Tag Archives: Office Max

2015/12/07 (M) Not on Vacation

Leave a reply

I set my iPad alarm clock last night for 5:30 AM.  As soon as the alarm went off Jasper got up next to me on the outside edge of my side of the bed, snuggled in by chest, and wanted to be petted at great length.  I obliged him for as long as I could and was rewarded with his loud, resonant purring, which I could feel as much as hear.  I still managed to get out of bed by 5:45, feed the cats, get dressed, and be on my way by 6:08.

It’s only 75 miles from Williston to Suncoast Designers in Hudson, but the first few miles were a slow roll through the RV resort to the front gate followed by the short trip through downtown with a 35 MPH speed limit and several stop lights.  After a short distance on US-41 south I picked up FL-115 heading west.  A few miles past the airport it made a large sweeping turn to the south and continued on that heading for about 17 miles at 60 MPH until it joined up with to US-19.  I continued south on US-19 at 65 MPH for another 20 miles.  At that point it felt like I was making good time but I knew what was ahead as I had driven this route several times when we were here in 2014.

US-19 gets closer to the Gulf of Mexico the farther south you go, and with that closeness comes an increasing presence of people.  The first population center I came to was the charming little “Suncoast” town of Crystal River, followed by Ingless, Homosassa Springs, Weeki Wachi, and then finally Hudson.  These towns all have much lower speed limits and stop lights, and they get larger and closer together the farther south you go.  The side of the road changes from forest and farm to intermittent small businesses, then continuous shall businesses, and then suburban commerce that extends back from the main road until you reach Hudson which is a far northern suburb in the greater Tampa / St. Petersburg metropolitan area.  From Weeki Wachi on south US-19 is six lanes with a median, is lined with commercial properties, and has lots of traffic.

I arrived at Suncoast Designers a little before 8 AM so the trip took about an hour and 45 minutes.  I checked in at the office and they had someone meet me at the factory door to take the window and label it with my name.  We had this thermopane window repaired in April 2014 but the new seal did not hold.  Getting it repaired was one of our reasons for returning to Florida this winter.  Not the main reason, of course, but a factor in our decision.  I was back in my car and on the way home by 8:20 AM.  I will have to come back tomorrow to pick it up.

On the drive down I spotted a Dunkin Donuts about 10 miles north of Hudson on the west side of US-19 so I stopped there on the way back for a large coffee.  I had also seen quite a few filling stations between Crystal River and Hudson, many of them Shell stations, so I picked one that had easy access and regular gasoline (10% Ethanol) for $2.03 per gallon, cash or credit.

I remembered seeing an Office Max and pulled in when I spotted it.  By now it was well after 9 AM and businesses were open.  They had several different weights of expensive color laser photo paper but nothing like that in 8.5×14 (legal) size.  I did not need to have the paper today so I did not buy any.  I really do not want to redo our Holiday Letter for 8.5×11 paper so I will check online and see what I can get.  There was a Rural King at the same mall complex as the Office Max so I bought two bags of Spectracide Fire Ant Killer.  I also got a bag of free popcorn, which is available at all Rural King stores.  More places should do that, I think.

It was going on 11 AM by the time I got back to the coach.  Linda had been up since 7 AM and was ready to set her cross-stitch project aside and go for a walk.  I had been sitting for the better part of five hours so that sounded good to me.  We went for a vigorous stroll through the resort and arrived back at our coach ready for lunch.  Linda heated up a couple of vegan hot dogs and served them on the large whole wheat buns with mustard and relish.

After lunch I installed updates on the FMCA Freethinkers chapter website, the FMCA GLCC chapter website, and our personal website.  I then took snapshots in Adobe Reader CC of the covers of the BCM issues for July through December 2015, post-processed the covers, and uploaded them to the BCM page on our website along with brief descriptions of my articles that appeared in each issue.  I finished inserting photos into the OASIS Combi article I’ve been working on for BCM and will upload it to our Dropbox and e-mail Butch this evening.

It was a gorgeous day so we sat outside for a while and I worked on this post.  That is one of the things I really like about my iPad.  An earlier e-mail from Gary indicated that my package was out for delivery today.  I was about to get in my car and drive to the office when Joe and Teresa from Brighton, Michigan stopped in their golf cart to chat.  When they went on their way I dropped off the recyclables on my way to the office, picked up the box of magazines (which was heavy), and returned to the coach.

I worked some more on this post on my iPad but by 5:30 PM I had been up for 12 hours on too little sleep so I took a nap until 6:15 PM when Linda woke me up to have dinner.  For dinner Linda made a green salad with fresh blueberries and strawberries and made black bean smothered sweet potatoes.  Besides the black beans, the topping had tomatoes, scallions, cumin, and coriander and was finished off with a dollop of vegan sour cream.  Yum, yum, yum.

We watched the PBS NewsHour, another thing we typically never do, but then we do a lot of things differently when we are away from home.  We then watched our usual Monday night TV programs on CBS.  Even when we are away some things don’t change.  We are not “on vacation” after all.  We don’t go on vacation to get bus windows repaired.  In fact, we no longer go on vacation, we simply blend new experiences into our everyday lives.  Such is the nature of retirement as extended-time RVers in a converted bus.

 

2014/02/12(W) Back In Time

Leave a reply

We woke to an overcast sky with rain in the forecast for the afternoon.  One of the closer state parks to us is the Dudley Farm Historic State Park.  I don’t know how many types of state parks Florida has, but so far we have been to: “Regular” (un-designated/default); Preserve; Buffer (Preserve); Wilderness (Preserve); Archeological; Geological; and Wildlife/preserve.  This was our first Historic(al) park and I know they have Battlefield parks.   I will not be surprised to find out there are other types as well, such as Marine or Bird Sanctuary.

Located in Newberry, Florida the Dudley Farm Historic SP is NW of Williston and due west of Gainesville.  We also needed to do some shopping today, so a trip to the state park in the morning (before the rain started) followed by a swing through Gainesville was our plan for the day.  We were on our way by 10 AM, taking US-27/41 NNW out of  Williston through Archer to Newberry where we headed west on Newberry Road (FL-26) about a mile to the park entrance.

Although there was plenty of room to park, we were surprised by the number of cars in the parking lot.  The park is not open on Monday’s and Tuesday’s, but the reason for the crowd became evident when we entered the visitor center.  In addition to the normal park staff and volunteers there where at least six women in period clothing working on an old large quilt and another woman weaving at a small loom.  Wednesday mornings is when this happens and it added a touch of “living history” to our visit.  I have posted a separate photo gallery of our visit to the Farm.

There were a few buildings by the visitor center for display and demonstration, but the main farm was a quarter mile walk through the woods on a level path.  The Dudley Farm was a thriving, successful family enterprise that began before the Civil War and continued until after WW II.  The farmstead, consisting of 18 buildings, equipment, and furnishings, was donated to the State in the early 1980’s along with 23 acres of the 600+ acre farm.  The State later acquired an additional 232 acres and more recently another 80 acres for the visitor center, entrance road and parking lot area.  This is not a “recreated” farm; all the buildings are in their original locations except for the General Store, which was moved to the farmstead from its location near the main road.

We roamed the farmstead for over an hour looking at, and going in, buildings and taking photographs.  We had the place to ourselves except for some birds, chickens, turkeys, and three mules.  Although the farm was “rough” by modern standards, it was interesting to try to imagine this place as a “state of the art” operation full of generations of Dudley’s and farm hands engaged in the slow but steady work of farm and domestic life.  The tendency is to romanticize and envision this place as somehow idyllic.  It wasn’t.  The farmhouse was certainly comfortable compared to being outside, and life was good (at least for the Dudley’s), but it was no doubt a hard life.

By the time we were done touring the farmstead the overcast had lowered almost to a ground cloud and it had started misting.  Although we lacked bright sunlight, blue skies, and intense colors, the soft, even, subdued light was ideal for making lower contrast images and seemed somehow appropriate in mood to the empty, gray, weathered buildings of this now quiet farmstead, preserved so that we might glimpse a moment back in time.

If the Dudley Farm HSP was the past, Gainesville is definitely the here and now.  As we got to I-75 on FL-26 we encountered heavy traffic.  We had not been to this part of Gainesville yet, but now we know where the major shopping area is located!  You name it, it’s here.  Conveniently for us the Office Max, Michaels, Trader Joe’s, and PetSmart were all in the same mega shopping center (one of many).  Trader Joe’s had a quite a selection of house brand wines for $2.99/bottle (750 mL) so we bought several.  I hope they are to our liking, because I sure like the price.  They did not, however, have a house brand moscato 🙁  A final stop at the Kangaroo filling station for fuel and we were on our way back to WCRVResort.

Linda made one of our favorite dishes for dinner; whole wheat capellini (angel hair) pasta with garlic, onions, mushrooms (two kinds), sun-dried tomatoes, and basil lightly sautéed in olive oil; simple, but absolutely delicious.