Good Bye Villages

We’ve spent the last two weeks at the Villages.  I want to make some cracks about the golf carts or the average age of people down here but it just doesn’t seem right.  Spoiler alert:  The average age is “older” and the golf carts are not only functional but fun.  We have had some wonderful times here.  Before my brother Bill left for Green Bay, he and I got in a final bit of tennis. 



It was sad to see Bill go but it was terrific that Erin and

Kathleen were able to make the trip down for a visit!  We were able to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, had some wonderful meals and also had great visits with some cousins and friends from home.  While were here we met some exceptionally nice people (not Jen the waitress at Too Jays).  We’ve run into more than a few people from Wisconsin and some were even from Green Bay!   

We did have some rain (sorry Kathleen and Erin) but in

general the weather has been close to ideal.  Our hosts, Bill and Karen Early, could not have been more gracious or generous! We loved the home they let us borrow and their new place is even nicer.  Barb and Bruce Hoag were nice enough to travel up to the Villages for a fun lunch and as my mother would say, “we had such a nice visit”.  It’s too bad we don’t see them more often.   

We head for home soon and I gotta say, The Villages was a wonderful part of this journey. 

Life off the Road

Cathy and I have truly enjoyed our time on the road.  Camping has been wonderful.  However our rest stops at The Villages served as great respites for us.  After we left The Villages following a week long stay, we wrote a letter to Bill and Karen Early and my brother, Bill.  Bill and Karen have been our hosts for our stays in the Villages.  We later returned to their home and found the letter we had written to them framed and hanging on their wall.  Here is that letter although the original was hand written:

Dear Bill and Karen and Bill,
     We hate camping and we want to come “home”.  We don’t like the other campers and they don’t like us.  I THINK it’s because they are all stupid but Cathy SAYS that they just sound stupid because of their accents.  That’s why they don’t like her – because she says it all the time – to them!
     We are sleeping well.  Not really – my Cpap machine, the one with the Reggie White sticker on it, stopped working, so I am afraid of dying in my sleep.  Cathy sleeps at night and in the daytime she spends eight hours watching me breathe while I sleep.  But it’s ok, that still gives us 8 hours to make meals and clean and not watch tv as we have no reception.
   There are no pools here.  There is only an ocean.  To get to the water you have to walk on sand which gets our feet dirty.
   The only good thing is that I don’t have to power wash anything here.
   Please come and get us.
   Love,
 Ken and Cathy

Fort Clinch

Since last we blogged, we left Savannah and headed back to life in our camper.  This time we set up our little home at Fort Clinch, located at the North end of Amelia Island.  The most prominent feature of the park is not

surprisingly, Fort Clinch.  The fort was built between 1847 and 1869 and is made up of over 5 million bricks.  Most of the bricks were shipped down to Florida from the New York area.  Besides the Fort, the park features (now say it with me) miles and miles of beach.  The nearest public beach outside the park is Fernandina.  The town of Fernandina has an old historic district conveniently located a mile outside of our park.

We have had almost all of our meals at the campsite.  I have already spent more time in grocery stores during this trip than I have during the previous 20 years and I find the experience shocking!  As my brother John has said, “If the public finds out that you can find all this uncooked food so cheaply in stores, it could have a devastating effect on restaurants!”  It seems John does not recognize the words, grocery store.  Instead he calls it “that place where you can buy uncooked food”.

On the occasions that we have ventured out for “cooked food” we’ve had great experiences.  This is in great part due to my traveling companion.  Today was a travel day so we stopped at a Waffle House.  We had never been to one and they are everywhere.  As the old expression goes, “you can’t swing a dead cat around here without hitting one”.  Ok maybe that’s a Blaney expression but Waffle Houses are everywhere.  We stopped at 2:00 so the place was a quiet.  Cathy, being Cathy says to the waitress, “We’ve never been to a Waffle House, this is our first time”.  The waitress says to the other waitress who in turn says to the cook, “they’ve never been to a Waffle House before, this is their first time!”  Cathy and the waitress reviewed almost every item on the menu before deciding on waffles.

Later that same day we went to a Mexican place near the hotel we are staying at

(moving day).  You’ve never heard Mariachi music until you’ve heard a nine piece mariachi band playing “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” in a smallish restaurant.

On to The Villages!

Fountain Of Youth

                                                                        ST. AUGUSTINE, FL

Ken, Juan & Cathy

Before leaving St. Augustine, we made one last tourist stop, Juan Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth.  We had blown it off as a weird little tourist trap but discovered it’s actually a significant archeological and historic village.  It has historic presentations, a planetarium and some living history characters strolling through the park.  However, we thought it comical that they offered senior citizen discounts.  I mean, it’s the Fountain of Youth!  Senior Citizens are your target audience! 

Yes, we swallowed our pride and happily took the discount. 

It was nice of Juan to leave the plastic cups for us!

                                         ************************************

                                                         SAVANNAH, GEORGIA

Yup, we're in Georgia

On Saturday we took a hop-on hop-off tour of Savannah, GA. We learned that when the city was founded there were four prohibitions: No liquor, no slavery, no lawyers and no Catholics.  Ironically, the highlight of the tour was St. John the Baptist Cathedral.

A half hour before Mass there were two priests hearing confessions.  The line was at various times 8-10 people deep!   When I asked a tour guide he told me that it was a little longer than usual.  Savannah hosts the second largest St. Patrick’s Day parade in the country.  This gave the tour guide the opportunity to tell me about the time he was working at the Cathedral on a Saturday morning following a Friday St. Patrick’s Day.  Nobody was going to

The donor's are listed as
"Hugh Molhand and wife".

confession.  When he asked the priest why, the priest replied, “I don’t think they’re done sinning yet.”