Only One of Hundreds

Welcome to a Florida Key.... beautiful downtown Cedar Key, Florida. In back of the camera is a rather modest port & marina. Cedar Key is the second port to open in the state. It is located just 1/4 mile off the Gulf Shore, probably 75 miles North of the Tampa Bay area. Cedar Key is a very quiet island town of 750 full time residents and as you can probably guess, the "downtown" businesses are either restaurants or souvenir shops. Other than tourism on a small scale, the town's main business is the harvesting of various shell fish, Stone Crab Claws (yum), Little Neck Clams (double yum) and Oysters (triple yum). A pound of Claws will cost you $6.00. 100 Clams $15.00 - do the math, that's 15 cents a Clam. I didn't get to sample the Oysters... YET.

The 750 full time residents I mention does not include the pelicans and various other shore birds that seem to be thriving everywhere. I would guess the locals call this "Pelican Pier".

The tide is out and everything, everything on the bottom is absolutely covered in Oysters.

The day we were there we had mostly sunny skies, a 15mph wind off the Gulf, and 58 degree temperature. It was very cool making it a pleasant to walk around. Hey! We're in Florida, on the coast, in a tourist town. So what do you do? Well, if you're Becky... even though you have goose bumps, you eat Ice Cream!

What's Florida Without An Orange?

So... here in Citra, the last of this year's orange crop is yet to be picked. As I understand it, the trees get a 2 month vacation before they begin to blossom again in February. We have only been in Florida for a week or so - I couldn't tell ya if the "The Orange Shop" in Citra is a small, medium or large orange producer but here's a quick look at the behind the scene's operation. The bins in the background are all slam full of Navels.

The Navel oranges in their orchards are bigger than the grapefruit they produce. The fruit in these gift boxes that are covered in paper are grapefruit.

When you buy one of these bags of Navels (for about $14.00), you get a second one free.

Most of their crop is transported out of state. Now I know that the oranges you buy at your local supermarket are really fresh and juicy but have to tell ya... there's nothing like picking oranges from the tree, having them squeezed, bottled, and chilled on premise, and drinking fresh orange juice on the spot.

I don't know how companies like Minute Maid, Tropicana etc. can claim "fresh hand squeezed" orange juice because it doesn't taste anything like the fresh picked, squeezed, chilled orange juice we have been drinking.

We can't wait for February when the trees begin to blossom with the 2010 crop. I'll make sure to include a post of that - too bad I can't include the fragrance.

Home Sweet Home - Florida Style

Last entry to my blog was from the lake house in Swanton, MD.... and 4 inches of snow. We headed South on December 1st. Our first stop was in the Raleigh NC area to visit one of my Daughters, Cari, my two Grandkids Haylee and Nick, and my future Son-In-Law Jeff. We will see them all again pretty soon as the Wedding Bells are about to ring. And Jeff, there are a few things about your bride to be that I thought you should know.

When Cari was about 8 months old, I had her lying on her back on the bassinet as I changed her diaper. Well, I had things all cleaned up and was ready for a new diaper which was on a shelf under the top of the bassinet. In the two seconds it took me to look at, reach for, and get a diaper, Cari managed to PUSH herself right off the head end of the bassinet, and head first onto a tiled floor. Fortunately, she was mostly wedged between the wall and the end of the bassinet, so her fall was slowed considerably. But she did land on her head. The other thing you should know is that Cari NEVER crawled on all four - FORWARD. Instead, she preferred to crawl in REVERSE, and she was very good at it. I wonder if those two revelations are somehow connected? Hummmmm. In any case, exactly on her first birthday, she stood up and walked across the room (FORWARD thank God) as if she had been walking for a couple years!

Our next stop was "an overnight er" in Point South, SC pictured above. Pictured below... Spanish Moss anyone. We started seeing the moss here, through Georgia, and into Florida.

And here is where our trailer will spend the winter. Grand Lakes RV & Golf Resort in Orange Lake, Florida. This is the largest RV Park we have stayed in so far. Must be 100 acres. Very well manicured and maintained. RV sites are typically about 30 feet wide, these sites are easily 60 feet across. There are several large club houses with plenty of table for bingo or Texas Hold'em tournaments etc.. There are pool tables, ping pong tables, lounge areas and an activity schedule that fills each month should you care to indulge. The North end of the resort is on the shore of Orange Lake. There are boat slips and fishing pier but it must be the time of year - the lake level is low, hardly enough to float a boat. Perhaps some winter rains will fix that problem. And just like every other park we have spent time in, we have terrific neighbors - so far we've shared a meal with Joe and Lynn, and have met several others. Thanks George! He spent 4 hours with me trying to dial in our HD DirecTV dish.

We'll take a walk through and take some night pics of the decorations some of these folks have. I am sure ours will expand before too long.

We have been here about a week now and really haven't gotten around too much yet, but will. Our air card doesn't do a very good job out here so bear with me. I don't know if I can post this thing or not. I'll find out right now!

Do I Still Fly?

........that's a question a friend of mine asked recently. The short answer is YES to private flight, NO to commercial flights except in dire circumstances. That was the short answer. Here's the long one....

When I was 10 or 12, and bored out of my mind in mid summer, a friend and I would occassionally ride our bikes to the local airport and watch the little airplanes take off and land. I leave it to your imagination what fantasies filled our minds as we hung on the chain link fence at the end of the runway. On one of these trips we rode over to an old, abandoned, empty hanger. Not much to look at in there, but around the back of the building was the find of the summer.

picture courtesy of Boeing Aviation

What we found was the fuselage frame of a "taildragger". Aircraft you might be familiar with, like the Cessena, are classified as "trike gear", that is, two main landing gear and a nose wheel. Taildraggers have the two main landing gear and either a "skid" or a very small wheel under the tail - hence the name. Taildraggers were widely used earlier in aviation, and were the aircraft of choice for the barnstormers of that era. Got away from the story there... sorry. I use this picture just to give you a flavor of what we found and what became my favorite toy.

The engine, wings, landing gear, and skin of the airplane were all gone. All the instruments were missing and all that remained of the seats was a rotting plywood base. But the throttle control, "stick" and rudder pedals were all there. And that was all a 10 year old boy with too much imagination for one person needed. Sitting in the cockpit, I couldn't see over the instrument panel - well I could because there was no fabric, cowling, or engine blocking the view. Well, you know what I mean, right? So my first job was to fix that seat and I did that with bits and pieces of lumber, sheet metal scrap and an old tarp I found. Now, sitting there I could reach the rudder pedals with my feet and the stick with my right hand, and the throttle with my left hand. A broom stick became my machine gun. I wanted some "instruments" to help me when I was in the clouds and definitely wanted to know just how fast I was going. So I measured the the openings with twigs and snapped them off at just the right diameter, later that night at home, I drew an air speed indicator, and a couple of gauges with an arrow on them. Don't recall what they were suppose to be but I hated those holes in the panel - so I filled them up.

Next time at the airplane I was by myself. I got my instrument panel fully equipped, propped the tail up with an old gas can, got my machine gun tied down and was ready for takeoff........

And I could fly... as fast as one could imagine. That was pretty darn fast. I had brought a lunch with me that day because I knew it was going to be a long flight. I'll never forget sitting there in that WWII fighter of mine doing loops and spins and shooting down the Red Baron. I also remember how good the ride back to the base was, eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I ate it with one hand never letting go of the stick with my other hand.

That airplane and I shared many flights together and I was sure that if it had feeling, it would really have appreciated its second life with me in the air.

My love of flight continued for many years. I joined the Air Force and spent four years accruing over 2,000 flight hours mostly to and from Viet Nam - but that's another story. After discharge, and four years of college, I took flying lessons and once I had my "ticket" signed up for aerobatics training. I trained with one of the best in the San Francisco Bay Area - Amelia Reid (no kidding on the name) at Reid Regional Airport in San Jose, CA. My qualifications for aerobatics opened a whole new life in the air and over the next several years, I spent more time in the air flying inverted than I did straight and level. Each type of aircraft a private pilot wants to fly requires a "check out". In total I was checked out in Cessina C-150's, C-152, C-152 Aeobat, C-182, Beechcraft Sundowner, (all trikes) and a number of taildraggers - namely the Citabria, Decathelon, Super Decatheon and my absolute favorite, the Great Lakes 2T-1A-2 open cockpit bi-plane.

I haven't flown in years now and between then and now, have lost track of my flight log book. I believe I logged about 370 PIC (pilot in command) flight hours. Whether I was flying aerobatics solo, or had a passenger, those earlier days of static flight in back of the dilapidated hanger would come vividly to mind and yes... that's exactly how Immelmans, Loops, Aileron, Snaps and Barrel Rolls felt then... and now!

So... to interpret the long answer for you... YES I still fly (wink wink).