Strawberry Fields

Though not a lot has happened since our last post, things are starting to get busy again. I’m feeling really good with only an occasional ache or twinge of pain. Next week will be 7 weeks since surgery, and when I see the doctor on Thurs., I’m hoping for a complete release.

Since I’ve been feeling so good, I accepted our neighbors’ offer to go with them to Parkesdale Farms (http://www.parkesdale.com/) in Plant City, FL (about an hour’s drive from here). Paul and Anne (that's her on the left) go there fairly often when they’re here in FL, usually on the way back from visiting their daughter in Tampa. Plant City is known as the winter strawberry capital of the world and hosts an annual strawberry festival in March. When they would go, they’d bring back a flat of strawberries which we would split with them, and they are delicious! This time they were simply making a day trip to Parkesdale and invited us to go along, but Russ decided to stay home. Though smaller than what I expected, this place is packed not only with strawberries but all sorts of vegetables, fruits, plants, baked goods, jams, and knick-knacks plus their world famous strawberry shortcakes and milkshakes! We were there on a Thurs. and could barely walk down the aisles...I can’t imagine what it’s like on the weekend! They have good prices on most of their fruits and veggies so that was our first priority. Paul especially likes their strawberry onions, which look like green onions on steroids. They are grown along the edges of the strawberry fields (as seen at left), giving them a slightly sweeter taste. However, according to the sign posted in the store, they’re planted there to keep the elephants out of the fields….LOL!

Once we finished shopping, we drove down the road to a place called Buddy Freddy’s Southern Family Dining for lunch (sorry no website available). It’s one of Paul’s favorites and is basically a home-style buffet with all the food homemade. We were definitely stuffed when we left!

Paul asked if I had ever seen the “Airstream graveyard”, which I hadn’t, so he and Anne decided on a little side trip since it wasn’t far down the highway. From what I’ve read, local businessman, Frank Bates, buried eight Airstream travel trailers nose-down, on a piece of his property that runs along the eastbound lanes of Interstate 4 in Dover, Florida. Each RV stands for a decade the Airstream’s been around and were “planted” in honor of Airstream’s 75th anniversary. Some of his neighbors are not too thrilled with the sight and took him to court for code violations. He appealed the judge’s decision for him to remove what he considers “art” and just a couple of weeks ago he won. Not sure if the neighbors plan to appeal that decision or not. It’s a great tourist attraction, and just looks like fun to me.

We headed back to Parkesdale to pick up strawberry milkshakes to take home, and the line had tripled! But they’ve got the system down after doing this for so many years, and the wait wasn’t really long at all. I did get a picture of one of the huge “world famous” strawberry shortcakes that also had a layer of soft-serve ice cream on it between the strawberries and the whipped cream…oh my!

That night we got a call from Alex wanting to know if we’d like to get together the next day with him and Susie. They have a place about an hour north of here and were supposed to be coming down in a couple weeks for a few days but plans had changed. Our calendar was open so we said sure! (You may remember that we met Alex and Susie when we stayed at John Pennekamp State Park in Nov.) They showed up about 11:30, we sat around and chatted for about an hour, then decided to head up the road to the Lakeridge Winery (http://www.lakeridgewinery.com/index.phpom/index.php). Though I had been there last April with a friend, I was more than happy to go again. We arrived just in time for the short tour and then on to the wine tasting…woohoo! On the way home we stopped at Jack’s Barbecue for a late lunch, drove through Lake Louisa State Park since Alex has a FL State Park card that got us in free, and then it was time for them to head back. It's always great to be able to get together with folks we've met elsewhere on the road.

The month of March is already looking to be quite busy so look for the blog posts to be a little more interesting from here on out. Now if the weather would just cooperate and warm up, that would be perfect!

Getting Stronger Everyday

It's been a little over 4 weeks since my surgery so I guess it's time for an update though not a lot has been happening. (Hopefully we still have some readers!)

After spending a full week in the hospital, I was eating regular food when I left and spent much of the next couple weeks laying on the couch though I did take short walks with Russ and the dogs. My strength and stamina continue to improve daily though not 100% yet, but the surgeon says I'm coming along right on schedule. Some days I get frustrated that I'm not able to do more, but I just have to keep reminding myself it's only been 4 weeks and recovery from major abdominal surgery takes time. Russ has been a great help handling everything, and though I'm still not able to drive or vacuum, I have taken back a few of my "chores" much to Russ' delight. I'm even able to walk the dogs by myself though only one at a time. I'm still not ready to walk them together because if one of them lunges at another dog or a squirrel, it would not be good on my abdominal muscles!

This past week has been a little more eventful. We attended the customer appreciation event at the Sweetbay grocery store celebrating their one year anniversary on Sat., and on Tues. we went to Denny's with our neighbors for the nationwide Free Grand Slam breakfast! Sun. night we had set the alarm for 4:15 a.m., and turned the TV to the NASA channel when it went off to see if the shuttle was still scheduled to launch at 4:30, and it was. We quickly dressed and went outside to catch a glimpse of the STS-130 space shuttle from our campground. The skies were clear, and we had turned on the outside TV for the countdown. Several other people were outside, and soon all of us spotted an orange ball rising over the treeline! Keep in mind that the shuttle launches over an hour's drive from here, but for the next 7 minutes, we watched it streak across the sky at an altitude of about 54 miles and nearly 650 miles downrange until it disappeared over the horizon. Always a thrill to see!

Well, that's all for now. Hopefully by the next blog post I'll be back to 100%, and we'll have more to report. Stay warm wherever you are!