Sure, there are days when we feel like we are “sitting” there—we are retired after all, have our health, and are in Florida for the winter at a nice RV resort—but today we were not sitting on top of the world.  Rather, we were at On Top Of The World for a one hour talk on “humanism and problem-solving” by Jennifer Hancock.

OTOTW is a large, upscale, planned retirement community just southwest of Ocala, Florida off FL-200.  We were at a retail/community plaza that included the sales office, a sizeable theater, coffee and ice cream shops, and a few other businesses including one named Master The Possibilities.  MTP is the education center for the complex and offers a wide menu of self-development experiences.

We were made aware of this presentation by John and Marian Hagan from our FMCA Freethinkers chapter and they also attended.  The presentation was sponsored by the newly formed Humanists of North Central Florida (HNCFL), which is affiliated with the American Humanist Association.

After the talk I had to take a phone call from our son.  He was checking the house and called to let us know that the battery on our backup sump pump was indicating that it needed to have water added.  I talked him through that and then the four of us headed to a nearby Panera to talk over food and coffee.  I think it was the first Panera we have been to since we left Michigan on December 19.

We stopped at the Publix supermarket on US-27 just west of Ocala to do our weekly food shopping and got back to the RV resort around 8:15 PM.  We had left at 11:00 AM to do some shopping before the lecture, so it had been a long day.  We were surprised that there wasn’t anyone at the fire pit, when Linda remembered that tonight was a dinner/dance at the resort.

I walked over to the fire pit and found the remnants of a fire still smoldering so I pushed the pieces back into a pile and the fire came back to life.  I spent over an hour tending the fire and enjoying the warmth against the chill of the night air.  A few people wandered by and stopped to chat briefly.  John (from Vermont) mentioned that his son, Matt, who uses a wheelchair, was a ham radio operator, but didn’t have any of his equipment with him.  I offered to lend him one of our Kenwood HT’s and have a QSO with him sometime if he wanted to do that.

I forgot to mention in yesterday’s post that we met Golda The Adventure Dog at the campfire on Friday night.  A very sweet and gentle animal, she is part Anatolian Sheppard and has her own Facebook page.