The Bill and Kit Excellent Adventure Journal-Issue #3 

 Wednesday, January 21, 2009:

The south is playing a very cruel joke on us poor souls.

This morning it is 19 degrees in Norcross Georgia and the camper door is frozen shut. YIKES!! We may never be seen again! A bit of pounding lead to all the ice falling on the camper step and the door flying open as I stood in the open door with my sleep wear (?????) and a silly grin, then…..wait for it…..…..I stepped down on the before mentioned step and…..you know what’s coming……….I executed a 270 ollie with a tail whip (more tail then whip) and pegged a perfect three point landing. Gotta keep heading south.

Arrived in Florida, mid day and enjoyed a complementary orange juice. You know with a little complementary vodka that welcome center would be quite welcoming.

It was 55 degrees and all the orange heads were moaning but we quickly donned shorts. We did sight our first palm trees.

Decided to take the Back Roads so programmed Lucy (remember Lucy?) for “shortest distance” instead of “fastest time”. During our journey we viewed some beautiful countryside and many orange groves, strawberry fields and horse ranches. Due to the Maine summer weather that Florida was experiencing, the crops had been sprayed with water and everything had been frozen and was slowly thawing out as the sun hit them. It was a neat sight…..mid 50’s, sunny and half the field encased in ice.

 Pulled into Ocala, Florida for the night. Crummy park but dog tired and late.

Shoulda gone to Wal-mart.

Thursday, January 22, 2009:

Underway for Lakeland Florida with a quick stop at Wal-mart for more cheerwine and razors. While Kit shopped I futzed about the trailer. A security guard stopped by and inquired if we were camping or shopping.

Since he brought it up I asked about the Wal-mat camping policy. Every store varies a little but the basic rules are: 12 hours maximum, out by 8:00AM, and keep the area neat and clean. This store had 24 hour security and he said he particularly looks out for RV folks. Nice stuff to know. Oh yea, the weather this morning was only in the 40’s!!!!! At this rate we will be in Cuba before we hit warm weather.

Arrived high noon at Lakeland RV Resort and registered for a weeks stay. It is finally in the 60’s and even though we are ecstatic the locals are still bundled up and complaining about the cold. This “campground” is incredible. It has a heated pool, hot tub, large lounge with a huge plasma TV, a private lake full of catfish and something called bream, lots of activities and is very clean and well maintained. There are many oaks dripping with Spanish moss and lots of birds and ground critters scurrying about. Lots of snow birds here for the season with at least two others from Maine. Dropped the trailer at our “camp” site and went out to get provisions and wash all the salt and road grime off the truck.

Winterfest

Some of the reasons we headed this far south were a) GET WARM, b) visit some old friends, and c) attend a major square dance festival featuring top qualitycallers called Winterfest. It is a three day event with dancing starting at 10:00AM and going until 10:30PM. Thursday was day one and there were over 500 couples dancing to some incredible music, calling and entertainment. Our club, Sage Swingers or Bath-Brunswick, Maine was very well represented. In fact we received a monetary award for the most dancers from away. A nice addition to the club treasury.

Here is a shot of the main hall. 

And look who we ran into to. 

Harvey and Cindy

 Harvey, the world’s tallest square dancer and his lovely bride, Cindy. Harvey has many awards and commendations…..evident by the medals around his neck…..for his prowess in dancing in squares. We had a blast dancing with them as well as the 34 other dancers from our club as well as folks from all over the US. This was higher level dancing which Kit and I had not participated in for a while. Fortunately our club friends took care of us and helped until all the cobwebs lined up and I could get both my left feet moving correctly.

Thanks, guys! After 5 hours of dancing we were dragging and we do it all over again tomorrow.

Love, Dad/Mom, Poppy/Guma, Bill