MORE TIME AT THE FORT

 It has been great weather here. Although is was predicted to rain we haven't seen a drop. Nice days and cool nights. 

On Wednesday we went over to the Tri Circle R Ranch or horse barn inside Ft. Wilderness. It is a gorgeous new facility that was being built when we were here last March. It was built to replace the old barn near the entrance. That area is still there for horseback rides, but the new barn is located behind the settlement near the lake. 

                                                   It's a beautiful new barn. 

                                                    

 

This is the 1907 Dragon Calliope that Walt Disney purchased for Disneyland in the 1950s.

             This is Phil, one of the Clydesdales here at the barn. Phil is a very friendly guy and loves attention. He kept leaning over his stall trying to get someone to pet him. Unfortunately, you can't do that unless one of the ranch hands gives you the OK. This place is kept so clean and the stall all had fresh beds. The horses are bathed and brushed and are well taken care of.

                                                   There were 2 new babies recently born at the barn. Lady, a Cinderella                                                       Horse had baby Obi about a month ago. This is Obi and Mama Lady.

                                                  Fancy which is  a Shetland had Patches about a week ago. We asked                                                        where Patches she was and the ranch hand told us they only let her come                                                 up front to the viewing stalls about 1.5 hrs. per day because she is so                                                         young and still getting used to everything.

                                                      This is Rookie, another Clydesdale. He also like the attention.

                                                      These are a couple of the ponies available for pony rides.

                                                    We went over to the meadows area to check out the pool, fishing area                                                        and the spot where they show the movies at night. Because of covid                                                          they aren't doing the  campfires or the Chip & Dale show.

                                                    

                                                               Stir fry on the griddle last night.

                                                      We woke up this morning to wild turkeys at our campsite.

AT THE FORT

 

We arrived at The Fort on Monday about noon.. I had requested one of 3 different sites, although all of the sites are good and they don't have to give you any that you request they still try to accommodate you if they can.. When we checked in one of the sites was available, but not cleaned yet. They told us we could go over to the overflow parking lot and wait until it was ready or take another site. We decided to go to the lot and wait. We decided to go ahead and unhook the car and sit with the kitties and wait. When we went to unhook the car there was a leaf looking frog on our hookup bag. At first I thought he was a leaf.  ACKK!!! Welcome to Florida.

While sitting in the parking lot we noticed another family pull up, They all got out to the truck, unloaded their bikes, scooter and skateboards and started having fun. No need to wait until you get a real campsite to start the party..

 After about an hr. they texted me to say we were in site 538. So away we went to park the MH. After we got all settled in we took the car down to the entrance to pick up the golf cart we had reserved. 

Bentley had a great time sitting outside in his stroller looking at the trees, birds, bushes and the canal behind the MH. The nice thing about The Fort is the campsites are rather secluded and you have lots of bushes in between you and your neighbors. Plenty of privacy.

 Bentley and Nicholas went on nice walks around the loop in the stoller and on Tuesday we put Bentley in his bag and we took him for a ride in the golf cart. As we drove down by the Settlement area we saw a big turkey walking around and as we went by he flew up into the tree. It was Bentley's first turkey sighting.

It was warm during the day (84), but perfect sleeping weather in the 60's.

More at The Fort later.

HEADED BACK TO THE FORT AT DISNEY

We are headed back to FT Wilderness at Disney World.We were there last March, but due to covid, the parks closed and we left. Najla and Ryan decided that they could get away from the 2 vet hospitals at this time, so we are trying it again. Neither of us have had our covid vaccine, so we are only going to FT Wilderness.

It was cold and rainy when we left Chattanooga and we got off to a late start. But little nervous  Finnegan didn't even throw up on the way to the MH.😀😀😀

Nickie enjoyed riding in the bed on the dashboard.

But his favorite place in either under my chair or on the bed under the dashboard.

Finnegan and Bentley like sleeping on the soft binkies I put on the sofa for them. The leather is too cold without a nice soft binkie.

We stopped half way between Chattanooga and Atlanta to get gas. When I went to my purse to get my wallet IT WAS GONE!!!!! I know I had it yesterday. We looked in the MH,  & the car and it was no where to be found. I looked on the CC camera at our house and it wasn't in the kitchen or the living room. I hadn't been anywhere to lose it. David decided to unhook the car and drive back to the house to look for it. I couldn't do it--no drivers license. So I stayed back with the kitties. When he got home, there it was on the floorboard of the passenger side of my car. It had fallen out and I didn't notice because my purse was full of extra masks and my wallet was the same color as my floorboard. At least we found it.I couldn't do anything without it. But it wasted 2 hrs of our trip, making us get there later than we planned.

Bentley did enjoy riding in his Daddy's lap for a while. 

And Nickie had a great time riding in my lap and getting snuggled---ALL 18 lbs of him. He was pretty happy.

On the way we got sleepy so I made us each a cup of coffee, mine in my Chattanooga Quilts cup.

We arrived in Tifton in the rain and cold. I had preordered a pizza and a half dozen eggs from Henrietta the hen at the CG and they were waiting for us when we checked in. We had a nice night, all cozy in the MH.

                              Tomorrow we are headed to Wildwood, FL.

Christmas in St Augustine 4

 Our next stop was in Lillian, AL. We stayed at a KOA CG and we were pretty much half way between Pensacola and Foley, AL. We were just across the 98 bridge and the CG was on Perdido Bay. There were lots of spaces,and the CG was pretty tight. For dinner we went over to Chubby's which was on the front side of the CG and ordered a pizza. It was pretty good and we enjoyed the quiet night.

The next day we took Bentley for a nice walk in the CG and down to the beach area. There was a nice pier and evidently there was some good fishing there too. It was a beautiful view of the bay,

The next day we drove down to Orange Beach, Gulf Shores and then to Fort Morgan. It was about 40 minutes away and we spent some time at FT Morgan which was pretty impressive.

 

We went to the local Piggy Wiggly (THE PIG) for some food for New Years Day and on the way home we stopped for dinner at The Shrimp Basket. We had eaten at another one of these before and the food was pretty good. We both  decided to have the blackened Redfish with seafood cream sauce over rice and it was delicious.

The next day we drove to Pensacola to have breakfast at The Ruby Slipper. The food was very good. David had a traditional breakfast and I had Bananas Foster French Toast. YUM!

And what a surprise to find a yarn shop right around the corner. The owner was doing inventory, but let me in to shop. I found some beautiful gold Madeline Tosh yarn for a future sweater

Back to the CG for a relaxing day and we would be heading home in the morning.. We had called a CG in Attalla, AL to make reservations. Roberts said they had a place for us. HOWEVER..... when we got there Robert was no where to be found. I tried calling and his phone went to voice mail. I left my number and he never called back. Luckly, a lady passed by walking her dogs and I asked about Robert. She said "he's  never here on Sunday". Her name was Kaleigh and she lived there and found us a nice spot with 50 amp hook up. We backed in there and stayed for the night. I don't know what we would have done if she hadn't passed by. She was super nice and friendly. The next day, still no Robert. He never came over to check on us, so I walked over to the office to pay him. No Robert. I tried calling him again. This time he answered and was very apologetic.I left the money in a drop box and we were on our way home. The kitties didn't care. They were all in their beds and happy.

CHRISTMAS IN ST. AUGUSTINE 3

Next, we were heading over to Lillian, Alabama which was near, Foley, Orange Beach and  Pensacola. Since it was a long drive for one day we stopped in Cottondale, Fl over night at the Hitchin Post RV Park. It was a small RV park, but had a LOT of acreage. We were met by Vonda who told us that she was 61 yrs old and a widow and runs the CG by herself ever since her husband died. She spent a lot of time filling us in on the CG, the walking trails around the lake and was very friendly and informative. She showed us to our site and put out a nice welcome mat so that we wouldn"t track grass into the MH. It was pretty inexpensive for the night and we figured we wouldn't have wifi or cable, but we had good wifi and lot of over the air channels. Once we were settled in I took Bentley for a walk around the CG.

The property had a big lake and we walked quite a way, but not all the way around the lake.

On our walk we ran into 2 nice horses (a white one and a brown one), a donkey and some big white bunnies.The white horse came running over to the fence to meet us and Bentley wasn't too sure when that BIG WHITE HEAD poked over the fence to say "Hello". 

The bunnies were just happily hopping all around and nibbling and hopping.

It was a very nice over night stay and we didn't even have to unhook the car. Vonda was such a nice camp host and we would definitely stay here again if we were in the area. 

CHRISTMAS IN ST AUGUSTINE 2

The boys loved riding on the dashboard so they could see what was going on.

Unfortunately Nicholas insists on layin in the same bed as Bentley whether he fits or not.

 We arrived safe and sound in St Augustine and checked in to the KOA CG down the rad from the Meyers. This CG always has a nice table and chairs and a gas grill for us to use. We were across from the lake, so it was nice to be able to take Bentley for a walk. It was pretty windy and cool, so we didn't go far.

When we arrived in SA our MH was making a strange clicking noise as we rode along that we have never heard before. We needed to get it checked out before we got back on the road again. So we looked up an RV repair place nearby. They couldn't look at it until the first week of January. Since we weren't going to be here then, we needed to find someone to check it out to make sure it was safe to drive. They referred us to a place called Melvin's garage.They told us they could look at it on Monday so we scheduled to bring it over. Not knowing what they would find we decided to book a hotel room just in case. That way we could take the cats over and have a place to stay while they check out or fixed the MH. As it turned out they couldn't find anything wrong and we were told it was OK to drive. They didn't even charge us for looking at it. We will be ordering some pizza's to deliver to them for being so nice. You don't find that everyday.

Christmas was a great time at the Meyers. They all had matching Christmas PJs. Cute. The kids got a lot of toys. We gave Emma a Wellie Wisher American Girl doll and some clothes for her. Trevor got a Lego Hogwarts house to put together.

Since they were all into Harry Potter movies I made them all Hogwarts hats, one for each Hogwarts house. Trevor-Gryffindor, Emma--Huffinpuff, Najla--Ravenclaw and Ryan--Slytherin.

I made Emma some sandals for her AG doll, Camille. Boy they were tricky to make. So small.

They gave us 2 new pictures of the kids. I can't believe how much they have grown.

And they are such great kids. Well behaved a great Christmas and a good visit with everyone. We were able to go out to dinner 3 times. Salt Life and their great New England Clam Chowder, street tacos; Safe Harbor, a new seafood restaurant and Carrabba's. All good meals an good company. A great time as usual in SA. It's just too bad it was cold while we were there/

Out next stop--North West Florida and Alabama.