My 5K Story

One of the most beautiful places in central Florida is right here in Sanlan Ranch RV Park. About 6 miles of trails that meander through live oak forests, along two lakes and a creek, and across the golf course. It makes a daily walking routine a pleasure.

I was inspired by a facebook post by a friend that she just finished her first 5K run. This friend is someone who is physically difficult to keep up with so I was surprised. I would have thought that was a piece of cake for her already. I said to myself, "I am already  walking 4-5 miles a day on these trails at a good clip; maybe I could run 5K (3.1 miles) of my route." So, inspired by my friend, I started into a trot and, walla, there I was, running the 5K.

Now there are two things I must admit about my 5K.

First, I run or, more correctly, I believe the term is jog at a pace not much faster than I walk. It takes me about 50-55 minutes to complete the course.

Second, in my defense, my run is up and down some short but rather steep hills and many stretches of soft sand. We're talking beach soft here. Since my route is actually about 4.8 miles, I have about 3/4 mile warm up and cool down.

I hope that when we leave here, I will be able to maintain my training on the bicycle paths of Woodridge. While they are very user friendly and do meander through some park land, they can't begin to compare with the ambiance here. Not only is the scenery inspiring, I am often accompanied by the most delightful wildlife. Often a butterfly will even seem to ride along with me for short intervals.

Butterflies won't pose, but this family of American Bitterns had no problem

Most important out of all this, is that I never thought I was a person who could be a runner, and even though I wouldn't call myself one now, I have found out that I can be a runner if I want to and there is no greater feeling than discovering some new capability about yourself.

If you would like to experience what I mean about my route just follow along.



The trail starts with a climb up a ridge overlooking the campground. I use this for my warm-up.




This is where I start my run



A sample of the sandy portions. The hard sand above doesn't count.



This great blue heron just sat there until I entered the bridge.





There is a snowy egret across the water.



Find the turtles on the logs.

The two aningas and the turtle seem to be posing.



The final ascent back up the ridge over the campground. It is a lot more strenuous on the return than at the beginning.

Now wasn't that an awesome walk?

Live Oaks, Spanish Moss, and Exotic Birds, Oh My

Things I like about Central Florida:

• Live oak trees dripping with Spanish Moss.

• Exotic birds




Sandhill Cranes





White Pelicans





Black and White Swans


• The Withlacoochee bike trail with lunch on the porch at the Mc Leod House in Inverness
• Visiting Mom and Dad,

$5.00 golf; who needs grass?

Disney

The Circle Bar B reserve

The Fort Frasier Bike Trail

Bok Tower



Alligators

Grapefruit, oranges, strawberries mmmmmmmmmmmm

Grapefruit league baseball

And, finally, summer in January, February, March, etc.

And that's what we have been up to lately.

Beaches and Birds

We are leaving the Everglades as I write and are headed for civilization and the luxury of a private campground for the next month or so. There is not a lot to do down here but what there is is exciting and fun.

Part of our reason for coming this far south and staying as long as we do is to spend time with dear friends from home staying in Naples. We dedicate one day to the beach where Ed and I take our traditional plunge into the chilly winter waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This is the Florida version of the Polar Bear Plunge which takes place in Lake Michigan each winter. We survived again and have convinced ourselves that it was not so cold as in previous years. We were not so good at convincing our respective spouses though who stood on the shore taking pictures and marveling at our idiocy. Tradition with friends is such a wonderful thing as it binds us together with so many fun shared memories.

Another tradition we cherish with this couple is the longest running pinochle marathon in history. We began this marathon in March of 2000 on a joint trip to Minneapolis to visit relatives and have been playing every month since. We have taken our game from Minneapolis to the southern edge of Florida and many places in between.

Thanks to Ed's meticulous bookkeeping, we have documented all the unusual places we have played and the results of each individual game. That is why we know for certain that we played our 1000th game in Naples. It took almost 12 years to get there. Which, by the way, the girls won. We celebrated quite appropriately with a good belly laugh the likes of which seems to erupt every time we play.

Our final Everglades experience was a bike ride through Ten Thousand Islands Bird Sanctuary. Florida has such stupendous birds it will make a birdwatcher out of anyone. Our special treat this year was in experinecing a whole flock of Roseate Spoonbills flying over our heads in an airborne sea of pink.

 The butterflies were equally amazing. We even threw in a few more alligator sightings just to balance out the day. What a wonderful and diverse world our God has given to us!



We managed to capture a couple of spoonbills still on the ground



Greetings from Camp Fit

I can't believe how active we have been since we hit Florida. I feel like I am attending Camp Fit and enjoying every bit of it.

First we were in Sanlan RV Park where we were able to golf a few times as well as hike the beautiful trails the 4 days we were there.

Then we moved on to one of our favorite State Parks, Oscar Sherer, in Osprey. There we attended exercise class three mornings a week, rode our bikes about 70 miles total, did a 12 mile hike and several smaller hikes.

Now we are in the Everglades staying at Collier Seminole State Park. We have had visitors from the North for the past few days which is always a welcome taste of home. Monday we rode our bikes on the 15 mile Shark Valley Loop trail at Everglades National Park amongst the alligators. And I mean that literally. The gators come right up to the trail to laze in the sun. We saw hundreds of them.

The bird life there is also amazing. We saw bunches of wood storks, a bird that is approaching the endangered species list and many great blue heron.

The Great Blue Heron.

Today we went canoeing among the mangroves along the Mud River which eventually empties into the gulf of Mexico round trip about 4 miles. Don and I are not exactly experts at boating. We have this habit of going in circles. Once we went over a rapids on the salmon river in a double duckie backwards. So understand when I say I am very proud of us making it the whole way with only about 3 Mangrove incidents early on. Luckily Mangrove trees are very soft when you crash into them.

My mother never realized she had raised such a high adventure daughter. Bring on the next one. 

The Music is Silent Now

Those of you who have been following this blog over the past year may recall a post I wrote from Oscar Scherer State Park last year about Betty and Carl . Carl plays a banjo and sings upwards of 300 American folk songs. The real folk songs which define our heritage from the beginning century of our country. Betty, his wife strummed along with a homemade percussion instrument and tried to keep him on track. Every Wednesday evening they would entertain the campers in the park while we ate ice cream. On Thursday afternoons, a group of local musicians playing all sorts of instruments would gather at the activity center and jam under thier guidance. They were warm and welcoming to anyone who chose to participate regardless of  level of skill. Betty had a sweet smile and gentle giggle and always appeared to be enjoying herself even as she listened to Carl's endless stream of jokes which she must have heard over and over.

We were disappointed when we arrived this year to find that Betty has passed away recently of breast cancer. There is no music this year as Carl is taking time to grieve. We hope that he will return next year and we will enjoy him as much as ever, but it will be a different kind of enjoyment without Betty's sweet countenance sitting beside him and drumming on her whatchamacallit. Betty, you will be missed by so many more people than you could imagine. People who have sat in the crowd admiring you from afar, but never got the chance to know you personally.

The Eagle Has Landed

Actually, it is Bertha who has landed in sometimes sunny Florida. Mind you I am not complaining about the weather. Today was perfect - sunny, low 70's, open golf course. What is wrong with this picture? Nothing.

It was a bit of adventure getting here. After our whirlwind holidays and quick turnaround to get on the road, too tired to cook, we treated ourselves to dinner out in Chattanooga at Applebe's. About 2 bites into his meal Don bit into something that viciously cracked a tooth. I say viciously because this was no ordinary cracked tooth. This was broken in two pieces held in place only by the gum.

Hence we called our son Mike, in Atlanta whom we were scheduled to visit for the week-end and asked him for a dental referral. His Dentist, Dr. Blat, was so obliging that she took him in immediately upon our arrival in town. She temporarily cemented his tooth into a tolerable position for the week-end, and first thing Monday morning she accommodated our schedule and worked on him for at least 5 hours to finish the job so we could be on our way early Tuesday morning.

This isn't really about Georgia dentistry though, it is about Georgia hospitality. It's about a professional who went above and beyond any expectations to meet our unreasonable demands in the most timely fashion. The moment we walked into the office, the receptionists greeted us like old friends. The were warm and cheerful and wanted to know all about our lifestyle. Then, of course there is our Georgia native daughter-in-law, Elizabeth. Even though I make jokes about her being stuck with her in-laws longer than planned, she never fails to make us feel like we belong there as long as we wish to stay. Then there is Drew who is three and just learning his social skills who broke my heart when instead of saying good-bye, he said "Why are you leaving Grammy?"

I have always been proud to come from the Midwest, particularly Chicago, where we have a reputation for friendliness, but since our son became a part of the Georgia culture, we have been subjected to large doses of Southern hospitality and believe me we have a long way to go before we come close to meeting their standard.

By the way, if you ever need a dentist in Atlanta we strongly recommend Dr. Blat for her skill as well as her obliging nature.

Christmas with the Chilsons

Wow what a celebration! Our holidays lasted almost two weeks, starting on Dec. 23 and running (literally) through New Year's Day. We had two days at home to put away Christmas and load up the RV and here we are scarcely two weeks later sitting in Atlanta at Mike and Elizabeth's on our way to Florida for the winter.  I never thought I could be this tired and live, but it is such a good tired generated by lots of time with all 7 of the grand kids and all 6 of their parents.

We started with a small Christmas celebration for the Chicago Pattersons which includes my brother, Jim, nieces and nephews, Lindsay, Jason, Johanna, Marin, and Emily. Marin has such a precious outlook on Christmas. When she spied our manger scene, she was awestruck. She said "look, Lindsay, it's Jesus" with the same fervor that a preteen would have said of Justin Beeber.

We left our home early on Christmas Eve to celebrate in Green Bay. The excitement in that house was at a peak. Elise and I spent some time looking out the window to see if we could spot reindeer and our efforts were rewarded later in the evening when Santa, his wife, and a couple of elves arrived at the front door for a brief visit. Don and Amy had a few of their close friends over for the celebration and it is always special getting to know the people your children call friends. Especially when they are all very nice people. We are even trying to get a couple of boys on a camping trip with us.

Monday morning we set off to see the rest of the Chilson clan in Minneapolis with our car packed to the gills with Christmas presents and three more kids. Since their parents couldn't get away, we stole the three kids from Green Bay for a couple of days to visit with their cousins. When we arrived in Minneapolis, we had all 7 grand kids together and what a wonderful state of bedlam was created!

Now, Ella discovered somewhere along the line that I had an extra gift left with fancy ribbons and no name on it. I told her there was going to be a raffle for it later in the week. Well, she never forgot for one minute about that raffle and asked me at least 3 times a day when we were to have it. I just kept putting her off until her daddy arrived on Wednesday evening to take them home.

Meanwhile, as last year when we were all in Atlanta for Christmas and had the first Christmas snowfall there in 129 years, this year the kids from Atlanta came to Minnesota looking for snow fun only to find the first Christmas there with above freezing temperatures. Our Bob is never daunted by weather conditions and indoctrinated us all to the concept of Southern sledding.

You fill the wagon with unsuspecting children at the top of the hill then release it to run into the brush pile at the bottom. The kids had a ball and as you can see so did the dads.

Wednesday evening Don arrived as planned to pick up his kids so I arranged to have our raffle. I printed tickets for each one of the 12 contenders numbered from 605301 to 605312. I drew the winning ticket and read off the numbers slowly, one at a time. With each number called Ella grew more and more excited until I thought she would pop a gasket. It got down to the last 2 numbers and she actually had a 1, but so did her Uncle Bob. I could not believe myself when I read off the winning number for Ella to walk away with the grand prize.

What was in the box? It was something I have had in my linen closet since all of my children moved so far from home that it does not pay to keep a full cookie jar in the house for occasional visits from grandchildren. It was our family cookie jar given to us by a colleague of Don's when the boys were very young. It is an elephant seated with his feet extended wearing a baseball cap with the name Chilson printed on the brim. It is important to note the position of the elephant's feet as that was the place where the last two cookies always hid and usually it was my husband who found and claimed them, This became the thing of family legend so much so that when my dad would come to visit he would buy a box of Oreos just to put two in the elephant feet and see how long it took Don to find them. This cookie jar always stood on top of the fridge. The raffle was really for our boys as I could never decide myself who should get the cookie jar, but the young ones were made to appreciate just what it was they had won when their daddy said to check the feet for cookies and that the jar must always stay on top of their fridge. I finally found the one possession we had which my children would cherish after we were gone. I am just sorry there was only one elephant cookie jar.