Scheduling a two-week block of time at Florida’s State Parks was a challenge. They had plenty of room during the week but were booked up for the weekends. So, we decided to go back to the Sumter Oaks RV Park in Bushnell, where we stayed the majority of last winter and arrived on Friday, February 5th for a two week stay.
We quickly realized that we were moving too far north much too quickly considering the weather of the “Winter of 2010”. While Mother Nature was wreaking havoc on the rest of the country, with bitterly cold temperatures and blizzards that dumped feet of snow at a time, we were spared the precipitation, but not the frosty conditions. We had brought coats and other apparel suitable for cold weather, in case we traveled outside of Florida during the winter, but they were all shrink wrapped and stored under our bed. Never dreaming that we would need to pull out turtle necks, flannel pjs, and gloves, we spent a day dragging it all out, storing warm weather clothing and reorganizing our closets and drawers. With the space heater running full bore, we stayed huddled in the trailer and only exited to walk Max and shop for food. Chris spent most of her time exercising and catching up on writing the blog while Jay managed the finances, walked Max and waded through the myriad of e-mails he receives daily.
The RV Park has a sizeable recreation building with a large, open main room where tables are usually arranged in long rows and flanked by folding chairs, and several smaller rooms to the side housing a sewing area, library, TV room and pool table. On Super Bowl Sunday, we attended the Chili Cook Off held in the building. Having never been to one before we had no idea what to expect in terms of its organization or the level of fire our mouths would experience. A long series of white, plastic draped tables was set up along one wall with crock pots full of chili and their chefs, stationed along its length, each numbered from 1 to 12. Each chef had a small stack of plastic tasting cups and tiny plastic spoons for the tasters to use. Each judging participant was given a paper form to write down notes about the chili and then to list their top three choices. Chris decided to get samples from all 12, line them up in front of her and taste them in sequence. This proved to be an easy and efficient way to judge as she only had to make 4 trips to the crock pots and could focus the rest of her time on her pallet’s opinion. Jay chose to retrieve four at a time, judge them then go back for another four, etc. All in all it worked either way and we both found one to our liking but it didn’t place the same on our judging scale – nor did it win first place. To our amazement most of the chili was rather mild, even sweet and our taste buds were spared the anticipated abuse. Throughout the tasting Jay continued to proclaim that none of them matched Chris’ chili and that had she entered the competition, she surely would have won.
We spent the evening in the same room watching the Super Bowl with a handful of fellow RV’ers since our TV reception in the area, for that channel, resulted in pixilated video and stuttering audio much like a bad cell phone connection. Jay was disappointed in the outcome of the game, and again, for Chris it was just an evening of entertainment and camaraderie.
The next week was spent on more computer time, Jay figuring out what he had to do to renew his marine Captain and flight licenses, and a visit to Chris’ friend, Donna Evans, who lives in The Villages. The 56” wide flat screen television and cable capability at Donna’s house satisfied Jay’s 24 addiction by allowing him to catch up on back episodes of the TV series. She and Chris ran errands and shopped while he watched TV, and they topped off the day with a delectable dinner and shared stories.
Her SAR class and road trip to visit friends over, Jessica arrived on Valentine’s Day to pick up “the kids”. She happily agreed to share a steak dinner and afterwards we packed up all the food and other pet paraphernalia into her car, and wished her a safe journey on her 5 hour drive home. We were sad to see them go, but didn’t miss having to move the litter box from the shower stall any time we wanted to wash our bodies or the pet hair that seemed to instantaneously appear in vast quantities.
Little Miss draped over TV.
Max didn’t mind being cooped up at all.
Our next destination was the Rainbow Springs State Park in Dunnellon where our friends, Art and Edda Ross, lived. We were anxious to paddle the Rainbow River and be somewhere that afforded more outdoor opportunities, all the while praying that the enduring cold was just a passing phase.
