Since Christmas Day

Christmas Day was a laid back kind of day. We spent the day lounging around the motorhome, errr correction, I spent the day lounging around the motorhome but Barbie decided to go through the cabinets of the motorhome to reorganize and cull some items that we don’t use, therefore don’t need. The only excursion out was to the Rock Crusher Canyon community Christmas dinner at 2:00pm in the clubhouse. The park supplied the ham, scalloped potatoes and a “California blend” of steamed vegetables and tea and coffee. The blend consisted of broccoli, cauliflower and squash. Then every couple/guest was to bring a dish to share. There was a signup list that had been posted for about 10 days with different options to bring. This allowed for a variety and a sufficient number of dishes in each food group. There was a good crowd of about 75 folks in attendance. The food was plentiful and quite tasty. Wouldn’t you know we forgot to bring a camera, so I have no pictures of the event.

Sunday, the 26th, which would have been my father’s 89th birthday had he not passed away in 2003, was Christmas Day continued. Barbie finished her “holiday cleaning frenzy” and I watched football on the computer. Yes, on the computer, as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were blacked out on tv so I watched it on a live internet feed again. I did this regularly when we were out of state at the beginning of the season.

The cold weather the past couple of days has left my back and my left knee aching a bit. It’s hell getting old and having to deal with old injuries. Of course, give me the option of a little discomfort as compared to the other option….give me some soreness and stiffness any day. It was down to 23 degrees in Crystal River last night. Once again we simply left a trickle of water running in the kitchen sink and we had no problem with hoses freezing or lines cracking. We use that philosophy when the lows are projected to be between 20-32 degrees. Below 20 degrees, we’ll disconnect the hose, put it away and use the internal water supply. We’ll be tricklin’ again tonight.

Monday I set up my DJ equipment in the motorhome with Barbie’s help, to give it a test run before New Years Eve. I bought some new speakers in May that are a bit smaller in size than my original set but I hadn’t hooked them up to listen to them yet. I figured I’d test them out and if there was a problem with them I could take them back to the stix-n-bricks home in Valrico today and bring back the big ones I’ve used previously. The new speakers sound really good but I’m glad we did the test run as I recently downloaded a newer version of my VirtualDJ software which I use and it wouldn’t work initially. It wouldn’t recognize my music on I Tunes. That would present a major problem for Friday night, I’d say. To solve the problem I simply had to reconfigure the setup and all was well after a couple of tweaks. “JB the DJ” is ready for New Years Eve. All I really want to do is review the “must play” list and the other potentials and put them in a “folder” in the software. That way I don’t have to search through my 2500 song library to find what I need. I only would need to search the entire list if a request is not in my “short” list for the event.

Today we made the run down to Valrico and back. We took some items “culled” from the motorhome back to the house. Barbie did grab a couple more sweaters/sweatshirts to bring back for the cold weather. She also took the coffeemaker from the motorhome and switched it out with the one from Valrico. She likes it better. On the trip down we took the Suncoast Parkway down to State Road 54 then over to I-75 and down to Brandon. We normally run SR 98 to I-75 and then south to Brandon. There was hardly any traffic on the Parkway so the $3 for tolls was worth it. Coming back we road US 301 north through Zephyrhills to Dade City then went SR 52 to I-4. Instead of getting off at SR 50/98, we rode up to Bushnell to see how crowded it was at Blueberry Hill RV Resort, oh excuse me, Nascar Resort at Blueberry Hill as it is now known. There are plenty of sites open there as well---snowbirds caught in the blizzard up the I-95 corridor??? We then drove through Paradise Oaks Golf and RV Resort, also in Bushnell on CR 475 just north of SR 48. This is a fairly new park I believe and is quite impressive on our drive thru. We’ll definitely have to camp there someday. From there we meandered up SR 41 through Floral City and Inverness on the way back to Rock Crusher. We got back to the coach at 5:15pm, so it has been a full travel day. With all that said, I’ll leave you with pictures from the past.

Monkey Island, Homosassa, FL

‘Til next time……………………