November 30, 2016-January 4, 2017
Here we are again. Our apologies to those of you who have been asking, "Where's your blog?"
In late April we hung a For Sale sign on the back of Cool Change After six years of wintering on the boat we felt we were ready for some new adventures. However, the boat didn't sell and we find we're happy to return for at least one more year of river cruising in the wilds of Florida.
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| A bittersweet moment - putting a For Sale sign on our boat. |
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| Jacksonville's Marina at Ortega River decked out for Christmas. It was a welcoming home all last year. |
Our trip began in Jacksonville, on the St. John's River where we were docked at the Marina at Ortega River. This major Florida river runs north from marshes near Vero Beach, through the eastern middle of the state and empties into the Atlantic east of Jacksonville after traveling over 300 miles. In the 1800s through the middle 1900s the St Johns River was a major transportation route for central Florida people, cattle, and produce. Our first night was a stop at Corky Bell's restaurant in Palatka, FL where we had drinks in the bar and ate a great dinner. We stayed overnight on their 150 foot customer dock. We did not ask permission but no one asked us to leave.
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| This U of Florida Gator Country!! Corky Bell's sports an alligator theme throughout. This is only one of the gator statues you'll find there. All were decked out for Christmas. |
At a leisurely pace we traveled to Astor and tied up at the dock of Victor and Barbie, Wayne's cousins. They are great hosts and we had a hard time dragging ourselves away three days later.
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| Victor and Barbie had never had Hardee's hamburgers. Now they're hooked. |
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| No tree on the boat this year. We were glad to share Victor and Barbie's |
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| With directions from Colleen, Barbie made herself a microwave potholder |
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| Cruisin' down the river Leaving the driving to the first mate! |
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| Cool Change Christmas lights at Hontoon Island State Park |
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| We couldn't get good photos of the boat parade as they were moving too fast for the cameras |
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| Free ferryboat It takes you on a five minute trip from the island to the mainland and picks you up when you're ready to return. |
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| We saw no alligators this time at Hontoon but we did catch sight of this snowman and the rangers warned us to be on the lookout for a bear. On our last trip here, Wayne almost stepped on a water moccasin sunning on the dock. |
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| Hontoon has well maintained nature trails that go from the waterfront back into cabin-and-tent sites in the woods. |
By December 11 we had crossed Lake Monroe and settled into the Monroe Harbor Marina in downtown Sanford, where we still are. The town of Sanford is an old and important part of Florida's history. Colleen's family has roots in this area since her maternal grandparents settled in nearby Deland in the 1800s and the family of her maternal grandfather lived in Sanford and Osteen. Wayne's grandparents also were living in Deland in the late 1800s. Deland was small enough that our families actually knew each other more than seventy-five years before Wayne and Colleen had their fateful meeting at the Orange County Science Fair in 1965. Sanford is also the city that Wayne's parents eloped to from Deland in 1935. Colleen's cousin, Tony, still lives in the home of his grandparents only a few blocks from the marina. We've been glad to reconnect with him and to hear family history.
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| Sunset looking to the city of Sanford out our stern. |
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| View from the shore of our dock which has a covered section at the end. |
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| View forward from our boat. |
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| A Christmas present I learned to make in my North Carolina craft club. |
In addition to decorating the shirt I made tote bags and learned how to make chenille. The chenille became mufflers. Very hard to do. Probably won't tackle that again.
We had a chance to see a second Christmas boat parade in Merritt Island, at the home of Roger and Marcy and also participated in their annual soup cook off. We didn't make any soup - we just sampled the eight varieties. All of them were winners. We also spent time in Cocoa with Colleen's best friend Marla and her remarkable poodles, TeeDee and Chloe.
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| A startling view at lunch. Wayne was eating lunch with friend Roger when a cruise ship came in the newly widened Port Canaveral. |
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| The Merritt Island boat parade as viewed from Roger's and Marcy's back yard and dock. |
On December 20 we traveled to the home of Wayne's brother Harlan and his wife Patty in The Villages, about 45 miles NW of here, for our traditional Christmas cookie baking. Their granddaughter Kaylin has progressed to master chef cookie assistant. We reminisced about the days when Kaylin's biggest contribution was spilling the sprinkles on the floor and eating the cinnamon decorations before we could get them onto the cookies.
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| You've come a long way, Kaylin. |
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| The pilings on our dock are decorated with lights to look like palm trees. |
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| Orlando friends Peggy and John visited us before Christmas. Peggy and Colleen taught together in 1976-77. |
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| Harlan, Kaylin, Patty and Colleen |
Texas caviar (from friend Jann with a little alteration)
1 green, yellow or red bell pepper
2 bunches of green onions
3 stalks of celery
1 red onion
Cilantro
Chop all of the above fine.
15-oz can black beans
15-oz can black-eyed-peas
(Some people use shoe peg corn and/or pimento too)
Drain the above items well
Boil: 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup vinegar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
salt and pepper
Cool slightly; then pour over everything else in a big bowl. Mix gently. Refrigerate overnight in a zip bag and drain before serving with scoop corn chips.
We have finally said goodbye to the dinghy that came with the big boat. It was a 1997 model with fiberglass hull and inflatable sides. Wayne had installed 5 patches and it still was slowly leaking air. The fabric was starting to show through the rubber so we agreed that we needed a new one. We bought a new dinghy on December 1st and Wayne carried and secured it onto the front deck with help from a marina employee. while the old one resided on the stern platform. One hot day last week - 85 outside and probably 95+ on the concrete of the dock - we worked together to remove the lifting hardware from the old dinghy. Wayne placed the dinghy on Craigslist and, within eighteen hours, it had sold and was taken away by its new owner. Too bad the big boat hasn't moved that fast.
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| Poor old dinghy. It served us well until it started leaking 3 years ago. |
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| New Walker Bay dinghy with last year's new outboard. Goody, no more patching and pumping up. |
We're enjoying our stay here and are thinking this will be our berth for the whole winter. We still need to investigate a large number of restaurants, visit the Central Florida Zoo which is just down the road a bit and ride the commuter rail all the way down to our old Orlando neighborhood, just so we can say we did. Please let us know if you are in the area and can drop by to see us.
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| Riverboat dinner cruise leaves twice a day from our marina. |
