Florida, Dover - Sunday, February 2, 2014 - East Tampa RV Resort

We waited a little too long this morning to walk – it got really hot before we were done.  It was in the mid-80’s all day.

We had to take the track light back to Home Depot, it’s not the type of light we need.  We’ll have to order the one we need on online.

Since the day was so nice we decided to try to find the winery recommended by the guy who filled our propane tank.  As unlikely as it might sound that was a great recommendation.  The Keel and Curly winery was awesome.  They have two large wine tasting bars plus lots of outside seating.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have the camera with me so, no pictures.

The winery has been in business for 10 years.  The owner Joe Keel is a blueberry farmer.  Like with most all crops there comes a time in the blueberry harvest when the farmer isn’t getting paid enough to pay for harvesting any more fruit.  Mr. Keel wanted to think of something to do with the remaining good fruit that he had left after the harvest.  He didn’t want to make jellies and jams so he decided to start making blueberry wine.  Blueberry wine is still their main wine.  Although it was good, it just wasn’t our favorite.

Wine tasting was $6.00 each which included tasting 13 different wines and you got to keep the glasses.  The tasting portions were very generous, we had to pour out some of them after a couple of sips.  If I had drunk all of that was offered I’d have fallen off the back of the bike on the way home.  Most of the wines were made from fruits other than grapes.  We ended up taking home three of them – key lime, peach and strawberry.

At the bar we met a couple who had just bought a fifth wheel RV.  They had spent the last three years on their sailboat in the Caribbean.  So now they are going to try travel on land.  On the other side of us were two young girls who were in the area for a friend’s wedding.  Lots of laughs and a good time.

The winery has a barbeque food truck on site full time.  Today they were preparing food for a large Super Bowl party there at the winery.  We stopped by to get one of their $10 plates to go.  We thought they would put a few of the wings and then fill it up with the vegetables and macaroni and cheese they were also offering.  But, they asked Greg what he wanted and he told them wings and pulled pork.  This is what we came home with – yummy!  I fixed a vegetable platter to go along with them and we called it supper.

Tomorrow we will be leaving for M RV Resort in Moorehaven, Florida.

Florida, Dover - Saturday, February 1, 2014 - East Tampa RV Park

Greg installed the tire cover we made earlier in the week while I walked this morning.  I think it looks pretty good.  We’ll wait until we get to our next campground before we finish up the other three.  At least we know a little bit more about what we are doing for the next ones.

 

We decided to go out for lunch and do some shopping at Home Depot.  I’m looking for some stuff called gel-gloss to use on fiberglass showers and I thought it might make the countertops look nice also – can’t find it anywhere down here.  We also needed to get a utility knife, once again we’ve lost the one that I previously sucked up in the vacuum after we did the headboard remodel.  I’m running the vacuum again tomorrow, I’ll probably find it.  Greg got a track light for his next DIY project.  He wants to shine it on his car collection – pictures later.  I just couldn’t resist the beautiful tomato and herb plants they had.  We’ll do some container gardening at our next spot since we’ll be there 3 months.

With temperatures in the 80s today, it was just too nice not to spend some more time on the bike so we headed out to find “the strawberry shortcake place” highly recommended to us by our neighbor Mac.

We found it along with at least 50 other people who were there ahead of us in line.  I guess this place has been in business for 50 years and is supposed to be the largest strawberry and citrus market in Florida.

The line wrapped around the building so we got to watch them wash oranges while we waited.  They had the serving down to a science so it didn’t take too long.

I thought we were going to share, but Greg stated he had no intention of sharing so we ended up with two huge bowls of strawberries, cake and ice cream – it was delicious.  I was glad I didn’t have to share.  We may have to skip supper this evening.  These were $4.00 each with taxes. 

They had a nice place set up for people to enjoy their shortcakes.

 

 

 

Not only do they have strawberry shortcake, they have some very nice and reasonable produce.  We brought back all of this for $14.80.  The strawberries even smell like strawberries!!

When we got back to the campground the Met Life blimp was going overhead, I couldn’t get off the bike and get the camera out fast enough to get a really good picture.

 

Florida, Dover - Thursday, January 30, 2014 - East Tampa RV Resort

Temperatures were just barely in the 50s today and it was raining, so we decided to stay inside.  A couple of months ago we decided to try another DIY project – tire covers.  Tire covers keep the harsh sun off of the tires to prolong wear.

Back in 2008 I bought a new Singer sewing machine.  I hadn’t done any sewing for many years but I had visions of doing amazing thingsJ.  The sewing I had done previously was done on an old Singer treadle machine that I still had, but it did have its limits.  However, after I bought the new machine my life took a very nice, but unexpected turn. 

Greg and I were reintroduced by a mutual friend, got married and consolidated houses.  Then we decided to pursue living fulltime in an RV.  So we had to buy an RV, sell our house and belongings – you see where I’m going here – things got really busy and the sewing was forgotten.  But, one of the things I decided to keep with me when we went on the road was the sewing machine, I still had visions of doing amazing things.

Yesterday we brought out the sewing machine and I started reading the directions, this is more complicated than the treadle machine!

We had previously picked up the materials for the covers at Home Depot so we dug them out today, did some measuring and started in.

I wish I could have gotten a picture of the two of us guiding a piece of sunscreen material that was 4 foot by 8 foot through this sewing machine.  It was definitely a two person job!

At this point we are just about done with this one, we just need to decide how deep the bottom hem needs to be so we have room to insert the pipes that will be used to hold it down once it is installed on the coach.

 

Tomorrow we’ll work on getting this cover installed over the dual tires on one side of the coach and hopefully we can get the other dual cover put together.

Florida, Dover - Tuesday, January 28, 2014 - East Tampa RV Resort

Happy Birthday to son A.J.!!

We are doing absolutely nothing that is blog worthy.  We are walking 2 miles per day now.  I’ve gone as far as reading an exercise book and deciding on what I want to do and what I have room to do – now I just have to do it.

A swimwear company had a show at the campground pavilion this morning.  We walked up to see what they had, I thought I might be able to find some type of bathing suit cover up.  They did have several sarongs and other cover ups, but nothing that struck my fancy.  They had a lot of high quality name brand suits, all of them for $39.  If you needed a bathing suit, this was the place to be.

This afternoon we rode over to the new Camping World that is just down the road from the campground.  This is one of the nicer Camping Worlds that we have seen, they had a huge selection of things for RVs.

The rest of the afternoon was spent sitting outside in the sun enjoying the 81 degree temps.  It’s supposed to cool down some tomorrow and then get warm again toward the end of the week.

We’ve met some really nice people in the sites on both sides of ours and are thinking about getting together for a small Super Bowl gathering on Sunday.

Florida, Dover - Friday, January 24, 2014 - East Tampa RV Resort

Yesterday we rode the bike to Clearwater to go to Technology Research Corporation, about 45 minutes away.  They make surge protectors for RVs, among other things.  The surge protector we purchased last year quit working, but it was still under warranty.  We decided to return it in person rather than trying to ship it back for a replacement.

I know it sounds like the only thing we are doing right now is dealing with fixing things.  This home is just like any other home, it requires constant fixing, maintaining, cleaning and upgrading.  We just get to do it in warmer weather.

Yesterday was a perfect day for riding, 60s and bright sunshine.  Our ride took us across Tampa Bay - that is one long bridge.  On the way back I saw a couple of dolphins swimming in the bay.

Since the sun was still shining in the afternoon so it was warm enough to sit outside, Greg asked me to cut his hair.  I think if I was really confident enough to hang out my shingle I could probably get some other customers.  Seems like every time I’m cutting his hair, several guys walk by and make a comment about where the line forms.  Unfortunately, I’m only good enough to promise that his hair will be shorter, everyone else may not be too accepting of that limitation.

I made Puerto Rican Shredded Pork, a recipe I got from a National Pork Board advertisement.  The recipe called for browning the pork before putting it in the crock pot, but I skipped that step and it turned out great.

2-3 lb. pork boneless sirloin roast (I used a tenderloin)

Combine in a blender:

5 cloves garlic
1 T. cumin
½ T. salt
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 c. orange juice
4 limes, juiced (I used the juice in one of those little green squeeze limes, 2 T. equals one lime)

Pour the citrus seasoning mix over the pork in the crock pot and set on low for 8 hours.  My crock pot didn’t take nearly this long, watch the temperature so it doesn’t dry out.  When the meat is done, shred it and add some of the cooking liquid to it.

We’ll get a couple of meals of barbequed pork sandwiches and two meals of pork enchiladas from this.

Today, after walking and getting some basic chores done, I decided to sit in the sun by the pool and bring some organization to my Pinterest boards.  I had so many pins under “recipes” that it was pretty hard to find what I wanted.  So, I edited what I had pinned into several different recipe categories – much better.

It feels so good to have a working fridge again.  Having salads for supper and berries for breakfast was really missed, not to mention being able to fix a dish and be able to save leftovers for another meal.

This campground has quite a few scheduled activities during the month, but we have a feeling we would have a hard time participating in any of them.  We originally thought that the people here were about 50% French speaking Canadians, I think we can up that figure to about 90% now that we have walked around the park a few times.  We did see one other RV with Indiana plates but we haven’t seen them outside to introduce ourselves.

Florida, Dover - Wednesday, January 22, 2014 - East Tampa RV Resort

Our life is back on track again.  We pulled into East Tampa RV Resort late Monday afternoon.  The sites are nice, but the roads through the park are pretty narrow so it’s a little hard to maneuver a larger coach like ours.  Greg does such a good job of getting this thing around I’m always amazed.  This is where we will be through next week.

 

Yesterday I got caught up on the laundry and Greg cleaned the outside of the coach and the bike.  Right after that it poured down rain J.  In the afternoon it cleared up enough for us to get out to get groceries.

Today I decided to tackle an in depth cleaning of the bathroom while Greg installed some new lights in the bedroom.  He also replaced some locking latches on the closets.  I’ve managed to break two of these latches and we were having trouble finding replacements.  At the RV Show we noticed latches like them in a couple of the new RVs so we asked about them when we were at Lazy Days.  Since they cost just over $20 a piece to replace I’m going to have to be more careful in the future.

This is a big park.  We walked from our site to the main office today to pick up our mail – the round trip was just under two miles.  We just received all those wonderful Christmas cards from family and friends, we’ll have them displayed to enjoy for a while even though it is past Christmas.  The pool looked inviting but it’s a bit cold to be enjoying it.

I noticed this bush was just starting to bloom.  I also think we passed fields of strawberries with fruit on them when we went to the grocery yesterday.  That seems so funny since we wouldn’t have seen that until June in Indiana.

This afternoon I made chili, it sounded good since it is in the chilly 50s here, sorry northern friends and family.  Greg decided to tackle the central vacuum system that hasn’t been functioning quite like it should be.  Last month while I was vacuuming it sounded like something large was sucked in and it hasn’t worked well since then.  Today he found the problem – the utility knife we lost when we were redoing the headboard in the bedroom.  Once he removed that it’s working just fine.  

Florida, Dover - Monday, January 20, 2014 - Our Christmas Present

We left the Florida Fairgrounds this morning and headed to the LazyDays RV Center just east of Tampa.  There we were going to meet up with a representative of WadeRV to get a new entryway rug made.  The one area of our coach that I haven’t liked is the entry area.

Today, I think we made a nice upgrade to it.  The main rug is custom fitted to our dash/chair area and the steps are covered in the same material from the outside in.  I didn’t really get a good “after” picture of the steps, will get that later.

 

 

This project took all day and we were glad to be done and on our way to the East Tampa RV Resort where we would have full hookups – something we have done without for quite a while.  All the time we were sitting at the RV service center waiting to get the fridge fixed we had an electric hook up but that was it.  The last three days we have been boondocking (no hook ups).  So, water conservation has been the key for quite a while.

I have to admit that I am not a “camper”; I’m a “traveler”.  I can deal with less than perfect conditions for a while, but let’s face it, I’m spoiled.  I like to sit outside and look at the stars, but I don’t want to sleep under them.  When the mosquitos start to come out I want to go inside where it is air conditioned and sleep in our king sized Sleep Number bed.

I also want lots of hot water and somewhere for that water to go.  I want a fridge that works (finally happening).  In other words I want to take all of the comforts of home with me wherever we go.  Tomorrow I’ll be doing laundry most all day.  Laundry and water conservation don’t go hand in hand, so I’m backed up at least a week and a half on laundry.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade this experience we are having, but lately there have been a few bumps in the road.  I saw a plaque in Cracker Barrel this morning that said, “The thing I like best about my home is who I share it with”.  How true.