Florida, Moore Haven - Wednesday, February 5, 2014 - M RV Resort

We pulled into M RV Resort in Moore Haven late afternoon on Monday after spending a couple of hours stocking up on groceries and fuel.  We saw miles and miles of orange groves on our way here.

 

I think we are going to like spending time here for the next three months.  This is what I call a “country campground”, nothing lavish, no golf course, but it’s just our style – laid back, quiet and comfortable.

The people here have all been really nice.  We got to know one fellow really well – Dave the electrician from Wisconsin.  He was filling in for one of the guys who normally escorts you to your site when we first met him.  When we tried to hook up to electric power nothing happened.  Greg and Dave started trying to find the problem and today they finally figured it out.  They tried all kinds of things, none of which I am going to try to explain because I don’t know what I am talking about.  They found out the problem was the outside plug which we just had replaced a couple of months ago because we thought the one we had was showing some wear.  Seems the guy who installed it didn’t get it just right.  At any rate we are up and running just fine now.

This is our view from the front window.  There are two alligators in that pond – I saw their eyes swimming along this morning.  I guess the pond is stocked pretty well so they have plenty to eat.  In fact, there are “please don’t feed the alligator signs around the pond”.  To me that would be a given, no one would have to give me a sign.

This is our site until the end of April.

Yesterday Greg rode into Ft. Myers to get the rear tire replaced on the bike.  When he loaded it in East Tampa he noticed that there were some cracks starting between the tread – no sense in taking any chances with a blowout.  The closest Harley dealer was Ft. Myers, about an hour and a half away.  I stayed home and managed to find a place for all of the groceries we bought.

Today we started participating in some of the many functions they have going on here.  I went to the “meet your neighbor” meeting while Greg and Dave finished up with the electrical problem.  At 2:00 I went to the clubhouse and talked to a group of ladies who get together to work on craft projects.  Going to have to dig out that cross stitch project I haven’t finished yet.  This evening we had supper at the snack bar in the clubhouse – good cheeseburgers and onion rings.  We met Len and Gloria who enjoyed a great looking pizza.  We all stayed to play bingo after eating, so we are officially retired. Tomorrow there is a pancake breakfast, but I’m not sure I want to get up that early J

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.