AAAAAAAAhhhhhhh Florida

There's just something about looking at palm trees and orange trees. Being from West Virginia we never saw any of these trees. We did have the apple,peach and cherry trees.

Evening time in the Park

This is a special time. Its Christmas Eve in the park. All the streets are lined with plastic milk jugs with candles burning inside of them. This looks so nice.

Mall

Looking both ways in the mall friday afternoon there were plenty of shoppers looking for presents. I've noticed at Christmas time you could just about sell anything. I've seen things in the mall kiosk's that I don't see any other times. I'm talking about regular stuff not just Christmas stuff. I guess people will grab anything at the last minute.

Target Store

I have a good report on the Target Store in Port Richey,Florida.
I bought several presents on tuesday at the store,I started to wrap the presents on friday and saw that one item was missing. I went to the store to see if they had the item and they do keep a record of things that people leave when checking out. The lady checked and could not find the item on the list,I thought just my luck. To my surprise she looks at my receipt and then gives me the credit back on my debit cards. She says here you are. I thought this was really great because,I could have lost it somewhere else. I wished her a Merry Christmas.

Shopping Today

We went to a couple of stores today to buy presents. I'm the one that went to Best Buy but,came out empty. Didn't see anything that I couldn't do without. Nancy spent her time at the WalMart.

Of course everyone has to go to a dollar store.

Oranges

There is an orange grove on one side of the road leading into the park. They are getting a real nice orange color and probably juicy. I'm tempted to stop and pick one but Nancy says no.

12:23 PM Another Day

Just another normal day here today. Partly sunny with the temp at 68* right now. I won't be doing much of anything except watching my ballgames. We did go to the flea market yesterday with our friends Earl and Lena Fries. Nancy got an old webtv classic,she likes the web and not the computer. She says its easier for her. After we left the flea market we all went to Perkins Restaurant for dinner and sat around awhile chatting.

Beach

Beach at the Green Key Park. With the skies cloudy and temps only 66* there were only a few people out today. When it is a nice day the people will come to this beach. There is also a hotdog cart to buy your snacks and drinks on nice days.

Cloudy

We have an overcast skies today. Unlike yesterday that was sunny and the temps up to 78* today it is suppose to rain. The rain will last for a couple of days and the temps around 67*. Not bad at all considering what the rest of the states are going to have.

Shuffle Board

The sun was out yesterday and the men always like to play shuffle board. They really get into this game.

Bingo

We went down to play bingo last night. This is the first time playing in this park and it was different then the other park we were staying in last year.
When you go in you buy the games that you want to play for the night and thats all the money exchange. No collecting money between games to take up time.
There were 50--60 people playing last night. Halfway into the games there is a break for cookies and coffee. It was a fun night.
Oh,Nancy won one game.

Looking Around

Saw these big birds walking on the road around the lake today. I don't know what the name of these birds are? They look like some type of heron. They have a red spot of their head.

Lake in the Park

Orchid Lake in the Park. There are signs along the edge of the lake says no swimming or feeding the alligators. Needless to say everyone obeys the sign,

New Port Richey,Florida

Here is the entrance to the Orchid Lake Travel Park. We will be staying here for the next 5 months. The reason is because neither Nancy nor I like cold weather. We like this area it has everything close by,plus most of the days we can go out and sit on the beach to watch the ripples in the gulf.

Florida," here we are"

Well we have finally made it back to Florida. Of course we do not travel fast because we stop and do a lot of walking. We are parked for the night in the WalMart parking area in Bushnell. They do allow overnight parking here.
If you stop at this WalMart for the night try your WiFi connection. You can pick up a hot spot here.

Got new "Stuff"

I got a new computer about a week ago. It is a great improvement over the one I've had for four years. It has the CD burner so,I had to go and buy a dvd player. I bought a vcr dvd combo unit.
I had to try six different ones before I could find one to show the cd's I had burned. I tryed 2 from WalMart,on one it was to show the cd's but didn't. I called the maufacture tech support and was notified that there was a 50-50 chance that it would--mine didn't. Then went to Target the first brand didn't do the showing,the second one did,but the next day the remote control quit working so I took it back. Off to Best Buy to get one so far so good on this one.
We will be leaving tomorrow heading down to Florida for the winter.

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving Dinner on the stove. We had a nice dinner with turkey,sweet potatoes,mashed potatoes,greenbeans,corn,turkey dressing and cranberry scauce with pumpkin pie for dessert.
We all stuffed ourselves then watched football. A real good holiday.

Valdosta,Georgia

Here we are parked in the yard of my gradson in Valdosta,Georgia. We are here to visit withhim and his family and our daughter. We wll be here until sometimes after Thanksgiving. We don't make to many plans while traveling we just go with the flow.

Georgia

We just spent five days parked in my brothers driveway in Warner Robins,Georgia. We had a nice visit and We changed the fuel filter on the motorhome,it was long over due. Nancy and I got our flu shots also.
We are now parked in the Ashburn RV Park at I-75 exit 84. This is a PassPort America Park.
The price of $7.95 including tax is a good deal.

Dollywood

We went to Dollywood this past weekend. This is the grist mill one of the places people love to take pictures of.

Christmas in Dollywood

Dollywood has the park all decked out in the Christmas theme. Even Carrollers roaming the streets. This is really one of the best times to visit the park.

Tournament?

There were a lot of boats that came into the ramp at the same time. I'm thinking maybe there is a fishing tournament going on at this time.

Just Hanging Out

Well Haven did spend the night with us and is having fun watching cartoons on the dish. Nothing planned for the day,just a little walking around the campground.
Some people think that fulltimers need to be traveling and exploring all the time. Not so. This is the fun of being a fulltimer is do whatever you want. No schedule,no timetable,come and go whenever you want to.

Wash Day

Well it happens each week,today is wash day. We have to go out to the laundromat and do the washing of our clothes. We are going to keep our grandson(Haven) for the night. He loves to stay with his "Nanny and PaPaw" when we are in town. He will be over after school.

Wash House

Wash House,yep that is what it is called. This was our first time to go to this laundromat and it was nice enough. So why Nancy did the clothes I went outside to see what I could get into.

As Seen on TV

While Nancy washed and dryed clothes I went next door to the As Seen on TV Store. This is suppose to be the largest one. Most of the bargains on tv are in this store and most of the time are cheaper than the deals they give on tv and no shipping charges when you buy here.

Smokie Mountain Snow

It was nice in the valley today with temps 54 but,the mountains had snow. It was cold last night and the mountains had 3 inches of snow. Had a lot of traffic on the mountain with everyone going up to see the snow. They were making snowmen and throwing snowball. It was a beautiful site with the pine trees covered with snow.

Snow on tree tops

Mountians were really beautiful with the snow.

Cold Night

We are parked out at Douglas Lake again. This is the best place for us in the Smokies. The price is right at $9.00 a night with the Golden Age PassPort. It got cold last night the temp was 37 here and it got down to 18 on top of the mountain. With ice on the road route 441 across the mountain going over to Cherokee,NC was closed for the day.

Everything?

I've always heard you can find it at WalMart. This is the fist hitch'n post that I've ever seen at a WalMart. This was located in Glasgow,KY. After we left this area we went to a Church Homecoming in Matewan,Wv. this past weekend. We are now in the Smokie Mountain area for a while.

Long Time

After being off line for a time its good to be back online. We've been unable to be on because I havn't been able to get the Verizon signal where we've been. We spent a month at the Barren River Tail Waters COE campground. It is free this time of year so why not? They do have water and the dump station was left open. While in that area we went through the Mammoth Cave.

Louisville,KY

We are here in Louisville for three nights of the National Quartet Convention. We are parked at Grand Ma's RV Park. Next to the park is the Awesome Flea Market. They have outside vendors and inside vendors. This is located on I-65 exit 18.

Burro's

Also close to the park in a field they have burro's. These two wanted their pictures taken.

This little one yelled out "take my picture too".

Another Car Show

They're having another car show here in Pigeon Forge,TN. this week-end. This one is called "Shades of the pass". Last week-end it was the Rod Run. If you ever get a chance to see one of these it is worth looking at. You can find no more cars in one place. We will be heading out tomorrow to Louisville,KY for the National Quartet Convention to listen to some Southern Gospel Music. We were not going to attend this year but decided at the last minute to go to the last three nights.

Dollywood

We took our grandson(Haven)out to Dollywood saturday. He got to ride a few of the rides that are in the Country Fair section of Dollywood. We saw some of our friends that we used to work with while we were there.

Diesels Run Forever?

So much for the saying"buy a diesel they keep running". There were about 5 of them in this shop getting worked on. Any time you have any type of engine you're going to sooner or later have it worked on.

Generator Repair

Unfortunately sometimes the life of a fulltimer doesn't go so smoothly. This was the case when we had to get the Onan Generator repaired. Here is the mechanic(Jamie) putting the generator back in at the Cummins Onan facility in Knoxville,Tennessee.

Labor Day

Labor Day is our annual Family Reunion time.
We have the Mitchell Family Reunion each year in Pigeon Forge,Tennessee. This family started with 5 girls and 1 son and now has grown. We had 43 at the reunion this year and evryone didn't come. We had the usual Saturday hot dog and hamburgers. Saturday night also was the karoake singing. Sunday was the "big" meal with chicken and ham for the meat. All the trimmings of side dishes and of course lots of desserts. Once again we had a good time visiting with one another. The sad part is saying our goodbyes until we met again.

Douglas Lake,TN.

Looking out over the lake at the Great Smokie Mountains.

Another view over the lake and into the mountains.

Grandson Fishing

Haven was wanting to go fishing with Grandad so off we went. We didn't catch any fish but,I guess it was the hanging out that counts. Right!
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Visitors

While we were fishing a family of baby ducks came swimming by.
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Marina

Part of the boats in the marina that is on the Douglas Lake in Tennessee.
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Night Time

Dusk at the campgrounds.

Enjoying the clear water of the lake.

Summersville Lake

This is the beach at Summersville Lake. Nice area for sun bathing or cooling off in the lake.

No Connection

Once again not being able to have a digital signal with the cell phone I was not able to get online. After we left Nancys sister Jackie in eastern Kentucky We spent a week with her other sister(Peach) in Culloden,West Virginia. From there we headed north to West Union to visit our two grand daugthers. We stayed at Conaway lake. This is a West Virginia Wild Life Management Area. A nice small lake with 10 sites. No hook-ups but,it had drinking water and pit toliets. While there our Onan generator went out on us. We had to go up to Fairmont to the Cummins repair shop where they worked us in. Seems as though a seal went out and oil soaked the belt which then got all chewed up. We had to stay there for two nights. They where very nice. We stayed out back in the lot and they even threw us an extension cord to hook up to electric. After they got the generator repair we took off and stayed at the Burnsville Lake COE campground for 2 nights. Frome there we continued south and stayed at the Summersville Lake COE campground. This is a very nice campground it even has a swimming beach which we enjoyed for 5 days. We are now staying in the driveway of Nancys other sister(Callie). From here we will go on south and be at the Family Reunion Labor Day week-end.

Finally

Well I'm finally able to get on line. After we visited Nancy's sister(Jackie) we came up to her other sister(Peach). There is not a Verizon Digital signal in neither place. So I tried getting on with the phone line and it wouldn't load up. I tried and tried but no luck. I took the laptop to several shops they couldn't figure it out. One said I would have to wipe it clean and put in the recovery dsks. Before I did that I tried to get online with the new WiFi contraption I have, wo and behold it connected up. So I'll wait til we get back to Florida for the winter,where I'll have a phone line to fool with and see if I can get it to work. We stayed a week at Jackie and Jim's where we had a great time. We are about to finish up our stay here. We will leave here sometimes Monday heading up to see our grand daughters in the Clarksburg area.

Lexington,KY

We are here in Lexington. I got up at 5:30 AM monday morning and took my daughter and her husband to the airport to get on the plane to Cleveland,Ohio. From there they boarded the plane to Las Vegas. They called that evening they made it OK. Hope they are fairing well as,I saw the weather and it was 109* there yesterday. We are doing much of nothing just keeping up with our walking of 4 miles each day.

House Sitting

Today we will park the motorhome in the yard of Nancy's sister( Jackie) for a week or so while we house sit and watch our 2 grand daughters while our daughter(Vicki) and son in law(Richard) go out to Las Vegas. We do not like to be out of our motorhome but we do like to be of help when our children need us.

Winchester,KY

After leaving The Big South Fork area we stayed overnight at the Corbin,KY WalMart. From there we stayed the night in the parking lot of WalMart in London,KY. Then pulled off at exit 41 on I-75 at the Laurel County Visitor Center there I emptied the tanks and filled with fresh water,they have a free dump station located there. We then came north and turned east to Winchester,KY where we will spend the night in the Winchester WalMart lot. There was no Verizon digital signal in the Corbin-London area so I couldn't get on line to post.

Natural Arch

This is a sandstone natual arch. When the a larger they are called a natural bridge. There are several natural arches in this area. If you enjoy looking at shear rock cliffs this is the place for you.
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Cumberland Falls State Park,KY

The Falls is often called Little Niagra of the South
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