Jan 31 - Feb 3 (4 nights, Bastrop, TX USA)
On the road today heading for Austin to meet up with Joe and Margaret, the couple we met in Alaska. We also saw them in Colorado Springs,when we were on our way to California for our annual medical checkups. Anyway, we were driving along I-10 when all of a sudden all the traffic came to a complete stop. There was a prairie fire and the State Troopers were diverting all traffic to the exit and making everyone go back in the opposite direction. We had to turn around and take a side road around the fire. It worked out well, because the side road took us through the old German town of Fredericksburg. We stopped and walked Main Street, went into Rustling Robs and tasted jams, jellies, salsas, and peanut butters for an hour. You can taste every single item they have for sale in the store. They even have a hot sauce that is supposed to be off the heat scale. It is $100 a bottle. Before we got back on the road, we stopped into a beautiful old building that turned out to be the town Library. We spent some time browsing their fine collection of old German books. Arriving at the RV Park, we got the very last spot they had. And we were limited to 4 nights stay. We talked with Joe and Margaret later in the evening after we got settled in and discussed things to see and do in the area.

Feb 1
We hooked up with Joe and Margaret today and discussed places to go and things to see. We drove to downtown Austin and headed for the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library. This is the largest of all the presidential libraries and is the only one that is free to the public. First we went to a live presentation that featured an actor who portrayed Johnson when he was a congressman. It was quite good and the actor even resembled Johnson. We toured the Library for about 3 hours. Sim found a picture of the King and Queen of Thailand taken with President Johnson when he was Vice President and visited Thailand.

After the library we drove around downtown. We found 6th street where they are supposed to have a lot of live music. It was to early in the day however, and there was nothing happening yet. Sim did spot a Whole Foods Market and of course we had to stop. We were told that Texas and Austin in particular is the home of Whole Foods and this was their flagship store. It was huge, with multiple floors, a culinary school and vegetable section larger than some small markets I have been in.

Feb 2
Today I am playing golf with Joe at one of the local courses. Sim and Margaret are going shopping and out to lunch. Joe and I got the the course early because the driving range we had planned to hit first was closed still. We teed off early and played 18 holes in record time. Everyone was in a cart but us, so we were pushed along pretty fast. Neither of us played very well, but it was a nice day and it had warmed up from a pretty chilly morning. We called the girls and told them we were done. They came back a short time later and told us about their day. They had lunch at a nice restaurant called Green Chai that overlooks the Colorado River in Old Town Bastrop. They also found a Farmers Market in town and made some purchases that they brought back.

Later in the evening we all jumped in Joe's truck and headed to downtown Austin to party. Well actually we just wanted to have a decent dinner and listen to some live music and have a cold beverage or two. Margaret suggested we stop by her sister's house, so we would get some recommendations from her for good restaurants. We decided to go to a local Texas barbeque restaurant. It was delicious. Sim said we needed to eat Texas barbeque one more time before we left Texas. After our stomachs were full, we headed to 6th street also known as the music vendor's street. Joe drove around until we finally found a parking spot. They had a lot of the streets blocked off and we figured something was going on downtown. We walked down to 6th St. and we found out that tonight was Mardi Gras night in Austin. There was a huge police presence and the one officer I spoke to said that after a riot a few years back the cops are now out in force for this event. It was still early in the evening and the cop said that the streets would be full of people by 11:00 p.m. but I will probably be in bed by then. We found a bar with a band playing and went inside, had a cold one and listened to 5 or 6 songs. We continued down 6th St. and ended up in front of the capitol building. It is really pretty all lit up with flood lights.

Feb 3
It is Super Bowl Sunday, and I plan to watch the game today and do nothing much else. Sim had other ideas however, so we hopped in the Jeep and headed for Old Town Bastrop. Sim wanted to show me where she and Margaret ate yesterday and she wanted to stroll along the Colorado River. We found the town and parked at the restaurant parking lot. They have some cute shops and restaurants housed in turn of the century buildings. We walked along the river and visited a local park before returning to the car and heading back to the coach. The game was on, so I settled on the couch and watched in amazement as the New England Patriots got whipped by the New York Giants. Sim tried to make some no-knead bread, but it did not come out right at all. I don't know what we did wrong but it did not rise, double in size, or anything that it was supposed to do. We baked it anyway, but it came out looking and tasting like a brick.

Feb 4 – 8 (5 nights, Mustang Island State Park, Port Aransas, TX USA)
Drove to Port Aransas today. We had no reservations, but had a couple of RV Parks in mind in the area. As we drove through Aransas Pass, the GPS told us to drive 8 miles and “board ferry”. We were surprised that we were going to take a ferry, but relieved when we saw it was a big ferry and that it was FREE too. We drove through town past a couple of crowded RV parks and headed down the road towards Corpus Christi. We had seen a sign pointing that way to a State Park. We found Mustang Island State Park and they had room for us. We are parked about 100 yards from the water. Tom, our new neighbor came over to introduce himself. He said it was gorgeous here if they could turn off the wind.

Feb 5
Like Tom said, the weather was gorgeous if we could stand outside without being blown away by the maddening wind. The wind was blowing pretty hard when we arrived yesterday, and it continued all night and all the next day. In the morning we walked down to the beach, but we could not see the water and it was really windy and foggy so it was a very short walk. By 1 p.m, the sun finally broke through the clouds, and the fog gave in, but the wind didn't calm down a bit. I cleaned the chrome on the front of the coach today too. I remember how a few short days at the waters edge can start turning your chrome green. Most of the day we just stayed inside and read, worked on the travelogue and uploaded pictures to the web.

Feb 6
The wind continues to blow hard today, but we have to get out of the coach. We hopped in the Jeep and drove into Port Aransas. It is not a very big town so in 30 minutes we had driven on every street in town. We found a fishing pier and walked out to talk to the fishermen. They were catching a small white fish and having a heck of a time keeping the brown pelicans from stealing them right off the hook.

Port Aransas should be listed as the T-Shirt Capital of the World, Sim said. There were gigantic T-shirt shops on every corner of the town. We stopped into one of them and Sim got 2 T-shirts that came with the deal of free decal applique. She decided not to take the 5 T-shirts for $10 deal. She said those would not survive one wash.

Feb 7
We woke up this morning to blue skies, a light breeze and warm temps. Yea!! We decided to go kayaking in the bay. We drove out of the park and over to the bay and found a place to launch. We paddled around for about 3 hours, stopped on a beach for lunch and saw lots of heron, and egrets. It is supposed to be beautiful again tomorrow so we signed up for another day.

When we were talking to Linda at the Lemon Gathering in Quartzsite, she told Sim about where to get good seafood in Port Aransas. So, Sim told me we should go check it out. “ Yes dear,” whatever you say. We hop into the jeep and headed to the seafood store, and brought shrimp home. Instead of driving on the paved road, we took the beach route and drove the 16 miles stretch on the beach. It was a nice and pretty drive. The day was still young, so Sim suggested we should check every T-shirt shops that was on our way. We stopped at four of them and it got old so we called it quits for today.

Feb 8
Today was gorgeous too. We need groceries, so we are headed for the big H.E.B. store in Corpus Christi. We bought a roasted turkey breast that was sitting with the whole roasted chickens with a sign saying $ 4.99. Our food cost today was $112 and actually the turkey breast cost $8. Sim wanted to bring back the turkey because she didn't feel it was fair to mislead the customer. I told her it was alright and we just don't buy it again next time. She didn't like my suggestion much, but didn't say anything. Later she told me she didn't want to spent time arguing because she was so hungry that she would rather go home and eat the turkey. The turkey breast turned out to be a good deal and we enjoyed it for several meals. On the way home Sim spotted an Asian Store so we had to stop to see what goodies they had. She bought some Asian vegetables in the “Choy” family and eggplant. She has a delicious grilled eggplant salad recipe.

We went out to the beachfront at about 4 p.m. We were not sure what we wanted to do, ride bicycles strolling on the beach, or just sitting around and listening to music. Sounds difficult, doesn't it! Knowing Sim, if she didn't have anything to do while sitting, she would not sit very long. Sure enough, after setting up the chairs and sitting for not more than 10 minutes, she suggested we go for a walk. So, we took a 3 mile walk on the beach.

Feb 9 – 12 (4 nights, Dickinson, TX USA)
Driving north today towards Houston. No real destination in mind, just somewhere fairly close to the water. We stopped at a Rest Stop area for a break and to use the free Wireless Internet that is supposed to be at all Texas Rest Areas. So far only one out of five has worked for us.

We picked a campground in Dickinson and pulled into the very last spot they had. We met our neighbor Chuck and Cher who are parked next to us, and I talked with Chuck for an hour or so. He gave me some ideas about what to see and do while we were in Dickinson.

Feb 10
We had decided to go to the Kemah Boardwalk today. It just so happened that one of the Yahoo group members, and Foretravel owner, Rudy Leggett, also lives in the town near by. He called and invited us to join his family for lunch at a restaurant at the Kemah Boardwalk. It was Rudy's dads 91st Birthday, and Rudy, his wife, Rudy's sister and husband along with 91 year old John would be there. We said yes and drove down to meet them for lunch at the Saltgrass Restaurant. John is in great health, has all his mental faculties and is quite the engaging gentleman. After a great lunch of Rib Eye steak and Filet Mignon, we talked for an hour before taking off for a bit of sightseeing. We walked around the Boardwalk for an hour. They have lots of restaurants and a pretty nice looking wooden roller coaster. We jumped into the car and drove to Clear Lake and a couple other towns before heading back to camp. Rudy and Carolyn came by to visit around 4:30 in the afternoon and we talked RVing and Foretravels for a couple of hours.

Feb 11
Last night after Rudy and Carolyn left, Chuck, our neighbor came over and invited us to go on a personal tour to the Johnson Space Center with them today. We, of course gleefully said YES! We were up early in anticipation for the adventure. We got out to the Space Center on time to meet with Richard, our host for the day even though we had to go back to the coach to get Sim's ID card. Richard works for NASA and is retired from the Air Force. He is retiring from NASA this month too. We learned that Richard and Chuck are going to spend a lot of time fishing going forward. Richard gave us our NASA passes and we headed straight for Mission Control Center. We arrived and had the viewing area to ourselves. A space walk for some repair to the Space Station was going on so we watched and listened for an hour. It was fun and educational watching the Flight Director and Cap Com doing their thing.

After we had our fill of Mission Control, we went over to the Saturn rocket display. That Saturn is one big rocket, with 5 engines each producing 1.5 millions pounds of thrust. They had some other smaller rockets there as well including the one John Glenn rode as the first man in space. It was a great day and we really appreciated the personal tour by Richard and the invitation by Chuck and Cher.

Feb 12
Today Sim is going to make some Chicken Satay for our neighbors Chuck and Cher, to thanks them for the invite to the Space Center. The weather is looking ugly so we need to get the satay cooked up outside before it starts to rain. We beat the rain and took the Satay over to our neighbors. They ate while we were sitting and talking for a couple of hours until it started to rain. I had to excuse myself and go to put away the barbecue out of the rain.

At the lunch for Rudy's dad John the other day, we had discussed having dinner with Rudy and Carolyn one night before we left. They suggested the Monument Inn, so tonight we are meeting them there around 7:30. Rudy called around 7:00 and told me we were going to have additional guests at dinner. Rudy was offered a new job today and this dinner was to be a celebration of his new job. We got to the Monument Inn and met Melvin and Santos, Rudy's new co-worker and boss. Dinner was really good. I had blackened fish with a spicy shrimp and crab sauce. Sim had Redfish with Orleans crawfish sauce. Rudy ordered another basket of cinnamon bread for us to take home. It was indeed delicious.

We came to Dickinson without any expectations and our visit turned out to be fascinating and one to remember. We not only got to see the inner sanctum of the Johnson Space Center, but also met some very nice and friendly people who became our friends. Sim loved listening to the southern drawl of the people we talked to here.

Feb 13 – 16 (4 nights, Nacogdoches, TX USA)
Left Dickinson today and headed for Nacogdoches. Before we got to the campground we did stop at Xtreme Paint and Graphics and made an appointment to get in on Friday. We had an uneventful drive and after the stop at Xtreme we arrived at the Foretravel factory in the early afternoon. The campground was practically empty so we had our choice of spots.

We had visitors later that evening. John and Linda Sichenze, Foretravel owners, came by to say hello. They are having a significant number of upgrades done to their coach by Motorhomes of Texas.

Feb 14
Today we moved over to Motorhomes of Texas to get the coach worked on. I needed the generator serviced with new filters and fluid change. I also need a new black tank valve. That is a job that I wanted no part of. The other problem was with the Cruise Control that worked sometimes, but mostly not. We hung around MOT and I watched them work on the coach, lent a hand, and asked a bunch of questions. Sim hung out in the Customer Lounge with Linda and John, worked on the computer, and took advantage of the open internet connection.

The coach was finished around 3:00 and we decided to stay the night in the MOT parking lot. They have electric hookups, water so we were set. We asked John and Linda out for dinner and we all went to a local barbecue place that John and Linda had been to before. It was OK, but not as good as the barbecue we had in Austin.

Feb 15
Yesterday I mentioned to Derek the Service Manager that my Aqua Hot was still acting up even after MOT worked on it. He agreed to take a look at it in the morning. So first thing, a tech came out to check it out. I think we have narrowed the problem down to the ignition coil. The tech measured the flame sensor and the voltage stayed high indicating that it was working correctly. I guess I will breakdown and buy a coil and install it myself. It is about the only thing that has not been replaced on the Aqua Hot head.

I took the coach over to Xtreme while Sim stayed at MOT. She does not like the smell of paint and chemicals at James' shop. We decided that the inside window frames needed to be reversed to allow the windows to be sucked in harder to the outside wall of the coach. So I started taking down all the window treatments while the window tech took off the inside frames, trimmed and flipped them over and re-installed them. The windows sucked in nicely against the coach walls and all the previous gaps were gone. As that was being done, James and I discussed a plan to have the coach prepped before it goes up for sale next year. I just need to call him for some lead time before I bring it in for him to work on.

Feb 16
Today we are in for some nasty weather, so we are just hanging out. We are parked back over at the Foretravel Campground and planning to leave tomorrow. We decided to hunker down here and let the bad weather get in front of us. As the day went on it really started to get gloomy and by 6:00 it was raining really hard. By 7:00 we had thunder, lightning and small hail. We were watching TV and they frequently broke into the programming to advise of severe weather alerts. Then they issued a tornado warning. It was an interesting night. The TV is showing the counties where the Tornado Watch is active.

Feb 17 (1 night, Abbeville, LA USA)
We stayed at the Wal Mart Supercenter in Abbeville tonight. Every time we park at a Wal Mart, we always have something to buy. I think it is a conscious give and take. We park in their lot for free and we spend money in their store. We bought a magnifying glass as both of us were having problems reading our road maps. Sim used to be able to read most of it, but one day she woke up and had lost it. She said that's what happens when you are getting less young.

Feb 18 – 20 (3 nights, Westwego, LA USA)
Today we are headed for Bayou Segnette State Park for a couple of days. On the way we are going through New Iberia to see where they make Tabasco Sauce. When we saw the sign saying “Tabasco tours” we turned left towards Avery Island. We drove out to the island, parked and went inside for the tour. It wasn't much of a tour however. They have some stuff from the early days of the company, and you get to watch the factory fill, cap, label and box some Tabasco. That's it. They have a store where you can taste different sauces, spicy mustard, ketchup, chili and even some jalapeňo ice cream. They are introducing Tabasco Coke too. It tasted awful, however, we liked the jalapeňo ice cream and spicy mustard, so we bought some mustard and a bottle of original Tabasco.

We arrived at the Bayou Segnette SP before 4 p.m., so we decided to explore the town before it got dark. We spotted the Visitors Center so we stopped, but it was closed. Then we started off again but didn't go very far as we couldn't resist stopping at a seafood market located a half block from the park. There were about 15 – 20 shacks with seafood vendors. They sold shrimp, fish, live crawfish, and blue crab. We bought shrimp and live blue crab. And Sim was already picking out the fish she wanted to buy tomorrow.

Sim assigned me to cook the crabs. I was not exactly sure how long to boil them so I took them out of the boiling water soon after they turned red, using the same principal as cooking shrimp. When we were ready to eat dinner, the crabs were not cooked. Well, it took a few more minutes to cook them until they were done and a lot of work and a long time to eat seven blue crabs, but, they were worth it.

Feb 19
We jumped in the Jeep after breakfast and stopped at the Visitors Center first. It was open and we checked out the local attractions with the nice lady inside. When Sim asked where to eat good jambalaya and gumbo, she said Westwego was a small town and she didn't think there was any restaurant served those two dishes because people cooked them at home. However, she suggested we go to New Orleans for the good food. We decided to go to the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park. Jean Lafitte was a goods trader and sort of a pirate that plied the waterways around this part of the world in the early 1800s. The park has some nice hiking trails and we hiked several miles out into the swamp on nice boardwalks. We saw egret, heron, alligators, various birds, tree squirrels a snake and some lizards. Totally did not expect lizards in a swamp. Swamp plants are pretty interesting too. The dominant ones are tall and spread their roots in a wide circle to stabilize themselves. They also put up these root thingys that look like stalagmites that help the tree stay up in the swampy ground. Sim liked the Swamp Maple which had red colored leaf which stood out among other green plants. We drove to the boat launch area and checked to see if it was suitable to launch the kayaks, but it did not look to appealing, so we will save kayaking for another day.

On the way back to the coach we stopped at the fish market again and picked up one good size Redfish . We both very much enjoyed the Redfish the other night when we had dinner with Rudy and Carolyn at the Monument Inn. So, Sim wanted to grill Redfish Thai style. She put fresh lemongrass, cilantro, garlic, and rosemary inside the fish and then wrapped the fish in foil. We served the fish with the tomatillo salsa that we bought in Fredericksburg, TX. It was really good as usual. Sim is very creative when it comes to cooking seafood.

Feb 20
The $9 per night we paid for staying in Bayou Segnette also includes free laundry and wireless internet. We have not been able to beat this deal anywhere else. The park was well kept and had Park Rangers patrolling all day until late into the evening. It was our last day, so we took advantage of the free laundry. The laundry room was clean and equipped with new front loading GE washers & dryers. Very impressive! By now you could guess what we had for dinner this evening. We made one last trip to the seafood shacks. Sim said she felt like she was home back in Phuket. She grew up eating fish every day and her mother would make daily trips to the fish market to pick out the evening meal. We bought two Tilapias as other fish available were too large for just the two of us. The fish was sold whole so you needed to clean it yourself. Sim made two different kinds of sauce for those two tilapias; sweet and sour tamarind sauce, and spicy ginger and garlic sauce. They were both good, but I surprisingly favored the spicy ginger and garlic sauce even though I don't care for ginger that much.

Feb 21 (1 night, Dauphin Island, AL USA)
We left Bayou Segnette State Park this morning around 9:30 in the pouring rain. It rained hard almost all day. Sim said we should had gone to New Orleans by ferry yesterday. Oh! well we didn't do it and beside we had done that on our last visit. We took scenic Route 90 along the Gulf Coast. Our plan was to make it to Alabama and Gulf State Park right on the water just south of Mobile. I had the GPS set for the shortest distance and no toll roads, so it took us through some shady parts of New Orleans to the Ferry Dock at Algiers. We looked at each other, and Sim smiled, her wish came true. No problem I thought. We got up to the ferry and the deckhand told me to go straight. I was not listening and tried to turn right onto the ferry. I got stuck and could not back up to go the right way so I had to unhook the jeep and had Sim back up some to get turned in the right direction. Sim had to drive the Jeep off the ferry when we got across the Mississippi River. We were pretty much having opposite feelings. While I was nervous about having Sim drive without a drivers license, Sim was feeling so cool because she got to actually drive on the real road. We hooked up on the other side and were on our way with only our pride hurt and a few dirty looks from the other drivers who had to wait for us to get straight. Little did I know our adventures with ferries had just begun. The drive along Rte 90 was pleasant and scenic. We saw a lot of damage to homes and businesses due to the recent hurricanes in this part of the south. Lots of new construction going on everywhere we went today. Well we got to Dauphin Island and the Ferry dock around 4:00. The ferry was due to depart at 5:00 so we had an hour to kill. We watched TV, and I walked around outside in between rain showers until 4:45 when the ferry showed up. A deckhand came running over to our coach an informed us that they were using to substitute ferry this time of year and they could not take any motorhomes over 27 feet. That means we now have to drive back and up the bay, a distance of 80 or so miles to get to Gulf State Park. There was a campground right across the street, and it was really pouring rain, so we decided to spend the night and leave in the AM for Florida. Well I turned into the campground and realized I was not going to make the turn. I had to get out in the rain, unhook the Jeep and back up the coach to get it aligned to make it in the narrow drive of the campground. We were offered the choice of 3 or 4 spots so we backed into the first one. We were parked on grass and the coach would not level so I tried to move forward to get more level. The tires spun in the soft wet ground so now we are stuck in the soggy grass until morning. What a Day!

Feb 22 (1 night, Pensacola, FL USA – Wal Mart)
I got on the phone first thing this morning and called the Good Sam Emergency Road Service. I bought this insurance on a whim about 4 months ago. It is only $80 a year and they provide towing, fuel and jump start service for your car and motorhome. I have used it twice now and it has more than paid for itself. I told them I needed someone with air jacks, lots of wood and pulling me out was not an option. An hour later, J.D. from 24hr Truck Service showed up. I also had the help of two of the maintenance guys from the RV park as well. They brought lots of plywood, 2 X 6s and other assorted pieces of wood. It took 2 hours of jacking, blocking, jacking, blocking and more jacking to get ONE side up and on enough wood to get the tires level with the ground. The ground was so saturated with water the jacks would sink into the ground even on the wood bases. Another couple of hours later we had the second side up and on wood. Now came the drive off the wood and onto solid ground. We put 10' long 2 X 6s in front of the wheels to give us traction as well. I started up the coach and hit the gas. We were moving. The wheels spun wildly spitting 2 X 6s out the back of the coach, and we were finally on the hard groung to the cheers of about 10 campers that had gathered to watch, offer advice and cheer the team on.

Free at last, we headed off the island and up towards Mobile. We had to back track about 80 miles now. Our destination was Gulf State Park, the same place we were going when we came to Dauphin Island to take the shortcut via the ferry. We ended up not being able to find Gulf State Park, so we started looking for another park that was just up the road. We chickened out when we saw a sign about the park that indicated it had only tent camping. So, on we drove. At this point I was ready to stop at the first RV park that came along. Then Sim said “There is a Wal Mart”. We pulled in, parked and settled in for the night.

The other night I was messing with the water pump in the coach and when I last closed the bay door where the pump is located the door made a weird clank sound and would not open after that. Now I have a new problem to work on. Got to get that door open and fix the water pump or we will not be able to boondock.

Feb 23 - 25 (2 nights, Old Town, FL USA)
We took off fairly early in the morning. We are on Hwy 98 and it runs right along the coast at the Gulf of Mexico. It should be a real picturesque drive today. We drove right along the beach today for a long way. We passed through a lot of small towns including Laguna Beach and Newport. I felt like I was back home in California. We have reservations at the Original Suwannee Campground in Old Town. It is right on the Suwannee River, like in “ Way down upon the Suwannee River”, the song by Stephan Foster.

Feb 24
We drove to the town of Suwannee and into Suwannee Wildlife Refuge. We hoped to find a good beach to launch our kayaks. We drove and drove and could not find the Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center, but we did find lots of pine tree farms and residential areas. We asked a local lady and she said there was no Visitor Center. She told us where we could launch our kayaks. We went to check this place out but didn't like the concrete ramp where there were quite a few big rocks in a dead end canal with dark brown water. There was a lot of tannin in the Suwannee River and it did not look very inviting. We headed back home and went to Fanning Springs State Park adjacent to our RV Park. We got the information about the park and decided to explore it tomorrow as it was almost dusk and the park closed in one hour. Since we had about an hour before the day turned to night, we rode bicycles on the old railroad right of way. It was a nice straight paved bicycle trail through the jungle of west Florida. We rode about 2 miles until we crossed the bridge over Suwannee River. That was what we did for fun today.

Feb 25
We debated about whether we should do something fun in the AM or PM. We decided to get the work done before the fun. I worked on getting the bay door open. I got several ideas from the friends whom I called yesterday. I tried a few different ways for about an hour and it finally opened. In Sim's mind I am a genius handyman. After lunch, we went to Fanning Springs State Park. The park has a swimming hole, hiking trail, bicycle trail, plus a canoe and kayak launch. We hiked for a half hour and then quit as there was no challenge and not much to see. We switched our mode of exercise from lower body to upper and terrain from land to water. We launched the kayaks into the Suwannee River. The wind and the current were a bit on the strong side for kayaking but not too bad. We had a blast although it was quite challenging to kayak in the big river as we had to share the river with speed boats, fishing boats, and air swamp boats. Since we have been in South, I was sensing that Sim was reluctant to get into the water.

For those who don't know there are alligators in every body water in Florida. After we were done kayaking, Sim told me that she was afraid of the alligators that are in the river, and she blamed her fear on the alligator movie she saw when she was a young girl. She was worried that an alligator might flip over her kayak and eat her just like in the movie. She said while paddling the kayaks today, she tried not to put the paddle into the water too deep so she would not provoke the alligators. Every time she saw a log or a piece of brown wood, she envisioned them as alligators and it made her heart beat very fast. She said she was trying to overcome her fear, but she was not quite there yet. As we were finishing up our paddle, we went into the mouth of the Manatee Springs and were told by a Canadian woman that we just missed a Manatee that had come to feed. This is apparently one location that many Manatees come to hang out in the winter months. She also told us that there was a big Manatee sanctuary in Crystal Springs, which is just down the road a few hours.

Feb 26 – 27 (2 nights, Homosassa, FL USA)
We are not driving very far today. We could not get any reservations down near Clearwater. Also, we were told that Crystal River and Homosassa were home to the Manatees, so we decided to stop there for a couple of days. Maybe we could put the kayaks in and paddle around among the sea cows, as Manatees are also known. I called and found us a place to stay and the Manager said it was OK to come in early. We parked at the Covered Wagon RV Park at Homosassa and got setup early in the day. The weather is nice, but a bit windy. We jumped in the Jeep and headed for the beach and try to find a place to launch the kayaks. We drove out to the beach and the wind was blowing so hard the sand hurt your legs when it hit you. We tried a couple other spots but did not find anything really suitable or that excited us. The weather was turning worse too, so it did not look good for kayaking tomorrow. We did find an interesting looking local attraction however. The Homosassa Wildlife Center looked like it was on the agenda for tomorrow.

I had called my son Joel the other day, to find out where in Florida his cousin, Brenda, lived. I thought as long as we were here I would look up for her. After all I had not seen her in 40 years so we had a lot to catch up on. Joel emailed me her address and it turned out she was only a 30 minute drive from where we were. At first we could not find the town she lived in on our Atlas. I had to use Google Earth to locate the town where she lives. I called her and she was home and invited Sim and I to come over. We drove to her house in Nobleton and spent several hours catching up. We went to the local restaurant and had some dinner. At dinner we found out that Nobleton is so rural that they do not have mail delivery to their homes. They have to go to the Post Office to get their mail. Brenda and Larry are still kind of out in the sticks as far as modern conveniences too. Although they do have a phone, they do not have an answering machine nor do they have a computer. But they are happy and comfortable with a simple lifestyle. Sim thinks the more you have, the more you need, and the less satisfied you will be.

It was fun seeing Brenda again. Brenda and her husband Larry have one daughter named Patricia who is quite the brain. She is working on her doctorate in Astronomical Physics. Apparently she may have solved the mystery of why the red planet Mars is red as well. She is published and has given presentations on her work before several august audiences in her field.

Feb 27
On our drive around yesterday we found the Homosassa Wildlife Center and decided that we would go today. We got there, bought our tickets at $7.00 each with our AARP discount and queued up for the short boat ride down a canal to the park entrance. You can also take a tram car if you are not into boat rides. The wildlife park contains all animals that are indigenous to Florida with one exception. They have a Hippopotamus that has been at the park since the 1980's. Florida's governor made the Hippo an honorary citizen some years back so I guess you could say all the animals are Florida residents. The big attraction at the park is the Manatee. They have a special underwater viewing area just for the 5 captive Manatee at the park. These were injured wild Manatee that have been nursed back to health but cannot be put back in the wild. We spent several hours wandering around until we had enough of the cold weather. It was a chilly 50 degrees today, so as soon as we had seen everything, we headed back to the campground. What is up with the weather? I thought Florida is supposed to be 70F all year round.

Feb 28 – 29, Mar 1 (3 nights, Fort Myers, FL USA)
Left early in the morning today as we have a fairly long drive to Fort Myers. Instead of a scenic route we opted for the fastest route down Interstate 75. All went well until we were about 25 miles from Fort Myers when the freeway came to an abrupt halt. The truckers on CB Channel 19 were saying a couple of dump trucks got into each other and they ran into another truck. They all caught fire shutting down all southbound lanes. We were several miles back from the accident so it took and hour to creep up to the exit that everyone was forced to get off the freeway. Now all the city streets were jammed up too. It took us over 2.5 hours to go the last 25 miles to the campground.

Feb 29
Happy birthday to the Leap Year babies and Happy Leap Year everyone! Today I am going to fix the water pump that has been acting up. I headed off to Camping World and Lowes to pick up a new pump and some fittings. Several hours later I had a new pump installed but had to go to ACE hardware to get the right pipe to bypass the electric solenoid for the water fill that is not working correctly either. It is working now but I have a small water leak that will have to be addressed some time in the future. Sim stayed back in the coach while I did my running around. We did go out together later to the market and picked up some groceries.

Mar 1
Off to the beach today. Sim also wants to go to the annual Greek Festival held at the local Greek church nearby. We drove by the Greek Festival and then decided to go to the beach first and the festival later. We went down to Fort Myers Beach and found a place to park. We parked ourselves on a nice sandy beach and had some lunch. We took a long walk north on the beach after we put an hour on the meter. Our plan was to walk north for a half hour and turn around and walk back to the car. On the walk back, we walked right past our spot on the beach and ended up way south of where we parked the car. Then we could not remember where we were parked. We did not know whether we should go north or south. Finally we decided to go way south, then walk back north on the street so we could spot the car. Sim was walking without shoes on the beach so she had a tough time walking on the street without shoes. We did find the car and thankfully no parking ticket was on the car for our 45 minute overdue time.

We headed off for the Greek Festival. We got there and wandered the grounds for a while checking out the kiddy rides and the myriad of merchants hawking jewelry, glass products and miscellaneous crafty things. The dancers were scheduled for 4:00 so we sat down in the chairs provided just as the dancing started. We could not see anything so we moved and stood at the edge of the dance area to watch. The dancers were pretty good and we stayed until the end of the performance. We were hungary and one cannot go to a Greek Festival and not eat Greek food. Sim went for the roasted chicken and I opted for the Greek platter with and assortment of Greek delicacies.

Tomorrow we are off to the Florida Keys.

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