Lewisville, TX

We arrived in Lewisville today. It's just outside Dallas, near the airport. We'll be flying to Philly on Wednesday so I'm not sure how much you'll hear from us in the next week.
Once we return we're thinking of revisiting some of the great Texas State Parks like Caprocks, Copper Breaks, and Palo Duro. We would've liked to visit different parks, but we need to head northwest and make some distance. We've scheduled to attend an Options Trading class in Las Vegas on May 14th. Doesn't give us much time to explore between here and there.

The Weird & Wacky of America

I just found this website the other day...Roadside America. If you're ever making a road trip and you want to visit the weird & wacky or kooky & quirky, check out this site for a list of stops along your way. Or perhaps there's something you'll want to drive out-of-you-way for?

Perhaps I just found it amusing since I'm foreseeing a lot of long drives ahead in our schedule and a quick sight-seeing stop might be what we need to break up the monotony.

Tyler, TX - Biking

Biking in Tyler State Park (map) was as great as we remembered it. There are several loop trails and if you start with EZ, then A, then B, and so forth, you'll be increasing your level of difficulty. I prefer it that way - it gives me a chance to get on, what I call, my "biking legs". Loop C is the hardest we have taken on. Partly because by the time you reach 'C' you've already gone quite a distance and you know you have to bike the same distance back. Today I was exhausted by the time I reached "C"...I'm so out of shape! It's a fast and furious forest trail. Not too technical til you reach Loop C. We have yet to dare to do the expert Loop D. I forgot how tiring even going downhill can be. On a road bike you coast downhill, on a mountain bike you have to stand off of your seat, keep your balance, grip your handlebars to keep control, and every muscle is pretty tight...all while trying to stay "loose".
Occasionally they would add man-made challenges along the trail:
But, no matter what, these types of signs are definitely not comforting!
There are at least 7 evacuation zones that I saw.

Whether mountain biking or road biking in the Tyler area, check out the Tyler Bike Club's website for Places to Ride.

Tyler, TX - Tiger Creek Refuge

Tiger Creek Wildlife Refuge takes in unwanted or abused big cats...like tigers, lions, leopards, and even some little ones, like bobcats. They currently have 38 cats under their care. Some have come from a drive-thru safari where the animals were not taken care of properly. Some come from private individuals who adopt these exotic animals without realizing that within two years they can grow to 400+ pounds. Some from people who try to make money showing the animals, but don't feed them or care for them.

But the interesting comparison was the story of one tiger who came from Barnum & Bailey Circus (the tiger couldn't get along with any of the other tigers) and the two who came from Neverland (yes, Michael Jackson's ranch). Barnum & Bailey gave enough of a donation to the refuge to cover the animal's expenses for its lifetime. Michael? Gave nothing.

Tyler, TX - Goodman House

In downtown Tyler was the historic Goodman House. We stopped in for a quick tour.

I loved this hand-painted ceiling in the one room...

Almost all of the furniture was original. The owners of the home bequethed the home and land to the city in the 1930's. Including everything in it.

Tyler, TX - Rose Garden

The City of Tyler offers the largest rose garden in the country. 38,000 plants and 500 varieties of roses. And it's free. There's not much left in the world that is offered for free. It was a beautiful garden. I don't know how anyone who wants to plant a rose bush could begin to decide on which variety they'd want. Perhaps some people choose by the name - like the "Betty Boop" rose?



In addition to the roses, they also had a Camellia garden and then another garden with perennials. This might not be a rose, but I thought it was worth a picture.

They also offered a Rose Museum which displayed the dresses worn by the Rose Queen from all the years that Tyler held the Rose Festival. The museum also covers the history of roses in Tyler. But there's only so much I can subject Andy to.
The one thing that did perplex us, is that we expected to see rose bushes throughout the city. But not the case. Huh.

Tyler, TX - Caldwell Zoo

We don't visit a lot of zoos. We tend to feel too sorry for the caged animals. But the write-up on this small zoo was enticing, and we do love to see different animals. Caldwell Zoo was very nice. The habitats were quite natural with lots of shade, water, trees, rocks, etc. We enjoyed our visit.

Some of our highlights were watching two bengal tiger cubs (one-year old and a couple hundred pounds already) rough-housing. They stalked eachother, played in the pond, and just acted like children. The other highlight was the giraffe who hung his head over the 15-foot fence. Some people thought he was saying hello, but we knew better - he wanted the bamboo plant on our side...so, I pushed it closer to him! Boy do they have long tongues!

I put my pictures on Picasa WebAlbums - click on this link to see more photos:
Caldwell Zoo Web Album

Tyler, TX - Tyler State Park

The last time we stopped at Tyler State Park, we only had one night. We never even detached our toad. We had written in our blog and journal that we'd like to come back to see more of this area. The State Park is full (no RV sites), but we got into an RV Park just a few miles away. After closing the market on Friday, we went into the State Park just to walk the nature trails. One of the trails loops the lake. It's hilly and there are lots of trees. Just a wonderfully peaceful place.



Can't wait to do some mountain biking in here.

Office Hours

One thing we need to get used to while traveling is that our "office hours" are going to change every time we cross a time zone. The Market will always be 9:30-4:00 Eastern Time. Now that we are in the Central Time Zone, our new office hours are 8:30-3:00. Not so bad, we can deal with this. We just start watching some of our market videos and reading our trading blogs while we drink our coffee. Everyone knows we have a breakfast routine, right? It can't be disturbed. Even on days we have 5k races or triathlons, we had to get up early enough to allow for our coffee and breakfast and a digestion period.

But what are we going to do when we hit California and then are office hours will be 6:30 AM! Can we really see ourselves getting up at 5:30 (we definitely won't get up 2 hours before market like we do now) to be ready to work by 6:30? Only time will tell, but we're already talking about it.

We plan on being in Vegas by May 14th for a trading class and trade show. This should also help us make it to Death Valley immediately after that. So it won't be long before our office hours will have us up before sunrise.

We're in the Lone Star State

You always know you're in Texas...because you'll see the Lone Star painted on just about anything. Within one hour of crossing the state line, we've seen a trailer painted like the Texas flag...a mailbox...a roof of a house...and here is the picnic table at the city campground we're staying in:


We can't wait to see more! Some people have gotten very creative, as we've seen on our last drives through the state.

We're loving the wildflowers, too. Louisiana and Texas have given us such an eyeful already. Living in South Florida you forget what spring wildflowers look like since most of our flowers bloom year-round. Many of the interstates have had wildflowers blooming along the edge of the road; or in fields; or the campgrounds.

Still looking for my first Texas Bluebonnet on this trip.

Marksville, LA - Chicot State Park

One day we drove over to Chicot State Park. We had wanted to stay there, but knew there would be too many trees. Information we found stated that the trail circling Lake Chicot was good for mountain biking so we thought we'd check it out. We started at the South Landing Trailhead near the Main Entrance. We headed north initially, but found the trail to be too technical for being so rusty. We agreed to head south and give up if we started to hit the same type of steep/rocky/rooty hills. Thankfully it was more of a beginner/intermediate trail to the south because it was so pretty in this beech/magnolia forest. And when the trail dipped down near the lake you dropped into a bayou filled with cedar trees. In this photo, Andy had just gotten jammed in a small gully.

But what took my breath away was when I came down and around this one bend and saw this quarter-mile long boardwalk spanning over a section of the bayou. This is where we had to stop and enjoy a snack before turning back home.

Back at the car we met a fellow mountain biker who told us that of the 20-mile long trail, the 4-5 miles just north of this trailhead were the most technical.

It seems like we're rushing all the time. We didn't get to explore any other areas of the park because it was well past our lunchtime and I didn't think to pack a lunch. We did take about 45 minutes and walked around the Louisiana State Arboretum before heading out of the area. This is another place I would've loved to have spent more time in. It was just outside Chicot SP, was heavily forested with several miles of trails looping throughout. It would've been very relaxing...if we weren't SO hungry!

Marksville, LA

We've been in Marksville now since Friday. Making it five nights for us. As you can see I've been trying to make up for lost time! We've struggled with our internet access...well, maybe 'struggle' isn't the right word. My naivete with this new technology just extends or exaggerates any problem we have. We've blamed our "satellite degradation" on weather in Maryland, but caved in today and called them to see if that was true. It wasn't. We were having a different problem. Nothing a little firmware update couldn't fix (in 15 minutes). Now I'm kicking myself for wasting all this time with in/out internet. Oh, well, we live and learn.

Funny enough, we're staying here at the Paragon Casino RV Park & Resort...and we haven't even been to the casino! And we're leaving in the morning. We've been busy...cleaning the RV, washing and waxing both the RV and the car, and I had to re-string one of the day/night shades in the RV. All of this takes quite a bit of time so it feels great to get it all done.

We've met a few locals during this stay, and most seem genuinely surprised that we've stopped in Louisiana. One gentleman asked Andy why we stopped to visit the area, and Andy's response? "It's in our way." Ok, so maybe that didn't win any friends! Just another classic-Andy comment....

St Francisville and the Ferry

Downtown St Francisville is historic with most of the homes restored and occupied by either residents or businesses. This makes it very homey. And the entire city is considered a bird sanctuary. We had also tried to visit Cat Island NWR during our stay, but found that a "low water bridge" really isn't a bridge at all. It's a crossing at "low water". It wasn't low water when we arrived at the "bridge", so we had to turn back. Even when our forays into the unknown turn out to be a bust, we usually see something new or just have a nice drive to nowhere.

We also decided to check out the ferry we were going to have to take when leaving town. This ferry crosses the mighty Mississippi. Not only does it have to battle the strong currents, but it has to dodge mammoth barges. It runs every half hour. Giving it just 15 minutes to load up, cross the river, and unload before doing it again.

After taking a look at the ferry, we decided to drive separate the next day. It could fit a 51' vehicle, but we decided to make it easier on ourselves in case it was crowded.

St Francisville, LA - Rosedown Plantation

After leaving Clark Creek, we went to Rosedown Plantation. We figured that we are in plantation country here in Louisiana, so we should visit the plantations. Rosedown was larger than Oakley House (where Audubon worked). It had closer to 450 slaves. This plantation was quite beautiful and held many of the original pieces of furniture from the family who had lived there. What I love about many of these old plantation homes are the huge oak trees that line the drive to the front entrance of the home.

It makes me think of the old movies with the ladies in their big skirts, fanning themselves in the southern heat.
Rosedown also has formal and informal gardens surrounding the house. The weather was downright beautiful today and we just strolled around and around the paths looking for new ones to walk along. The gardens were filled with camellias, hydrangeas, rose bushes, and crepe myrtles.

St Francisville, LA - Clark Creek

Greg, the owner of Green Acres Campground, recommended that we go hike Clark Creek Natural Area. What? Waterfalls in Louisiana? Well, actually, Clark Creek is in Pond, MS just over the state line. But either way, we were surprised to hear about waterfalls in this region. And Clark Creek boasts 50 waterfalls varying from 10-30'. Ok, not so tall, but the five we saw were unique and hiking down Clark Creek itself was beautiful. This area was surprising hilly, giving our quads the first good workout on hills. We started with Waterfall #3, then hiked down the creek itself to see two more before returning to the trail and visiting two others. The creek was quite shallow on our visit and with its big boulders and sand bars we were able to stay pretty dry. We weren't expecting challenging terrain, so didn't wear our hiking boots.

Here are just two of the waterfalls we visited:


And this was just the first of three butterflies I'd get to land on me in two days.

We could've spent a lot more time in here hiking the trails, or the creek, but we had wanted to do one more touristy thing that day. And we had to make some tough choices: the Angola Prison Museum or Rosedown Plantation or go mountain biking on Old Tunica Road???? Big decisions...

St Francisville, LA - Audubon

St Francisville was a pretty little town with lots to do in the area. Once we realized that we weren't going to get our dish working, we decided to stay and visit the sites before moving on to another destination. Late the first afternoon we went across the street from the campground to the Audubon State Historic House. John James Audubon stayed here in 1821 while he worked as a tutor for one of the plantation owner's children. While he was here he painted many of the birds that you can now find in his bird identification books. So we got a tour of our first plantation home. They had 250 slaves to help in the cotton fields. The property was heavily forested and we saw a variety of birds (or heard them) during our short visit.
Over at the barn, we got to meet Priscilla:
It's hard to tell in this photo, but Priscilla was *enormous*. But quite friendly when she gathered her energy to stand up and come say 'hi'.
And this beautiful peacock with a tail that was probably four feet long:

Wish we could've had more time to walk the nature trail on the property. It was so peaceful with all of the birds singing.

Learning to Live with Datastorm

Sorry for the recent delay in posts, but we've been learning to live with our new Datastorm. Back at Land O' Pines campground we had received an error message "-48" which we had blamed on all of the trees. Then we moved to another campground in St Francisville, LA and received the error message again. Again, there was a possibility of it being the trees or the small valley we were camping in. I had tried several tricks to try and get the dish to work, but to no avail. So it wasn't until our last move to Marksville, LA that we got into a RV Park with no obstructions, no excuses for the dish not to latch onto a signal. After two attempts we were in business. I spent some time researching this error message and have a better understanding of how to tackle it in the future when it appears.

Here's more irony. After getting a few good hours of work and internet time in on Friday, the severe weather started coming our way. High winds and thunderstorms. Eventhough we could've probably left the dish up (Motosat says it's able to withstand winds up to 60mph; DatastormUsers says up to 40mph), we decided to stow it for peace of mind. Then, to add insult to injury, I go to log on last night only to have a degraded satellite signal. Our storm was now over Maryland, which is where our Satellite Operations Center is located. Poop.

A quick review of how this system works. We send a signal to a satellite, it bounces down to the NOC in Maryland, they confirm and send it back up to the satellite, then down to its destination. All happens within milliseconds. Amazing. But we need good weather where we are, and in Maryland, in order for it to work. So without internet, we only had one choice - play...well, and chores,...and drive,...ok, we had more than one choice. But I'll soon be posting on some of the fun stuff we did.

Covington, LA

When we chose Covington, we had hoped to take advantage of some of the attractions in the area, such as a visit to the Abita Beer brewery in Abita Springs, walk around historic Covington, and go for a road bike ride on the Tammany Trace. Well, we weren't able to take advantage of much. We jogged on the Trace and we walked around Covington. We liked downtonwn Covington with its characteristic buildings - some tin roofed cottages, others with fancy wrought iron railings.

Missing out on The Trace just leaves something to do on another visit. What we learned about the Trace was that there are some major road crossings to be careful of. It sounds like the most scenic area might be from Mandeville to Slidell. This cuts through Fountainbleu State Park and some bayous. We just wanted to remember this for the next time!

Covington, LA

We left Holt on Sunday morning after it stopped sleeting. We had debated about leaving in questionable weather, but felt the need to keep moving. And, again, we did not know where we were stopping for the night. We left it up to the weather gods to make that decision for us. But it would either be Mississippi or Louisiana.

It ended up being a beautiful day. The skies cleared as we headed west, so we continued through to Covington, LA. We learned that many parks closer to New Orleans are still closed or full with workers. Not that we wanted to head into New Orleans, but this affected even the towns just north of Lake Ponchartrain, too. As we drove closer to our destination we called ahead to a campground to confirm that their sites were "satellite-friendly". Considering the name was Land 'O' Pines Family Campground, we thought we should ask. Another warning for us should've been the word "family". We arrived to a parking lot with lots of kids running around and a crowded office, and pine trees towering 150'-200' high. The staff considered it "open" because they had lost so many trees in Katrina. As I said before, it's all relative. It took us 1 hour and 45 minutes and changing sites three times to find a clearing through these great trees. We used a compass to help us find holes in the canopy to the south/southwest and thought we picked good sites the first two times. At least the third site was the charm. Unfortunately this delay caused us to rush through our Easter dinner as we were hoping to have camp set up before dark.

So we were laughing that we no longer needed to check for campgrounds who had WIFI, call ahead to verify the WIFI is working, and then pray that it was consistent when we there, but now we have to check Google Earth to see if campgrounds are clear of trees and use compasses to pick out the best sites.

That's ok, its worth it. It did nothing but rain all day today and we didn't experience any problems with, what's called, Rain Fade (degradation of satellite signal). I had just sent an email to Jim, our Datastorm Installer, to tell him how happy we were with the dish, when...bump! A loud thump hit the roof right over my head...where the dish is...we scattered - did the dish topple over? No, there's still a connection (all lights were lit), then what? A tree? Close enough - a tree branch hit the roof, probably missing our dish by a foot or less. Andy had to go outside in the rain to make sure all was ok and no other dead branches were going to fall 10 stories onto our dish. So, now we ask Jim, what's the warranty on this thing?

Holt, FL

River's Edge Campground in Holt sits along the edge of the Yellow River. This year we found that the river had edged into the campground. We estimated that the river overflowed its banks by 25 yards or so, basing it in on where the lightpoles and picnic tables were located. Would've made for a good one-way paddle...or, I should say, float with the current carrying logs downstream at a pretty good clip.
But the azaleas were in bloom and were quite stunning.
We drove to Fort Walton Beach on Saturday to check out the beaches. It had been years since I've visited this section of the coast, and although I hadn't forgotten the white-sand beaches and emerald-green waters, it still took our breath away.

We were trying to figure out who the crazy people were...us in our fleece and gloves...or some other people in shorts or t-shirts or flipflops. It was 37 degrees that morning when we started our drive down! I know it's all relative to what you're used to...

On the way home, we stopped at the US Air Force Armament Museum. They had a number of planes, bombs, and missiles on display inside and outside their building. The SR-71 Blackbird was Andy's favorite. It holds the highest elevation record at 85,000' and the speed record at mach 3.2. It went from Wash DC to LA in one hour and four minutes.

Plans Change

After leaving Zolfo Springs our plan was to head to Sebastian to see our friend Sandy (from Steve and Sandy). Sandy had returned to the USA to help her mother who needed surgery. Although Sandy had been in the states since December, and was only about 1 1/2 hours away from Ft Lauderdale, we couldn't seem to get our schedules to mesh. So we decided to see her on our way out of the state. Bad decision. Never postpone what you want to do, because inevitably something will come up and alter your plans. And that's exactly what happened. The real bummer is, is that we might not get to see her before she leaves the US for their next adventure. Their time in Thailand is coming to a close and they are still debating where to go next - possibly Nepal or Africa. We wander the states, they wander the world.

So, since we weren't going to Sebastian, we wouldn't be driving up the east coast of FL to Jacksonville to see Glenn, we had more time to spend in Zolfo. We didn't peel ourselves away from Jim and Chris til Wednesday. And on Wednesday we said "we'll leave by noon". Well, around 1:30 we had the car hooked up and waved our goodbyes. But our destination was a surprise...even to us. We truly had no plans anymore. No destination. No idea where we were sleeping that night. We figured we'd hit I-75 and drive north. We'll hustle to get out of Florida since we need to be in Dallas in a little over two weeks. So, we'll determine Wednesday night's stop based on time and tiredness. Time won and put us in Ocala around 5:00 pm. We like to check-in to places while the office is still open. Plus, we remembered this wonderful restaurant in Ocala called Thai Ruby. The interior of the restaurant is so pretty with it's wood decor and napkins shaped into Bird of Paradise flowers. And they have a great vegetarian selection.

So we spent two nights in Ocala. Thursday was a work day and a day to try and put a plan together. Just a rough sketch so we know what roads to get on Friday morning. And that created today's 6-hour, 336-mile drive. This is one of our longest drives in our history. We don't like to spend our days just driving and driving. But, we decided we'd rather spend our time playing in Texas, and stop at a couple of parks in Louisiana as well. Another reason was mail. We needed to get our mail, and instead of having it FedEx'd to us, we decided to pick it up and say "hi" to the staff at RV Mail (PassportAmerica) in Crestview, FL. We plan on staying in Holt, FL for the next couple of nights, before moving again.

Sharks Teeth

Peace River is known for its sharks teeth and other fossils from when Florida was under water. We've never been lucky finding sharks teeth on prior kayaking trips or beach walking. But on Tuesday we rented some sifters from the Thousand Trails Campground and walked out into the river. The river was shallow - only shin-deep - which makes it perfect for fossil-hunting. We were very excited to immediately start finding items:

• sharks teeth (a variety - mako, tiger, lemon, sand, and we're not exactly sure what else)
• a rib from a dugong (relative to the manatee)
• a lower tooth from a horse
• several mouth plates from stingrays
• pieces of turtle shells
• fossilized sand dollars and some other shells
  

I'm sure we found other fossils, but if we couldn't identify it, we put it back in the river. It was relaxing just being in the cool river digging and sifting, with the hot sun beginning to set.

So here's the funny part, I mentioned in the fall how I can't collect shells unless I'm heading home, right? Well, we're keeping the fossils. Ha! They can travel with us around the country since they're a special find for us. The only one that is weighty is the dugong rib.

Here's the horse tooth - if you look close you'll see the ridges on the crown of the tooth.






Several of the shark teeth surprised me by still being sharp, and the serrated edges were still obvious and not rubbed smooth from the sand and stones in the river. Even the enamel looked shiny.

Datastorm - Day One

Here we are! The proud owners of our new Datastorm and our installer, Jim.

I do have to say that our anxiety is already dissipating as we enjoy the convenience of having our own internet connection on Day One. Jim did a great job with the installation - as we knew he would. I tried to help with the internal components and put them into our cabinet, but you should have seen the rat-nest of cables that were hanging out. Here's how it looks after Jim cleaned up my mess:

Putting our friendship aside, we'd highly recommend Geeks on Tour for Datastorm Installations. They did a nice clean job and covered all of our questions in their training session. I shouldn't leave Chris out of the picture, either - she helped with setting up our Internet Service account, answered our questions, and more. They are a great team!

If you are thinking about getting a Datastorm, check out
Geeks On Tour - Satellite FAQs. It puts the basic information in a very concise format.

They are planning on heading out West for the summer and will be scheduling Datastorm Installations along the way. So they might be in your neighborhood soon!

Now...if we can just make money trading we can stay out forever!

DatastormUsers Map

One of the neat features of having a Datastorm is the DatastormUser Map. The satellite dish uses a GPS unit to determine it's location and to find the satellite we use. Because of this, you can find us easily by clicking on the new link, "Where are we?" on our website or on this blog under the Links section. We're DatastormUser #4822. To give you some perspective, our friends Jim and Chris are #787...that's a lot of new Datastorm users added since 2004!

After clicking on the "Where are we?" link, it'll take you to the map where you can zoom in or out to see where we are. There's also a Google Earth button that will bring up our location on Google Earth which would be cool, too, to see the terrain, etc.

Zolfo Springs, FL - Full Moon

One of our photoworkshop sessions included nighttime photography and trying to capture the full moon...

Zolfo Springs, FL - Satellite

Besides having fun with our friends, we came to Zolfo for a Datastorm Satellite dish. Chris and Jim had been bugging us for years to get one. They got theirs back in 2004. But, for the expense of the unit and the monthly payments, we always said 'no'. There were several reasons for this: 1) we thought 2004 could've been a one-year opportunity, 2) we weren't working so we didn't feel such a need, 3) we were surviving off of WIFI Parks and internet cafes. But now that we are trying to work on the road, our perspective has changed. And last fall's experiment showed us clearly how different it is when you need that internet connection and how frustrating it is when you don't have it.

Plus, we were spending more money on RV Parks that had WIFI. So, by bringing along our own personal internet connection, we hope to go back to our $20/night budget. We can continue staying at State Parks, Forest Campgrounds, and all of the natural places without trying to schedule our stay over a weekend when we don't have to check the market.

We'll have to be honest, we were quite anxious about adding the Datastorm. First of all, it weighs about 103 lbs - I'm sure you've all heard us obsess about our 'weight' in the RV and how important it is to keep it within it's limits, and to keep it balanced. In addition to the dish, we had to add a modem, a control box, a router (no big deal so far), feet of cable, and an 8.3lb APC battery backup. That one hurt. Secondly, adding the dish required Jim to go onto our roof. No offense Jim, but Andy thinks his twiggy bow-legs should be the only thing up there. All of this work also required drilling holes in our poor baby, too. At least Jim was able to drop the cables down our refrigerator vent so we didn't have to drill holes in the roof of the RV, but they still drilled holes inside. This is our first real "customization" of our RV. And finally, the expense. Now we have to ensure our trading improves to warrant this expense. Just a little pressure!

Here are just a few of the steps it took to make it all happen:
Getting the dish onto the roof. Jim's system only requires two people, but Glenn thought that grabbing Jim's butt would help matters.
















Jim draws pretty patterns on our roof with a sealant. There was no real purpose for this, he just thought our roof needed some decoration. Only kidding, he's preparing the roof for all of the screws it takes to keep the dish connected to the roof.









Screwing it on - make sure it's tight Jim!












Holes had to be drilled on the inside to run the cables from the refrigerator area to the cabinet where all of the equipment will be stored.

















Our RV at night...blue light and full moon. What a sight.

Zolfo Springs, FL - Friends

It's been a busy first weekend for us. We left Ft Lauderdale on Friday and headed to Zolfo Springs for our first few days on the road. Our friends Jim and Chris have been workkamping here for the winter. Jim's a Datastorm Installer and we had made the decision to install the satellite internet dish on our rig in order to trade more easily. To our surprise, we learned that our friend Glenn, from Jacksonville, was visiting for the weekend as well. It was a wonderful reunion of old scuba-diving buddies...
Here's our campsite(s) - our rig is on the left, Jim and Chris is on the right, and Glenn is smack in the middle in his tent...

Cheers!
Glenn, Chris and I all have similar Canon SLR cameras now, so the weekend also turned into a photoworkshop. Each of us trying to share and teach one another some tricks about using our cameras or photography in general. This was a great opportunity for the three of us.
We also learned to play PickleBall. Here's Chris showing us the ropes. This is a game played on a badminton court, with a net like tennis, a paddle like ping-pong, a ball like whiffle ball, scoring like volleyball, and a meshing of probably 10 more sports - but I'm still trying to learn how to play this game, so I really don't know what I'm saying. If you really want to learn, click here for the Official PickleBall Rules. We haven't come across this sport too much in our travels, but apparently it is quite popular in RV Parks. It's quite fun once you get used to the variations of paddle length, court size, and weight of the ball.