Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.

Henry David Thoreau

Mid March

March 1- March 16 2018                                                              Most Recent Posts:
Quail Run RV Park                                                                       
Finishing February
Wesley Chapel, Florida                                                                Another BIG Bump in the Road




Not sure time’s actually marching by, more like sauntering, here at Quail Run.  We started March out with a wonderful baked haddock dinner on the 1st served in Watson Hall  We followed that two days later by the first Saturday breakfast buffet. 

David’s in heaven,  all he has to do is walk across the street for delicious food.  Watson Hall is right next to the pool.   He’s signed up for the Taco Dinner and the Lobster Boil potluck later this month.  The park has a dinner every Thursday night.  I had to put some controls on or he’d sign up for every one.  They also have Wednesday morning donuts and coffee which he doesn’t miss unless we have to be out early for doctors’ follow up appointments.

Quail Run’s activities director Kathy  is a work camper and she keeps the calendar full not only of dinners and breakfasts but cards of all kinds, karaoke, bingo, ping pong, pool, line dance, horse shoes and more.   It’s all listed outside on two large boards and in a handout given to all campers.  How in the world she organizes all of it and sells tickets to all the meals is beyond me.


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David’s favorite of the regular activities is eating.  Mine is line dancing.  I’ve been going every Tuesday and David came a couple of times to take some pictures.  Unfortunately one of those days several of the regulars were absent. We’re a small but hardy crew. 







Line dancing is fun, good exercise and gives me an opporunity to wear my boots.  I love Tuesdays when I can get 5000 +/- steps in 90 minutes of dancing.


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I’ve spent some of my time in the library in this building called Quail’s Nest   It’s a nice space with 4 very comfortable chairs and tables at which folks play cards and one with ongoing puzzles.



I volunteer to reshelve returned books so I’ve learned a lot about what the folks in this park read.  Of course, all the books are donated.  In some cases there is nearly enough books by one author to fill a shelf.


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There are 27 John Grisham books and 14 Lisa Jackson on the shelves.  Nicholas Sparks, John Sanford, Danielle Steel, James Patterson and Louis L’Amour.are among others with large numbers of books.  I’m not really familiar with any of their works, other than John Grisham who lives in my home town, but clearly they are all very popular.  I did notice that John Grisham has a series for kids with a 13 year old would be lawyer Theodore Boone as the main character.  Since there were 4 of them, I grabbed them all and read them easily.  Like his other books, I liked some of them better than others but I think they’ll be very popular – Theo is the up to date Nancy Drew.

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We’ve been inundated with basketball which does help pass the time.  We watched the Women’s ACC tournament and then the Men’s ACC Tournament where the UVA men won and became the season and tournament champs.  This picture is of David in serious relaxed mode watching the play.

We were binge watching the first round of the NCAA these last few days when we, like many other basketball fans, were dumbfounded when the #1 team in the Nation lost in the first round to the #16 seed.  That’s never been done before but I don’t think it’s an honor UVA will be talking about.  Thank goodness it was on too late at night for us to actually watch what I hear was a seriously pathetic game on the part of UVA and a stellar game by UMBC.   Boy are we disappointed.  We were really looking forward to finally following a winning team all the way and not having to go to sports bars to do it since we have cable right here.  This was our one bright part of being “stuck”.   Thanks Cavaliers. 




We’ll still be watching and rooting for the ACC but I doubt one of them will take it all unfortunately.   Sure put a dent in our brackets and our basketball fun. 

On a brighter note, because we have an address for two months, we are able to easily receive mail without having to have it forwarded.  My wonderful friend Laurie sent me some postcards to color with my birthday gel glitter pens.   Something to cheer me up and it worked.  One finished, one in progress.  Back to it as soon as I finish this blog.   Thanks Laurie, you’re the best!




More from my daily walks:

I’ve found that many of the folks in Quail Run are either full time residents or on the seasonal plan and spend 5 or 6 months here every winter.  Some full time residents stay all year long and some rent their site for the year but drive back to their sticks and bricks in the summer time.  Those folks are usually from Michigan or Wisconsin, Minnesota or New York.

You can obviously come for as long as you like from one night to one week to two months or more..  Talking to folks at the dinners many said they first came for a few days and came back for a month the next year and then 2 months and then . . . .  

If you come for just a few  nights you’ll be assigned to a nice end spot in the older section.  Two slots open when I took this picture.  

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I was taking that picture from this road along the far side of the park.  One day while I was walking along it a red shouldered hawk flew right in front of me, landed on a tree branch and proceded to eat whatever it had just killed.  Couldn ‘t see who the dinner was and unfortunately didn’t have my camera.  Really a bummer since I was so close.  But it was a great sighting none the less.

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If  I wanted I could  walk right on out of the gates.  The mail boxes are under the red roof just before the gate on the right and the little store with pretty much any last minute need you might have is outside the gate on the right.  Its roof isn’t quite so red.

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In order to spend this second month, March, at Quail I had to cancel two weeks at both Wekiwa Springs and at O’Leno State Parks.  We had hoped to meet up with Eric and Laurel at O’Leno so that was particularly sad.  But just the loss of another month of in nature hiking was sad along with the cancellation penalties.

With the laundramat right across the street it was easy to walk over and do the laundry a couple of days ago.  Just outside the building were what I’ve learned are the park’s nesting Sandhill Crane pair.  This picture of the laundry and the section of grass they were grazing was taken from our patio across the street a few days earlier. 

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On laundry day the cranes were in the shadows.  That’s the shuffleboard court behind them.  They are obviously very used to people since they never even raised their heads as I walked by and eventually up toward them until I called out “yoohoo” to see if they’d put their heads up into the sunshine.  As you can tell, it sort of worked.  What you can’t really tell is how big they are. 



Hey you guys


Yeah you.

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Not over there, over here

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Guess he’s had enough of me..  Off to play shuffle board?  Or to the pool?

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That’s pretty much what I’ve been doing.  As you can imagine David has been occupied with the last visits from the home health nurse and numerous doctor follow up visits.  Just keeping track of his medications and their changes is nearly a full time job.

But I’m confident in saying that the best thing that has happened, even topping the food, was the park’s Car Show one Saturday.  The cars were parked all over including in our driveway and across the street from us.

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Winnona is surrounded.



There were all kinds of cars here.  Big and little, hot rods and antiques.  David sure wishes Roger had been here for this.  I’m just not the car enthusiast those two are.

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How about a 1929 Mercedes.  Did Bugsy or Al drive one of these?


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Here’s one of David’s favorites.  How about those white walls?


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Another favorite

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Hard to get a picture of this one with such a shine.  We’re in the shade and I don’t think you can even see the “mascot” sitting on the top of the back seat like a beauty queen.

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The main street is lined with cars from the gate to the interstate wall.  David gets a lot of steps walking around several times during the day as more cars come.  Show up and register seems to be the plan.

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A 1948 Cadillac.  What a beauty!!  Panels, white walls, chrome, tail lights and a speedometer an octogenarian could love. 

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The owner of the 1957 Ford Skyliner demonstrated the retractable hard top.  Better not have any luggage in the trunk.


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The owners are partying with their cars on our side street as I head back home.  Every street and driveway off of the park’s main road was full of cars.  Residents had access to their homes with their cars from the back streets. But if you were on the main street, you had to vacate.   I’d moved Ruby over on the new side into the driveway of someone who was away for the week-end.  So now we have a blue mustang.   At least for the day!

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In addition to the HUGE basketball upset we had one more bit of bad news and it was much worse. Not as bad as bypass surgery though.

On our way to Hillsborough River for the Myeloma doctor visit this year, we got a crack in the lower corner of the driver’s side front windshield.  We intended to have it fixed at Hillsborough and had contacted the insurance company about getting it replaced.  But then the heart situation showed up out of the blue and it wasn’t until this week that we had enough room to breath and have the repairman come out and take a look.


Windshield bummerLooked like a simple thing to Mike Howard from RV Glass Tech until he took off the rubber facing over the frame.  We’d had someone else look at this earlier becasue of the possibility of rust being a factor and they had said it was just minor. 

But Mike is much more experienced and showed us clear holes in the windshield frame.  He said he’d seen a lot of this on Winnebago Motorhomes. 

I love Winnona and have loved Winnebago.  But this is the one place where I would definitely NOT recommend Winnebago.  The rusting out of windshield frames is a known problem which they do not stand behind.  They should have done a recall a long time ago. We didn’t know about this when we bought Winnona.  We didn’t have a clue about anything RV when we bought Winnona.

Mike said he could replace the glass but because of the rust he could not warranty it.  He recommended that we take it into a collision place in Clearwater – 45 miles away – that he said could repair the frame and he would go there and put the glass in while it was in their shop.  Talking with the owner of Collisiontec RV, he said they could fit us in on April 1, it would take 5 days and becasue of the fumes and metal work, we could not stay in the RV.  Cost was estimated to start at $1200 depending on what they find.  

That means of course that I had to find a hotel room in Clearwater which is happily near the beach but unhappily March and April are Spring Break Months.  Add $600 to the bill to stay for 4 days in the least expensive thing that had reviews talking about clean rather than dirty with bedbugs.  I looked into waiting until we are in Virginia to have this done but Charlottesville is SO not an RV town that the closest place is on the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains and not nearly as highly recommended as Mike and Collisiontec.   SO . . . to Clearwater we go. 

On a lighter note, last night, the hot water heater went out.  We both just looked at each other.   REALLY?   This morning David found it was a fuse.  Whew . . . hope we dodged a bullet and something isn’t waiting in the wings.

And that’s the latest from our wonderful winter of 2018.

21 comments:

  1. Rotten luck with that window. The cranes are beauties... as are those cars!

    Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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  2. Good to see David enjoying food...and cars. Nothing like having the cars delivered all around Winnona. Glad this is a low maintenance place for David to recover. Sounds like you have found a couple of interests...line dancing (I'll join you)....and restocking the book shelves. Happy St. Paddy's Day to both of you. You are both in my thoughts almost daily. I wrote a long entry to you both last month.. but did something wrong and it disappeared. Roger is having fun with pickleball and racquetball. We all went to a rock stacking/arts and crafts festival a couple of hours away... in Llano. Stayed in a really quaint bed and breakfast for two nights...all the girls went...fun times. Certainly hoping David has turned a corner and soon you can move on. What a challenge this has been. I am sorry, Love to both. Carol

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  3. I feel your pain, Sherry, but learned my lesson when we didn't go to the Final Four Ralph's last year, and I felt like someone had died. I vowed then never to get as invested in any game again, and I have lived by it ever since. I carried it too far in those days. Still, it's disappointing. The good news, I'm sure you know, is that our women won and are playing Dawn's SC team tomorrow (albeit on her home floor). Wahoowa forever!

    Love that y'all are so close to those weekly meals and family cranes. I know that David was happy with that car show, too. So nice when it comes to you.

    I envy you being in beautiful Florida this month. I hope that I can make a quick trip in April when my new grandniece is born in Jacksonville, FL. I long for warm, sunny days. Hopefully, not too much longer for us in C'ville. Tell David hi. I think of and pray for y'all every day. Thanks for sharing on the blog. Go 'Hoos!

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  4. I am with David, eating over line dancing anytime. Winnebago is infamous for the rust on the front windshield. Many places will not even touch them because of that. We had water leaks and rust issues on our Meridian that luckily did not turn critical while we had it.

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  5. So many nice cars, very nice for David. Sand Hill Cranes are as much fun to watch as Pelicans, they seem so smart.

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  6. I would have preferred the line dancing a few years back, but now I'll take eating any time over the dancing! And of course, I'd shelve books whenever possible!

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  7. Sounds like more meals than five, but that is all they do each month - one each Thursday & only one breakfast on the 1st Saturday. I was surprised to learn that the 1999 shiny black Corvette is owned by the chef who is responsible for the wonderful meals we have/will enjoy before we move on. Glad you found some good birds on your walks. Thank goodness for cable and March Madness - except when our favorite team loses of course (:

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  8. Seems like you are more than making the most of this required staying in one place. Toss up between dancing and eating. Car show was cool to have in your yard. Drag about the windshield. Hoping for the end of bad luck.

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  9. You have boots! Cool! Everytime we travel through Texas I think about getting a pair of boots. :-) Looks like you're making the best of your extended stay at Quail Run. Glad you both are finding opportunities to indulge your respective hobbies, haha! I'm really sorry to hear about Winnona's windshield problems. You must be relieved that it can be repaired, and that you found a place to stay (without bedbugs) over spring break. It's great to see David out and about, and to see you doing things you enjoy. We'll miss you at O'Leno!

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  10. Looks like you have been busy, while David is healing. Im impressed you are able to store your boots and use it at the same time. I would be joining you in line dancing. Steve would be in heaven had that car show is near Betsy! I would not mind being in that RV park, it sure looks a lot better than where we were :) for four months.
    That is great to know about holes in the windshield frame, Betsy is a W and our windshield has a crack.

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  11. As usual you’re keeping busy. There are some activities at this park as well, but we’re not joiners by nature and prefer our quiet walks to keep us entertained between daily life errands and the like. Trying to find a reasonably-priced place to stay in San Antonio during our getaway was similarly frustrated by Spring Break, so I understand your pain. Glad to hear David’s recovery is coming along nicely that he’s enjoying the food activities ;-)

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  12. I had to laugh at David wanting to attend all those dinners. Probably not so heart healthy ;-)
    I would be right there with you line dancing. I didn't think I would like it but it really is a fun way to get some exercise.
    And too bad about the window frame, but at least Clearwater will be a change in scenery. It is always something with an RV.

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  13. I can't dance even off a line, let alone on one. You are sooo talented!

    I'm with you on the WB windshield rust, had problems in 2003 on our Adventurer and similar ones with our 2007 Journey. They refuse to acknowledge that issue. After making such good rigs, it is sad they have not corrected that fault. Makes me wonder what a 2018 rig's window frame looks like.

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  14. Well, at least there are choices of things to do there even if it's not your kind of atmosphere. Sounds like it's a friendly place. I bet the library is a organized now that you've been there. My favorite vehicle is the turquoise truck, of course. Shame on Winnebago for not recalling the models that have the rusty windshield frames. Glad you didn't choose one of the hotels that was dirty and has bedbugs. ACK! I stayed in a hotel in FL that had metal furniture and I shoved the metal dresser against the door because I was sure we were going to be killed there. There were silverfish in the shower. Don't even want to think about bedbugs. UGH.

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  15. Oh My!!! when it rains, it pours!!!

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  16. While not your kind of place seems you're making the best of the situation. We haven't joined in anything here this winter, too busy socializing with friends who are visiting the valley. Love the boots, I have mine with me for the few times I go riding or just feel like wearing them. Hope you're out of there soon.

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  17. You might check out AirBnb as an alternative to a hotel. I've not used it but family and friends have and they've been very happy with it. We also had friends who listed their home with the company and they were very happy with how it worked out for them.

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  18. Sounds like a fun park to stay, even if it's not your 'it' factor. Love the activities, I used to line dance.

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  19. Glad you are finding the positive in your situation. What else can you do?

    aii yaii yaii. ..RV issues. . .always something or other. ..right?

    Glad David is progressing well. Continued prayers and well wishes.

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  20. I'm always amazed at you guys. Sounds like David is doing very well. Rich used to love car shows. We saw the best one in Durango CO. Another place, if you are ever in the area, is Deer Lodge, Montana. Besides a great time exploring the 1st Montana penitentiary, they have a museum with one of the largest collections of cars AND two of the earlies RVs and trailers. Quite something to see.

    We had a leak in our Winnebago front window, too. Of course, at the time, we didn't know it was common. The 1999 Cheiftan was my favorite RV--I loved the inside space and storage. I hated going to three slides, but I'm glad Rich got an RV he really loved. I didn't realize exactly how much storage I was actually losing.

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  21. Dancing and food and cars..not all bad in Quail Run. Neat library too. Glad there were some upsides to it. Bummer about UVA and Winnebago rust!!

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