Blood In The Aisles!

Well, we survived a great Soggy Bottom Weekend, and a couple of days with Marilee.
We then returned to Connie and Jim's on the Tuesday. We have spent the last 8 days relaxing and shopping, clearing and shopping, cleaning and SHOPPING. We have used this time to buy our Christmas presents.
On Sunday it looked like rain and it did rain. I tink about 2 inches in about an hour. The trailer was standing in about 3 inches of water. When the rain stopped the water disappeared within about 2 hours. Florida is built on one giant sand pit, so water just soaks away.
On Monday we went to Beals Outlet. This is because Monday is Senior Day - over 50's get 15% reduction, as well as this Sally had a 20% discount coupon which was burning a hole in her purse. The only problem with Seniors Day is that The Villages, where we shopped, is a purpose built community for retired people, so there are 100,000 retired people who live within 5 miles of Beal's Outlet Store and most of them were there on Monday. There was blood in the aisles! Little old ladies wielding machetes and sweeping people out of the way, using their trolley's like snowplough's. It took 20 minutes to stand in line to get to the check out. Mayhem! Now add in that it is Thanksgiving week and everyone was out getting their food sorted. Driving was crazy, parking was impossible, Walmart was gridlocked, and that was in the food aisle, not the carpark.
We have survived, though my arms are at least 6inches longer from carrying heavy bags.
We have now got to pack this stuff into 2 small suitcases. I talked over, with the checkout lady at Walmart, the possiblility of buying a suitcase at Walmart and returning it to ASDA when we got home. She thought this was a great idea.
So today is Wednesday and we have returned to Sertoma for our last Bluegrass concert for this trip. We have tucked ourselves away nicely on our site and are settling down for a quick nap before going out for a meal tonight.

In which I get a Touch Up at Sleepy Hollow

On the Wednesday, we moved down to Sertoma and had a very pleasant weekend. Connie’s cousin from California was visiting and we were able to meet them. As part of showing them around, on a perfect Friday morning, we went back to Sleepy Hollow, where we had a $5 breakfast (steak and eggs) by the lake and Jim, Don and Barbara took an airboat ride, just as Sally and I had done in February. They were very pleased that they not only survived the airboat ride but also saw a Water Moccasin snake (also known as a Cottonmouth) and Alligator. It was here that I came across another of those great examples of how our common language divides us as the very nice young waitress returned to our table (admittedly with a coffee jug) and asked, very personally as she leaned across the table in front of me “Would I like a touch up”. I could scarcely contain myself; until my friends pointed out that she merely wanted to top up my coffee cup.
Saturday was the day of the memorial for Larry Gibson. He was one of the founding fathers of Soggy Bottom and also Sertoma Youth ranch, as well as the manager for 17 years, though we did not know him.
We went to the memorial and watched as they performed a ‘Masons Funeral’, which was interesting. This was followed by speeches or informal comments by friends and family. This was quite moving, even though we didn’t know the man. In particular, a grandson spoke fondly of how they had frequently gone fishing and hunting together. There were many tears. We were then encouraged to go and jam together into the afternoon and night with Larry’s favourite description of playing, which was ‘to rip the tits off this one’ (one being the tune that was being played). Which, with some enthusiasm, we complied with.
Sunday. We have come to see Marilee for a couple of days before returning to Connie and Jim’s, where the van will have major surgery as we hopefully get running boards fitted, which I hope will make it much easier for Sally to get in and out of the van.

Connie and Jim's

Waldo was a great success - we really enjoyed it. We are parked on Connie's Back Lot. Today we did the washing, phew!! It was a big wash, at a launderette called Casa Da Lava. This afternoon we went over and hung out with Paula and Walt, at Brenny's brothers pastures(?) and Paula does look so well. Brand new curly hair and a tan. She has a nice new horse called Abby (Abigail).
Tomorrow we will go and look at Running Boards for the chevy. Ooh! just like Christmas!

From Hot Rod to Custom Cool Car

There comes a time when you have to try and get the best from your wheels. Now is the moment for our Chevy.
I am going to modify it. However I do not want to turn it into a Hot Rod, rather I want to turn it into a Custom Cool Car. While we have been away on a couple occasions the van has started to overheat. Now if we plan to take it to the Rockies, where the hills are steep and long and the weather is often hot then we do not want to spend a lot of tme at the roadside admiring the scenary while the van’s engine cools down. So I have been spending some time researching the best way to uprate the cooling system to cope with the extra load put on it by the weight of the trailer. Back in February someone recommended a guy in Palatka as being good with radiators (not difficult you would think). However, in the intervening months I have found out from GM that there is no way to upgrade the sytem without going to specialist (and expensive) parts. Waldo is only a bout 38,9 miles from Palatka, so I called the guy and he said to bring it over and he would look at it. His advice was to remove the radiator, physically check it was OK and then work from there.
So at 8.00 of Friday I took the van back over. He let the engine cool and then removed the radiator, it was only a thin one called a ‘single core’. He decided that he could find a fatter radiator core and rebuild the radiator, using my original radiator end pieces (which have the hose connections and fixings that hold it on to the body). He eventually found that a super heavy duty upgrade radiator for a 1994 Chevy Pick Up would fit. He managed to order it, have it delivered, dismantle both radiators, rebuild and re-fit to the car and have me on my way back to the trailer by 1.30. I thought that was pretty impressive. Of course the proof will be when we are on the long, lonely, hot, hill-climbs of the Rockies next year. I just hope that I can remain impressed.
The waiting time for the job gave me a chance to go and have a further look at Palatka, which we have passed through a couple of times and visited the ‘Famous Ravine Garden’. Previously documented,it is a bit like Saltburn back in England, though it is not by the sea. I found the historic district and the St Johns River. The most impressive architecture seemed to be a nice railway station. Which looked like it was once the centre of the booming tourist industry in the 20’s and 30’s.

Waldo

OK, I have now realized that we have been at Waldo now for 6 days, without updating the blog. It is funny how time just sort of runs along once you get to a place of routine. Our routine at a festival is to get up when we want, have breakfast, sit outside if it is warm, or visit, or just sit. Have lunch, then do something energetic like go to Walmart, or go to the concert, or visit, or sit. The evening is taken up by jamming, sometimes just a couple of hours, sometimes well into the early hours. Because Sally has not been so good this week there has been a lot of the ‘just sitting’ activity. As is Connie’s Way, we have eaten together all this week. We are so grateful because it makes a wonderful focal point to met with people and talk and sing together. The concerts have followed the traditional pattern of a Bluegrass Festival with concerts on Friday and Saturday afternoon and evening. There are a number of bands of differing popularity. Each band will perform one set in the afternoon and another in the evening. There have been some very good local bands, like The Palmetto’s and The Wilson Family as well as some nationally known bands. We have enjoyed Special Consensus, The Gary Waldrop Band and The Grascals who are probably one of the top bluegrass bands in the States at the moment, having won awards at the Bluegrass equivalent to the Oscars. The mix makes for a very enjoyable, but long, show, so you inevitably have to choose who you see. Pickin’ takes place around these concerts, Finding others who would rather pick than watch the bands (Grinnin’ it is called here) isn’t usually to difficult, but much Pickin’ goes on after the concerts have finished, which is about 10.30.
Connie always invites the bands to eat with her. At this festival we have had the pleasure of having The Gary Waldrop Band eating with us. They are very nice people from further north, Alabama and Georgia mostly. They joined us for food and then came on over and picked a bit after the concert on Saturday night, which was a lot of fun. They also have their bus parked right next to us, so we have been chatting a bit to them, and listening to them warming up before the concerts.
There is a Gospel day today with concerts up until 3.00, when we all pack up and go home.
The only extra this time has been to get the van souped up and modified! As you will read later

Blackwater for Halloween

(Retrospective from our visit to Blackwater in 2010). We have arrived at Blackwater River State Park and have managed to get one of the last sites available. The new sites are quite big, however not big enough that I could leave the van on the trailer. It was here that we realised that it was Saturday night and Halloween. The place was swarming with kids! But it was a lovely atmosphere. many people had decortd their sites with lights and pumpkins, and even pumpkin lanterns. I zoomed out to the 'local' shop (only 5 miles away) to buy some 'ket' (as the kids in Middlesbrough schools used to say) to hand out as treats for the kids as they wandered round. As darkness fell so the campsite lit up with the decorations and there was a continuous background noise of distant shouting and laughing, every now and then a group of kids (usually with parents) would come round past the site and we handed out sweets, though we had a bag of eyeballs (grapes) and fingers (baby carrots) to dare the kids to put their hand in to collect one. Then Sally and I had a wander round the campground to look at all the decorations, saying 'hi' to most and visiting with some to be offered the snacks/buffet they had put out for people. It was a very pleasant and friendly evening deep in the middle of the forest (which a lot of parents obviously used to their advantage for ghost stories).
Next morning we hitched up the wagon and moved on to Three Rivers State Park and spent a couple of nights there before moving on to Connie and Jim's for the Waldo Festival.