Almost Outta Here!

This weekend’s Flower Power entertainment was Harold Melvin’s Blue Notes, and in spite of a bad review from someone here at the park, we decided to check them out for ourselves Sun. night and are glad we did. They’re very entertaining and invited everyone to sing along with their big hit “If You Don’t Know Me By Now”. You may recall that at one time Teddy Pendergrass was their lead singer, but nowadays those vocals are handled by Donnell "Big Daddy" Gillespie who has a big, powerful voice, and the guys performing backup vocals sing and dance wonderfully. We arrived for the 6:30 show and enjoyed it so much that we actually decided to return for the 7:45 one as well. During one song in each set, they were joined onstage by Philadelphia International recording artist, Sharon Paige, who added another layer of talent to the group’s performance. Before exiting the stage, the guys came to its edge to greet their fans and shake hands as the band continued to play (we were in the 2nd row). Unfortunately, this is the last of the performers we’ll see in this series, and that’s such a shame because during the month of May there are some really big name acts, i.e Chubby Checker, Jose Feliciano, Tony Orlando, and one of my all-time favorite groups from that era, The 5th Dimension. Oh, well, perhaps next year.

After the last show, we hung around for the fireworks, and then boarded the monorail for Magic Kingdom. We stopped by and saw Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor, a silly and funny interactive show inspired by the movie Monsters, Inc. It’s all done in animation but the characters actually converse with members of the audience. And as promised, I finally got a picture of the animatronics entertainer, Sonny Eclipse, at Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Café! We not only were able to see MK’s fireworks at 10pm, but they were having a second performance of the Spectromagic light parade at 11pm!




























Our car was parked at Epcot so we had to take the monorail back, and while waiting we asked one of the cast members if we could ride up front with the engineer. They have space for about 5-6 people and will generally let you sit up there if you ask. We were the only two on this particular trip, and our engineer, Brian, invited Russ to stand by him as he explained how the monorail is operated and showed him all the screens and gadgets. Because it was so dark out and there was a glare through the front window, I wasn’t able to get any pictures even though Brian nearly came to a dead stop specifically so I could try to get a photo of the big “golf ball” directly in front of us. What a great view and a fun experience!
As mentioned in my last blog, I underwent another colonoscopy last week at the University of South Florida Healthcare Center in Tampa, and the results were pretty much as expected. The inflammation is gone but the stricture remains and the recommendation is surgery to remove this part of the colon. The stricture has resulted from scarring over the years from Crohn’s flare-ups and inflammation at the site of the surgery performed over 20 years ago. I have been extremely fortunate not to have needed surgery sooner as many Crohn’s patients do. But the opening has gotten increasingly smaller, basically pen hole size now, and if not careful, a blockage could occur at any time requiring emergency surgery. By electing to have the surgery done as a non-emergency, the surgeon has a clean environment and there’s less chance of infection. The idea is that cutting out this narrowed area will basically give me a clean slate, and I’ll supposedly be able to stop taking all the meds I currently take for the Crohn’s…yay! I’d have regular bi-annual checkups and should there be any issues, it could be addressed immediately and some sort of treatment could be started at that time. This by no means a cure, just another form of treatment. We meet with my local gastroenterologist this week to further discuss the results, and though we plan putting off the surgery until our return to the Orlando area in the fall, we’ll get a surgeon referral to get the ball rolling.

Our time here is nearly up, and it’s time to hit the road again. Thurs. we’ll leave with an overnight stop in Woodbine, GA, before arriving for a 5 night stay in Charleston, SC, to visit friends. From there we’ll continue up the East coast to stay once again on the Outerbanks in Waves, NC. But this time we are going to do something a little bit different…we’re taking the RV on the ferry to get there! It’s about a 2-1/2 hour ride for a cost of $45, and will be cheaper than driving since we’d have to go about 180 miles around to get from point A to point B. Since we’re a fully contained unit, we can hang out inside, watch TV, surf the net, or whatever as we journey across. After Waves we’ll continue up the East coast with a couple stops along the way before a visit with my sister in DE and then Russ’ sister and mom in NJ. From there we plan to visit Gettysburg and Harpers Ferry again because we so enjoyed them two years ago, and then it’s westward ho! Our plans this summer are to visit several of the national parks out West where we have never been. We have plans to visit the Badlands, Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, Glacier, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Grand Canyon, and several others as well as Salt Lake City before making our way back to St. Louis at the end of Aug. for the annual Missouri/Illinois football game on Sept. 5. We’ll even spend a few weeks at campgrounds inside the national parks. In all we have 32 national parks or monuments that we will be visiting and another 24 on the maybe list! We will spend 12 weeks in SD, WY, MT, UT, AZ, and CO. We’re both really excited and looking forward to experiencing this part of the country. Our friend, Scott (http://www.serenityadventure.com/), was to join us on this summer excursion, but since he’s busy dealing with his cancer treatments in NC which seem to be going well, his plan is to meet up with us in St. Louis.

The beginning of this week will be spent doing last minute errands and preparing the Folly for travel again since it’s been sitting idle for basically five months. Hope you’ll stay tuned for the continued adventures of the Farmer’s Folly!