We're on the Move

We have just left Sanlan RV Ranch our home away from home for the past 2 months and are headed north again, not too quickly though. We have quite a trek planned for the journey home and will be almost a month more before we get there. For anyone interested we planned to set down in Woodridge April 19.

I have not written during our stay in Lakeland as there was nothing very new to report. We spent the time doing the things we have enjoyed for eight winters now and none of it has gotten old.

• The hiking trails. I have mapped out a 5 mile route which doesn't seem so long when the environment seems like a magic garden.

• The Frasier Bike Trail. This year we discovered a fun BBQ restaurant near the far end of the trail aptly named "The Curly Tail"
• The Circle Bar B preserve. One of our excursions was in mid morning and it seemed as if all the wildlife in the preserve were out and about; white pelicans, roseate spoonbills, woodstorks, sandhill cranes, and great blue heron to name just a few of my favorite birds, wild pigs, river otters, and of course the usual assortment of alligators.

A family of sandhill cranes

• The golf course. This year the price went up 40%, from $5 to $7 for nine holes and double that for 18.
The annual St. Patrick's Sanlan Gala.

• Visits with our Woodridge friends both in residence and transient

• Weekly visits to the Auburndale flea market. The array of fresh produce, particularly grapefruit, oranges, and strawberries as well as a few found treasures.

• Excursions to Fort Desoto beach and bike trail

• Our annual visit with Mom and Dad at Florida National Cemetery
• Bike ride on the Withlacoochie Trail and lunch in Inverness.
• Our annual spring training baseball game. Braves beat the Tigers. Does that make you happy Atlanta?

Requiring more that a bullet is the spring break visit from Bob and Gretchen and their boys. They arrived a few days after the twins third birthday so we extended the annual St. Patricks Day Gala to include a birthday celebration. The heart of the day was the two of them singing "Jesus Loves Me" for our Grace.

There is nothing more exciting than watching two three year old boys loose it all at the site of fake dinosaurs, the waves in the ocean, feeding the swans and ducks on Morton Lake, or the biggest play park they have ever seen. Even the cool temperatures could not deter them from swimming in the ocean or the inadequately heated swimming pool and, of course, Grandma had to join them or miss out on the fun. The marvelous thing about being three is that any one of these adventures holds as much excitement and fun as Disney World.

 

 

Thus ends another chapter in our 2013 winter adventure. We have a few more places to see and things to do before we alight for the summer. So stay tuned.

Dateline Florida

It's been very hard getting to the blog this past month. First my computer crashed. It is amazing how this can complicate your life, but more on that at another time Also, since we arrived in Florida we have been busier than usual. We've been doing this snowbird thing for long enough now that we have figured out a routine of returning to the places we most enjoy. By doing so we meet many of the same people from year to year and we actually have a social life.



Brunch in the Lunde motorhome

This year we spent a few days in Claremont which is near Orlando to be near our dear old friends Lynn and Becky. Don's friendship with Lynn goes back to school days. They live full time in their motorhome and since they winter in Florida, it is a great opportunity to keep that important relationship alive.

On the Legacy Trail

There is a whole community of campers who do the same thing we do and our paths cross every so often especially at Oscar Shearer State Park. Here we attend  exercise class three times a week, music jams on Thursdays, and pancake breakfast on Thursday mornings. Thus we have made a few new friends with whom to share a campfire, bike ride, or dinner.

We can always count on finding good entertainment in Venice. This year it was a Neil Diamond  tribute band at the Community Center. We enjoyed our first games of golf since December 1st  in Venice and of course we always love the Legacy bike trail.

11 mile all trail hike

One of the major attractions this park holds for me is the many hiking trails and again we were there to participate in the all trails hiking event. 11 miles of trails on a Saturday morning and as a reward you receive a hot dog and bag of chips.

We never made it to the beach due to an influx of the red tide. I never realized the impact of this phenomenon. Not only does it kill the fish, (there were hundreds lying belly up in the canal along the bike trail), but also it gets in the air and plays havoc on your lungs. We coughed the whole time we were there.

This is a Liger (not misspelled) and the lion

We have been visiting Sarasota for thirty years - ever since my parents moved there in the eighties -  and we still manage to find some new adventure. This year we found the Bigcat Habitat in Sarasota. This is a refuge for unwanted exotic animals, mainly lions, and tigers and bears. Oh my. These animals are housed in much the same way as our own Brookfield Zoo. While kept in cages, they are given time to roam free and run in the yard as frequently as they need to. They give a demonstration of how they train them and it is unbelievable how close we actually get to them. Fortunately there are no less than two barriers between them and us. As always, our travelling buddies Nancy and Phil have been with us since we arrived in OS.

 The day after we arrived at Sanlan, our base campground in Lakeland, we were joined by many of our Woodridge friends . We had a wonderful 2 days just hanging together. It is the presence of our fellow Woodridge wanderers, occasional visits from friends and family, and familiar faces welcoming us back to Sanlan that keep me from getting terribly homesick and make this place start to feel more like our winter home than merely our winter refuge from the cold.

Nancy and Sue

Phil, Don, Ed, and Larry



Me and Judy



The Twelve Days of Christmas

The twelve days of Christmas have come and gone and here we are settled down in Bertha for our long winters nap in Florida .

We started out in Green Bay on the day before Christmas Eve with Papa's Pizza in tow to feed the hungry foreigners who miss our Chicago way of doing things with Pizza.

We were fortunate to be spending the holidays in Green Bay where it was white with snow. It seems as though Chicago has been declared a no snow zone. We all enjoyed a few hours on the sledding hill near their home.

Christmas Eve began with Mass to celebrate the true meaning of the season, the arrival of baby Jesus.

The family was joined later by some close friends in Green Bay increasing the joy brewing in the household. We were honored by a visit from Santa and his entourage of  wife and elves. Everyone had enough nice marks to receive a present. Even Bob and Don.

 

 

 After the guests left, the children opened gifts from all of us. Our latest hockey player, Ella, loved her girlie hockey stick which I made sure to fill with lots of goals, and Jack gave us a fashion show in his new snuggie.

Of course, the big surprises were on Christmas morning when the children awoke to see what Santa left under the tree during the night. Elise received the biggest dollhouse I have ever seen. I can only imagine what it took for Santa to assemble it. It had to be that large to accommodate Barbie and Ken. 

The best part of the time however, was the individual.  time I was able to spend with each of the children. Spinning with Robbie, eating grapes with Jacob, cooking with Ella, playing angry birds with Jack and playing air hockey with Elise to name just a few.

We returned home the day after Christmas to get ready to head south but not until we celebrated a little more. I had a holiday meal for my favorite nurses from Mt. Sinai and another one for my brother Jim and niece Lindsay. We celebrated New Year's Eve in style with champagne and dancing with our friends at Grand Haven, and headed out the day after New Year's for Atlanta and one more Christmas with Mike and his family.

 

 

More presents. Ollie loved his Buzz Lightyear toy as did Drew, but the best gifts of all were a coffee table book Don bought him about the stars and planets, and the old walkie talkies we gave him out of the camper. Those were "the best presents ever". The stuffed animal I gave him which was collecting dust at home also seemed to out play Buzz. After we stored up a lot of the giggles and hugs to keep us warm for the rest of the winter, we hopped into the bus and are now ready for our annual exile to Florida.

 

 

Memory

Today, I am a guest author on Jean’s blog. I am Jean’s husband Don. I have been very fortunate over the years to be able to travel to so many places in this country. We love to travel. My love of travels began early in life. My first large trip was in 1964, a road trip out west, in a 1963 Chevrolet Corvair, through South Dakota, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. By the way, there were no Interstate Highways beyond Iowa City, Iowa, just two lane roads with lots of small towns. Yes, I travelled parts of route 66.


We just recently completed what we called our friendship tour through the Southeast. One of our stops, near Ashville, North Carolina, was Chimney Rock State Park. This park is where the latest movie "Last of the Mohicans" was filmed with Daniel Day-Lewis. We entered the park after crossing a very narrow bridge over a gentle river in the tiny tourist town of Chimney Rock. The entrance road is narrow winding road climbing steadily in elevation until we reached the parking lot. As we exited the car and walked across the parking lot and looked up we could see a winding set of about 450 stairs leading up to the top of Chimney Rock, Jean, mentioned, “We were here before.” I answered, “no way,” and we began our slow climb to the top. On top, we marveled at the view overlooking the Great Smoky mountains with their late fall muted colors on the left. On the right, Lake Lure below. The lake meanders in and around the mountain valleys below. Again, Jean stated, “we were here before.” Again, I emphatically repeated “no way, we have not been here.”



Chimney Rock

After, enjoying the gorgeous views from the top, we descended, this time by elevator to the parking lot. There was a side trail about a mile long that would take us up to “Hickory Nut Falls.” When we reached the waterfall, again, Jean repeated “we have been here before. This is where Bob and Roger Sieben, were stung by a swarm of wasps”. This time our conversation became a little more heated with comments about my memory. This time I began to argue, “no way, I would certainly remember this beautiful park”. I did remember a wasp incident, but it was surely somewhere else. Ha, Ha.

 
As I sat at our computer one recent December evening, looking over and organizing our photos from the recent trip, I looked back and viewed some old photos when our kids were ages 7 to 10 from 1982. Guess what, we were at Chimney Rock in 1982, when we were on our way out to the Worlds Fair to Knoxville, TN. Note the photos below, on right is our most recent photo, and on the left the photo from 1982. The bottom of the page photo is by the Hickory Nut falls in 1982, with me and the kids.



1982



Nov 9, 2012







Well, to make a long story short, I am wrong again. I guess, the reason why I always enjoy where we go, I believe it is the first time. In my defense, I have been to a lot of overlooks in my years of travels, and lots of Chimney Rocks. If you are ever near Ashville, be sure to visit Chimney Rock. The view is spectacular.


 

Don, Bob, Don, & Mike Hickory Nut Falls 1982



Don Chilson


 

Happy Advent

This isn't meant to be a plug for the real meaning of Christmas, but it's okay if that's what you get from it. It is also a week late in coming due the the procrastinating nature of the author.

On black Friday we were in McDonald's when Don overheard a conversation at the counter of a man talking about a presentation of Handl's Messiah at a neighboring parish coming up on December 2. This happens to be our favorite holiday music. So he looked into it and got some tickets for the performance which was scheduled for the first Sunday of advent.

The music was performed by the Metropolitan Chicago Symphany Orchestra and the St. Raphael Parish Choir in the church itself. It was absolutely amazing. The acoustics were as fine as anywhere, and the music could well have been sent from heaven above. All for the small price of $10. After a brief intermission, the second act was a short concert of traditional Christmas carols both religious and secular. The orchestral arrangements were updated to sound current without loosing their traditional flavor. Of course, then came the children involved in a light procession singing Silent Night making it seem just right. We left there feeling now it is time to let the holiday spirit begin.

There are no pictures today, because my musings are all about the sounds that warm my heart.

Beautiful music which though created by man can only be inspired by God.

Little boys singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, little pizza"

A little girl writing a story about the turkey who tried his best to survive Thanksgiving.

A 4 year old explaining the nature of Zombies and insisting it is all true because it is in the movies

Playing " Let's steal things from Pa"

Quiet conversation with the oldest of the bunch.

The unending joy and giggles of all the grandchildren.

These are the real sounds of Advent. I can wait lose myself in these while I wait for the special joy that is Christmas to arrive.

The Friendship Tour

As much as we love Bertha, sometimes we take to the road in our car and actually accommodate ourselves in a few hotel rooms or by taking advantage of the hospitality of family and friends. We recently took just such a road trip which led us South to Georgia, northeast to Virginia and home again. The sole purpose of this trip was to visit friends and family along those routes. We touched base with people in 5 different states and 6 different cities. All along the way we were greeted warmly and  enthusiastically.

We first planned this trip as always over a long week-end between Illini football games to spend some time with our children and grandchildren in Atlanta. Thank you Illini for being so utterly and definably awful this season (the worst EVER!!!!). They were so bad we chucked our season tickets and decided to make a road trip of this visit and do a few things we have had on our list for awhile.

I was reticent to phone the people we planned to visit as some of them we hadn't seen for a lot of years ( I mean a real lot).  I was so pleasantly surprised when they all said happily to come along and all were actually excited to have us visit. Each one had at some time over the past several years offered an open invitation as people always do. Our philosophy to any invitation is that you better mean it because we rarely refuse one.

One of my all time dearest friends whom I have seen very very infrequently since our children were very small once said that the test of a real friendship like ours is that we may go  for years without seeing each other, but when we do we are able to take up exactly where we left off as though the years had never passed. Well I believe we found this to be true along our way and I learned a valuable lesson. Friendship is a precious thing and it doesn't necessarily diminish
merely because of the absence of contact due to our busy lives.

Of course, we did take the opportunity to visit a few new places along the way. Our first old friend, Anna, lives in Louisville Ky. so before we left town we spent a memorable morning at Churchill Downs. After soaking up the history of this place, I have a new appreciation of that once a year event the Kentucky Derby. I picked up a few recipes of traditional Derby food at their museum and am telling my friends to save the date next May for a Derby party.

In Nashville we met up with friends who had been our neighbors for many years before job opportunities took them elsewhere. We spent the evening with them over dinner catching up on how our families have grown and changed over the years apart.

We spent a happy week-end in Atlanta where Don celebrated his 70th birthday in high style. We were treated to a very elegant meal by Elizabeth at the Sun Dial Restaurant, which revolves at the top of the Westin Hotel in Downtown Atlanta. We were lucky to arrive while the sun was still shining and leave after dark which gave us splendid views of the city with and without lights. It was such fun to get dressed up to go out. Our current life styles are such that we just don't take the opportunity to do so. When Ollie saw his mom in this lovely little black dress he asked her "Why are you wearing your bathing suit?" Mike definitely has to take this girl out more often.

Of course the other highlight of the days spent in Atlanta was bonding with two of the sweetest boys on the face of the earth. Drew's current favorite games are "My ---- is better than yours", Where did the ball go?, and Let's sneak things from Pa. Ollie is so happy go lucky he just likes being around everyone.



The boys practiced their scary faces while waiting for their lunch to arrive



Believe it or not this is Ollie's scary face

 

After leaving Atlanta, we headed for Ashville to drop in on the Vanderbilts for a brief visit. Unfortunately they weren't in residence that week but we were treated to a tour of their luxurious estate, Biltmore and spent a few days enjoying the hospitality of some new friends that we met in Florida who live in Mars Hill.

On the way to Charlotte, home of our niece Amy and her lovely family, we stopped to climb Chimney Rock State Park. It felt great to get out and do something so physical after so much sitting.

Last stop but certainly not the least was Western Virginia, home of sister Carol and her husband Jim. We were given an added treat when our Nephew made an appearance for Sunday dinner with his little family.  We had a nice visit, attended a Glass Harp Concert, had more than a few laughs and I received some quilting lessons before the long but satisfying ride home.



This is one happy Grandma



The Splendor of Fall

There is no doubt about it. We Midwesterners love our fall colors. Road trips, bike trips, just tooling around the neighborhood brings about a sense of pride in the beauty around us as if we had anything to do with its creation. Similar to the way my mother used to brag about her Florida weather as if she were responsible for it in some way.

Last Saturday with nothing else on our agenda we decided to take a road trip to Starved Rock State Park and soak up a bit of the ambiance of fall and have a nice lunch at the lodge. We forgot to take into account the fact that since we are retired we should reserve such outings for the week-days. Everyone in Illinois seems to have had the same thoughts. 

We couldn't get into the restaurant for lunch so we dined al fresco! This may have been the first time outside of a campground that I ate my lunch wearing gloves. It was a sunny, even though brisk day though so the experience was not without its merit considering the view.

We never realized that there are a total of 18 canyons in this park. In a 3 mile loop I believe we saw less that half of them. During the rainy times there are supposedly water falls filling these chasms, but there is a different kind of thrill being able to walk right into them.

We worked off our lunch with a long hike through the woods and along the river enjoying the colors but also enjoying the many families and friends doing the same. The atmosphere was congenial and friendly. Even the dogs encountered along the trail were well behaved although I have always failed to understand why so many people having dogs with very short legs think this kind of activity is a treat for them. There are plenty of steep climb and stairs along these trails. Further up into the woods the crowds thinned quite a bit as the climb is not for the faint hearted.

Starved Rock for which this park is named

This day brought back great memories about our first ever camping trip with our pop-up and our three little boys. Our then neighbor and good friends, the Siebens were seasoned campers and they decided they should teach us everything we needed to know about camping. This was about 34 years ago. This place has changed (actually been changed) a lot since then. It was the Siebens custom to go mushroom hunting with some of their family the first week-end in April each year in the woods around Starved Rock. The campground at that time was a barren field with no running water and pit toilets, the old fashioned stinky kind. Northern Illinois tends to be colder in April than in October and it hit freezing that night. I slept with a cloth diaper around my head for warmth. The next morning we hiked up the rock on a dirt path, not the metal steps and boardwalks which became necessary to stem the erosion. There was no guard rail at the top of the cliff and, of course boys, both big and small had to brave the very edge while mom shuddred in fear for their lives. Then we hit the woods, off trail, looking for edible mushrooms and Don got lost. We can still hear his voice calling through the trees, "Oh Elaine".

Obviously neither of us was daunted by this experience. We went out the day after we returned home and bought heavier sleeping bags and a small space heater both of which served us well in the years to come. It was also the first of many camping trips shared with these wonderful people in our lives.