Pioneer Florida Museum & Village

Today we made a trip to the city of Dade, Florida and visited the Pioneer Florida Museum & Village.  It was a very nice day and while a bit hot outside seeing the buildings two of them did have air-conditioned and were a welcome relief.  We have toured other such pioneer villages around the country and always enjoy them, this one was very nice.

  school house

 church

 traveling preacher

 animal treadmill powered butter churn

 Jo likes bottle trees

 cane mill

 baler

 hexigon five string banjo

 four string

Barnwood Builders

This has been a lazy day here in the south.  With our limited television connection we sometimes have connection to one satellite and sometimes another.  That small window in the trees is really iffy on just what programming we get to watch, if any.  Right now there is a storm cloud overhead so we get nothing.  We found a show this morning that ran continuous episodes all morning and most of this afternoon and it was quite interesting.  These 6 or 7 guys based in West Virginia find centuries old log barns and dismantle them piece by piece and then put them back together someplace else as a new house or for some other purpose.  Their knowledge of log construction is amazing and their skill with a chain saw (something the original builders didn't have) is great.

a shopping trip

This morning we drove to a Camping World store near Ocala, FL.  It was a bit of a drive but I wanted to pick up a new satellite receiver box.  Hoping the newer faster processor would speed up the time it takes to change channels.  Our system is an automatic dish that finds the three satellites 110, 119, & 129.  The receiver is supposed to keep those locations in it's memory.  The dish can only see one at a time so when we change channels to a program that happens to be on another sat. the receiver has to tell it what coordinates to move to.  I have the new box installed and authorized by Dish Network but haven't been able to lock on to any sats. yet.  I know that the window through the trees is a small one and also know that I can't get 129 but we have been watching the other two sats. for the past few days.  Right now I'm letting it rest for a little while and perhaps cool down a little before I try again.

After our visit to Camping World we found a super BBQ restaurant (Sonny's) for lunch.  The brisket and roast turkey were superb and Jo liked the sauce that she used so much that we bought a bottle.

We passed up "Wild Bill's" air-boat tour that we passed along the way.  Several years ago we did take an air-boat tour through a part of the Everglades and feel like we've been there done that.

enjoying our stay

Yesterday was a day of leisure and we enjoyed that so much we decided to repeat the experience today.  We did get out last evening for a very nice seafood dinner.  Those that have followed our previous trips know that whenever we are near any coast line or waters edge that is our favorite type of dining.  We found a very nice seafood market with a restaurant attached so while our shrimp and turbot were tasty they may have come from China, but I don't believe so.

There aren't a lot of attractions around here that we want to visit.  The wildlife park was nice and we have two other outings in our plans with another week and a half to find time to take them in.

Happy Mother's Day

We want to wish all Mothers a very happy day.

We have enjoyed the day by going to a State Park in the area to visit and view their wildlife exhibits.  The park is Homosassa Springs State Park which was full of Florida wildlife plus one African Hippo.  The sign said that the Governor had proclaimed him to be a Florida citizen so he could reside here the rest of his life in retirement from a show similar to Sea World.

 Lou the hippo

Eastern time zone

Here we are on the same time zone with Phyllis but I don't like it.  Television scheduling is always an hour later than what we see at home and are used to.  I know that originally we didn't think we would be watching tv but since we are and able to watch some of our favorite programs they are now an hour later and encroach on my bedtime.

We did make a short trip out to a grocery store this afternoon and there is a very nice Publix near by.  We had decided that since the past three days were travel days we would just take it easy today.

Florida

We have arrived at our campground for the next two weeks while we explore this area of Florida.  We are in the Chassahowitzka Campground on the Chassahowitzka River (say that three times fast) which is near Homosassa and Homosassa Springs close to the gulf coast of Florida.

The campground doesn't have cable tv hookups and there isn't any over-the-air signal.  The google-earth view of the campground is totally tree covered.  That makes for a nice shady site to spend our time and was afraid there would be no satellite connection.  We had decided that we could spend two weeks without television but after a little searching with my phone app I did find a hole through the cover to set up our dish and we now have television, just no network channels.  There is a very good Verizon telephone signal so my computer connection works well and we can keep up with the news that way.

into Georgia

This morning we crossed through downtown Nashville around 8:00 am, rush time.  There wasn't really a good route around and it wouldn't have been half bad except for the road construction closing down lanes.  After lunch, around 2:00 pm we did take a bypass around Atlanta but still plenty of traffic which is usual in this city, as per our experiences.

Back in the early '60s we spent a few years living in Forsyth, MO and here we are again for this one night in Forsyth, GA.  There are no 'over the air' television channels and since this is Thursday night we opted to not pay an extra $2 for cable.  I will miss Judge Judy, Jeopardy, and Wheel of Fortune but oh my I think I will live through the night.

Tomorrow we will reach our goal campground for a two week stay.

on our way again

First day of this trip takes us to Clarksville, TN which is just a mile south of the Kentucky border.  Other than a few road work zones the drive today was nice.  One work zone had traffic down to one lane and then a flagman with a stop sign right at the work area so we crept through that over four or five miles.  It always seems in those kind of traffic situations I always happen to be right behind a BIG box truck and can't see anything until we pass by.