Freezing at the Lake

We left Miami on January 6th and returned to Lake Okeechobee but stayed at the North Lake Estates RV Resort in Moore Haven on the west side of the lake. Although there are probably many RV resorts of this type, it was the first we’d been exposed to. Most of the residents come for the winter and live in prefab single or double-wide homes. Some have screened or glassed-in porches that stretch down the side; others have large paved drives across the front where golf carts fit snugly under roof extensions. And all sit within miniscule lots sprinkled with trees.

A long, low building toward the rear of the complex houses a library, gym, craft/game room and a restaurant. Across a broad avenue from it are two other large buildings that house a wood working shop and several apartments. The resort centerpiece is a multi-acre lake bisected by a wooden bridge with an adjoining pool, outdoor barbeque and activities building. Everything is kept as neat as a pin by residents who take turns attending to the community areas.

The main reason for our return was to rendezvous with Chris’ friend, Clyde Sanda, whom she hadn’t seen since the early 90’s when they met while cruising the Caribbean; she with her family and he with his son. He and his girlfriend, Jan, live in Oregon but keep a sailboat near the lake and were coming for their annual vacation of sailing down the west coast of Florida. They weren’t due to arrive until the 3rd week of the month, so Chris took daily advantage of the gym facilities and we hung out in the RV working on projects, editing photos and generally catching our breath after the whirlwind month we’d had in Miami.

Chris has always worked out, in some form, for many years, incorporating TV exercise shows, yoga, Pilates and barbells. Working in her home garden was not only mentally therapeutic but kept her in shape. The RV lifestyle does not attract the fittest of America’s citizens and the parks normally have very limited to no fitness equipment or programs in which one can participate. So, with a fully equipped gym including four universal weight bearing machines, half a dozen aerobic machines consisting of treadmills and cycles, and a library of at least 30 VHS exercise/aerobic/yoga tapes that could be played on one of two wall-mounted TVs positioned in the floor exercise area at her disposal, Chris thought she’d died and gone to heaven. She averaged a 1 ½ hour workout most every day and was pleased with the considerable results achieved during their 17-day stay.

On the other hand, Jay likes to stay in shape by walking and doing all the RV and truck maintenance. When at home in MD, he and Chris had a two-mile circuit around the community that they tried to walk every day. With Chris working out at the gym so much, Jay didn’t have his walking partner and would trek out on his own. In true Jay form, he would chat with the residents along the way, and by the time he reached home he had all kinds of stories to tell about who he’d just met.

It was a good thing that we were still in Florida as Chris’ daughter, Jessica, got orders to attend a Search and Rescue (SAR) school in Yorktown, VA for four weeks. Boarding her pets was a cost prohibitive option she would rather avoid, so we volunteered to care for Little Miss and Max. On January 15th we met at a convenient crossroads and she loaded us up with cat and dog food, litter box, pet toys, and bags of perishable foods she didn’t want to spoil in her refrigerator. Wow, it was like going grocery shopping for free and just happening to come home with a couple of new pets!! On the way home we stopped at the Goodwill and for $10 bought a spread to serve as a bed for Max. What a deal and now Jay had a walking partner to boot!

Although we’d seen this strange phenomenon in Melbourne, we noticed it again immediately behind our RV!! The back of our home faced the fence surrounding the resort and between it and the highway was an expanse of lawn about 40 feet deep. While sitting at our computers and looking through the back window, we would see the tops of golf carts zipping by. Curious as to what they were doing in this particular area we investigated further. Now, we’ve seen people walk their dogs on a leash, we’ve even seen people walk their dogs while riding their bikes, but we really have trouble wrapping our heads around rotund residents walking/running their dogs with their golf carts.

Clyde and Jan arrived on the 18th but our visits with them were way too short as most of their time was spent working on the boat to prepare it for their sailing vacation. It was dry docked at a nearby storage facility and they experienced battery and other “a boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money” problems that kept them from launching at the appointed time. Nevertheless, we had a great time catching up on what we’ve been doing over the last 15 years and meeting our respective life loves.

Clyde and Jan – we finally meet again!

The average temperatures for the Lake Okeechobee area during February are highs of 75 degrees and lows of 55 degrees. We all know what kind of a 2010 winter the entire country experienced and Florida had its difficulties too. The thermometer read multiple daytime highs in the 60s with strong, biting winds requiring jackets and long pants for any outing. Nights dropped into the 30s repeatedly and the first hard freeze hit the crops destroying millions of dollars worth of tomatoes, citrus and other produce throughout Central and Northern Florida. We have a propane furnace in the RV but primarily use a tower space heater since we don’t pay extra for electricity at most RV parks. It ran non-stop day and night with the furnace kicking on throughout the nights. So, if you noticed a price increase in tomatoes, orange juice and strawberries over the winter, that’s why.

This region has huge tracts of land dedicated to sugar cane and we don’t believe it was affected as we saw an unending stream of tractor trailers loaded with the scorched stalks. Scorched, because before they are harvested, the fields are burned to sear the stalks and seal in the juices. Kind of like searing a steak on the grill to do the same. We’d never heard of this being done before but it explained the massive amounts of smoke we saw billowing from the fields when we first arrived at North Lake. Read more about the sugar cane industry in Florida here.

We had reservations with campgrounds to gradually move north through the beginning of April so, with trepidation, on January 22nd, we moved on to the Sarasota/Bradenton area to visit with more of Jay’s Coast Guard and high school friends, hoping that the cold snap was behind us.