A Little of This, That, & The Other

After not much happening last week, this week sure proved differently. Our friends Richard and Shelly were back in town for a couple weeks but were tied up most of the time with family and friends. However they found some time Tues. to stop by for a visit. Their 4-year-old granddaughter, Kayla, is spending several months with them as they travel, and it was our first time meeting her. What a delight! Extremely inquisitive, silly, and fun! She had a gotten a very rubbery dinosaur when they were at the T-Rex restaurant earlier in the day, and we had fun playing with it. She totally enjoyed meeting the dogs and kept wanting them to come out and play. We all sat outside chatting for several hours, and she didn’t want to leave. In fact, when Shelly got up, Kayla plopped down in the chair so Shelly sat in her lap. LOL Kayla even took a shine to Russ and jumped on his lap before leaving!

We had a couple doctor appointments scheduled this week. Russ’ was a routine follow-up with our primary doctor before we hit the road again. Mine was with a gastroenterologist (GI) at the University of South Florida in Tampa for a second opinion. My GI here suggested it since the facility there specializes in Crohn’s disease and so much advancement has been made in the nearly 21 years since I was first diagnosed. USF is located about an hour from here, and we had a 1pm appt. Initially we met with a resident GI doctors who took all our info, then consulted with Dr. Saloum, and then both doctors came in to discuss a plan with us. Since Dr. Saloum is unfamiliar with me other than the records sent by my GI here and the records I brought with me, he has opted to perform another colonoscopy this coming Thurs. so he can see things for himself and make a recommendation as to what he thinks my continued treatment should be. We probably won’t make any changes until we return from our summer travels, but it’s good to get a plan in place.

My good friend, Linda, drove over from Tampa on Sat. so we could spend the day together. Since we both like to explore new places, we drove to the Lakeridge Winery (http://www.lakeridgewinery.com/) located about 20 miles up the road in Clermont. This family owned winery offers free tours and wine tasting daily. They are the largest Florida winery with 44 tanks that can hold 416,000 gallons of wine and producing 1,000-1,500 bottles of wine per day. The tour started with a 14 minute video showing the winery’s history and the bottling process. They say you learn something new everyday, and I was amazed to learn how much of the bottling process for champagne (or sparkling wine) is done by hand! Our guide, Shep, then took us on the tour, which is rather short since the winery is not very big, but he was very informative and readily answered questions. Out back, just past the vineyards, was a large grassy area that Shep said was once a lake but the drought has caused it to dry up. The water shortage has not affected the winery as they draw their water from deep wells. Now it was time for the wine tasting! We sampled 6 wines but they give you a very minimal amount…darn! We both liked the first two (a red and a white), but then it got into wines made from the Florida Muscadine grape and we discovered that neither of us really liked the flavor of that grape though the last red made from it was okay. As we were tasting the last selection, we started chatting about wine and chocolate with the lady serving it, and I mentioned something about Russell Stover. As it turns out, the Russell Stover Outlet Store is only a short distance from the winery! Oh, Linda and I jumped at the idea of extending our adventurous day a little further down the road for chocolate!

Linda had decided she was going to get her husband a bottle of the first red we sampled and herself a bottle of the white. She insisted on buying a bottle for me as a belated birthday present so I chose the first red as well because I knew Russ would like, too. As she was picking them out, one of the workers told her that if she bought 4 bottles, she’d get a $2 discount…woohoo! The wine is not very expensive anyway so she bought a fourth. Linda had brought a picnic lunch of cheese, crackers, summer sausage, fruit, and bottled water, and we sat at one of the picnic tables outside the winery, enjoying a beautiful day and each other’s company.

Now it was off to Russell Stover’s! We walked up and down every aisle and of course, both ended up buying some chocolate. My friend, Anne, had introduced me to their mint patties, which are indescribably delicious, so I just had to pick up a box of those! As we were leaving, we noticed an antique mall across the street and spent the next couple hours wandering through it. It was now time for dinner, and on the way home we stopped at Olive Garden. It was getting late and time for Linda to head back to Tampa, but what a wonderfully fun and relaxing day with a good friend.

Sun. Russ and I went over for the Flower Power Concert Series featuring The Ventures this week. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year, they are an instrumental group best known for the “Hawaii Five-O” theme and “Wipeout”. Two of the original members, Don Wilson, (on the right) and Nokie Edwards (seated) are still members of the band and are accompanied by Bob Anderson (on the left) on bass guitar. Their original drummer, Mel Taylor, passed away in 1996 and his son, Leon, took over dad’s role with the band. Though there was some fine guitar playing, it was not a very exciting show, and we didn’t stay for any other sets.

Mon. morning we took the Saturn in for what turned out to be a very minor repair and returned home in just over an hour giving us the whole rest of the day to do whatever. One of the things I have wanted to see at the Epcot Flower & Garden Festival is the English Tea Garden tour at the United Kingdom Pavilion so that’s where we headed later that day. The free 20 minute guided tour, hosted by Twinings Tea, is given daily during the Festival in the afternoon and early evening and was designed to give the history and art of tea blending as you stroll through the English Tea Garden. We had signed up for the 6:30 tour and spent the time beforehand checking out some more of the topiaries, flowers, and this waterfall that actually flows up!











At 6pm we decided to catch the British Invasion, one of the many daily free band performances, while we were waiting for the tour. They dress like the Beatles and perform their songs at 5 shows daily, each show a different time period in the Beatles career. The 6pm show featured songs from their movies and cartoon series, and though they don’t look anything like the Beatles, I love the songs. When they were done, it was time to head down the walkway to the Tea Caddy shop for the tour, and as it turns out, the British Invasion was coming the same way to head upstairs to change outfits and were gracious enough to pose for pictures with a few of us.

I found the tour very interesting and informative (did you know that tea blenders have to train for 5 years before they are allowed to actually start applying what they’ve learned?) But about 10 minutes into the tour Russ moseyed across the road, chatting with a cast member, Carolyn, outside the Rose & Crown Pub. She and her husband are full-time RVers, too, and live at one of the nearby RV resorts. They struck up quite a conversation, and she added us to her list of “VIPs” for a special place from where to watch the fireworks! All we had to do was return by 8:50, and she’d let us in to a place that is usually roped off behind the Rose & Crown. By the time the tour finished, British Invasion was back for their 7pm show performing songs from Sergeant Pepper. I snapped a quick photo of them performing in that costume before Russ and I strolled down the road to get a bite to eat.

One of the other things I had wanted to see was the Bromeliad Dragon in front of the Temple of Heaven at the China Pavilion. This topiary dragon is made entirely of a type of bromeliad from the pineapple family…quite impressive! On the way we made a pit stop at the Norway Pavilion. The roof of this building actually has grass growing on it and is regularly mowed! We had decided to just get a pretzel from the Germany Pavilion instead of a big meal and then enjoyed some ice cream from the American Pavilion. Now there’s a nutritious meal! Since we still had a little time to kill before the fireworks, we decided to head back to the Rose & Crown for a pint and check out the pub’s entertainment, “The Hat Lady”. Having never seen her before, we didn’t know what to expect and were pleasantly surprised. Wearing a large, feathered hat, she sings and plays the piano while chatting with the pub crowd in between. She has quite a variety of hats surrounding her on the wall and periodically changes the one she’s wearing. She broke into a rousing rendition of Irish Rover, encouraging audience participation. As she continued to play in between choruses, she’d ask someone their name, where they were from, what they did for a living, and then create a chorus off the top of her head using those facts! Really creative and fun! At 8:50 we had to leave to meet Carolyn and watched Illuminations from an entirely new place and as always, it was wonderful. Afterwards Russ decided we’d try to catch the fireworks at Magic Kingdom that were set to go off at 10pm. This meant we had to boogey to catch the monorail to the Ticket & Transportation Center, and then instead of taking the second monorail to MK, we took the ferry. We walked inside MK just as the fireworks were starting and found a place in the middle of Main Street from where to watch. Though MK was open till 11, we decided to head back to the car taking the two monorails for our return trip. As we passed in front of Epcot (which was now closed), I snapped this shot of some of the topiaries in front of Spaceship Earth.

We only have 10 more days here at Lake Magic before we once again hit the road. Originally we had planned to leave May 1 but have decided to leave April 30, taking 2 days to get to Charleston, the first stop on our summer tour. Perhaps next week we’ll fill you in on the plans for that tour. Until then be well, stay safe, and keep smiling.