RV Supershow & More

We went down to our house in Valrico, Florida last Wednesday to prepare ourselves for our day long adventure to the Tampa Fairgrounds where the Florida RV Supershow was held. Every type of rv is represented at the show from Class B camping vans, truck campers, Class A and C  gas as well as diesel motorhomes, travel trailers, fifth wheels and even park model homes. There is everything from a couple thousand dollar pop-up campers to over $2 million dollar Class A buses.

 

 

 

The admission cost was $10 per person without a coupon or $9 per person if you had a coupon. Seniors Day on Wednesday was also $9. We brought Jeff’s scooter along so he would enjoy the day much better without having to worry about his back giving out on him. For those of you who have never attended this show, it is huge and covers alot of ground. We even took Kozmo who spent most of the time on Jeff’s scooter on the floor taking in EVERYTHING! She looked like she was a kid in the candy store. She was very well behaved and got many compliments on her cute looks and behavior.

We arrived at the Super Show at 9:15am Thursday and saw many old friends. We saw Pat and Sandie Gregory, Tom and Sharon Mann, who were all from the Roamin’ Rigs, the FMCA club we used to belong to when we had the motorhomes. We saw many people from Rock Crusher Canyon RV Resort who drove to Tampa for the show, and two couples from our place in River Vista RV Resort in Dillard, Georgia. We ventured to the vendor building which was overly crowded. Since the weather on Wednesday was a wash out, senior citizens were everywhere. We saw Karen and Rob, the managers from River Vista, manning the River Vista  booth. We actually won a free night in one of the cabins provided we spend money for three nights. We ran into Roy from Quandra Bigfoot Jacks who put on our hydraulic jacks last May. If you want these jacks he is located in Lakeland, Florida. We went through many fifth wheels. We saw great kitchens in the Heartland Big Country fifth wheel and saw beautiful bathrooms in the Mobile Suites made by DRV. We saw a great plan in the Thor Redwood fifth wheel in regards to the entertainment section located in one of the slideout areas.  A new fifth wheel made by Palomino called the Columbus was different in that the kitchen island actually moved to your liking. They also had a fantastic side by side wall hugger recliner with a middle hand section in this model. I believe these are referred to as “theater seats.” I would really like to replace our sofa with this beauty. But all in all, if we could put all of the things we like into one fifth wheel, then we would have a new fifth wheel. But that “ain’t gonna happen”. :-)

While in the Valrico area we just had to eat at some places that don’t exist in the Crystal River area. We ate at Zaxby’s chicken and had great chicken with fries, cole slaw and Texas toast. We ate at Five Guys and had their great burgers and fries with wonderful iced tea. We stopped on our way back to the rig Friday in Brooksville at the Chick Fil-A and had their chicken sandwich. They have a new Tortilla Chicken Soup which was very good-quite spicy. We have plans on stopping at Buffet City, a Chinese restaurant  located in Brooksville. Hopefully we will get there this week. Nick and Terry Russell from the Gypsy Journal magazine and blog, have recommended this place several times since they have been down here in Florida. We ate at Dan’s Clam Stand here in Homosassa this evening for dinner and just loved it as usual. We wish Sherry and Charlie could have been here to enjoy the great clam chowder and shrimp with us. We are thinking of you both!

Kozmo continues to amaze us with her “mannerisms”. We have included some pictures of her outside in the dirt, on her new outside pillow and her time in her inside bed. We put a fleece blanket on her inside bed and she just loves it. But her best time still is lying on the dirt outside our rig. She even smells like dirt sometimes. Luckily her bath time is coming up so she can smell like a princess again.

 

 

On another positive note, I went to a new doctor last Monday here in Crystal River and really like him. My blood pressure, heart, pulse and thyroid is great! This past Monday the 16th,  I went for a bone density scan and my osteopenia is holding its own for the last three years. Blood work is next month and a follow up with the doctor in regards to this is also scheduled for February. I am happy to find someone up here in Crystal River so in case I do get sick I don’t have to travel two hours to Valrico to see my old doctor. We are both going to look into optometrists in this area soon. This past Tuesday evening there was a barbequed chicken dinner with Buckaroo Bruce’s baked beans, cole slaw, roll and iced tea. Ninety three tickets were sold for this dinner. It was quite good as well!

Lots more to look forward to this week… Saturday morning blueberry pancake breakfast in the clubhouse,  a wine tasting gathering will be held in the clubhouse on Saturday evening where every couple brings a bottle of red or white wine that all participants will blind taste. Voting will be done and a prize awarded to the couple who brings the favorite red and white wines. We all are also to bring a snack to share. Sounds like fun huh?   Saturday and Sunday in downtown Crystal River is also the Manatee Arts and Crafts Festival. We really have enjoyed this in past years. Many vendors (about 100) line the streets with their craft items. There are additional food booths, musical entertainment and boat tours of King’s Bay. They even are running shuttles to the Seven Sisters Springs area where the manatees all huddle up in the crystal clear spring waters. We’ll no doubt spend a couple of hours enjoying the festival AND contributing to the local economy. :-)

That’s about it for now. Until next time….

2012 – Off to a Good Start

We celebrated New Year’s with Jeff, aka Big Daddy DJ,  DJ’ing the Rock Crusher Canyon RV Park New Year’s Eve Dance. There were probably about 95 people in attendance and they all seemed to have a lot of fun dancing, snacking, sipping adult beverages, talking to each other and eventually feeling quite stiff and sore the next day. We heard of no one complaining of hangover type symptoms Sunday, but we did hear of alot of achy knees and sore backs from all the dancing. It’s amazing how a bit of alcohol can cause one to do do things they regret later. :-) This was probably the best turn out for a Rock Crusher  New Years gathering yet.

  

  

  

  

Sunday, we were invited to Canadian friends, Allan and Ruth’s rig for some great conversation and snacks and more adult beverages. We met some neat people who were all from Canada and a lot of fun to be around. The game of Ladders, otherwise known as Bolo Golf to us, was played and enjoyed on their site. Kozmo was invited to the gathering and met two other puppies named Breezy and Lola. She already knew Allan and Ruth’s dog named Henry and they are all so sweet !

    Allan & Ruth

We haven’t done much of anything around here except try to keep warm the last three days. The lowest temperature we had was 23 degrees on Tuesday morning. We stayed warm with the two electric heaters on after the heat pump shut off below 30 degrees. We had to put the furnace on for two hours to get the chill off though. We hate to use the furnace as it uses so much propane. We were happy today to sit outside today and rake a lot of leaves into beautiful piles. It was a beautiful 70 degree day. We even took a golf cart ride without getting cold. Spoke with lots of people in the park. You can tell the “snowbirds” are arriving in force. It is good to see them again.

We went with three other couples to Peck’s Old Port Cove restaurant in Ozello which is about 25 minutes away. The company and food were great! Jeff had his usual peel-n-eat garlic shrimp which helped in preventing vampires from attacking him at night :-) and I had the fried shrimp, scallops and oyster platter which was very good. Peck’s is near the end of Ozello Trail road which has many curves and marshes on both sides of the road as it heads west towards the Gulf of Mexico. It can be intimidating while you drive out there. We know not to be out there after dark because there are no lights to guide you on the road. Many of the houses out there are on stilts. But then again if a hurricane came through, you would have to evacuate because there would be water over the roads very quickly. The restaurant had burned down several years ago but had been rebuilt since it was so popular.

We helped out on Thursday morning in the clubhouse to launch a new club called the 1 Buck Coffee Club. It costs a dollar for unlimited coffee. One must bring a 16 ounce or smaller cup for the coffee, tea or hot chocolate. We brought some donut holes from Dunkin Donuts and some other people brought some cookies and pumpkin bread. Even though the temperature was 35 degrees, about a dozen people showed up for coffee and we made a good dent in solving the world’s problems. We hope it will be a weekly event because the people said they enjoyed getting together like this.

We have several food events in the park coming up. Saturday morning is another breakfast at the clubhouse . These are held every other Saturday. Since we won a free breakfast coupon at the last breakfast during a raffle, we will only have to pay for one this time. Next Tuesday is a soup and salad night which was very popular last year. There are two choices of soup and several dressing choices for the salad. For $5 a person you can fill up on soup and salad. Later in the month are a hotdog w/fixins night, a chicken barbeque, and spaghetti dinner. Throw in a Sundae Sunday one week and a strawberry shortcake night the next Sunday on top of those events. Oh, and how could I forget a wine tasting gathering on a Saturday evening---oh boy!

We will be traveling to Valrico on Wednesday afternoon to prepare ourselves for going to the RV Super Show in Tampa on Thursday. We know it is Senior Citizen Day on Wednesday but last year there were so many people that we got a little frustrated. We even get to bring Kozmo this year since they allow mild tempered pets on leashes. She certainly qualifies. We will head back to our rig on Friday. Maybe we will see some of you there at the Super Show on Thursday.

‘Til next time… hope your new year is going well for you!

Anniversary & Happy New Year

Yes, today is Barbie’s and my 38th anniversary. On December 29, 1973 in the beautiful surroundings of Highlands Hammock State Park in Sebring, Florida, we tied the knot. What a great 38 years it has been. It has flown by. I’m so fortunate to have my best friend at my side since then. We’ve both had careers in education that have allowed us to lead comfortable, satisfying lives. Now we are able to live our retired lives doing what we have grown to love---the rv lifestyle. We’ve made many new friends. We still have so many places to go and things to see. Happy Anniversary Barbie-I love you!

 

 

 

 

These are some of our favorite pictures taken within the last couple of years. My plan was to post a wedding picture and others since then but many are pre-digital age and at our sticks-n-bricks home.

It’s hard to believe that New Years Eve is just a couple of days away. Big Daddy DJ will provide the music for the party/dance here at Rock Crusher Canyon RV Park.

Big Daddy DJ is trying to decide which outfit to wear for New Years  Eve. What do you think?

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From Boldt’s RV Castle, Barbie, Kozmo and I wish you a healthy and Happy New Year! Thank you for checking in and following our adventures.

We salute each and every one of you!

‘Til next time-next year…………..

Merry Christmas

To our family and friends and all who read our blog, we hope you have a very Merry Christmas!

For us, we’ll be spending Christmas here in Rock Crusher Canyon RV Park with our fellow rvers. Enjoy the holiday season!

‘Til next time…….

Cedar Key, Tablet, Steps & Boat Parade

Barbie is writing here today. I wanted to get you caught up with some of what we have been doing lately. First, we went to Cedar Key two Saturday’s ago to meet up with friends Steve and Cheryl Beringer and their puppy McGee, whom we met at our summer/fall home park, River Vista RV Resort in Dillard, Georgia, last summer.

They summer/fall in the Clayton/Dillard area and winter in Titusville, Florida, at the Great Outdoors. They were staying at a fairly new campground in Cedar Key called Cedar Key RV Resort. We had beautiful weather that day and sat outside and talked and had a great time. They took us to a place to eat where they have a fish market next door to a restaurant, which was about mile away from the campground called Robinsons. Everyone had shrimp and crab cakes, except for me. I had the shrimp but no crab cake. Their hush puppies were absolutely delicious! Soups ranged from clam and corn chowder to grouper chowder and it was good. Of course, we brought Kozmo along and she and McGee got along fantastically! Cheryl gave Kozmo a snack from Blue Buffalo. It was a pumpkin and cinnamon biscuit, which she really liked. It was so cute to watch McGee eat a baby carrot. He just puts it between his paws and chomps away. Apparently that is his daily afternoon “happy hour” treat. Kozmo just doesn’t like raw carrots, but occasionally she will eat cooked ones. Steve and Cheryl got us hooked on the Blue Buffalo products since they have natural ingredients which are very healthy for dogs. Jeff and I took Kozmo to the Pet Supermarket in Inverness to stock up on some Blue Buffalo canned dog food and treats for her. She absolutely loves the beef stew and chicken with vegetables. We also got her some pumpkin with cranberries soft chews and bacon, egg and cheese biscuits. I swear, Kozmo is so spoiled, but she deserves it. We thanked Steve, Cheryl and McGee for a very nice day and hope to see them in Titusville during the winter months, or if not at River Vista in the spring. They just recently bought a site at River Vista.

A few days later, we went to Spring Hill to do some shopping. We stopped at Best Buy and Jeff purchased his first Tablet. I swear I didn’t know the difference between a Tablet and an IPad, but now I do. His is an Acer Iconia 10 inch tablet. It is a neat device which will definitely be used everyday. It is very addictive to play some of the free games that Jeff downloaded, like Poker Square Solitaire or Tabby Cat Solitaire. Jeff was even getting involved in a game racing app where you drive a car by “steering” the tablet as his car races on the course against other cars. Crazy for sure!!! While at Spring Hill, we went to Pet Smart and got some more Blue Buffalo products there for Kozmo. She went inside with me and I tried to entice her with toys, but she snubbed them. That girl just doesn’t like toys. I purchased two new cans of the Blue Buffalo food and out we went. We can’t believe how nice the Spring Hill area is set up. It is only 40 minutes away from Rock Crusher and an easy drive until you get to Spring Hill. That is when it starts getting congested on Highway 19, but it was more bearable than Highway 60 in Brandon. We stopped at a place called Olive Tree Diner and had their specialty gyro sandwich. I had a cabbage soup with mine, which was good and Jeff had potato salad which was also good. However, the gyro was lacking. The meat tasted like it had been in water to keep it warm and it lacked a good taste. Needless to say we won’t be going back there again. It prides itself on having the best gyro in town… we wonder if they make the only gyro in that area.

I am so proud of Jeff. This past week we went to Home Depot and spent an hour in there looking around for the materials we needed to build some wooden steps for our entrance into the fifth wheel. He was on his feet for an hour and then helped load the wood into the truck and never had a problem with his back. I think his endurance has really improved. He used to just stand and walk around for a half hour before his back started to strain. And, we certainly don’t want a repeat of the back issues he had from June of 2010-October 2010 when he couldn’t even walk at all for a while. After we bought the wood we ate at Arby’s and had a very good Philly Steak sandwich. We have eaten those type of sandwiches in shops that specialize in Philly Steak sandwiches in Crystal River, but we can’t believe how much better the Arby’s is compared to those places.

We worked on the steps for two afternoons and then ran out of screws before we could finish the railing. So out to Home Depot again to get some more screws. It looks fantastic for two rookies who haven’t built something as big as this in a long time. The thing is really sturdy and heavy too. See the picture below. The only thing we have to do is stain it. But already we just love it! And, Kozmo prefers these wooden steps to the slippery metal ones on the fifth wheel.

 

We ate at Kim’s Café for breakfast on Friday and then went to get our tags renewed for the truck. We didn’t know you could renew our truck tags in Citrus County even though it was issued in Hillsborough County until this past week when we went to pay our taxes on the Rock Crusher site. It was very convenient for us. We could have renewed on-line but this is so much easier. The line for Citrus County tax office was very minimal. I only waited three minutes. After the taxes were paid, we stopped at a Sweetbay Supermarket in Crystal River. I had never been in this particular store and probably won’t go back again. It is an older store with narrow aisles. They were nice in there but the Homosassa Sweetbay is much roomier. I usually shop at Publix, but it is good to try out something different for a change.

Yesterday we had breakfast in the clubhouse here in the campground. They had blueberry pancakes, eggs, sausage, hash browns, potatoes with onions and green peppers, grits, fruit salad, coffee and juice for $5.00. They also had a 50-50 raffle and we won a free breakfast. Two weeks ago we won $10, which paid for the breakfast. Luck is on our side. We have new neighbors, named Roger and Judy who are from Massachusetts and they dined with us. She is a retired paraprofessional who worked in the library system. So we talked a lot about books which I absolutely love!!! Following breakfast, there was a craft show & sale held in the clubhouse. Campers could sell items they have made. I came out with 2 rings, one bracelet and a coin purse—all for only $15 total!

Last night, we went to the Homosassa Christmas Boat Parade and took Kozmo with us. We went last year and it was great! The no see-ums weren’t bad this time and we had a great time! Jeff took some great pictures while I held Kozmo in my arms for an hour. She actually met another dog named Max, who is a 6 month miniature pincher who absolutely loved her. But the most precious thing was Kozmo falling asleep in my arms for the first time ever. She even gave me a kiss, which she has never done when I hold her. She usually just freezes in my arms. Talk about a “Kodak” moment!!! Too bad we didn’t get a camera shot of that. Check out our favorite boats below. As always, click to enlarge the view.

 

 

Which one is your favorite?

We are headed tomorrow to the “stick” house in Valrico. Jeff has a dentist appointment at 3:30 and then a doctors’ appointment on Tuesday at 12:30. So hopefully we will get back to Rock Crusher late Tuesday afternoon. I am trying to get a doctor in Citrus County so I don’t have to travel to Valrico if I get sick.

It’s another gorgeous day in Rock Crusher Canyon here in Citrus County. Folks are really getting in the holiday spirit here in the campground. See…..

 

 

 

‘Til next time….