Settling in for the winter

Hi everyone

It's been a while since our last blog and lots has happened since then. We had Alice, André's mom, visiting us for four weeks. It was a wonderful time as we took her on a small tour of the south of the United States. Though we mostly visited places we had been to before, it was interesting for us as well. First of all some of those places have changed a lot since we've last seen them. And secondly Alice's comments and questions gave us a different perspective of them, too. We did enjoy the trip big time.

We started out in Florida, Fort Lauderdale to be precise, drove all the way up to Georgia and over to New Orleans. Then we returned to Florida and Rock Crusher Canyon RV Park in Crystal River where we will spend the winter. Along the way we made day-trips and stops at Key West, Cape Canaveral, Daytona Beach, Apalachicola, Avery Island and, of course, New Orleans to name just some. We tasted the local foods and took in the local sights. We went on an air-boat ride and a cruise on the Mississippi river, visited wildlife parks and cotton fields, the homes of Tabasco Sauce and space travel. It was a lot to take in for Alice and so we also spent a few days doing nothing much and got her to help us wash our fifth wheel. The four weeks passed so fast and soon it was time for her and Sue to fly to Switzerland, where Sue spent a week visiting our families over there.

Before they left we had already done some leaf raking at our camp site and André had begun to clear out dead palm leafs. All around it looks like people here at the campground take great pride in well maintaining their sites. We got into the spirit as well and have to say, it looks so much better, once all the dead leafs are gone. The seasonals here are also preparing for Christmas and one doesn't have to go far to find decorated trailers, motorcycles and even golf carts. There even is a contest going on which will, by popular vote, award the best decoration in those three categories.

So we are settling in for the winter and it will be very special this year. Never before did we sit outside in shorts, t-shirts and sandals less than a week before Christmas. There will be no snow, and of course no shoveling, no coming in from the cold and huddling in front of the fireplace to warm up and it is kind of hard to even think of Christmas. Especially Sue, who just loves all things Christmas-lights, was kind of envious of the displays on other camp sites. But the sensible reasoning is not to spend a whole lot of money for something like an inflatable Santa which can only be used for a short time and will then take up precious storage space in our fifth wheel for the rest of the year. Besides, inflatables are not really our style. None the less Sue would really have loved some kind of decorations and so she was over the top when she came back from Switzerland and found out what André had done during her absence: there were solar tiki torches marking the entrance to our site, solar lights from there to the fifth wheel, two bird-feeders and a gorgeous flower display adorned with palm leafs and moss. Inside the fifth wheel Sue found a cute rosemary-tree lovingly decorated as our Christmas tree. There also is a clover spiked orange which, together with the rosemary-tree gives off a very nice, seasonal smell. It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas here in Florida.

In this sense we wish all of you a
MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR

André and Sue

Somewhere on the road in Canada

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