March 2017: FLA>NBNC

It is sad getting older… it seems getting up and out of a sitting position becomes measured; climbing a flight of stairs is sluggish and listening skills are challenged. But what is definitely a red flag waving strenuously overhead is when a day disappears and you don’t notice it until it is too late. 

This happened to us on the 31^st day of January. We were so looking forward to our month of February we found ourselves packed up and gearing down (ummm… northwesterly actually) to Bradenton…. ONE DAY BEFORE WE SHOULD HAVE! Arriving at Horseshoe Cove RV Park we were gently informed we were not expected until February 1; and they had no where to put us; our site was occupied and even the overflow was over flowed. Sub-panic began seeping into my toes working its way to my approaching headache.  Where to go? Alas, the kindness of the park staff found us a site at a nearby campground and we returned the following morning to level down for the month of February.

With Bradenton as our port of call we hugged the Gulf for our month of discovery.  Anna Maria Island shared its quaintness with us as we traveled to Bean Point, the northern most point of this barrier island that is only seven miles long and seemed always content in its mellowness with beach and waves. 

Traveling the Gulf of Mexico Drive southbound the sights and sounds of the coastline were ever-changing with the breezes, the waves and sunbeams.  We enjoyed our many excursions during February along this drive, that passes through exclusive resort and residential areas and its sometimes narrowed roads. Always on our westerly shoulder are the placid impressions on the white sands of wave prints, and horizoned aqua blues and golden skies.

We browsed St. Armands Circle, on Lido Key, where ultra-exclusive shoppes and eateries are casual strolls surrounding the roundabout of this fashionable key. We brunched at the Daiquiri Deck where we were able to quench our summer-like thirst with frozen daiquiris and delicious lightly seasoned calamari. In our quest to find the best calamari Daiquiri Deck placed in our top five.  

Venturing to Lido’s southern-most tip is Lido Key Beach. This is a marvelous spot to have picnics under shaded Australian Pines, stroll along its nature trail or just bring a chair and cop-a-squat on the white sands and enjoy the sounds of ocean meeting land and the skyline of Sarasota.

We spent an awesome day at the Ringling Museum and Mcmansion, with its majestic placement on the Sarasota Bay, bittersweet history and world-renown art museum.

Florida is a great state to travel. It offers a unique opportunity to only drive a few hours and feel like you’re in a whole different place. And that’s a wonderful thing.

Our southern most trek was to Venice and nearby Nokomis, where we met up with fellow Harbourites several times, and being treated to local fare. While in Bradenton we shared a day with our good friends from Saint Louis and their extended Floridian family, who have an A+ home in Tara Plantation…if there had been a basement we definitely would have moved in!

Our campground follows the winding Braden River that meets the Manatee River and flows into the Gulf. Within the campground property is a refuge-type area where mid-afternoon manatees move slowly along the walkways. At any given time we would watch up to ten lumbering mammals floating along, submerging and then popping up for a gulp of air.  And being so close to them we could see their little button eyes peering up at us.

One of the amazing visuals of Florida is the wildlife…the manatees, alligators…and birds.  Along the shore lines are the ubiquitous plovers…not exactly sure why they are named snowy plovers but these cute little birdies skitter along sands chasing the waves and the tiny crabs left behind. And Ibis… is the plural ibises? Or like hippopotamus ibi’i? These white wading birds always remind me of Jimmy Durante… and the great blues slowly glide to the water’s surface to catch their brunch.

While appreciating the treasure of waking each morning to the tropical sunshine and warmth and donning shorts and t-shirts we found that we were beginning to miss our home; the four-cornered, brick-walled adobe where our property taxes are listed. And so we shortened our remainder month by two weeks, visited with good friends, The Glampers, from our summer camping in New York. 

While in their neck-of-the-woods we spent a day touring Crystal River Springs, Homosassa and Dunnellon.  And then we ventured northbound I-95. Expecting to overnite on the way home we found the tires just kept on turnin’ and nearly 13 hours later we arrived at our driveway and put our heads down on our ‘home’ pillows, after one hundred fifty-two days on the road, just over three thousand miles on the Jeep and 2,214 miles on the rig.  

And a good time was had by all!

And in just a few short weeks we will pack ‘er up and boogie westbound to Saint Louis to celebrate the high school graduation of our grandson, Alex, and recapture memories of our nineteen years of living in the Saint Louis region.  From there we journey to Syracuse for another summer of elder care of Dave’s Mom and Dad.

We appreciate your keeping up with the dcnkctravels and look forward to posting again soon on the other side of the Mississip!

LIFE IS SHORT! ENJOY THE RIDE

2017NBNC>CNFL January 2017

The new year has brought us to mid-central Florida where four major industries flourish: citrus growers, cattle ranches, tourism and senior citizenship.

To travel along the rural byways is an interesting perspective; urban-sprawl next to a 45-acre fenced grazing area for the black-faced, bulky Brangus.

During January, with our home-base in Avon Park, we channeled roads less traveled by snowbirds.

A few places driven through appeared ghost -townish, most often settled early 1900-1906, when rural Florida was most especially rural. One such wide-place-in-the-road is Picnic, where on Sunday afternoons in the early 1900s this crossroad of two wooden bridges over the Hurrah Creek became a meeting spot after church meetings, where women would klatch, children would run and play, and men would share fish-tales.

...waiting for a french fry... no ketsup, please

 Balm, whose town was originated in 1902, began as a very small farming area of three families and included a train station and post office where the mail would be hung on a peg and a trainman would grab it while going through town.

Wimauma … sounds like the refrain of a Beach Boys song, was named for the three daughters of the founder’s using the first two letters of their names.  A very remote deserted town we found is Fort Lonesome…visualize a John Wayne movie with a ghost-like silhouette sauntering along the side of the road with a slow gait and cigarette smoke swirling around his shadow.

We found towns and hamlets where people were seen, as well. A non-ghost town is Fort Meade that dates back to 1849 and was an old military road during the Indian Wars and was the victim of four devastating fires by 1890. There is a golf resort named Streamsong nearby. This sprawling resort is a reclaimed mining area covering about 16,000 acres. If we build it…they will come…and they better bring their American Express. This resort is for those who don’t ask how much the caddie charges; nor expect a bowl of peanuts during happy hour. But will expect the bath towels to be warm and the thread count an Egyptian 4000!

 

Central Florida is a land of citrus groves, lakes and citrus groves…and more citrus groves. Right now we are in what is considered mid-season for harvesting. Since oranges ripen only when on trees a grove manager will test oranges from a block, or about 40-acres, to determine the sugar and acid ratio of the fruit.


The experienced pickers will harvest a block of orchard at a time using wooden ladders and canvas sacks. The fruit is then dumped into plastic tubs equaling about 900 lbs, which in turn are unloaded into an open tractor-trailer. The fruit is  trucked from the grove to the packinghouse, where it's sanitized with a vinegar solution, inspected, washed, scrubbed, rinsed, polished with plastic and horsehair bristles, dried in two heaters and waxed. Oranges deemed too small or large, blemished or otherwise imperfect are whisked by conveyor belt to a truck bound for a juice plant. Anything not good enough for juice becomes cattle feed.  And magically, a glass of chilled pulp or-no-pulp juice is sitting on your table waiting for your nodding of the head as it refreshes your taste buds and fills your bones with sunshiny calcium, and you sigh….ahhhhhh.

 

Winding over hills and through the vales, (note: not really hills, not really vales; more like turtle bumps) of thousands and thousands of acres of citrus groves we find places such as Babson Park, a small village tucked between Crooked Lake and surrounding orange groves. And nearby is Doctor Phillips, Florida. The only notable for this lonely outpost is that an old citrus packing plant was used to create the Swiss Family Robinson Tree at Disney, some fifty years ago. Just down the road and around a few curves is Highland Park; there aren’t too many people living here now. It began as a Quaker community and its original dormitory, built in the late 1920s, is now part of the Lekarica Country Club Resort, having survived a hurricane of a decade ago.

Granted, this area of Florida is not for those wanting to step out their door and into an amusement park or stroll on a sandy, white beach.  A sense of pastoral, bucolic, backcountry living surrounds the towns, villages and hamlets, as it probably seemed 120 years ago. And what is ever-present is the tender white fragrance of the orange blossom. These waxy clusters of petals are used in perfumes, cuisines, bridal bouquets and delicious honey. Although the essence of the flowers are captured in oils, there is nothing like approaching a blossomed orange tree and sticking your nose up to a laden branch of blossoms and inhaling the bittersweet delicate scent and hoping you will remember it forever.

Happy 25th Anniversary to the United States Lawn Mower Racing Association.  And this bit of information thanx to roadside signage in the town of Avon Park. Every second Saturday of the month the gates open for the racing season from September through May. Lawn mower racing objectives are simple, no cash prizes, no sponsorship, no modified engines; the meager gate and competitor fees return to the ‘grassroots’ of track maintenance. The regional club in Avon Park is named….wait for it……Nasgrass.  In March Avon Park hosts the Nationals; there is even a Hall of Fame in Marion Ohio. Can’t help but form way too many puns associated with this sport. Can’t help myself…. When they are going around the course and collide do the riders go ‘grass over teakettle’? If someone breaks the rules does the lawn ranger issue a ticket? And is their pin-up model named Mowna Lisa? Okay… I’ll stop… but I bet I got your mind torquing!

Robbie, the feral boar

Butter...the Burmese python

The beginning of February we traveled westbound closer to the Gulf by way of Bradenton.  Leveled down on site DD6 at Horseshoe Cove just 15 miles from dipping our toes into the warm Gulf shore, we will be checking out notable touristy sites like Sarasota, Siesta Key and Sanibel. So far into this second week of the month we have visited with fellow RVers from the Harbour in Nokomis. Nearby is Mixon’s Citrus Grove, where we arrived just in time to hop aboard a tram that traveled through a portion of their citrus grove and got an overview of everything that goes into putting a glass of oj on the breakfast table. During the tour we stopped at their Wildlife Rescue, where reptiles, birds and animals that have been orphaned or injured are rehabbed to be able to be released back into the wild. Afterward the ubiquitous gift shop, where Mixon’s treat you to free juice made on site and all the time you want to meander gifts from fresh made fudges and honey to Florida gifts and local wines.

Bradenton Beach

We have begun our barrier island quest beginning with Anna Maria and getting, so far, as south as Bradenton Beach.  There’s a lot to see and do and we will pace ourselves over the next twenty days.


In the meantime, Happy Valentine’s Day and stay tuned….

LIFE IS SHORT.....ENJOY THE RIDE