DINNER WITH FAMILY AT COLUMBIA RESTAURANT

 On Monday, Memorial Day Ryan and family had plans to go with friends to the beach which is only a couple of blocks from their house. Since David and I aren't beach people we decided not to go. We did all agree t meet at Columbia Restaurant at 4 pm for dinner. With the holiday, it was sure to be packed.

It was fun watching all the strange people walking by. Definitely entertaining. Wish I could have taken pictures of them, but maybe next time.

St Augustine has a lot to see and do. One favorite is walking in the old town where the Columbia Restaurant is and on St George Street. There are always interesting shops and places to eat as well as the old historic buildings. 

The meal we had was so good. We all ordered something different. No matter what you order, they serve you a big piece of Cuban bread with butter. It is sooooo good.

It is a beautiful and elegant restaurant, and their menu is pretty large. It's well worth a visit.

28e529_115e21e4f0094694bd488d0cce54a892.pdf (columbiarestaurant.com)

Najla ordered a pitcher of mojitos. I usually don't drink and was never a big mojito fan, but theirs were fantastic. They mixed them right at the table. Our server was Gabrielle.

This is what I had. It was a great sample of most everything.

         La Completa Cubana To sample the flavors of Cuba, we offer this Cuban feast of roast pork a la Cubana, boliche criollo, Empanada de Picadillo, platanos, yuca, black beans and yellow rice. I substituted veggies for the black beans.

We were all so stuffed afterward. We went outside and took a family picture. 

                                      

We went home to the kitties and let them sit outside for a little bit.

ST. AUGUSTINE AND A LONG VISIT WITH FAMILY

 We arrived in St., Augustine on Saturday, Memorial Day Weekend. This trip, we booked the entire 9-night stay at Sun Outdoors RV Resort in site 125. We have stayed here several times before and always enjoyed staying here. It is a big campground that used to be called Compass RV Resort, but Jess, the owner sold out to a corporation. It is still very nice, but Jess and his wife made it feel like you were staying with friends.

The site we chose to book was site 125, which is way back in the corner of the new Oasis section. It has a generous area with nice pavers and with a natural area of bushes and trees that block views of the neighbors. When we arrived there, the campground was totally full for the holiday, but at least half the campground left on Monday. The kitties really enjoyed this space and we did too.

Finnegan actually enjoyed sitting out in his bag and Bentley loved sitting out in his stroller and harness with the top up. He never even tried to jump out. He loved scanning the bushes for wildlife.

The weather was perfect. It was in the 70's, with NO RAIN. We couldn't ask for anything better. We had a late lunch on Saturday and so did Ryan and family, so we went over to their house for ice cream and cake instead of dinner.

On Sunday, we all went to the Fountain of Youth. We had been there about 40 years ago when Ryan was about 5, but we didn't remember much. It was a big tourist attraction, but a lot of good history also.

I just couldn't get over how tall Emma (10) and Trevor (9) were. 

The F o Y has peacocks everywhere. They squawk very loud back and forth, & climb the trees, even with their very long tail feathers.

And of course, we all had to get a drink from the F o Y, although none of us got any younger and the water taste a bit nasty. It's obviously not filtered water.

The grounds there were very nice, and they had lots of historical sites & educational info.

These clay pots (Tinajones) were used to catch rainwater. They would bury them halfway underground to keep the water cool and they weighed about half a ton.

This albino peacock was really proud to show us all his white feathers.

They had a really nice B B Que place at F o  Y and we had a late lunch there. The food was really good. I brought Emma a sunhat and Trevor a bucket hat. The inside of Trevor's had beetles, & bugs.

This was the mission church, even though it looked like an old barn.

RELAXING IN SANFORD, FL

 We are spending 3 nights in Sanford, Fl on the way to St Augustine. The campground we are staying in is Twelve Oaks RV Resort. It had very nice reviews, but it is not a resort by any means. It is a 55+ community in a very quiet area. I rarely see any of the people that live here either full time or 6 months  of the year. The ones I have seen are very friendly and the campground feels like home and is very shaded by beautiful oak trees.

The day we drove here was beautiful and sunny, at least until we pulled into the driveway of the campground. IT POURED BUCKETS!!!!!!! Since we had a back in site, David got out and unhooked the car in the pouring rain while I went into the office about 20 feet away to pay. By the time I got there, I was soaked to the bone. The lady that checked us in was very nice and said the maintenance man would show us where to park. They were all so nice. It was raining so hard I couldn't even see out of the car windshield to follow to the site and had to roll down the window to see where to drive. The 2 men helping us were soaked to the bone too. We parked in the site and waited for the rain to stop before we hooked up the electric, water and sewer. We thought we would never dry off. 

The stay was very pleasant. The next day we rode over to Mt Dora. We hadn't been there since we lived in Orlando in the 80s and the whole area has changed a lot. New housing developments were everywhere. Even downtown was updated and nothing looked like it used to. There used to be a great yarn shop with tons of yarn. Yarn was literally everywhere, piled high. The owner knew where everything was. All you had to do was tell her what you wanted and she would go right to it and pull it out of the pile. Well, that shop was gone and so was the one they had listed as being there. There were lots of good sounding restaurants there. The town was very picturesque and had tons of little boutiques that sold various items. Too bad I wasn't in the market to shop.

Not sure I understand the reason for THE UNDERPANTS sign.

We came back to Sanford and had a nice lunch at Bahama Breeze Restaurant. The food was very good. Back at the motorhome, we had bought Bentley a harness, so I put it on and took him for a walk in the RV park. He loved it. He head was like on a swivel. He couldn't stop looking all around. He had his harness on and the top down on the stroller when we were riding. But when we stopped and sat outside I let the top down. He was very good and didn't try to get out. He really loved this campground. 

This campground is so relaxing.

People basically live here full time and most have carports or sheds, gardens and personal patios outside.

There were several tiny houses and a couple of double decker tiny houses. Lots of people just lived in their RV.

Bentley would just sit and look out of the bedroom windows to see what he could see.

There is some kind of nature preserve right behind us and there were 3 huge birds (cranes, herons or something wandering around our site. Bentley was amazed.

We have 3 cameras and a temperature monitor set up in the motorhome to make sure we can check up on the kitties while we are away. Once when we checked on them, Finny was in his bed in the bunk and we called him through the microphone. He freaked out looking for where our voice was coming from.

It's not nice to scare kitties. Saturday, we leave for St Augustine.

WAISTING AWAY IN THE HEAT AND HUMIDITY

 Well, we are in Camp Margaritaville, but it is hot and rains a lot. The weather predicts rain all afternoon and night, but they lie. It seems to rain when we get comfortable sitting outside. And did I mention it is HOT!!! We left lovely 73 degrees for 90 degrees. All the concrete also adds to the heat bouncing off the ground. It is very pretty here and very, very clean. This is a big campground, but very few people it. It's also a new campground. 

We are within 15 miles of Winter Haven and Lakeland. The first house I ever bought was built in 1972 here in Winter Haven in the Garden Grove neighborhood. I lived there for a couple of years before taking a job at the Cancer Center in Orlando. I also, had a Girl Scout troop here with 32 girls, ages 8 to 11, We had a great time.  The house I bought in 1972 and even though I moved, I rented it out until 2006 when I sold it. I couldn't manage the repairs and upkeep after moving to Tennessee. David and I decided to drive by the old house and see what condition it was in. Actually, it was in great shape, new paint, new roof. It looked like it was really being taken care of.

We also went to breakfast at a place called EGG HAVEN. The food and service there was excellent. David had corned beef hash and eggs with hashbrowns, and biscuit and I had eggs, bacon, hashbrowns and biscuit. Everything was very food and one of the best restaurant biscuits I have ever had.

The cafe was small, and on a corner and busy. But service was very fast. They were also supporters of the men in blue and first responders.  

The menu was huge, making it very hard to decide what to order.

The breakfast was so good, we even went back on Tuesday for another meal.

 You know it was a good place to eat when Sheriff Grady Judd, my favorite Polk County Sheriff ate there.

 About 6 blocks away was a yarn shop I wanted to visit, The Four Pearls. It is the home store of EMMA'S YARN. When we were in Maine last summer, I bought some Emma's yarn from a shop in Portland, Me. When researching it I found it was made and hand dyed right here in Winter Haven by a 15 yr. old girl. Here is her story.

Emma’s Yarn was started by Emma, a (then) 15 year-old homeschooled student who fell in love with dyeing yarn when learning ratios in her math lesson. Her eye for color is amazing! It wasn’t long before she started selling small batches in her parents’ yarn shop, and when that proved to be successful, moved production from her kitchen to a dye studio downtown. Her sister, Aspen, joined her after graduating college and together they built Emma's Yarn into what it is today; a wholesale company providing Local Yarn Shops with high quality, hand-dyed yarn from right here in sunny Florida. 

Today, 4 years later, we are a small team of 13 members made up of our family and close friends. With 16 different bases, over 100 crazy beautiful colorways, and new ideas pumping ALL . THE . TIME, there is no end to our fun in sight! 

Her yarn is sold all over the USA and in Japan. Her Mother has designed patterns and the people in the shop couldn't have been nicer. I ran in to another shopper from Memphis who was also overwhelmed at the amount of yarn and the number of samples in the shop.

There was so much to choose from and so many colors. I saw some fingering yarn I really liked, but they only had 5 hanks and I needed 6. So, the lady in charge of distributions & orders said, "Well let me run across the street where Emma has the dye pots and see if she has another one that matches. She ran right over and came back, and they didn't have them ready, so I chose something slightly different. It was a wonderful shop, and I came home with lots of yarn, and I know I can always order online and get what I need.

On Tuesday, after breakfast we went to buy a new Garmin for the car and a new hot spot for internet services. One of ours was very old and finally bit the dust so we are all set for the next campground on Wednesday. It won't be as nice as Margaritaville, but it will be fine.

Three nights at this campground is enough for 2 old folks, If we had kids with us there would be tons of stuff for them to do or if we were here on a weekend, it would be busier.