A Walkabout At the Park

Location: Avon Park, FL (High 82, Low 62)

One of the places in the area that I’ve been looking forward to seeing is Highlands Hammock State Park. We’ve been waiting for a nice warm day so we might have a chance of seeing some wildlife, especially alligators!

 

Yesterday finally seemed like a good day to go check it out. I packed a lunch and after a leisurely start to the morning, we drove the short distance over to the park. (We are about 15 minutes away.)

 

Once you drive into the park, there is a main road loop with a number of trails coming off the road. Most of the trails are short loops. There are a couple that are more straight paths and connect up with each other. We only did three of the trails yesterday.

There were many people biking along the mail road. Next to each trailhead there is a bike rack where you can park your bike and walk the trail. I think that is the best way to get to all the trails and we are going to go back another day and do that.

We saw a number of birds and enjoyed each trail. But our main agenda and hope was to finally see an alligator. We wanted to see an alligator last year also when we went on that swamp boat ride in Louisiana, but it was too cold. We were on our third trail and starting to think we would have to try again another day when we looked across the water to see….

Finally!! It was very cool.

By that time it was almost 1 and we were getting hungry so we went over to the picnic area, which we almost had to ourselves. At least at the beginning.

 

We were just finishing up our lunch and thinking about trying one more trail when two vanloads of teens arrived. They were doing the typical teen thing, having a good time and very loudly, and headed down the very trail we were planning to take. So we gave up on the idea of seeing any more wildlife and decided to leave the rest for another day. Next time we’ll bring our bikes.

Enjoying Life in Avon Park

Location: Avon Park, FL (High 74, Low 48)

I just looked at the blog and was surprised to see that it was a week yesterday since my last post. We are really having a good time here and the days are flying by!

This place has a lot going on, and it is really the first time that we have gotten even a little involved in the social aspects of a park that we are staying in. Playing cards with family at Christmas was good practice, as we have joined a card group that plays a couple nights a week. Now that the learning curve is over and we kind of know what we are doing, we are having a good time.

We have also been going to tennis instruction twice a week. It has been many years since either of us played tennis, but now, armed with our newly purchased tennis racquets, we are going over to the courts a few times a week to do a little volleying. The tennis instructor also lives here at the resort, and the hour and a half instruction is at no cost. Can’t beat that!

We are still waiting for the phone call from Florida DMV that our truck title has arrived. We will be glad to get that last piece taken care of and those FL plates installed on the truck. We figured three weeks so I am guessing by the end of this week or beginning of next we should be hearing from them.

And…believe it or not…it is already time to apply for the 2015 peak season at Amazon! The application link went live yesterday so we both went online and applied for our third season. The locations have changed from last year and there are now four possible places to work…Campbellsville, KY – Jeffersonville, IN – Murfreesboro, TN – and for the first time Haslet, TX. From the posts on the Camperforce page on Facebook,  I wouldn’t be surprised if the Texas location fills up quickly. But we will be going back to Campbellsville. Our experience in Jeffersonville showed us that the facilities are definitely not all the same, and we like it in Campbellsville, so we’re going to stick with what we know. If anyone out there is looking to apply or get more information about the locations, the website is www.amazon.com/camperforce.

Another Mod and A Recipe

Location: Avon Park, FL (High 77, Low 56)

Here is the recipe for the meal that I made yesterday…

Southwestern Chicken with Spinach and Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoon Brown Sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 1/2 teaspoon Olive Oil
• 1/2 cup grape tomatoes
• 8 cup spinach leaves
• 1 pounds potatoes pealed, quartered
• 1/3 cup buttermilk
• 2 tablespoon scallions thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice

(I included the recipe and instructions here as given, but I did not use any salt when cooking it.)

 

Combine brown sugar, salt, and spices for chicken. Coat on both sides with rub. (I pounded the chicken first to flatten it out a bit.)

 

 

Boil potatoes in salted water until tender, about 15 min. Drain and return pan to dry over medium heat.

 

 

Off heat, mash to desired consistency, then add the buttermilk, scallions, butter, and salt. Keep warm over very low heat.

 

 

Heat 1 T. oil in a skillet, add chicken and cook until done, about 5 min per side. Remove and keep warm.

 

 

 

Heat 1 T. oil in a skillet, add tomatoes and saute 1 min. Add spinach and cook until wilted. Season with salt and pepper.

 

Combine sour cream, lime juice and salt. (I used just plain sour cream.)

 

To assemble, place potatoes on plate, top with sour cream, put spinach and tomatoes on potatoes and top with chicken.

 

This recipe was really good, and we will definitely be having it again.

Now, for the modification. We have been pretty unhappy with the faucet in our bathroom. A few weeks ago, one of the handles even broke off. So today was faucet replacement day.

 

Harry trying to fit himself into the teeny space under the sink…

 

 

 

 

The old piece of #$@% faucet…

 

 

 

Because nothing can ever be simple, especially “easy” jobs…the angle of the red pipe did not allow Harry to connect the fitting to the new faucet.

 

 

So Harry had to pull out his trusty box of plumbing supplies…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Took a little extra doing, but finally it was all put together!

 

 

 

 

 

The finished product looks awesome!

Lots Going On!!

Location: Avon Park, FL (High 81, Low 49)

It’s only been a couple days since my last blog, but we’ve been BUSY. On Friday, we finished what is probably our most exciting modification to date on our fifth wheel.

It took a little prep work on Harry’s part on Thursday afternoon as he had to climb into the basement and reroute the wiring that originally went from the satellite to the bedroom, down to the basement.

 

On Friday we took a ride over to Davenport, which is where the nearest Best Buy is located, to pick up our new tv – a Sharp 42” LED television.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We love it!!

 

 

Yesterday Harry took advantage of the gorgeous weather to wash the fiver from top to bottom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harry was very happy to be able to wash off whatever remnants of salty air might have been left on the rig from our month in the keys.

Today we celebrated an exciting milestone – Harry’s birthday! We started it out with a great ten mile run. Ten miles is just about the distance that I was able to run a few weeks ago in Key West and I think my legs held up a little better today.

 

After that start, relaxing was in order for the rest of the day.

 

 

I tried out another one of my new recipes for Harry’s birthday meal…Southwestern Chicken with Spinach and Mashed Potatoes.

(I was going to include the recipe in this blog post, but I think it’s getting to be long enough, so I will feature the recipe in another blog post tomorrow.)

 

After dinner, we decided to head over to the tennis courts so we could get in another half hour of practice. Phew! I think we will sleep well tonight.

Almost Floridians

Location: Avon Park, FL (High 74, Low 61)

This past Sunday we lucked out again with another really nice traveling day. It was a beautiful ride along the water. With it being Sunday, the traffic near Miami was also minimal, and we easily traveled along to our exit for Route 27.

 

Route 27 turned out to be a really nice four lane highway, and like all the other roads, was pretty deserted. It was a wonderfully uneventful trip.

 

 

The most excitement we had was driving along some fields of sugar cane that were being burned.

 

 

After about a five hour trip, we arrived at our next stop…Adelaide Shores RV Resort. We are parked next to Dee and Jim (Tumbleweed).

 

This resort is like a little town and we have already used our bikes to get around here more than we have used them in all of the past two years.

We went to Walmart a couple days ago and bought some tennis raquets, and spent an hour that afternoon playing tennis. It has been years for both of us, so we aren’t good at all, but we had a great time and really got a workout. I see many hours of playing tennis in our future over the next two months.

Yesterday we went over to DMV and got the registration process started. Alliant Credit Union, where we have the fiver financed, was nice enough to send us our title, so we were able to get that one moved over completely yesterday. We have the truck with Ally and they wouldn’t do anything without the request from Florida DMV so we just got the ball rolling yesterday and will have to go back to DMV in a few weeks when they get the title from Ally. But at least we’re one step further!

I am still having a good time with the Plan to Eat website. We went grocery shopping today and I bought ingredients for a few new recipes so maybe I will do a few cooking blogs over the next few days.