St. Augustine Anniversary

Hi all,
 We are enjoying ourselves playing tourist. We spent the weekend exploring St. Augustine known as the oldest city in America. It was established in 1565 when Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles landed with hundreds of colonist. The city is known as having the first hospital, first Catholic Parish church, and the first city government to name a few. Exploring St. Augustine is not only a great history lesson but an experience of early life on the coast.

  Fort Castillo de San Marcos constructed in 1672 still exist as one of the oldest standing structures in North America. Built by the Spanish as a military warehouse and refuge for the townspeople. Walls that measure 14 to 19 feet thick were made of over 400,000 blocks of coquina stone cut and set by hand. Coquina is a limestone blended with different coral and seashell.

 Touring other areas of St. Augustine included old narrow streets of brick lined with neat shops and restaurants. We did this on Sunday celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary. We stopped and listened to some local musicians while enjoying a celebratory beverage (or two). Good thing the trolley was handling the driving today.

 The Trolley was a good way to explore also as they narrate a 23 stop tour of the city. As parking is extremely difficult in the area it is the way to go.
 To backtrack a bit we had learned earlier that while here a seafood festival was going to take place. Well without a doubt something we were sure going to take part in. It was a nice festival and though the weather was a bit on the cool side it turned out to be a nice day. We enjoyed some music especially one band Lonesome Bert and the Skinny Lizards that played their own music a folksy blend of local tales.

 This week has been just more relaxing at the beach. We found a lightly used beach north of the city that offered some nice unobstructed beach views. We talked to a local fisherman a bit and he showed us what to look for to find sharks teeth. We spent the next day doing the shark tooth stoop and were rewarded with over 50 finds.

Some Beach

Hi all,
We pulled into Stagecoach R-V Park on Sunday after a short two hour ride. We settled in pretty quick and just browsed through the many brochures we had picked up. We have heard parking in downtown St. Augustine is a pain, but they do run a trolley shuttle and something called the Red Train Tours. You can get a three day pass for $23.00, a one day is $20. So now to decide which three days we want to do our touring.  There is a big seafood festival this weekend so we want to make sure we do the trolley on one of the weekend days.
 So the past few days we have just been exploring different beaches. I know pretty rough life. We have got some good exercise with some long walks on the beach and Wendy gets even more with the beach stooping looking for treasures.

 One day we visited Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve (thats a mouthful). It encompasses 60,000 acres of differing coastal habitat and includes a environment education center. Along with a boat launch and fishing area and there is about 10 miles of hiking trails. Wendy and I opted for a nice three mile hike through pine woods to a view of the Tolomato River.
 It was nice to walk along in the shade after baking in the sun on the beach.

  Friday the weather is suppose to be cool and rainy so we want to use that to better plan our route after Florida.
 Wendy had received a call from Lance our supervisor at Custer State Park. He had left a message saying he had good news and bad news. The good news was she would get a raise. The bad news they were raising the camp cost for paid workers in the park. She will still earn a bit more than last year so we decided to go ahead with the plan. She will be doing pretty much the same job she did last summer as a campground attendant and I will return to hosting in Stockade North. We look forward to a great summer and welcome anyone to stop by if you are in the area.

Leaving Suwannee

Hi all,
Whoopee! we moved!! Finally get to figure out how to move us on the travel map again. Not that things were bad at Suwannee but four months in one place is about all we want to spend. That old hitch itch really kicks in.
 On Thursday one of our fellow work campers cooked us a special meal called a low country boil. We had not heard of this, you take red potatoes, chunked sweet corn, sausage, shrimp and onion then put it all together in a big boiling pot with seasoning. Wendy added some dutch oven rolls and Milli brought the Smores to complete a total belly stuffing meal.

Joe the master chef and Kurt

 Rehanna, the work camper coordinator, stopped in and presented Wendy and I certificates of appreciation for our efforts here. We were thanked and told we would be welcome to come back at anytime.

 On Friday we got the special treat of touring the Pilgrim Pride Chicken plant. Amanda has been working as head accountant at the plant. Sadly as with most plants no pics were allowed of the processing because I know you all would have loved to see that. It is quite an amazing plant  processing about 1.250 million chicken per week. They have two main process lines that run about 140 birds per minute. Kind of gives you a different perspective when you look at that chicken in the store.

all suited up for the tour

 So today we hooked all up said goodbye to some great people and headed out. We didn't drive to far(128 miles) St. Augustine was our destination. We have a two week reservation at Stagecoach R-V Park. It is a small no frills park but is a short distance to St. Augustine and the beaches. Now if we can just get some weather to cooperate. Seems we have seen nothing but rain and cold lately. I know it is worse elsewhere but hey we are in the Sunshine State.
 There looks to be a lot to do in the St. Aug area and we are looking forward to checking it all out. And an added bonus there is a seafood festival going on this weekend. Bike week also will be going on beginning March 6th which may make some things busy. Bike Week is actually Daytona but not that far away.
All that and celebrating our 40th Anniversary on March 8th. I know what you're thinking how did Wendy do it? Ha, I guess love is blind.

Rating Suwannee

Hi all,
 Wow, down to our last week here at Suwannee River State Park. So what do we think of our time here. For the most part it has been a good experience. On the good side it was close to Amanda's and we were able to spend some great time with her and hubby Pat. Also good was meeting other volunteers that we now call friends. Our campsite was okay- good services and tv reception. The down side on the campsite was being in the trees so much that you couldn't really sit in the sun. We felt like it was 10 degrees warmer at Amanda's out in the open. I guess the shade would be more welcome if it were a bit warmer. As for weather here it has been cool and can get really rainy at times. For the most part, pants and sweatshirts were the norm so not that bad.
 The work here has been pretty acceptable not to hard. After a brief training we were pretty much left alone to do things as best as we saw fit. We were never asked to do more and many times were left trying to find more to get our volunteer hours in.
 The one down side to the experience has been communication. We have three full time rangers and we would sometimes have to hunt them down to find out what cabins need to get done. On at least four occasions people had walked in and reserved a cabin and we were not notified that they need cleaned.
 So to sum things up on a scale of 1-10 about an 8. Would we come back? Yeah, I think so but we'll see when.
 This past weekend turned out to be a work weekend. On Friday we began a project at Amanda's of helping her redo the flower beds around the house. The wood was mostly rotted and the beds were 6 feet out from the house. We reduced them to three feet and put new timbers, weed control, and cypress mulch down. We had pulled out bulbs and other plants and reused most all so she shouldn't need to buy much more.

Rachael is such a help

 Well as there was still so much left to be done after Friday, Wendy and I just figured we would use the Saturday to help complete the job. It was a lot of work and sure looked good when we were done.
 Later we helped repackage chicken that she had bought at the plant where she worked. Periodically they run employee sales
Wendy trimmed the chicken thighs, Amanda packaged and I did the most important job of running the vacuum packer. We ended up with 30 packs of four thighs each not bad for $30.

Festivals Abound

Hi all,
 Wow, we are down to our last two weeks volunteering at Suwannee. We think we got a nice schedule with work camping for four months and then off for two. That gives us time to play retired tourist then back to work-(kind of).
 Plans for the next two months are a bit lacking. We have a reservation for the first two weeks of March near St. Augustine, time to get our beach on. Then we will head back and mooch camp by Amanda for a couple weeks before beginning a slow trek to South Dakota. Our start date there is May 8th and we do not want to get there any earlier than necessary. So we will just see where the road takes us.
 The past weekend was a busy one as we found two nearby festivals to attend. It was nice as Amanda has taken off the next two Fridays to spend with us. On Friday we took in the Olustee Battle Festival in Lake City. The main event here is a battle reenactment of the largest civil  war battle in Florida that took place in 1864. Sadly for us the battle was held on Sunday when we had to work.( We did get a chance to visit the craft sales and sample some tasty cuisine. One side feature was a show with some of the worlds best Frisbee catching dogs that was quite fun to watch.

 Saturday was the 7th annual Stienhatchee Fiddler Crab Festival. This festival took place in the busy litte fishing village of Stienhatchee. Main events here were crab races, river rides, and a Swampwater cookoff. They also had a large supply of craft and food venders. Music was also held but we thought $10. each to hear a jam session was a bit much so we just walked about getting some nice exercise.
 Seems we had got there just as they were finishing up with the Swampwater cookoff missing the chance to get samples. Just need to plan better, but we did get a tasty Jamaican wrap. We watched a crab race then saw a young ventriloquist that was surprisingly good. There was also a unicycle juggler that was previously featured on Americas Got Talent.

 Sunday after work we helped plant a couple more fruit trees by Mandi and hook up irrigation to them. She says we can't leave till the garden is all in- we'll see??
 One other thing that you don't see in Wisconsin is baling of the pine needles, they call  pine straw. They manually rake and pile up the long needles in big piles then bring in a baler to the piles. They load them in semis and take them to various stores for use as decorative mulch and such. I guess a good way to make some money while waiting to harvest the trees.

If you look really close you can see a tear in Wendy's eye as they take her basket supply. JK.)

Sidetracked by Life

Hi all,
 We're back, sorry about the break in posts but as we all know life can change plans. In this case we had to make a trip that we knew was looming but none the less didn't want to see. Wendy's older brother Dave had passed away after a long battle with multiple cancers. A young man of only 62 leaving behind his wife, two kids, and four grandkids he will be greatly missed.
  Wendy has a large family with eight siblings and it had been a long time since all the siblings were together. We were able to spend some nice time with them and Wendy's parents.

Wendy's parents Never to old to share

 The trip was 750 miles to Lawrenceburg, Indiana. We took off most of the week hitting I75 for most all the trip leaving the RV behind and moteling it. Thankfully although quite cold the roads were dry and safe. On both passes through Atlanta we hit at mid day to avoid traffic and luckily succeeded.
 So to catch up prior to that we had taken a trip south to check out another of Florida's state parks.
Ellie Schiller Homosassa Springs State Park is very different type of park. It is a rehabilitation center for injured and orphaned West Indian Manatee. A first magnitude spring provides the perfect setting.
 Also on grounds is an assortment of  native wildlife that for various reasons can not be released back in the wild. Oh, and the one non native species an old hippo that has been given honorary citizenship. He had been there when the park was a private entity and being 6000 pounds not easy to relocate. The public also had formed a bond with this guy over the years. He is now 55 years old.

Manatee

 Another highlight of the park is a floating observatory where you can get an underwater view of thousands of fish and manatee in the Homosassa Spring.
  Wendy continues to get better and better with her pine needle basketry. This is a few of her latest handiwork.