Goodbye Disney Hello Hidden River

We love Fort Wilderness, and we stayed at the Fort for the month of January, but all good things must end (I guess), and it was time to leave.  
      

From Fort Wilderness we headed to Hidden River RV Resort in Riverview, which is only six miles from Jaime’s house, and that’s good news.  Conner turned 5 on December 31 and we told him we’d buy him a brand new bike for his birthday.  It’s much bigger than his old bike, but he still rides two speeds:  stop and FAST, only now with his big bike he rides faster!  


Conner loves to ride with his Pappy, and Pappy has to hustle to keep up with the little boy!


Our friends at Hidden River like to ride bikes, and plan fun rides on the many trails in the area.  This time our ride was on the Pinellas Trail.


The Pinellas Trail is a rail trail in Pinellas County, Florida.  It stretches from Tarpon Springs in the north to St. Petersburg in the south. We got on the trail in Dunedin and rode north to Tarpon Springs.


The trail is currently 38.2 miles long, but we didn’t ride the entire trail and I forget how far we rode.  I was counting on Bob to remember the details and he forgot too!


You can see the trail ahead,and it’s a nice, paved trail.

When we got to Tarpon Springs we had lunch at a Greek restaurant and Bob finally agreed that Gyros taste pretty darn good! It was a windy day for our ride, but we made it back safely and were all ready to go again.

Bob was the camera man for this picture, but I can assure you that he made it back safely too!

A Surprise Visit!!

Beth’s job requires a good bit of travel, and we always hope to get a call asking us to come and pick her up at the airport when we're in our camper.  Well, we were at Fort Wilderness when we got the call this time, so we drove to near Tampa to pick her up after her meeting.  After we picked Beth up we met Jaime, Conner, and Katie for an ice cream treat, and I had my camera with me so I’d have a chance to take some pictures of all of us together.  Unfortunately, my camera stayed in the truck, and even Jaime, who’s always taking pictures with her phone, forgot the photo op!!   Next time.


We decided it would be fun to visit Hollywood Studios with Beth. 


Here we are with my camera, now safely strapped to my body so I don’t forget it again.


Bob and Beth went on The Tower of Terror, and Rockin’ Roller Coaster, but I volunteered to wait.  Nope, I’m not afraid!  Someone has to take the pictures.  Honest!


After we saw everything we wanted to see at Hollywood Studios we headed over to Epcot where Beth and I went on Mission to Mars, twice.  Bob waited and had some ice cream (his excuse), while we rode both the tamed down version of the ride and the real thing.  It was great!


Soarin’ was really busy so we got fast passes and had dinner at the Moroccan Pavilion.  The food was delicious and the dancer was very entertaining.

Beth stayed two nights and we tried to do as much as we could while she was there.  We went to two parks, rode our bikes, went to the campfire, walked, talked, and packed as much as we could into her short stay.  We hated to take her to the airport, but she promised she’d give us another call to pick her up again, and we can’t wait!  We know you’d love Maine, and Acadia National Park, Beth!

Conner Comes For a Visit

Conner was our next visitor, and he’s such a nice little guy.  Of course, any Pappy and Grammy would say that, but this time it’s true!


Conner  is in his Spiderman jacket and ready to see Animal Kingdom.


He wore his little Mickey cap and kept watching out the bus window to find the Mouse.


He’s still talking about “It’s a Bug’s Life” and claims that’s what make his pants so wet.  It was rainy day, and there were puddles to jump over into, but he insists that the bugs spit all over him.


Get used to it Conner, even now that Pappy’s retired we still have to wait for him to finish his “important” phone calls.


The Bone Yard was definitely planned for a five year old boy.


He loved climbing over everything!


He loved the slides too, and tried every one.  We stayed in there a long, long time.




OK, Grammy liked this slide too!


Pappy helped him climb this rope thing, and they liked it a lot.


Conner drove the dinosaur and made it go up and down, and up and down.


They touched the alligator and told me it felt like leather, not creepy.


When we picked Conner up we brought his bike too.  No training wheels anymore for this big kid, and he rides two speeds: stop and FAST!


Jaime and Ron came for Conner so Katie could visit us at Fort Wilderness and ride one of Cinderella’s ponies.


They loved the pool at Fort Wilderness and Conner had another slide to try out.  We could tell when he was coming down because he always let out a loud whoop.  He’s a little guy and the lifeguard kept watching him, but he swims like a fish. 


Before they left for home we took Katie for her pony ride, but Cinderella’s ponies couldn’t take her for a ride that day.  They were working on the stables, and there were no rides for our little princess.  Next year, Katie!

We had fun with Conner and Katie, but stay tuned because we had one more visitor, and we had a another great weekend.

Time to Head South

Christmas is over, Beth went back to Pittsburgh, and it’s time to head south.  It snowed six inches the day after Christmas, rained and iced on top of that, and two days later we had four more inches of snow.  We’re out of here!!!

Before we left Bob had a few things to take care of, like shoveling that snow and ice off the camper!  Be careful Bob!!


You can see a small drift on the roof, and the trees all looked so pretty, but it was cold!


Ha!  No snow here in South Carolina. 


We’re here at Fort Wilderness for a month and just look at those flowers.  We’re not in the frozen North anymore!


Campers at Fort Wilderness love their golf carts, and enjoy decorating them.


We saw Segway tours go past, there are a lot of bikes all the time, you can run, walk, or go for a wagon ride.  There’s always something to do at Fort Wilderness.


I almost forgot, there are canoe rides and a nice swimming pool, with a big slide!


Or, you can always run a half marathon.  That’s what Jaime and I decided to do. 


Cinderella’s Castle was all decked out in shimmering blue lights, and looked gorgeous!


Bob, our faithful race photographer, woke up early, fought the crowds, and was ready for us to come streaking zipping running past!


We were able to find him in the crowd and posed for a picture.


I look tired, but we woke up REALLY, REALLY EARLY!!!!  The race starts at 5:30 A.M. and they want you to get there an hour early.  Crazy!


As usual, my post half marathon celebration includes a half of a bag of Cheese Puffy’s, which we all know is the most delicious food ever!

Running with Jaime was fun, and we love it at Fort Wilderness.  We had a great time with a lot of visitors, so keep reading and you’ll find out who else came to stay with us at Fort Wilderness.  

11th Annual Greater Blain Jingle Bell Jog

We look forward to this all year, it's the premier event of the Greater Blain running community, at least in our opinion.  Danny Rice returned as our official photographer, and we think he did a great job.  The weather was crisp and clear and we hope everyone enjoyed it as much as we did.    
Click on the link below to watch the video.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Khi6Yw3bWQ

2011 Jingle Bell Jog

While preparing for the 11th Annual Greater Blain Jingle Bell Jog we noticed that Bob was not doing his job as publicity person, and neglected to post the 2011 pictures of the race.  So, for your viewing pleasure, here they are - a year late! 

Jingle Bell Jog

It’s Time to Head Home

We decided that it’s time to head home for a while.  We’ll hit the road in January, but there are things to do in and around home, and we should be there.    
The Finger Lakes are beautiful, and there was a lot to see and do here, so we know we’ll be back.


We don’t have a boat, but it looks like we’re among the minority in that area by the looks of all these docks.


Bob wanted to see the Watkins Glen racetrack so we took a drive to look for it.  We came across some men looking for the track too, and they had fun cars.  Their cars were nice and shiny and looked great, but they couldn’t move our giant camper.  I think we’ll keep our big truck1


This is the closest we could get to the racetrack, and this photo was taken with the zoom lens.  We could hear the cars on the track but couldn’t really see them.


That’s ok, we can taste more wine instead!


Ken told us to stop at the Herman Wiemer Vineyard, and it looked quite inviting.


They were open, we tasted, and walked out with a few more bottles for our collection.


The weather was beautiful when we were in Waterloo, so we took a walk to burn off some of those calories we picked up tasting wine, and we found the Erie Canal! 


What a gorgeous day for some sight seeing!


I never imagined that the Erie Canal was still operating, but it is for pleasure craft, and it’s in tip top condition.


A group of students from Brigham Young University were touring the locks and the men in charge opened the lock for everyone to see.  The kids all went onto the gates to watch.  I stayed way back!


The water went down, the gates came open, and if here were any boats in the lock they’d be ready to glide right out.


Absorbing all that lock info made us thirsty, so off we went to our final winery, and this one gave tours.


They don’t pick the grapes by hand.  No siree. This giant yellow monster is driven over the vineyard and carefully and gently plucks the grapes off the vines.  Or so they say.  


This thing washes the grapes, I think, and sorts the good from the bad.


There were no ladies stomping grapes the way Lucy did.  This giant squisher does it the sanitary way and then spits out the skins, etc. which will be reused for fertilizer.


This little donkey was the vineyard’s mascot, but he didn’t even want to look at me.  There were no oats in my hand for him, and he’s a smart little guy.


A rainbow to celebrate our last day in Waterloo, NY.


We made one final stop before we left for Blain, and it was in Wellsboro, home to the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon.


You can see the biking trail way down there beside the river.


This is probably the last picture of Rudy relaxing for a long while.  We spent the night in our camper in Patti and Rudy’s driveway.  We called to see if they were home and they said we should drive up their lane and when we got there Bob drove across their lawn to turn around.  MISTAKE!  BIG MISTAKE!  Rudy and Bob thought the ground was hard, but I was skeptical.  Nobody listens to Susie, but this time I was right.  Now Rudy has HUGE, DEEP ruts in their front lawn to fix.  Sorry Patti and Rudy!    


Patti and I aren’t talking about those ruts.  I love Patti, and it’s so much fun visiting with her.


She also gave me some great hints on playing Words with Friends.  I’m not telling what they are, but trust me, it was good advice!


They took us to an outstanding overlook at the Canyon and we saw this nice buck. This is where we were when Bob took those pictures of the canyon.


Now we’re home and Bob gathered our souvenirs.  It’s good stuff, and yes Jaime and Beth, you’ll be getting some of it too!

So we’re home for the Greater Blain Jingle Bell Jog and Christmas, but we’re heading out again early next year!