March Madness
Wauchula, FL
March Madness used to refer to the NCAA Basketball Tournament held every March; but with the coming of Covid-19, the original March Madness has been cancelled and replaced by a new kind of March Madness. Businesses are being asked too close, sports events (including the Olympics) have either been postponed or cancelled all together, and we are all being told to practice social distancing. Some are even being required to shelter in place.
The stock market has been like a roller coaster (mostly headed down), and there are all sorts of shortages at the grocery stores as people hoard supplies of hand sanitizer, hand soap, toilet paper, and bottled water. Bottled water? Really? Do people think the virus is going to infect the water supply or do they think all the municipal workers are going to call off sick and they're going to turn off the water pumps?
In the midst of all this madness we're both doing fine. We live in a rural area, and as of this writing the county in which we live (Hardee) has no reported cases of Covid-19. The county to our east where we do most of our shopping (Highlands) has only 5 reported cases.
Florida residents are being urged to stay home, but there are mandatory shelter in place orders in a couple of highly populated areas of the state around Miami and Gainesville, both of which are pretty far away from us. All across Florida, however, bars, restaurants (except for take-out orders), beaches, state parks, and even churches are closed. Doctors and dentists have been asked to cancel all appointments for routine exams and procedures.
All the events at our little resort here in Florida have been cancelled. There are still a few meetings going on, but they're being held outside on the pool patio where everyone sits at least 6 feet apart. Our pool is open, but it is limited to 10 people at a time.
Margery is working on the April newsletter. With all the events for the second half of the March and all of April cancelled, it will be a pretty short issue. After a few months of intense activity among a number of people in the park, she is now working with one of our members to get the updated info on prospective membership loaded on to our web page.
Paul is working on a couple of small landscape projects and a few chores around the Resort, mostly by himself. We haven't had much rain recently, so he has watering to do. He is also puttering around our site cleaning and fixing things here and there, organizing the shed, and tending our own plants.
Speaking of plants, our orchids, which normally live outside, are both blooming like crazy. We have them inside temporarily so we can enjoy them up close. Flowers can really brighten your day.
Other than a weekly trip to the grocery store, we're hangin' around home riding this thing out. It will get worse before it gets better, but it WILL get better. In the meantime, stay safe, stay healthy, and wash your hands.
A New Toy
Wauchula, FL - Events of December 31, 2019 to January 31, 2020
We ended our last post with our having returned home from Pittsburgh on Sunday, December 29, after visiting with family for Christmas. For the first time in several years we returned home without colds. A quick trip to the little Walmart in Wauchula on Monday enabled us to restock our fridge with some basics.
Gardening is something Paul enjoys. He does weeding, fertilizing, watering, pruning, and insect control, not only for our own plants, but also for many of the plants here at the SKP Florida Resort. Paul was spoiled by having friends loan us their golf cart for the past two summers when they were not here because having a golf cart makes it easy to haul shovels, hoses, buckets, insecticide sprayers, etc. Without the use of a golf cart, Paul had to either walk or strap tools to his bicycle, which is not the safest practice, especially in the case of a tool like a long-handled pitch fork.
Paul strapping a pitch fork to his bicycle
When our friends returned last fall and reclaimed their golf cart, we started thinking seriously about getting our own. Paul began doing research.
Golf courses usually lease their golf carts for a period of three years. When the lease is up, they turn in the carts in and get a new batch. There are a lot of RV parks, mobile home parks, and planned communities in Florida, and most of the smaller ones like ours have private roads that permit golf carts. Many larger communities like The Villages have special cart paths.
With all the planned communities and RV parks creating a demand and all the golf courses with leased golf carts as a source of supply, there is a booming business in Florida selling used golf carts. Some are sold as-is, fresh off the golf course, and others are refurbished with varying lists of options. There are also plenty of used golf carts for sale by private parties on Facebook and Craig's List.
Over a period of a few weeks late last fall, we visited several golf cart dealers and ended up at A2Z Golf Custom Carts in Sebring. A2Z tears the carts down, rebuilds them, and installs a brand new set of batteries (one of the most expensive parts of the cart). Their standard build includes the most popular options that are not excessively expensive. We also liked the fact the carts from A2Z come with a one-year warranty. Many other dealers only give a 30-day warranty.
We drove over to Sebring on New Year's Eve to order our golf cart. Each cart sold by A2Z is custom built, so we had to wait almost three weeks. It was delivered January 18th.
Paul taking the new golf cart for a test drive
Freeway loves riding in the golf cart. One day when we all went for a ride, we stopped and got out to talk to some friends. Although we were standing pretty far away from the cart for a fairly long period of time, Freeway was content to just lie there on the seat and wait for us.
Freeway waiting patiently in the golf cart while we talked to friends
Although the golf cart came with a good many options like a rear seat that folds over to create a cargo area, a new windshield, a light kit, and rear view mirrors, there were still a few additional accessories Paul wanted to install himself.
We titled this post "A New Toy," but maybe we should have called it "A New Tool" because the cart will be used much of the time for work. Therefore, one necessary addition was a hitch on the back to use to pull the small utility trailer owned by the Resort so Paul can haul larger items. Hitch kits for golf carts are readily available. They bolt right up to holes provided for that purpose in the rear seat foot rest.
Paul also wanted a horn. Newer electric golf carts run on 48 volts, which is supplied by six 8-volt batteries. Since most electrical accessories like the horn run on 12 volts, Paul needed to install a voltage reducer. The output from the voltage reducer feeds a fuse block to which he then wired the horn.
Voltage reducer (with the fins to the right) and fuse block
Another addition was a volt meter so Paul can monitor the state of charge of the batteries. Drawing the batteries down too far before recharging can seriously shorten the life of the battery pack, and the volt meter will alert Paul when the batteries start to get a little too low.
In addition to work Margery was doing on the newsletter, sign-up sheets, and posters for the Resort and Paul taking care of plants and modifying the golf cart, we had our usual errands to run. We frequently combine eating out with errands, and that was the case one day a couple of weeks ago. After stopping to order Paul a new pair of shoes over in Sebring, we went to Dimitri's Restaurant and both had grouper finger baskets for lupper. Afterward, we decided to stop at Maxwell's Groves in Avon Park on our way home for some of their delicious orange ice cream.
As we walked away from the counter with our ice cream, Paul heard his name being called out by someone behind us. The couple, Marc and Grace Miller from Kolona, Iowa, introduced themselves as blog readers. They were staying over in the St. Petersburg area for a couple of weeks this winter, and they drove all the way to Wauchula to eat lunch at the Wauchula Family Restaurant and then drove to Avon Park to have some of the orange ice cream at Maxwell's because they read about both places in our blog. Our crossing paths was serendipitous, and we very much enjoyed chatting with them.
Blog readers we met at Maxwell's Groves
So those are some of the things keeping us busy since Christmas. Stay tuned for our next update.
Pittsburgh for the Holidays Part II: Christmas Eve Eve and Beyond
Pittsburgh, PA/Wauchula, FL - Events of Monday, December 23 to Sunday, December 29, 2019
The church Lora and J. Michael attend has several services on Christmas Eve, and they also have one service on Christmas Eve Eve. Because we always go to J. Michael's brother's house on Christmas Eve, we went to church on Christmas Eve Eve. It was a very beautiful service in its simplicity.
We finished up with holiday preparations during the day on Christmas Eve, then headed to J. Michel's brother's house in the late afternoon. We had a good time as usual visiting with J. Michael's family, and we also enjoyed lots of good eats.
Lydia awoke on Christmas morning filled with excitement. She got a wide variety of gifts including several baby dolls. The one she is opening in the photo below is called Baby Alive. Baby Alive moves her lips when she talks and when she eats and drinks. She also wets her diaper.
Lydia opening one of several baby dolls she got for Christmas
Lydia got lots of other gifts including a tool kit with real tools, not plastic toys, so she could help Daddy in the workshop. One of the things she can do with her tools is use them to build the birdhouse kit, which was another one of her gifts. Yet another gift was a book of paper airplanes. The pages, all of which have different designs printed on them (birds, camouflage, dragons, etc.), can be torn out and folded into different shapes of airplanes.
Lora continued the family tradition of baking up a batch of scratch-made cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas morning. They were delish!
Back in the 80s when Lora was young, we got her (and Paul) ColecoVision for Christmas. ColecoVision was a video game console that was similar to Atari. That year, we were having so much fun with the video games we decided to abandon the big Christmas dinner in favor of snacking our way through the day. The next year, the snacks evolved into appetizers, and over the years we have continued the tradition of having appetizers at various times during the day in lieu of a big Christmas dinner. This year, we feasted on mushroom rolls, spanakopita, candied kohlbassi, Little Smokies wrapped in Crescent rolls, and dried beef/cream cheese appetizer pie throughout Christmas afternoon and evening.
Thursday was a day of relaxation. We took turns showing Lydia how to play a couple of the new games she got, and we helped her fold paper airplanes to fly from the second floor balcony. The book shows you how to fold several different styles of paper airplanes, and all of them fly amazingly well.
On Friday, Margery and Lora went to tea at Uniquely Yours Tea Room located in nearby Hickory, Pennsylvania. The girls had great mother/daughter time together.
Lora and Margery at Uniquely Yours Tea Room
This was their first time at this newly-opened tea room. Although the price was a little higher than other tea rooms they have gone to, the atmosphere and the food were definitely on a much higher level.
Some of the delicious food at Uniquely Yours
The girls stopped to do a little after-Christmas shopping on the way home. Lora got lots of nice wrapping paper at a great price, which was a really good thing because we mooch wrapping paper from her every year. After the girls got home and showed off all their purchases, we did some packing in preparation for our departure the next morning.
On Saturday, we were on the road by 7:30 a.m. There was some morning fog and drizzle, but traffic the entire first day of travel was relatively light with no delays.
As we mentioned in our last post, we stopped on the way north where we always stop on our way to and from Pittsburgh, which is at the Hampton Inn in Rock Hill, North Carolina. Rock Hill is about 8 hours from Lora and J. Michael's house and about 10 hours from home. Traffic is usually light going both ways in summer, and it's also relatively light going north in winter, so the imbalance in driving time between the two days isn't a big deal. However, traffic is much heavier after Christmas heading south, and it gets even heavier the farther south you go making the second day of travel even longer. It also gets dark earlier in winter, so we moved our overnight stop for the trip home about an hour farther south to the Hampton Inn in Columbia, South Carolina, in order to try to get home before dark.
A new place for our overnight stop also gave us new options for dinner. BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse is a nationwide chain that Lora, J. Michael, and Lydia like a lot. Since there is a BJ's located a few minutes from the Hampton Inn in Columbia, we decided to give it a try.
We both had Bistro Burgers ($13.50) with a side salad substituted at no extra cost for the fries that normally come with the burgers. The Bistro Burger has bacon, caramelized onions, goat cheese, garlic aioli, spinach, and pickled onions. Yum!
BJ's signature dessert is the Pizookie. A Pizookie consists of a low pan about 6" in diameter containing a freshly-baked cookie (white chocolate-macadamia nut, traditional chocolate chip, chocolate-chocolate chip, caramel, peanut butter, etc.) or a freshly-baked brownie topped with two to three scoops of ice cream. Most of the Pizookies also come with sauce such as caramel or hot fudge. We shared a hot fudge brownie Pizookie. Double yum!!
Paul about to dig into the hot fudge brownie Pizookie
On Sunday morning, we took advantage of the free, hot breakfast at the Hampton Inn before hitting the road around 6:30. Traffic was a little heavy, but it moved well for the first several hours all the way through South Carolina and Georgia.
It started to rain just before we got to the Florida-Georgia line, and we weren't more than a mile or two inside Florida when we hit our first backup. There was a fender-bender, probably caused by the rain. Although the cars were off the road and on the left shoulder, rubberneckers slowed things down for about 10 to 15 minutes.
It was still raining when we got to another BIG backup just south of Jacksonville, Florida. Google Maps showed at least two accidents (there may have been three) within a mile of each other. Google Maps eventually tried to navigate us on a detour around the accidents by telling us to take the exit that was right beside us. Unfortunately, we were in the far left lane and couldn't get to the exit, so we had to just sit there and creep along for the next 45 minutes.
After we finally got past the last accident site, traffic continued to be heavy, but there were no further delays until Orlando. Although it was Sunday and there was no rush hour to contend with going through the city, traffic was backed up west of Orlando at the attractions (Disney, Universal, etc.). We followed Google Maps' suggestion to avoid some of the slowdowns by taking toll roads around Orlando. It was about 15 miles farther, and it cost about $3 in tolls, but it was well worth it because it saved us about 20 minutes...and we kept moving the entire time instead of having to contend with stop-and-go traffic.
We stopped for supper at an Arby's about half an hour from home. Finally, after over 10 hours on the road (it should have been about 9 hours without any traffic delays), we pulled into our driveway around 4:45. It was a long travel day, but we were glad we moved our overnight stop farther south to Columbia because that's what enabled us to meet our goal of arriving home before dark. It was a great visit with family, but it was also great to be home again.