06th May 2007

In Memory of John Candy

We are now getting organised to be able to live out of doors, we have a large awning (which is a roof canopy fixed to the side of the TT) and a ground sheet. We now have enough chairs for everyone to sit on (including a little fold up chair for Brianna) and tables to eat from, also we have moved the toaster out, so that the heat doesn’t build up in the TT. Because it is warm and has rained very little we are reasonably happy to leave things outside, however there are racoons. Sally and Sarah actually saw one. They were looking out of the window as it was getting dark and saw a racoon head pop up above our little table. It had a look round and then moved off, very exciting, But it means we don’t leave any food out because they will find it and take it. This was nearly our downfall.

At this point you need to remind yourself of the film The Great Outdoors with John Candy and Dan Ackroyd. When I got up this morning I went out and found the toaster exactly where it is in the picture. The racoons had attempted to drag the toaster off into the forest. They are obviously smart enough to know that it still needs to be plugged in to work, but not smart enough to realise that they could have plugged it in to any of the other camp site power sockets, then we would never have found it.

 

Presumably the conversation between Mr and Mrs Racoon went something like this (these are the subtitles and it may have lost something in translation).

‘Hey they think they have really cleaned up round here’

‘I know, these people have no idea of how to put on a menu’

‘They even swept the porch’

‘Yeah, but I can smell TOAST!!’

‘We love TOAST’

‘Hey why don’t we make TOAST’

‘Because we don’t know how to and there’s no bread’

‘Hey, why don’t we use bread from one of the other restaurants ‘

‘We could really do with a TOASTER at home’

‘If we had a TOASTER, we would be really king round here.’

‘We could have all kinds of cool TOASTER parties’

‘Everybody loves a family with a TOASTER’

‘We could cook all kinds of stuff from the cafes here’

‘Waffles, pop tarts and banana skins’‘

OK, we’ll have it, give me a hand to carry it’‘

Oh dear, they haven’t put a long cord on the TOASTER’

‘Shucks, there goes another evolutionary step forward, just because we don’t know where the extension cord is’

‘Don’t worry, We’ll be back!!!

Seaworld

Sunday: Today we are going to Seaworld. We arrived in perfect time to go and see the dolphins in their performance called ‘Blue Horizons’. It was really good, the dolphins did tricks with people and they had acrobats on high swings and also parrots that flew round above our heads, very exciting. We then went to see the killer whales in their performance of ‘Believe’. They are much larger than dolphins and it was a very impressive display. After that we saw the penguins, the sharks (not in the same area) and the actic animals. It was very nice.

In the afternoon Brianna went to see the ‘Elmo and the Buccaneers’ performance. Then within minutes the sky turned black, the wind came up to gale force and it rained and thundered and lightninged. It stormed for about half an hour then was OK again. So a thunderstorm on 2 days running. 

02 May 2007

Preparing for our family holiday

Yesterday we arrived at Lake Griffin, where we are to meet up with Carl and Sarah, and Helen and Amy.

We have set up our TT on one site, and have booked the next door site for the others to camp on. It is very peaceful here we have already sen two types of woodpecker and Sally has spotted a bright red bird called a Cardinal. Last night we caught a brief glimpse of an armadillo in the twilight. Our campsite is surrounded be American Live Oak trees and thick underbrush and palmettos. So I hope that the others will enjoy it when they arrive on Thursday. I have finaly bought the camera I want, it should arrive on Friday (I hope it is worth it).

Today we are going to do a bit of shopping and sample the delights of an Adult Community (an over 55, open, but gated community. I will report on that later).

Family Reunion

On Thursday we were preparing for the arrival of Sarah, Carl and Brianna. Also Helen and Amy were coming for a holiday. We had put up a couple of tents, bought a little chair for Brianna and an inflatable bed for Carl and Sarah. We drove down to Orlando to collect them at 6.15 no problem. Then we returned to Lake Griffin, sorted ourselves out and went for a meal at Denny’s (last choice, but at least it was open). Then at 10.30 I went back down to Orlando to collect Helen and Amy, who were arriving at 11.15. By the time I had picked them up, they had eaten a Mac Meal and we had driven back it was 1.30 in the morning. So we were a little tired.

Family reunion update

This morning Brianna woke bright and cheerful at 6.00 and we all had a nice early morning cup of tea or coffee. Then we took a nice trip to Wal-Mart to get supplies for a couple of hours, spent shed loads of cash on bug sprays.

This afternoon Helen, Amy and I took a canoe on to the lake again, but didn’t see much as I think it was too warm for the animals, so we decided to go on a dawn safari tomorrow, so we will see if that will produce more wild life (hope its not just bugs.

New Camera

My new camera arrived yesterday and I am trying to work out how to use it. It is a little larger than I thought it would be, but I shall try to cope. It is a lot quicker – I can now take pictures of birds, rather than the post they were sat on when I started to take the pic. I can also control the focal length manually, which is good (that would have allowed me to take pictures of the fish through the glass bottom boat. The 9 megapix give a good result when blown right up. All in all first impressions seems to be very good. 

23 March 2007 Momentous Changes.

So our day started, we had made our decisions, we would buy the TT we had seen in BatesRV and then set out into the wilds of Florida. We set out with nervous excitement and drove south. We wanted to check out the TT once more and then drive the price of it down to more comfortable level.
The weather was warm once again, we were taken by buggy to the TT, everything checked out as we had remembered it.
As we set out for the dealer’s office the cell phone rang, our niece Sarah was phoning to say that our daughter Helen was in hospital in Colorado. ................
(She had been taken to ER ..... she is now OK) In an instant everything had changed.
We returned the villa, spent 3 hours trying to book a flight and a hire car, made decisions about what we could carry and what would have to stay.
Next morning we were on our way, return the car, get the plane, arrive in Denver, pick up a new car and by 7.00 in the evening we were 1800 miles away, sat at 9,600 ft, in Helen’s flat, surrounded by the snow covered peaks of the Rockies.
We had no cold weather clothes; fortunately it was quite warm (in the 40’s F). But we were not going to stop there, we were bound for Carl and Sarah’s house, set another 1000 feet up amongst those snow covered peaks.
Ok, so the script had changed a little, we would now spend time in some of America’s most spectacular scenery, with some of our family. The TT and truck would wait.

22 March 2007 Lake Region Audabon Street Nature Center

This is a small nature center which seems to be run by the local neighbourhood. We drove down a narrow track, through woodland, to a small car park, surrounded by trees, which was, and remained, deserted.
It was completely devoid of traffic, or any other human, noise. It was only the presence of a dilapidated notice board that indicated we were in the right place at all. Next to this was a nesting box, with several copies of a map, well an A4 sheet with a vaguely circular thick black line with the odd description on it, such as ‘pond’, or ‘lake’. There was no sense of scale, but we appeared to be in the middle of the area labelled ‘Butterfly Garden’ although the only evidence seemed to be a single, but very beautiful, large iridescent black/blue butterfly floating around in it.
Nevertheless, there appeared to be a track disappearing into the forest. We unshipped Sally’s electric wheelchair and set off. The first thing to notice was the amount of dead stuff all around, the second thing was that the path was quite uneven, wet in places, sandy in others, with lots of roots on its surface, Sally’s chair had to work like an ATV to make progress along this pathway. When we stood in the car park is was a pleasant, warm spring afternoon. By the time we were 20 feet into the forest the atmosphere had changed, it was warmer, absolutely still, and humid, so humid that water just dripped of trees and bushes, almost as though it was raining. We were surrounded by tall pines and palms, with often dense undergrowth beneath, and American oaks (same bark, but not the pretty leaf shape of our oak trees), which had less dense undergrowth. The trees all had those swampy epiphytes (air plants) hanging from them. Lots of ferns and frondy plants. Old dead and rotting trees and leaves covered any clear areas; many of the dead trees had strange fungi on them. We could hear lots of bird noises, jays, and warblers mostly, although we did hear a woodpecker tapping away in the distance. Lots of bright butterflies flitted round the undergrowth.
As we moved along the path you could often hear scurryings of lizards scampering away through the leaves. Sally and I are not bird experts, so identifying them is not easy. We spent some time watching a small red and brown bird carrying nest making material into an old bird house. As we approached the lake (according to the map, because we couldn’t see very far) the undergrowth became more dense, we passed giant bamboo thickets 30 feet tall. It was even more humid here, everything was wet, the ground, even the path, became quite boggy.
When we reached the lake, it was a small muddy beach with rushes to either side, under a large oak tree which over hung the water. There was a small viewing hide there. Sally and I went in; there was a restricted view of the lake. I spent some time taking pictures of the edge of the lake, and then noticed a tree which had fallen into the lake, the base of the trees was about 6 feet to the right of the little hut. As I looked at it I could see an alligator sleeping on the trunk, only about 20 feet away. Our first encounter with Florida’s most dangerous creature! We carefully crept round the shoreline to get a better view of it – it didn’t move, we took pictures of it. We realised it was awake, at least its eyes were open, but the whole time we were there it just ignored us. It was quite big, about 5 feet long and it had ferocious teeth. We sat on the lakeshore (there was a bench) and had our picnic lunch. While we were there an eagley looking bird (there are loads of big predator birds and I have not sorted them out yet) flew past with a big fish in its talons, we saw a terrapin perched on a log about 10 feet away and all the time there were ducks swimming past and cranes flying past and little warblers flitting round in the oak tree above. It was a lovely little adventure in a rain forest. After our lunch we made our way back to the car park, where it was still dry and pleasant and the single butterfly still flitted round in the butterfly garden. This, we decided was our first real taste of Florida wild life. What a wonderful afternoon we had. We then re-emerged into the hustle and bustle of the American freeway and the Audubon Nature Center returned to its quiet and patient pre-occupation with growing, flowering, eating, dying, decaying and regrowing.

21 March 2007 Parks in the USA

Today is another waiting day, waiting to make sure that everything is in place for us to buy our TT and Truck.
We have decided to visit a nature center.
As in the UK conservation, environmental protection and access to ‘nice areas’ is controlled and managed on several levels.
There are National Parks, with some aspect of national importance, such as Yellowstone, Gettysburg, or in Florida the Everglades. Very popular and usually well known. Similar to our National Parks, like the Peak District. Many have campgrounds in them (often several) which are owned and run by the National Parks Dept
There are State Parks which are run by the State and they protect important areas within the state, they are often quite large, up to 100 square miles, or maybe a specific site of interest, such as Stephen Foster House, on the Suwannee River (We hope there will be more on that later if we visit it). These are also well known and often popular. Many of them have campgrounds in them
there are also conservation areas on a county level, sites of interest to the local environment, or community. They may be local parks, walking or cycling routes, bird sanctuaries, small lakes, fishing ponds etc. Also in this section are the many Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Areas, to you and me they is hunt’n’, shoot’n’ and fish’n’ places. (More about hunting later)They do not usually have full time staff. THE UNFORTUNATE PART about them is that they are only publicised locally. They are often virtually unknown except to local interest groups, so are often almost completely deserted. THE GREAT THING about them is that they are often virtually unknown except to local interest groups, so are often almost completely deserted.
Finding out about them can be difficult. What as happened in Florida is that the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has an environmental conservation plan which links all these local sites and state parks, plus forestry and fishing administrated areas, together, so that they form a chain of habitats which are linked to geological features, such as hill ranges, water and drainage basins etc? This database has been used to create guides to fishing and bird watching. All very clever. The end result is there is The Great Florida Birding Trail which a 2000 mile long, state-wide trail of locations that are special for bird watching. Using the guide to a local section we were able to find a number of little nature reserves, which may be only yards away from busy highways, or shopping areas and all close to where we are staying. One such site is the Lake Region Audubon’s Street Nature Center. It was situated behind a large K Mart store (about half a mile away). We had to use the directions in the guide to find it, as it was tucked away in a residential area, down a cull de sac.

19 March 2007 First State Park Visit

Today saw us visiting our first State Park, a few miles away from the villa, called Lake Louisa. We paid $80 for a family pass which is valid for a year and allows eight family members at a time to visit any of Florida's State Parks as many times as wanted free. Good value when we plan to visit as many parks as we can this visit and again next time we come over.
The park had some beautiful views and its 4,500 acres protect 6 lakes, two streams, 11 natural communities and 100 miles of lake shoreline. The communities included sand hills, scrub, upland mixed forest, cypress swamp, wet flatlands and old citrus grove. We had our picnic lunch by the shore of the largest lake, Lake Louisa, very beautiful but very cold as a howling gale was blowing across the lake. The other side of the belt of trees surrounding the lake was hot, hot, hot. I had twenty minutes sunbathing while Terry took photos of birds and butterflies.
We tootled along a nature trail and were amazed at the size and colours of the butterflies - just like being in Butterfly World at Preston Park!! They were gorgeous. We ogled at the cypress trees sitting in the swamp festooned by Spanish Moss on one side of the path and at the turkey oaks and bluejack oaks on the other side - two completely different habitats right next door to each other - fascinating. There were cacti in the dry sand and reeds in the swamp - again right next door to each other. Amazing. We saw a little lizard scuttle up a branch and whacky great big birds (which we couldn't identify) soaring on the thermals at the edge of one of the lakes, they swooped to within about 30 feet of us. Very impressive. Pity we didn't see alligators, deer, red hawks or gopher tortoises which are supposed to be in the park, but Terry saw (nearly fell over) a snake, don't know what sort, big and dark (about 30 inches long). We saw Deer Moss which looks like moss but is, in fact, a type of lichen which grows on the ground in among the grass! No comparison really!
But, never the less, a great day, all in all.

18 March 2007 English/American Mothers Day

It was Mothers Day in England yesterday, but not so here in the ol' US of A. Here, it’s on the second Sunday in May, so that's probably why the delivery man, bearing a beautiful bouquet of flowers in a vase, looked puzzled when he rang the bell. We nearly didn't answer, as it is the first time the door buzzer has been used during our stay and we weren't sure what the buzzing noise was but he rang again and we just got there in time! Flowers from Andrew and Marie- beautifully arranged with a lovely purple bow adorned with a butterfly- and an ecard from JP and Andrea with a singing kitten with a message that brought a tear to my eye. Helen had phoned the night before, so it was lovely to be remembered by the 'kids'. It seems strange that our two wonderful daughters in law are now mothers themselves and experiencing their first Mothers day.