Ocala was Calling Us

15 years ago, Jeff and I stopped in Ocala, Florida because we heard they had mountain bike trails for all levels of riders. That's where I learned that sand was not my friend and had my worst crash ever.

We intended to head from Tampa to Tallahassee but decided to stop for a few days in Ocala for the heck of it. The riding there was so awesome, we stayed a week at two different campgrounds.

The first was Ocala Sun. This was a particularly nice campground with all the amenities I have come to love (electric, water and sewer) plus a pool and rec center. Jeff even played bingo with me one night, and wouldn't you know it, he won enough to pay for our games and a pizza! Beginner's luck (insert snort of derision).

The next camp we stayed at was the Santos campground, right at the Santos trailhead. This was a little more like camping since there wasn't a sewer hookup and we had a fire ring.  It was beautiful and peaceful, no sounds at night except for nature and trains (I love trains!).

There was a cool bike shop right across the street from the campground that had a big sign outside that said, "BEER!  ICE!  BIKES!  FIREWOOD!"  Beer and bikes, what more can you ask for?

We picked up some firewood and chatted up the guy that was working.  They had rentals for $20 for four hours and I had been feeling pretty good, so we rented me a bike and...wait for it...

I WENT MOUNTAIN BIKING!!!

I was so sure a month and a half ago that I would never get on a bike other than the tandem again, I was ready to sell my Tassajara.  Now, we will pick it up and take it with us when we go home.  I could only ride an hour and was shot for a couple days afterward, but I WENT MOUNTAIN BIKING!!!!

The trail was really flat (as was everything in Florida) but there were enough roots and a trees that I could hear my mountain bike coaches, Brendan Poh and Bruce Jacobs in my head, telling me what to do.  Jeff was right there in case I got dizzy, lost my balance or just plain couldn't hack it.  He went back and got the car once I got too tired and I collected baby head pine cones to bring back for my buddy TaraLynn.

It was the happiest exhaustion I have felt in soooo long!  Truly a beautiful area, truly good people.

On from Ocala to Tallahassee!!!

The Happiest Place on Earth

...is of course, Disney World in Orlando!  And you know what makes it even happier?  Spending a day there unexpectedly with two of your favorite people in the world!!!

I am not so big on theme parks.  I love the parks themselves, but hate the crowds and the shoving and pushing that our society has come to.

I was casually browsing Facebook one morning and saw a post from one of the most amazing people in the world.  It said "34 degrees in Florida!".  Sassy Fox posted this and I immediately freaked out!  She lives just a few miles from me in NJ...and she's in Florida!  As quick as I could, I got in touch with her and found that she and my beloved buddy, Fatboy, aka Ron Barbagallo, were in Orlando, but only for another day and a half.  We were about 50 miles away in Thanatosassa and it only made sense that we had to see them.

Fatboy had been working his tail off for the last few days and they wanted to spend their last day in Florida at Epcot.  Verity (Sassy) generously invited us up to hang out at Epcot.  I needed to discuss it with Jeff because that was a little more than we have been willing to spend lately.  Believe it or not, we are trying desperately not to blow all our money in a few months, lol.  I should have known that Jeff would feel the same way I did; how could we not see them when they were that close?  In Jersey, we just never seemed to make the time to hang out; another perk of this life.

We drove up to Orlando and they made the day tremendous!  They were so generous with us, both financially and of spirit, that I loved the day.  I am not well enough to spend a day like that without a wheelchair, but I hate it.  They took turns pushing me and helping me onto the rides that we did.  They really made me feel not embarrassed to be in a chair.  Jeff and Fatboy were non-stop talking (yes, I know most of you think it's only Jeff, but Fatty kept up his end.)  I felt so good to be in the presence of Verity, who is truly one of the best people I have ever met in my life.  She has that effect on everyone she is near.

We had buffet lunch in Germany, which is pretty much half my heritage, so it was awesome!  We actually shut the place down, even enjoying the fireworks at the end of the day!  It was a warm and beautiful day, with warm and beautiful people.

On a side note, I don't think Ron remembers this, but he was one of the first people I met in New Jersey.  I fell in love with his smart mouth and sense of humor immediately.  It was Jeff's first mountain bike race at Waywayanda.  There was this guy sitting on a hill with a Cannondale bike painted like a cow.  I sat down to watch the race and he kept me entertained between laps.  Years later, we shared an office at Cycle Craft, locked away from the rest of the staff so that they wouldn't distract us from our work.  I think it was more so that we didn't distract them, hahaha.

I now believe Epcot is the happiest place on earth!!!

Strawberry Fields

Can you believe it?  I caught a cold in Florida!!!  I don't have contact with a lot of people, so I will just plain blame Jeff for it, lol.  The big difference is that I had the ability to rest and get rid of it instead of it going almost instantly into pneumonia.  What a huge difference!

At the beginning of the month, we went to the Florida Strawberry Festival in Lake City.  My friend George, called while we were there and couldn't believe that there were so many strawberries the first week in March.  Jeff had told me that when he was mountain biking he could smell the strawberry fields.

I have always loved fairs and festivals.  I love the food that is bad for you, the arts and crafts, the barkers, the animals,and all the sideshows.  Having grown up in Minnesota, the annual trip to the Minnesota State Fair was a high point in the year, even though it signaled the end of summer.  I have missed that so much.

Now that I'm older, the midway doesn't fascinate me as much, but I still love the whole fair atmosphere.  The Strawberry Festival had the same fair atmosphere.  The biggest difference was that a lot of the fair foods had strawberries incorporated.  YUMMY!!!

Besides strawberry shortcake, there were chocolate dipped strawberries, fruit kabobs, fruit pizza and strawberry funnel cakes.  We were mildly well-behaved and limited ourselves to strawberry shortcake, strawberry funnel cake and as you can see in the picture, corn dogs.

The quilts were amazing and inspired me!  I used to sew quite a bit and I think now is a good time to start that again.  Jeff went to MTB Weekend every year for 16 or 17 years and got a t-shirt every year.  I took them away before he wore them to shreds and I think I will make a quilt out of them.

We also saw a hypnotist-comedian who did some interesting mind tricks, something fun to watch while we ate more food.  When we first arrived there were some young girls performing Celtic music and dancing.  It made me miss my "pretend" son Adam Wolf.

Strawberries Rule!!!

Life's a Beach!

I am soooo far behind on posting.  At this point, that means only one thing, I am having soooo much fun.  It's been almost two weeks since we spent a day at the beach.  Jeff never used to be much of a beach person; he's always been all about the mountain biking.  I found out a few years ago, if he has enough really long days on the bike, he will enjoy an occasional day at the beach.

As much as I love the ocean and the beach, Jeff is much better at relaxing there than I am.  I always need a book to read or puzzles to work on.

On February 28, it was a little cool but we decided to head to the beach anyway.  A friend of ours had been staying in Clearwater Beach, so we thought we would check that out.  How amazingly beautiful and clean it was!  The water was not quite Caribbean blue, but not quite Jersey colored either.  It got up to around 74 degrees and for us Northerners, it was HOT!  There were very few people in the water except for me, Jeff and some children (get the picture?).

We then drove up to Tarpon Springs, a quaint little Greek village on the Gulf.  My in-laws recommended it and it was cute, but we got there a little too late in the day to do much.  I did, however, find out about a place aptly named Sunset Beach.  We made it there just in time!

Other than maybe being on a cruise, I don't think I have ever been to the beach in February.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

We stayed at the Happy Traveler RV campground in Thonotosassa, Florida (a suburb of Tampa).  We had so much fun, and Jeff loved the riding there so much, we stayed 3 days longer than we originally planned.  On my end, I got a lot of work done (bookkeeping and housework) but we made plenty of time for fun.

We saw the Florida Aquarium in Tampa.  I love aquariums!  This was one was sensational!  Prior to this, I would have to say the best aquarium I had seen was in Baltimore.  We did none of the special programs, and this one was still amazing!  For those of you following the blog, this is where the "Keep your hands out of the water.  Animals poop in it." sign came from.  A little bit of whimsy with our water friends.

This aquarium had a really special section devoted to water fowl, and they had a gorgeous white ibis!

So Little Time

One would think that since I am only working part-time that there would be lots more time for writing. We also don't have 900 channels of tv to distract us, either. So, where does the time go?

Well, we are actually living our lives now instead of just existing. For the first time in my life, I find that I am taking care of myself. I rest when I am tired, I take time to read for pleasure and I am doing things just because they are fun. There are so many people to meet and they all have such great stories.

I will definitely make time later this week to create a record of some of these things, but I am loving my life, my husband and this choice we have made.

For now, here are a few pictures of some things we have enjoyed this week. I hope you enjoy my silliness.