Key Largo

We left Boyd’s campground about 11, and stopped at Parrotdise which is at the 28.5 mile marker. Cute little restaurant and bar, Lisa tried their house wine, called Big Pecker wine, and ended up ordering a glass of the Big Peckerchardonay. Didn’t want to eat lunch there as we planned on stopping in Marathon for lunch. That place was the Island Fish Co., great food and service, it’s at the 54 mile marker. Kept going afterward til we got to Pat and Julie’s place and set up for the weekend. Today was Friday, so we went to Smuggler’s to listen to Pat’s band play their regular Friday night gig. This was the first time we met the rest of Pat’s band, I met Pete last week when we were here. It started out as a 5 piece, and ended up a 7 piece after everyone showed up. Great music, but the worst service I have had in a long time, and the food was average but very overpriced. I don’t think this place will make it long, too bad because it’s a nice regular gig for Pat.

Saturday we got up and headed to the mainland. Pat and Julie wanted to show us a few of their favs, so we went to "Robert is Here" fruitstand, tried a lot of different honey that they sell, we bought some avocado honey along with a few other things. Our next stop was the Schnebley Winery, all their wines are made with different types of fruit, no grapes here. The only one any of us found tolerable was the Mango wine, and after Pat and I competed in the "carambula stomp". The carambula being the name for star fruit, which is one of the fruits they make wine out of. The stomp being a contest on who can stomp 1 gallon of juice out of the fruit the fastest. The winner received a free bottle of wine, and I won! LOL. I picked a bottle of Mango wine to take along. This was the opening weekend for the winerys new visitor center, the help didn’t even know where everything was yet. Very beautiful place, new building and grounds, couple of waterfalls, some tiki huts, a sax player for atmosphere, all first class. Pat gave them a card as he would like to play there.

The ride home found us taking the Card Sound road, which was the old road to get to the keys prior to Highway 1 being built. Stopped at Alabama Jack’s for lunch and a listen to the house band. Pat had mentioned they played all C&W, especially the old stuff, and of course, they were playing newer songs, and not all C&W. Some more good food, we ordered 2 meals for 4 people and couldn’t eat it all, and we sat next to the canal watching the fishing boats go by. There was a little excitement, someone dropped some money in the canal, and they had to get a fishing net to rescue it. The rest of the evening was lounging at the house. We did call Cory and he was going to toast to us, so we all toasted him ..........

We took our time getting up on Sunday, left the house about 11, stopped at the local fleamarket for a bit, and drove to Founder’s Park for Pat’s gig at the Relay for Life benefit. The weather was warm but cloudy, and it was too bad that more people weren’t there, Pat’s band (Blues Lagoon) played for a hour and a half, we had a BBQ pork for lunch.

A nice afternoon, except that Lisa and I both got sunburned. A storm popped up on the drive home, and we stayed in Sunday night, exept for a quick run for groceries, because of the rain. Julie had to nap, she starts her third shift hours tonight, 11-7, and after she left we went to bed. Got woke up during the night with all the rain again, but didn’t mind, I don’t have to shovel this stuff :-)

Pat says "cheers" to everyone.......

Indiana and home

Very cold last night, and I'm not used to camping in the cold. Apparently many are though, there are 20-25 trailers and RVs here! The campers next to us say they live in theirs full time, my question was "why here?" They told me that they were originally from Indiana and were visiting, brrrrrr, they aught to visit when it's warmer!

Tuesday we hit the Simmons winery (wasn't open yet) and the Buck Creek winery (small, friendly, and very good wines) on the way to the Dickinson's. Ann welcomed us in, chatted a bit, then we went into Carmel for a quick look around. Stopped at Ferrin's Fruit wines (mostly fruit wines, a couple grape), and the Grape Inspirations (40 kinds and they also let you make your own!) before going back to Ann's for the night. We went to a place around the corner from her called Sahm's for dinner. Nice place and decent prices, and after dinner went back to Ann's for the night. I did find out that the RV can't take really cold windy weather, it wants to drain the battery quickly, had to get up about 4:30 to start the RV and keep the battery charged up.

Wednesday morning Ann made breakfast for us, and we hit the road about 10:30. Without many stops, we made it home about 4:00, took us a little longer because of ALL THE SNOW!!!!! We hit some nasty lake effect whiteouts, now we are really back to reality. I had to shovel for an hour before we could even get the RV in the driveway. Called Pat and blamed him, said we wouldn't be in this mess if he hadn't pushed us out of Florida so fast :-)

Had some problems Thursday morning, the HHR wouldn't start, battery was down, but after a jump we were on the road. Back to normal.......if you can call record amounts of snowfall normal.

All in all it was a great trip, got out of the cold for a while, visited with good friends, saw some nice sights, a few wineries and distilleries, ate some great seafood, listened to some really good music, a February to remember.

See you next year........................

Georgia, Kentucky and Indiana

After spending the day in St Augustine on Friday, we stayed at the Stagecoach RV park near there, nice park, but nothing there, not a place I would want to stay for any length of time. Saturday we started north again, drove to Jacksonville to check out the Total Wine and More store. Picked up a lot of stuff, some wine for Lisa, some bourbon and beer for me, stuff I can’t get or much cheaper than we can get back home.

Seeing as we are not in that big a hurry, when we left Jacksonville we started on the State roads going north instead of the Interstate. Lots of nice scenery, and Lisa likes it that we don’t have to share the roads with the truckers (they shake the RV a little when they pass us). Into Georgia we decided to head to Dublin GA just to say we had been there, and on the way I noticed a sign for a State Park. So Saturday night was spent at Little Ocmulgee Lodge Park.

Now this is a place I could spend some time at! Very nice camping facilities on a beautiful lake and it has a golf course! But I sure can tell we’re not in Florida anymore, woke up in the morning and as I let Molly out I could see my breath, temps are in the high 30s I think. We went down to the Lodge for breakfast, real nice buffet and less than $7 with coffee. They have packages here which combine golf and camping that seemed reasonable. About $270 for 7 days camping and unlimited green fees for 2 people, may have to look into this for next year.

Took off driving and made it to a Wal-Mart near Lexington, Kentucky for the night. In the morning we started back on the Bourbon Trail with our first stop scheduled as Woodford Reserve. A beautiful drive to get there, and then found out it is closed on Mondays….grrrrrrrr…so on to the next one which was Buffalo Trace. Now this was a very educational tour. Learned a few new things about the history of bourbon in Kentucky, into one of the bonded storage areas, watched them bottle some 20 year old Pappy Van Winkles, and back to the visitor center for a tasting. Some great bourbon here, and they also make a vodka (Rain Vodka) that was really smooth. It’s distilled seven times. The tour was almost 2 hours long. Afterward we drove to the Four Roses distillery for their tour.

This one was a little more hands on again, we went through the grain testing room and the production facilities. They do all the distilling here and then send it off for storage and bottling. We were even allowed to sample the “white dog” as it was coming off the column still (130 proof), and then as it was coming off the doubler (140 proof), which is essentially a pot still. (I think that Woodford Reserve is the only one that is strictly distilled in a pot still.) Then on to the tasting room, and back on the road headed to Columbus, Indiana for the night at Woods-N-Waters Campground.

As we hit the Indiana state line we start seeing snow again, back to reality I guess. In fact the campground has a inch of snow on the ground. Rained all night, and it is still a mixture of rain/snow as I type, hope it doesn’t affect us too much for the ride. We are planning on seeing the Dickersons today, but will play it by ear.

This may be the last post until we get home so see you all soon.

St Augustine

Friday today, got up early, went in for a shower and Kathy (Mike's wife) was just leaving for work, so said our goodbyes. Mike showed up a little later after taking Cathy (his sister) to the airport for her flight back to Michigan. Mike, Isabella, Lisa and myself went out for breakfast, and said our goodbyes back at his house. He gave us a route to head north that took us through some pretty scenery as we made our way to St Augustine. Our first stop there was the San Sabastian winery. Took the tour, did the tasting, and bought Lisa a bottle of Chablis.

Afterward we took our time and walked the town. Supposedly the oldest town in the US, don't know about that, but it is very old. Lots of neat architecture, and there are lots of artists there. Some neat old stores, had a beer and lunch at the A1A Ale brewery, nice Scotch ale and a Red ale. Wandered around all afternoon, then headed to the RV park for the night.

Weather is muggy today, looking like a storm may kick up tonight, but it's quite warm, low 80s. Storms rolling through north of us in Georgia and South Carolina, not sure if they will get this far south.

Tomorrow we are headed to Jacksonville and on to Georgia. It's getting to be time to head north. Hope the weather warms up a bit before we get there!

Ormond Beach

Nice ride to Chase's house, when we got there his sister Cathy welcomed us, Mike had a contractor giving him a estimate on a little remodeling job. Got set up in the driveway, introduced Molly to Mike's dogs Elvis and Rickie. Went for dinner to the Gryphon's Lark, nice British style pub. When we got back to their place, Mike built a fire outside and we swapped lies for a while til it got too cold (I know, 65 ain't cold you all of you in MI)and we called it a night.

In the morning Lisa took a walk down to the beach, I hung around and let Molly have a little exercise. In the afternoon Mike took us to Blue Springs State Park where we got a chance to watch the manatees swim around. Nice park, we saw lots of different fish, birds, and half a dozen or so manatees. Hard to get a picture of them, they stay under water all the time except for poking their nose out to breath. Great afternoon. Isabelle (Mike's 2 1/2 year old daughter) entertained us all. We stopped to the fish store on the way home, Mike is going to cook dinner for us all. Cathy (the sister) has to be to the airport very early tomorrow, so after dinner we will be saying all our goodbyes, we should be gone before they come home from the airport.

Our plan is to hit St Augustine tomorrow........

Key Largo and our trip starting north

Monday was a "retiree" day for me, we did nothing but enjoy the warmth and sunshine. Actually kind of humid, then a nice breeze came in and made it very comfortable. There were the obligatory trips to the store, but that was it. Julie slept til 1pm after a long night at work, shes on 11pm to 7am hours. Lisa made kale and potatoes with grilled chicken for lunch/dinner, and Pat and I finished off a lot of the scotch and bourbon.

Tuesday I started putting the RV in order so we could leave. Julie stayed up after getting home from work so we could visit, we had to dodge a lot of rain for about an hour, then things settled down. Pat and I make breakfast, and afterwards we did our goodbyes and hit the road. Made our way up to Fort Pierce where Dave and Shirley Huff have made their new home. We are camping at the Road Runner park, Dave picked us up to go to their house, Dan and Ardi Coby are there too so we had a great visit, burgers and dogs on the grill, and laughed about old times. Dave brought us back to the park for the night, and after putting on some long pj's, it's cool tonight, we sacked out.

It's Wednesday morning now, and we are going to drive to Ormond Beach to see Mike Chase in a little bit. I'll fill you in next time.

Later.......

Key Largo

We left Boyd’s campground about 11, and stopped at Parrotdise which is at the 28.5 mile marker. Cute little restaurant and bar, Lisa tried their house wine, called Big Pecker wine, and ended up ordering a glass of the chardonay. Didn’t want to eat lunch there as we planned on stopping in Marathon for lunch. That place was the Island Fish Co., great food and service, it’s at the 54 mile marker. Kept going afterward til we got to Pat and Julie’s place and set up for the weekend. Today was Friday, so we went to Smuggler’s to listen to Pat’s band play their regular Friday night gig. This was the first time we met the rest of Pat’s band, I met Pete last week when we were here. It started out as a 5 piece, and ended up a 7 piece after everyone showed up. Great music, but the worst service I have had in a long time, and the food was average but very overpriced. I don’t think this place will make it long, too bad because it’s a nice regular gig for Pat.

Saturday we got up and headed to the mainland. Pat and Julie wanted to show us a few of their favs, so we went to "Robert is Here" fruitstand, tried a lot of different honey that they sell, we bought some avocado honey along with a few other things. Our next stop was the Schnebley Winery, all their wines are made with different types of fruit, no grapes here. The only one any of us found tolerable was the Mango wine, and after Pat and I competed in the "carambula stomp". The carambula being the name for star fruit, which is one of the fruits they make wine out of. The stomp being a contest on who can stomp 1 gallon of juice out of the fruit the fastest. The winner received a free bottle of wine, and I won! LOL. I picked a bottle of Mango wine to take along. This was the opening weekend for the winerys new visitor center, the help didn’t even know where everything was yet. Very beautiful place, new building and grounds, couple of waterfalls, some tiki huts, a sax player for atmosphere, all first class. Pat gave them a card as he would like to play there.

The ride home found us taking the Card Sound road, which was the old road to get to the keys prior to Highway 1 being built. Stopped at Alabama Jack’s for lunch and a listen to the house band. Pat had mentioned they played all C&W, especially the old stuff, and of course, they were playing newer songs, and not all C&W. Some more good food, we ordered 2 meals for 4 people and couldn’t eat it all, and we sat next to the canal watching the fishing boats go by. There was a little excitement, someone dropped some money in the canal, and they had to get a fishing net to rescue it. The rest of the evening was lounging at the house. We did call Cory though, and he mentioned that he would toast us, so here is our toast to him......


We took our time getting up on Sunday, left the house about 11, stopped at the local fleamarket for a bit, and drove to Founder’s Park for Pat’s gig at the Relay for Life benefit. The weather was warm but cloudy, and it was too bad that more people weren’t there, Pat’s band (Blues Lagoon) played for a hour and a half, we had a BBQ pork for lunch. A nice afternoon, except that Lisa and I both got sunburned. A storm popped up on the drive home, and we stayed in Sunday night, exept for a quick run for groceries, because of the rain. Julie had to nap, she starts her third shift hours tonight, 11-7, and after she left we went to bed. Got woke up during the night with all the rain again, but didn’t mind, I don’t have to shovel this stuff :-)

Pat says to say hey to everyone back home so.....


Great weather now, gonna be 85 today, hope you are all staying warm.......