THE QUEST BEGINS

Christmas this year was about as wonderful as Cindy and I could want or deserve. We got everything we wanted. ie. all of the chicks under the same snow covered and very cold roof.

In Florida we've discovered that when the temp's are in the mid 60's it's considered too cold for teenagers to go outside.

This is the view from our front door and we've decided to buy the 9 acres behind the flag and build our winter home. Of course we still have to negotiate the price. I've set our limit at 300. dollars an acre. Kelly thinks that may be a tad bit low but Mike pointed out that Walt Disney only paid 28. dollars an acre back in 1962 so it shouldn't have gone up much more than 100%.

I've been working on my relaxed look, and Cindy is in shorts (so you know it must be warm.

Tomorrow we head to Wally World. We have almost everything we want or need in life. There is someone we will miss but if I can get my son-in-law to quit blocking me on Skype maybe we can see her...Love and miss you all....

ORANGES

Even though I've been to Florida on vacation many times, there is much to learn about this state.

Apparently there are some very interesting places besides that Magic Mouse park...Pat's place is one...

Pat is a retired physic's teacher who repairs instruments....He has a wooden shack behind his house chuck full of trumpets, guitars, saxophones, tuba's etc...He has strong opinions about musicians. Apparently his daughter is dating a drummer. If asked Pat will take the time to explain about the saxophone on his bench. It's in about 100 pieces and was found underwater.

Oranges are really a hybrid between lemon and orange. If a freeze (like the one in 82) hits really hard it kills the orange part of the tree and leaves just the lemon part of the tree. A few years later a fruit grows that looks just like a navel orange and tastes like lemon acid.

Also we've found a couple of potential winter properties...we're thinking of selling the trailer and buying a nice piece of land next door to the McGorman's....If we can get it for 1,000. an acre we'll be breaking ground next week....

Bo Versus The Mouse

Well, the pixie dust has dissolved as Bo had an altercation with Mickey today... the back story. We thought we had reservations for Disney World starting Dec. 30, but found out that they start on the 31st. We tried several times to add a day to our reservations, but have not succeeded... this is not a big deal as we are visiting our friends, Kelli and Mike McGorman and they are very generous hosts. In fact, they asked us to stay an extra night to attend their New Year's Eve party, so we tried to cancel our first night, the 31st, and discovered that it would cost us $85 more to cancel a night. After spending many minutes on and off hold, he concluded discussions with Babs, the reservations clerk and asked for Guest Relations and things went down hill from there... You would think that someone who has gone to WDW at least 25 times and owns stock in the company, might be able to cancel one night without having to pay 2010 prices (when the reservations were made in January 2009).

Bo has refused to write this posting, but I felt that in the climate of full disclosure, we needed to add this bit of information on our itinerary. We will get to Disney on the planned day, but the magic is gone... at least for now. More later.

What is the half-life of a loaf of bread?

Well, after our kids left on Christmas day, we decided to fight the weather and leave for GR on Christmas evening. This entailed a four hour cleaning, packing, closing up of the house.... turning off the water, putting antifreeze in all the orifices, etc. We cleaned out the refrigerator and checked all the cupboards.... except the bread drawer. It was about half way to GR, with the trailer weaving behind the truck when I remembered that I had bought a small loaf of Meiers baguette and put it in the bread drawer. It is still there.... So we are hoping that a lucky mouse finds it before it becomes penicillin!

Our trip was very cold. The temperature did not top 40 until we got to Florida, but it was in the 60s today and we did a lot of walking in sunny central Florida. We will be leaving for Disney on New Year's Eve, but that is the topic of the next blog... Bo versus The Mouse.