Yard Salin' and Happy Anniversary!!

Being the frugal people we are, we like yard sales!  I even call them "cheap entertainment"!! Saturday we had plans with my son and DIL to spend the morning yard salin'.

One of our friends was helping organize a charity yard sale for the Purple Heart Foundation.  According to the web, the mission of this foundation is to foster an environment of goodwill and camaraderie among combat wounded veterans, promote patriotism, support necessary legislative initiatives, and most importantly, provide service to all veterans and their families.  Seemed like a good place to start the day!  We all went our separate ways as we entered the local armory and, about 30 minutes later, my son and I walked out with our finds.  I was looking for Tupperware containers to store my dry goods in and picked up 2 large canisters and 2 medium canisters for $2.  Never able to pass up books, I bought one for me and one for my DIL's classroom.   My son picked up four college textbooks for a buck.  More on this in a few....Dan did not find any treasures.

We then hit the neighborhood yard sales.  My DIL sure knows how to get a bargain!  She is a first year teacher and is always on the look-out for things she can use in her classroom.  We stopped by one house and they had kid's games for $2.  DIL got to talking with the lady and said she was going to buy one of the games for her students.  The lady GAVE her the game!  Who-hoo...free is better than $2!  On to the next yard sale and she spotted quite a few kid's books for the lending library!  Again, DIL mentioned that she was buying the books for her classroom and got those for FREE too!  I am beginning to see a pattern!  We wondered if she could use her skills for things we were buying too but thought it may be a stretch for students to "need" a step stool for their RV...err I mean classroom!!

Now my son, he's a thinker!!  He goes to yard sales to look for stuff he can then sell on Ebay.  Remember that I mentioned  those text books he bought for $1 (total!!) from the first yard sale?  The going rate for those is $100.  So, with a little bit of time, he makes a killer profit!  He also picked up a DVD from a "free" box and sold it for $7.   He bought a few other things to re-sell as well.  All in all, he spent a total of $46 and expects to make sell everything for $300.  Unbelievable!  We had such a fun morning!!

One of the good things about being back at our NC home base is seeing my best friend, Linda.  

I'm dancing a jig because I'm excited to see my friend!!

Hands down, it doesn't matter what we do, we ALWAYS end up having a great time.  Dan likes to tell us that when we get together, we act like teenage girls because we giggle so much.  We've supported each other through good times and bad!  Her Dad even calls me his "other" daughter.

 
We've been friends for 25 years this year!  So, it's "Happy Anniversary" to us, Linna Louise!  Thanks for always being there for me!  I'm looking forward to many "girl dates" while we're here!

It's exam week for my daughter, Ashleigh.  Her freshman year sure has gone by quickly (at least for me)!  She'll be home next week and I'm looking forward to some mother/daughter time!

Life is good!!

Hanging out in NC...

We have had a really nice week since we have been back in NC.  The day we got back (last Friday), we went over to my son and DIL's new house.  Although they gave us a grand tour via Skype, I wanted to see it in person.  I made homemade pizza dough and brought that and all of the fixings for a salad over for dinner.  They have a lovely home but Dan and I still haven't figured out where the RV hook-ups are.  :-)

While we were over there, we were also celebrating my DIL's birthday.  No cake for her...we all enjoyed a birthday pizza!!

Before we left, we made sure to capture a group shot....

Dan, Tricia, Brandon, and Amanda

My daughter Ashleigh is still at school...getting ready to start exams....so she wasn't able to join us.  A mammoth-sized care package is on it's way to her to help curb the craziness of these last few weeks of her freshman year.  She'll be home in a few weeks and I'm  anxious to see her!

We've also been busy "work-camping" at Korkie's Campground.  In a very weird way, I do miss yard work!  Dan and I rolled up our sleeves and got to work raking, lopping, weed-eating, and doing some controlled burns!  Kork sure was surprised when she got home from work!

Kork and Dan taking a rest (note the burn-za-matic!!)

Kork's cat, Diesel usually thinks that he is a dog and he acts like one most of the time.  This time, however, he was all cat and on a mission!!

He could hear the birds chirping but he was not successful in his attempt to raid the birdhouse!  We got a chuckle out of watching him!

Monday we had made plans to kayak with Gin and Syl.  They recently got a new Sea Eagle and they were anxious to christen it!    They brought me this gorgeous rose from their garden!

Beautiful!  Notice the lovely vase!

Here's the rose a few days later....

Thanks Gin and Syl!  What a nice surprise!

We chatted a bit at Korkie's Campground before we headed over to Fall's Lake.  We decided not to go to our usual put-in point to kayak as the winds were really kicking up and we needed to be in a cove.  After agreeing that the "no parking" signs really weren't meant for us, we starting getting the kayaks ready.

Dan checking out the pump Gin and Syl have.  Pretty dandy! 

Gin making her funny face...I think Syl was just shaking her head!

Then we had to get them to the launch site.  Gin and Syl's is considerably lighter.  Sea Eagle apparently has made some modifications to the Paddleski and weight was one of them!

Wheeee!  This is going to be fun!!!

Almost ready to launch!!

Houston...we have lift off!!

They looked like they had tandem kayaked before!

We paddled a bit but really let the wind carry us.  We knew that we would pay for it on the way back as the wind would then be in our faces!  It was a gorgeous day to be on the lake and all four of us were enjoying being together!  We laughed and laughed so much!!

Time to take it easy and take pictures!

Last shot of the maiden voyage!

We were glad that we got to join Gin and Syl on their maiden voyage.  The afternoon ended all too quickly and we left Falls Lake to go our separate ways.  :-(  But it's never good-bye...just "see you down the road".

We are in NC until the end of May and we are looking forward to catching up with more family and friends! Life is good!!

Catching up.....

We left Cedar Key April 1st.  And, this ain't no April Fool's Day joke....we bought an RV lot!  Yeah!  We love the area so much and, after weighing the pros and cons and doing a ton of research, we took the plunge and are Florida "land-owners".  I put this in parenthesis as it's only a small slice of land but it's grand to us and we are very excited!!   When we are not staying there, we are able to let friends use it so, if you are interested in the Cedar Key area, let me know and we can talk!!

From Cedar Key, we headed to Reed Bingham State Park in Georgia.  We spent 4 days bicycling and relaxing.  We also saw something that we had never seen before....

A gopher tortoise.  We noticed this guy when we were out bike riding.  We stood in the grass to watch him and he actually started walking right to Dan and, as he got close, would hiss loudly!  He didn't look too friendly!

While we were out doing laundry one day, we met Tyler.  Tyler is 7 years old and, despite there being other kids at the campground, he decided to befriend Dan and I.  We had a fun few days riding bikes and playing on the playground with him.  Dan and Tyler would race bikes around the campground.  Dan let Tyler "win" the race but one time he decided to pedal ahead of Tyler.  Tyler didn't like this too much and called Dan a "pig".  We laughed and laughed.  Tyler's was staying with his Grammy and Papaw and they both said he never met a stranger!  Their point was proven when he decided to walk in our RV one day...without knocking.  Another time, I was outside and Tyler came up and asked me "do you think Dan would like to come outside and play?"  Too funny.

After we left Reed Bingham, we went to our first Corp of Engineer Campground.  Amity Campground is in Lanett, AL and is on West Point Lake.

Our site was on one of the smaller loops and was BIG!  We really enjoyed this campground and, after all of the people left after Easter, it was virtually empty!  Out of 90+ sites, there were only 15 campers.

One of the reasons we went to AL was to see my brother, Patrick.  He is in the Air Force and was in Montgomery for some education!

Me and my "little" brother!

Patrick spent the day with us on Easter.  After a home-cooked meal, we headed over to check out the dam.

Dan and Patrick at the dam

We had a nice, relaxing day.  Before Patrick headed back to Montgomery (and with 3 dozen homemade chocolate chip cookies), we had to goof off and get this picture...

See, back when we were growing up, I was supposed to be watching Patrick one day while my parents were working.  Patrick wanted to go to the local park....being the typical teenager, I wanted to sleep in.  I shirked my responsibilities and Patrick went to the park by himself. A while later, I heard a car in our driveway and since I knew my parents couldn't be home, went to investigate.  A woman we did not know had Patrick in her car.  He had gotten into a fight with another boy at the park (over a turtle!!!) and the other boy pushed him down.  His arm was b-r-o-k-e-n!!  Rut-roh.  Now I will admit that my first thought was "man - I am going to be in so much trouble!!"  I called my Mom at work (she was a nurse!) and I told her that we needed to come to the ER as Patrick had broken his arm.  The lady from the park (this was back in the day when you didn't have to worry about strangers) took us both to the hospital where my Mom worked.  Patrick ended up needing surgery and stayed in the hospital for a few days.  I felt sooooo bad that I brought him his favorite meal every day....Taco Bell!  So, long story short, this picture is for you, Mom, for all the trouble I gave you that day!  

  

After we left Alabama, we starting making our way back to NC.  We stayed at a Passport America campground, Carolina Landing in SC.  It was only $15 for the night and fine for an overnight stay.  But, if our rig was any larger or if Dan was not an expert driver, we would have been in a pickle!  Upon arriving back to our NC homebase, this is what we saw....

It put a big smile on our faces!   

We're back......

Wow - I knew we could last a month without TV - that was a no-brainer.  However, not having internet access for over 2 weeks was quite hard!  Our laptop decided to give us trouble the week before we left Cedar Key.  And, since we don't have smart phones, we were totally disconnected!!   We are now back in NC and I am using my son and DIL's extra laptop for now.  He's going to be taking a look at ours and will hopefully work some magic to get it up and running again!  In the next couple of days, I will post another blog update about our travels the past few weeks.  But just a few tidbits to leave you with....since leaving Florida, we've been to 3 states, bought real estate (hmmmm!), made friends with a 7 year old boy, and seen my brother!   Fun times for sure!  Life is good!

Visiting Manatee Springs State Park

Sunday we headed over to Manatee Springs State Park to visit with Sherry and David.  On the way there, we spotted a little red car with a kayak on top on the side of the road.  Could it be?  Yes, it was!  We stopped to make sure that they were okay and Sherry was hunkered down in the car updating her blog!  She couldn't get internet signal at the campground.  We went on ahead of her and visited with David until she arrived.

 After chatting for a bit and getting caught up, we headed down to the Springs.  Along the way, we saw this guy....

He was oblivious to the crowd that was gathering to watch him.  A few steps away, we came to this...

There was some sort of diver instruction going on.  This particular spring is covered with duck weed and Dan and David went to investigate further.

Great minds investigating the duck weed!

 It was then on to the spring.

Beautiful waters!

Dan, Sherry, and David....such a good group shot

Neither Dan nor I had ever had the opportunity to swim in a spring.  The water temperature is supposed to be 72 degrees year round....

So refreshing

The water was chilly at first but so so refreshing!  The current kept pushing you downstream but it sure was nice to float and relax.  We swam for a bit and chit-chatted some more.  Swimming back to the steps to get out of the spring was a bit of a challenge given the current but we all made it safe and sound.

We made it back to Sherry and David's and had a nice picnic lunch.  The rain was moving in so we moved inside and chatted some more.  All too soon, it was time to bid them safe travels and head back to Cedar Key.  We enjoyed our visit and know that we will see them again "down the road".

Thanks Sherry and David for a great time at Manatee Springs!

Surprise Visitors and loooong bike ride!

Back in April 2010 at the RV-Dreams Rally in SC, we had met Tonya and James.  Although we exchanged contact information, for whatever reason, neither of us kept in touch.  Dan and I would occassionally say "wonder what ever happened to Tonya and James and wonder where they are now".

Well.....we found out Tuesday night!  We had just finished dinner when we saw a couple approacing our site.  We looked out the door and saw Tonya and James!  They had tracked us down thru a few other bloggers and had read that we were going to be at Cedar Key RV Resort for the month of March.  They are on their way down a bit further south in FL and decided to stop by to see us.  It was a great surprise! 

We spent the evening getting caught up and introducing them to other RVers at this park.  Wednesday we paddled over to Atsena Otie again....the wind was definitely not in our favor and we did not have the trolling motor with us!  Our arms got a work out for sure!!  After we kayaked for a few hours, we talked around the waterfront.  We hung out for a bit on the pier and the dolphins gave us quite a show!  You could see the baby dolphins hanging close to their mom's and it was so neat to watch. The mullet were definitely jumping and, at one point, one of the dolphins eyed one of the mullet and jumped out of the water to catch the mullet.  It was fascinating to see!  After a covered dish dinner at the clubhouse, the four of us went to watch the sunset.  We were going to go to the Tiki Bar at the Low Key Hide-away but one of our friends had suggested going out to the airport.  We were not disappointed....

Tonya and James

Yes, this is the runway of the Cedar Key "airport"!!

Tonya and James left Thursday morning to head further south.  It was great seeing them again and we know that we will see them again..."down the road"!!

We had made plans on Thursday to pedal to Cedar Key with Mack and Mo.  We had "trained" all week and were ready to hit the pavement!!

Mo, Mack and Dan

Yep, that's Safety Dan.  We wanted to make sure that we would be "seen"!!  And yep, Mo really does ride the vintage 70s banana seat bike! 

We pedaled out of the RV Park and started heading to Cedar Key.  It's mainly flat with the exception of one small hill. We stopped a few times for some much needed water breaks.  We also pedaled by some wild hogs that you could hear grunting but they were never seen!  Along the way, we stopped at the Low Key Hideaway to check out the Tiki Bar....

Looks like a nice place to come for an evening out!

Just so you know where you are!!

I'm sure this would pertain to us after our bike ride was completed!

After about 7.5 miles, we stopped at our first destination which was the post office so I could mail a package to my daughter.    They were closed for lunch so we meandered around town checking out the new Pyrate Isle Sauce Shop and a consignment shop and, although we packed a light picnic lunch, needed additional fuel for the ride back. 

Mo and Mack outside The Big Deck

After lunch we stopped by the town hardware store....it's one of those stores that has EVERYTHING and then stopped by the post office to mail my package.  After that, we slowly made our trek back to the campground.  All in all, we estimated that we pedaled about 18 miles or so!  A fun day, indeed!!

Enjoying Cedar Key with friends....

We've made some really good friends and have enjoyed hanging out with them these past few weeks!
We've been bike riding with Mack and Mo.....

And they snapped this picture of us!

That's our "life is grand" grins!

We took them to see the owls.....I could never get tired of watching the owls!

Snapped this picture with both adult owls!

We then pedaled down to the waterfront, got an ice cream, and headed to the pier to watch the pelicans. 

They were posing pretty for the camera!

We have shared many a meal together, too!  We've had seafood night (blackened shrimp, garlic and butter shrimp and steamed clams), a traditional St Patrick's Day feast with corned beef, cabbage, carrots,  and colcannon and Halushka which is a Polish dish with cabbage, noodles, and kielbasa!  And, this is just our little group of friends.....each week the RV park has potluck!  Good thing we continue to stay active!!

Charlie getting ready for our St Patrick's Day feast!

Ty working on the Colcannon

Some of the gang enjoying a meal!

  During our St Patrick's Day feast, this rainbow appeared....

Luck of the Irish!!

This past Sunday, Ron and Lena invited us to go out on there boat with them.  Charlie and Dot were going too.  It was a great day with good weather and good friends!

Charlie, Captain Ron, and Dan

Me, Dot and Lena

We went exploring the different Keys that are part of the Cedar Key National Wildlife Refuge.

Deadman's Key

Gorgeous white pelicans on the sandbar

We motored over to North Key where we enjoyed our picnic lunch.  You are allowed to dock at the beach and enjoy the beachfront but you are not allowed to go inland on the island.  After lunch, we walked the shoreline to see what we could find.....

 

Hermit Crab!

Periwinkles

Tons of horseshoe crabs!

We did see two Bald Eagles in flight but did not get a picture of them.  The day was gorgeous and we enjoyed exploring the different keys with friends.

Charlie and Dot

Lena and Ron

Dan and I with the big whopping shell we found! 

All too soon it was time to meander our way back to Cedar Key but not before we went by Seahorse Key.

Lighthouse in the distance

 
Seahorse Key is closed to the public for a few months starting Mar 1 as it is a nesting site for various birds. 

We had a great day on the water!  Life is good!