We never thought we wouldn’t post for over a month and a half,
but we have been busy! I (Barbie) will start with the current stuff and then go
back a bit and write about past stuff in January.
We did a great thing this past Thursday. We had gone over to
our Valrico house in January for the RV Supershow and brought back my bike that
I don’t use anymore because the height is too tall for me to get off and on. We
go to Kim’s Café to eat breakfast very often and have made some friends
there. A lady that serves the drinks and
busses the tables, named Robin, is in her 60’s and doesn’t drive a car. She
takes a taxi to and from work and gets a ride from someone occasionally.
Anyway, she lives about a mile from the new Homosassa WalMart. We fixed up the
bike and gave it to her. Our neighbors across the street, Brenda and David,
contributed by giving us a basket to put on the back of the bike and a bike
lock. Well, Robin was thrilled to pieces with it. She was telling everyone in
the café about it even before we gave it to her. So, we really felt good on
Thursday. She looked forward to biking down to WalMart and not walking. We even went back on Friday afternoon to eat at Kim's for all you can eat fish
with fries and cole slaw for $5.99. We had never done that but people told us it
was very good. Well, it was delicious!!!! We will go back again. The fish was pollock
and the cole slaw was absolutely delicious.
Our Rock Crusher Canyon RV Park had a craft show from 10 to 12
on Saturday, Feb. 2 and it was a great one! We only bought some fudge, but
jewelry was the main seller along with some great birds mounted on pilings that
a guy makes here in the park. The birds are all made of pvc pipe.
We went to the Ocala RV show on Friday, Feb.1 and it was a
great one for being a smaller show. They had a little of everything from big
diesel Class A’s, to B’s, C’s, travel trailers of all sizes and fifth wheels. We
really liked two fifth wheels that had more storage space than I think I could
fill. The Palomino Columbus and Yellowstone Ridgeline topped our wish list. Of
course, we won’t think about trading and
buying anything else until we sell our Valrico house. We also enjoyed looking
at destination trailers, which are really park models that you can tow. We like a Hampton model that we definitely
could put on our site in Dillard and be very happy with it.
The big event for January was to get one of the maintenance
guys, Chris, to build us a deck. See the pictures below for the outcome. We
think it is great and we’ll be putting some pilings with solar lights and rope
in some of the corners to decorate it up. Next season when we come down we will
put up a screened room and put a table and chairs in it. No sense in doing it
now since we will probably be heading to the mountains in early April. We are
still looking for stuff that we can put outside. We have our fire pit already
in place, but we will be looking for different types of chairs that we could
possibly leave outside year round.
We did go to the RV Supershow in Tampa on Wednesday, January
16, and had a great time. We saw Sharon and Tom Mann from the Roamin’ Rigs and
numerous other people that came from Rock Crusher. We also saw our great
managers Karen and Bob from River Vista Mountain Village, our summer/fall home.
They had a booth there and we talked to them for quite a bit. We didn’t buy
anything big except a “baby stroller” for Kozmo.
I swore to Sandie and Pat
Gregory I would never buy something like that but I felt bad for Kozmo having
to be on the floor board of Jeff’s buggy and not being able to have her own
space. Putting her on the leash and hauling her around would have gotten her
crushed by people. We tested out the stroller with her in it before we bought
it and she just loves it! We even took her to two other events with us. One was
the Ocala RV Show and the other was the Manatee Arts and Crafts show which was
on January 19 and 20. So now we are teaching her another word, “stroller”, and
she is catching on to it just like she knows the words “golf cart” and “truck
ride”. Of course she knows much more, but these words give her much excitement!
I found a new primary care doctor in Crystal River who just
started his practice in August of 2012. His name is Dr. Ken Savage and he is a
local “boy” who also did his internship in Tampa and graduated from USF. He is
a great doctor! My blood work came out very well and nothing was in the red so
he was very pleased with that. I hope more people realize he is in practice
because there was no one in the waiting room on the two occasions that I had
appointments.
We went to a wine tasting on January 26, here in the park.
There were 26 bottles of wine that we had to taste. Each couple had to bring a
bottle of wine and an appetizer to share. Probably five out of those were the
kind we would buy. Lots of great appetizers were available and delicious! There
were about 54 people in the clubhouse and we all had a great time. It is so
neat to see people sip some wines and make the ugliest faces of dislike that we
have seen in a while. You can’t please everyone all the time. J
Speaking of wines, we finally made a trip to the Copp Winery here
in Crystal River this past Feb. 6. It is a house across the street from the
Crystal River post office that doesn’t look like much. But once you get in
there it is very nice! They have two rooms and an outside area that is
tastefully decorated. We sampled 6 wines and a port that had orange and
chocolate in it. The first three wine samples are free and then you can get
three more wine samples for $3.00 and the port was $1.50. After sampling the
wine we sampled some of their beers. We sampled four (3-4oz glasses) for $6.00.
They were a nice size sampling. The beers cannot be bought yet to take home due
to them not getting a liquor license yet. But the beers were very strange. One
beer had cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, all spice and orange zest in it. It was
different, but I don’t think I would buy it. We did buy three bottles of sweet
types of wine. Copp Winery also has various cheese platters (both hot and
cold), bruschetta, smoked salmon and other things to munch on for a price.
Since we had dinner before we got there, we didn’t try any of their food. We
would definitely go back there again.
We also took a ride to Umatilla, the Villages, Leesburg, and
the Ocala area on January 27. We wanted to see the Olde Mill Stream Campground
which we heard great things about. The campground is a crowded busy one and not
many trees at all. They are supposed to have neat activities. We were impressed
with the dog park which had obstacle courses and water stations and was quite
busy with puppies having a great time. They even had a lake view but we
wouldn’t stay there because there really isn’t much room between sites.
Everyone we encountered was friendly so they must be having a good time.
Speaking of dog parks, I wish Rock Crusher would have a better one. I sometimes
bring Kozmo there but it is not attractive and not many people go up there
because they say there are lots of fleas. We haven’t seen them but just the
idea that they might be there is a turn off to dog owners.
Looking toward the future days ahead… we will be headed to our
Valrico house in a week so that Jeff can see his doctor for his checkup. While
there, we hopefully can get rid of more stuff. We are going to try and sell our
2010 GMC Terrain while there. If we can’t sell it while we are there, then we
are going to bring it back to Rock Crusher and hopefully sell it by advertising
it in the Auto Trader and see if any dealerships might want it for a decent price
that we would accept. It is a great car but doesn’t do us any good since we now
have our house on wheels.
Jeff is going to DJ a dance at Quail Roost RV Campground, which
is 5 miles north of Crystal River, on March 2. The campground has its own
equipment and we are going to visit them and make sure our equipment matches up
to theirs. He is excited about that. Oh yea, speaking of DJing, Jeff did do the
New Year’s Eve Dance Party here at Rock Crusher again this year. We had the
largest crowd ever at a Rock Crusher dance and we all rang in the New Year
having fun with our neighbors and friends in the park.
Big news, Jeff got a “job” as a Social Media Manager at our
park, River Vista, in Dillard, Georgia. He developed a blog site for them, keeps
it current and contributes to their Facebook site. He will also do flyers and
whatever else is needed to promote River Vista. This is a great opportunity for
him since he just loves to create things on his computer. It is a year round
position and he creates his own hours and gets a salary. Sounds like some extra
eating out money for us…..haha….
I have written more than I thought I would, but that
capsulizes the past 6 weeks. Hopefully we can write more on a regular basis….did
you read that Jeff???? Yes Barbie, and I proofed and added to this post including adding the pictures before publishing it. So there.... :-)
‘Til next time….
