours, etc.  That only thing left "T minus" to be the time BEFORE the takeoff.  Since time was being counted DOWN to the time of takeoff it was T MINUS 10, 9, 8, 7 etc.

All of that to say that we are at T minus 1 and counting before we leave Florida.  Today I went to the Eye Doctor to see if (MEDICAL ALERT; MEDICAL ALERT) I needed an injection into my eye to reduce the swelling around my retina.  They always give me an eye check first.  This morning I did really well at the eye exam.  I was 20/20 even in my bad eye.  Bottom Line - NO SHOT IN THE EYE!  This means the day was off to a wonderful start and one of the 3 things that still had to be accomplished before heading West was completed.  Thank you, my God.

Next it was a call to Ford to find out if they had sent our Florida Title Application sent to the Florida BMV.  They said they had mailed to yesterday 2nd day UPS and gave us the tracking number.  I checked it expecting it to be there TOMORROW since that would be the 2nd day.  LOOK!!!! IT'S ALREADY DELIVERED (We are on a roll here people!).

Since I had my eyes super-dilated for my testing this morning, Irene went over to the Tax and Tags office but was told we both needed to be there, so she came home and got me.  After about 45 minutes of paperwork, etc. we had a Brand, Spanking New "In God We Trust" Florida License plate in our hand and were headed back to the rig to get it put onto our Ford Flex.  DING - Second of 3 items completed.

So, now we are at "T - 1" and counting.  The only thing we still have to do is head over to St. Brendan's Isle Mail Forwarding Service tomorrow afternoon to pick up our mail on the way out of state.  We will be leaving Saturday or Sunday after church - it just depends on when we have to check out. - Posted by Jim

One Step Closer

Next!

Today we put our Florida License Plate on the Trekker.  Yippee!  When I checked the Mail Forwarding Service we use today, my Voter's Registration Card appears to have arrived.  That will be another milestone.  Irene's will probably arrive here tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning I have an appointment with Dr. Sami.  He's my new Retinologist.  I will probably have to get another injection of Avastin in my left eye to make the swelling near my macula to subside.  I hope to eventually get ahead of this and not have to get the shots anymore.

We hope to get the License Plate for the Flex tomorrow or Friday at the latest.  If we do, we will be leaving here this weekend to start heading toward Camp Bee (the Sojourner's Campground in Marshall, TX).  On the way there we are going to be stopping in Red Bay, AL to have the rest of our cabinetry modifications completed by TJ Allison.

Once we get to Camp Bee we will stay there for a couple weeks.  Then we will head to Midland and Tucson to have a visit with Joel, Brenda and Phoebe and Josh and Chris respectively.  We will finish the month of February in the lower Rio Grande River Valley getting the 'lay of the land' for possibly spending some of our winters there also.

Our first sojourn begins the 17th of March in Port LaVaca, TX.  Since I am the "team leader" for the sojourn, we need to be there by at least the 12th to make sure everything is ready when the other sojourners start arriving.

Irene and I went for a walk today around the Wilderness RV resort.  I'm going to close this post with a couple of pics we took.

MLK Day

Yesterday was Sunday so there wasn't much to post about.  We went to church in the morning and evening at the same congregation I wrote about on Wednesday night - the Ocala Church of Christ.  The class was excellent.  The sermons in the morning and evening were on 1 Kings 19 - Elijah in the cave at Mount Horeb (same as Mt. Sinai).

We made a quick trip to Winn-Dixie on the way back to the home to the rig.  Shouldn't it be called "Lost-Dixie" though?  They didn't Winn the war, they lost it!

Both of the NFL games yesterday were pretty good and the 2 teams that Irene and I wanted to win, did win.  So now it's Peyton Manning's 3rd shot at winning the Super Bowl.  Drew Brees and my New Orleans Saints beat him and the Colts in the Super Bowl in 2009.  It will be a great game with him up against the best defense in football.

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. day.  Mr. King was a great force in the Civil Rights movement in the 60s.  Like so many in that decade, his life was cut short by an idiot with a gun - JFK, RFK, MLK.  A bad decade if your last name began with K?!

I was in the sixth grade in North Carolina when JFK was murdered.  My birthday is November 24th and it occurred on the 22nd.  RFK was killed following his victory in the 1968 California presidential primary.  I lived in California at the time and had just gone to bed after the results were announced when my mom came in to awaken me and tell me that he had been shot.  Martin Luther King had been shot just 2 months before that in Memphis, Tennessee.

Though I didn't agree with the politics of RFK or Dr. King, NO ONE deserves to be killed for striving to help the poor and down-trodden.  It's what Jesus did (though he was a-political - i.e. - he had no political aspirations).  In America we believe in change by election not by bullets.

On a lighter note - Almost unbelievably, I slept in until 9:55 this morning.  Got up, took a shower and after eating "brunch" I went for a 7 mile walk.  Irene beat me 2 out of 3 in Scrabble games today.  Drat!  We've watched a couple of episodes of 'Monster Fish' of Nat Geo Wild and then an episode of Criminal minds on ION TV.  A new series on CBS "Intelligence" just started.  Signing off now to watch it. - posted by Jim

Jim's posting about the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, made me think of a small factum associated with that. Paul Hess who was the president of St. Elizabeth Hospital and was responsible for bringing me  to Lafayette, was previously the president of the hospital that Dr. King was taken to after he was shot. Mr. Hess was the one who announced to the world that he was dead. - Irene

Oops, I just checked an original news posting and found that I made an error in the above note. Mr. Paul Hess was the assistant administrator, not the president of St. Joseph's Hospital where Martin Luther King was taken after he was shot. This is a sister hospital to St. Elizabeth. But he was the one who made the initial announcement that he was dead. I never knew this until Mr. Hess's retirement dinner. One of the nuns who had been there told us that he had to take on the horrible task of facing the reporters and the large group of people who had gathered and tell them that Dr. King had died of a gunshot wound to the right side of the neck which had left a huge gaping hole. Mr.  Hess had never spoken about it to me and even at the dinner did not make any comment about it but just looked sad. I believe it was the worst moment of his entire professional career.  posted by Irene

Le Creme de le Creme

SuperShow Shows Us NUTTIN'

We awoke at 7:00 AM this morning to get down the the Tampa RV Supershow being put on by the Florida RV Trade Association (FRVTA).  It is one of the largest RV shows in the United States.  It has EVERY motorhome, tow trailer and 5th wheel dealer in attendance as well as numerous dealerships from across Florida.  There are literally THOUSANDS of RVs of every size, shape, class and price point available for your inspection and perusal (except the Prevosts - they are AT the show but those are "too good" to allow the "rabble" in.  You have to set appointments to tour them.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if at the time of setting up your appointment you had to agree to a credit check and asset verification before it is granted) and touring.  On top of all of that there are HUNDREDS of vendors hawking every kind of RV related item imaginable (EXCEPT the ONE THING for which I was actually searching).

We once again went through about 14 different high end RVs.  What did we conclude:

1) Our Tiffin 45LP has the BEST FLOORPLAN available on the market

2) Our Tiffin 45LP has the BEST STORAGE of any RV that is over 40 ft when you add both INTERIOR and BASEMENT storage

3) Our Tiffin 45LP is the "PRETTIEST" of all the RVs we saw - Our Custom Color Choice blows the competition away!

It's a wonderful thing to (once again) have your decision validated.

An interesting point - The top 5 selling RVs are 1)Tiffin 2) Winnebago 3) Fleetwood 4) Thor 5) Newmar

What Irene and I find interesting about this is if you go on iRV2 and read the threads you would SWEAR that the Entegra Coach Line (Aspire, Anthem, Cornerstone) are the B-E-S-T coaches EVER made.  Yet they don't even crack the top 5.  Irene and I have thought for over 2 years that Entegra has a strategic plan to swamp RV owner sites with "Positive PooP" write-ups by people actually from Entegra who are doing nothing more than being shills for their products in hopes of getting traction in the marketplace.  Kind of like the statement that: "If you repeat a lie often enough and loud enough it becomes the truth" - Joseph Geobbles, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda

The one item I was hoping to find there was tire shades which keep the UV light from aging your tire sidewalls and making them age, weaken and crack more quickly - NOPE!

Coming home we took a tour of the southwest portion of Marion County.  We learned that Marion County, Florida is called the "Horse Capitol of the World."  Triple Crown winner Affirmed is from a Marion County farm.  Today, Marion County is one of the major thoroughbred centers of the world. It has more than 1,200 horse farms, including about 900 thoroughbred farms, totaling some 77,000 acres (310 km²). Ocala is well known as a "horse capital of the world."

The western portion of the county is much drier than the eastern portion.  I've shared before how with the Oklawha River, the Lakes and the Cross Florida Barge Canal the eastern portion of county is really boggy.  The western portion has more elevation so it's significantly drier.  That's good because you can't have horses standing in water.  They get hoof fungus and CHECKMATE!

Another interesting tidbit.  We got off I-75 and I wanted to see "Ross Prairie State Forest."  I was expecting something like the "Tallgrass Prairie National Reserve" that Irene and I went to in Kansas. NOPE!  Their prairie had trees - lots and lots and lots of trees.  So now I'm going to look up the definition of "Prairie:"

Free Online Dictionary:

prai·rie  (prâr)

n.

An extensive area of flat or rolling, predominantly treeless grassland, especially the large tract or plain of central North America.

Free Miraim-Webster Dictionary

prai·rie

 noun, often attributive \ˈprer-ē\

: a large, mostly flat area of land in North America that has few trees and is covered in grasses

Full Definition of PRAIRIE

1

:  land in or predominantly in grass

2

:  a tract of grassland: as

Online Cambridge Dictionary

prairie

  /ˈpreər·i/ n

› a wide area of flat land, covered with grass, esp. a large area in central North America that was originally covered by grass and is now mainly farming land

YEP!  I'm correct.  I don't know WHERE these people get off calling a "Forest" a "Prairie."

If you tell a lie often enough and loud enough it will become the truth???

Mail Tour

Another Marion County

Our residence is in Silver Springs, Florida about 7 miles east of Ocala.  Ocala is the county seat for Marion County, Florida.  In the United States there are 15 counties named "Marion," including the one in Indiana which is (essentially) the city of Indianapolis.  All of these, except the one in South Carolina are in the "Second Grouping" of states (as I will call them) that followed after the original 13 colonies which became the "original" 13 states.  There are also 30 townships named Marion.  There are also 14 cities names Marion.  All of these derive their name from Francis Marion, a hero of the Revolutionary War.  He was a militiaman in South Carolina originally commissioned as a Captain but ultimately attaining the rank of General.  His "nom de guerre" (war name) was "The Swamp Fox."  He is widely regarded as one of the "Fathers" of the idea of "Guerrilla Warfare" - hit, inflict as many casualties as possible and disappear into the ethereum.  He was born and died in South Carolina.  The movie "The Patriot" is extremely loosely based upon his lore.  It kind of gave the writers a skeleton to build the movie around.  Its interesting how many cities are named after revolutionary war heroes that today no one realizes how they got their names because they no longer teach AMERICAN HISTORY in Junior or Senior High School, they teach American Apologetics.  Many of you may not be aware that Carolyn's husband, Nat Marion is a distant relative of Francis Marion.

We went for another walk this afternoon.  I'm really proud of Irene, we walked 1.87 miles.  That's wonderful.  Give her a digital "High 5" on her Facebook page everybody.  After that we drove up to get our mail in Green Cove Springs about 68 miles away.  Our new Florida Regions Account ATM cards got there today.  Yippee!  There was some other good stuff there too.  Since they aren't open Saturdays and Monday is a Federal Holiday - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. day, we thought it best to go get it all today.

Coming back we drove around the SouthEast portion of Marion County.  The burgs of Oklawaha and Belleville as well as SouthEast Ocala.  There's so much of the land here that is boggy.  The Oklawaha River looks like a spiderweb and it barely moves.  There is a great percentage of the water that is still enough that it's covered with Water Lilies.

There is also a Cross Florida Barge Canal that we drive over when we are going up to Green Cove Springs.  There is at least 1 lock on it because we can see it from where the bridge is that we drive over it on.  This is interesting to me because one of my great great _______ grandfathers was a lock master on the Ohio River (Contact Joel at arthurgordon@yahoo.com for all the specifics, he's the genealogist in the family).

Irene and I just finished watching "Captain America: The Original Avenger."  Thanks to Brad, our son-in-law, for the WD:LiveTV setup that has about 200 movies on it.  Thanks sir - but less R rated movies next time please! :-)

Oklawaha River Walk

The EYES have it

I've been trying for 2 weeks to get an appointment for my eyes.  I have macular edema secondary to aterial/venous occlusion.  They made it a really long complicated name so they can charge me more for treating it, I'm convinced about that.  All that means is I have an artery that lays across a vein in my eye, so it makes the blood in the vein back up some causing some swelling.  Anyway, I have to get the eye checked every 6 weeks or so and if it's swelled up they give me a shot of Avastin IN the eye. OUCH!

Actually, they dilate the eye with 3 different dilation drugs.  It actually takes 24 hours for the drugs to wear off so it makes it virtually impossible to drive at night without my 100% UV blocking sunglasses on.  Then they put 3 different numbing agents on the eyeball so you can't feel when they actually stick the needle in.  What you CAN feel is about 1/4" away being pulled some as the needle pushes on the eyeball before going into it.

Well, when we realized we were moving to Ocala I got on line and looked for a retinologist.  Ocala Eye Centers is the largest Opthalmologic Practice in town.  On January 4th I went on their website and left an email asking for someone to contact me so I could become a patient.  They sent me an auto-response that: "Someone will be in touch with you soon."  I gues 6 days later falls into their definition of "soon."  On the 10th they told me that they had to have a referral from Dr. Kusumi (my Lafayette Retinologist).  I called them and told them the name and fax number of the doctor here.  On Tuesday the 14th I called Ocala Eye to see if they'd gotten the referral.  NOPE!  I called Dr. Kusumi's office again to remind them to send it.  Wednesday I called Ocala Eye to ask if they'd gotten it.  NOPE!  Again I called Dr. Kusumi's office.  They had sent it on Monday.  Ocala Eye said they hadn't gotten it.  I asked Dr. Kusumi's to send it again.  They did.  Calling Ocala Eye this morning I was told that "Yes" they had gotten the referral but that the Retinologist was out of town at a Medical Meeting until next Tuesday and wouldn't see it until then and it would probably be later in the week before he would even decide how/if to treat me.  Bottom line, I've been trying to for weeks only to be told it will be at LEAST another week.  I'm NOT a happy camper about this, I need my eye examined and tested!  Done venting.

So, today we got up, I whooped Irene two times in Scrabble.  Then we took a walk.  We got about 7/10 of a mile in before Irene said "It's too windy, I've gotta go in."  It was in the mid 50s with a 20 mph wind.  What's hilarious (in THIS northerners mind) is that yesterday that had a cold weather advisory here for wind chill.  Yep, its 48º and they have a wind chill advisory.  I'm thinking "Kazumi and I have walked to work at 0º with a 10 mph wind (-20º wind chill factor)  BUT I guess it all depends on what you are used to.  After we ate lunch, Irene stayed home and washed clothes while I went out and got another 5 mile walk in.  I walked over the Oklawaha River bridge which is about 3/4 miles long and pretty steep.  It was a work out.

After coming home we had dinner and Irene BARELY beat me a couple times in Scrabble.

DRAT!  I usually watch Big Bang Theory and Elementary on Thursday night and tonight they are both reruns.  Ha-rumpf!  So, I'm finishing this blog posting way before midnight.

Just Kickin' Back

The Life of Riley

Ahhh, now THIS is retirement.  We awoke at 8:55 this morning and grabbed a game of scrabble as we ate our cereal.  I had cinnamon Chex.  Irene had Chocolate Fiber One (gotta stay "regular" you know).  Then it was off for a morning "Constitutional" (I mean reaaaalllllly regular).  We walked around the "Town Park" looking for FSBO lots (For Sale By Owner) and put in 1 1/4 miles before lunch.  IT WORKED ('nuff said?)!

After lunch I went for another walk to look at "the Preserve" which is the Class A motorhome area here and around the "Village Park" which is the area in which we are renting in right now.  Altogether I put in additional 3.25 miles.  It felt good to be walking again.  I haven't been walking much recently because IT'S TOO COLD!  That's one of the reasons we decided on Florida.  Here in Ocala the average High temps during the days is 70º in January and that's the coldest month of the year.

When I walk I've got bluetooth stereo earbuds I wear and listen to my tunes.  I also sing along as I go (kind of a 'whistle while you work' thing) which is amusing to all the neighbors.   I just smile and wave and move on before they press charges for noise pollution.  (Typically their dogs like it though: I can hear them "howling in three part harmony" sometimes).

It's Wednesday night which means - Midweek Bible Study typically.  I looked online because we decided to go to one of the other churches of Christ in town.  I could SWEAR it said that their Bible study began a 6:00 PM - NOPE!! 7:00 PM.  So we made the run to Walmart we were going to make AFTER Bible Study, BEFORE Bible Study.  The congregation we attended ended up being a "Black Congregation" (or at least we were the only two Caucasians in attendance).  It was really nice and friendly.  We will DEFINITELY be going there again on Sunday.  It had about 20 people other than us.  Their theme for 2014 is "Back to the Bible."  That's OUR kinda church!

After we got home this evening we watched the latest episode of "Bones" which I recorded.  To be honest, the show is getting old.  I record about a dozen or so different series during the year:

Criminal Minds
NCIS
NCIS:Los Angeles
Person of Interest
Elementary
Mentalist
Big Bang Theory
Intelligence
The Following
Bones
Rizzolli and Isles
Perception
Agents of Shield

Irene calls me a "TV-aholic."  Its not true.  I could stop anytime I want to.

Wednesday night is "Criminal Minds" night.  It's a great show.

Closed out the night by thumping someone in Scrabble 2 times and writing this post.

Have a great night and may God bless you all.  Thanks for the kind remarks from many of you about the blog.  I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Irene wanted me to add that mentioning "Duck Dynasty" in my last post reminded her of the guy that she saw in line at the Tags and Taxes office that was a dead ringer for Sy Robertson - Gray hair in a ponytail, gray beard, glasses  and wearing Camo.  The only thing that he was missing was the 1 gallon ice tea container that Sy always has in hand and she doesn't know that he didn't have it too.