Fairs and Festivals

I love markets, festivals and fairs!
Wherever we go, if we find a festival... we are there! to enjoy the sights, the smells, the tastes and the culture!

I loved the Grant 42nd Seafood festival in Grant FL on March

And St. Patrick's Day Parade In Hollywood FL on March 11, 2018

As well as the second Thursdays music and art in Old Naples or the Motorcycles Rally in Panama City Beach FL about a week ago.

 

And the best one was the Gulf Coast Air Balloon Festival in Foley Alabama, last weekend.
On Saturday we found out about it, we went there in the evening and watched how those giants come to life! A huge field was covered with giant balloons, in all colors. You see them starting to rise up, you hear the roar of the burners heating the air inside causing them to proudly seek the sky.
Arik said to me... This primitive technology is amazing!

The next morning we went back to see the competition. They had to calculate the wind and route and drop an "egg" on a target. They came from many directions, but only two dropped the "eggs" on the field, missing the target by few meters. All the others flew far away...

 

We saw many more fairs and festivals... These are just some examples.

Home is where you tow it! Life on board of an RV Trailer

We left home in Columbia MO at the end of January. I had an idea of what it's going to be, however, now, after about 3 months on the road, I have some more insights...

* Home - Your travel trailer becomes your home after a while.
Imagine your home/apartment squeezed into about 150 sq. Ft. (14.5 sq. M.). It is compact, it is one space, if you need more space you need to get out, never the less, you have everything you need in your RV.
A bed to sleep on (queen size in our case), a kitchen to cook your meals (including refrigerator, sink, microwave, stove, oven and storage), a dinette that can squeeze in even 4 people and a sofa to sit on and watch your TV (if there is a connection). We also have bathroom with shower which we never used up until now, a toilet and sink. And a wonderful radio!
We say at the end of a long day: It's time to go home... Yep, we got used to consider it home.

* Storage space - I say all the time that we took with us too much stuff.
Too many kitchenware, too many cloths, etc. We took lots of books in purpose to read but who has the time to read? I took canvases and colors and brushes and a lot more, but I don't find the time to sit and paint.
When you pack your home before going on the road, you think you need to take with you lots of stuff, in case I'll need it...
It's not that there is not enough storage space, there is enough! It's the fact that in order to take something out of your cabinets you need to take lots of things out, because it's hiding somewhere in the back of the cabinet... This drives me crazy! These are the cases I say to myself: Why did I take this or that... who needs it???
This does not refer to equipment you need for maintanace. Arik equiped us with everything you can imagine and it prooved to be helpful.
Overall I think that ALL YOU NEED IS LESS!

* Tie and anchor everything - That's what you need to do before moving from one site to another.
Remove everything that might move from its place and store it, or tie and anchor it. Make sure that your stored things are in such position that it will not fall out of the closets when you open the doors... We lost some glasses this way and some pans fell on my head.

* Leveling the RV - Sometimes you come to a site that the soil or gravel is not leveled. At the beginning of our trip we didn't deal with it. It happened that we slept in our bed with our heads lower than our feet... I woke up a little dizzy and being inside the RV felt strange. In most cases the sites are leveled. About a week ago we felt confident enough to improve the balance. We used the supports we have for leveling the RV and did it! It was perfect!

Trees in Florida

Pines and Cypresses are native to Florida. These can be found everywhere, old or young, tall, by the sea shore, in swamp areas, on sandy hills and in the endless forests. There are as well Oaks, Magnolias, Hickory trees, Mangroves and Palms! Hundreds of species of Palms...

Old towns, estates and plantations present oak and palm trees two and even three hundred years old, amazingly huge, tall and impressive.

About Cypress trees. The species here are different from the one we are familiar with from the Mediterranean area. They grow to an unbelievable height over 100 ft. Here you find it in dry and wet lands and even near salty water. In those cases, the tree grows a whole system of air roots that seems like sculptures, sometimes in a very large circle around the trunk, sometimes popping out of the water near the tree.







When a tree dies in the forest, a whole new circle of life begins. Insects, worms and other creatures start consuming it. Animals dig holes and find shelter in it while feeding on the worms and insects. The dieing tree creates space for new younger and strong trees.

In the state parks we learned that the park rangers use fire to maintain the health of the forests. They light prescribed fires to get rid of the lower vegetation on the floor of the forest, this promote renewable and healthy forest and replace the natural fires that once shaped the landscape of Florida's forests.

Wood industry: Driving along the roads of Florida makes you wonder about the thousands of acres of Pine trees growing everywhere, vertically and parallel to each other. This is the Cellulose fiber industry. You will see Pine trees from young Pine plants, to very tall ones growing up to about 100 ft and more. Then you might see caravans of trucks carrying cut trees. Cellulose fiber is one of the most important industries of Florida.

One Ficus tree forest ... located at the Adison & Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers.
Adison was interested in Botany and brought plants from all over the aorld to grow on his land in Florida.

I'm not a botanist so I'll not pretend I know a lot about trees, BUT, I found new things about trees here in Florida...

For example, there is a strangling fig tree! It grows from the top of a tree down to earth. It spins around the trunk of a tree, growing and fastening its hold, sucking the vitality of the tree until it dies!

Strangling Fig on a Cypress tree

There are many kinds of epiphytes that live on the trees. These are not parasites! They both live in peace with each other.

West Florida

Dear friends,
Florida is amazing!!!

It's the land of beautiful beaches, endless forests, deep blue springs, lots of hotels, motels and RV parks, thousands of bridges, lot of lighthouses, swamps, marshes and hundreds of villages for 55 and more retirees...

Nature is exciting! Birds of all kinds are all over the place, reptiles lie in the sun to warm up, squirrels are everywhere. They say that there are still black bears and panthers... but we didn't see those.

We found some charming towns and neighborhoods: St Augustin, Old Naples, Tarpon Springs, Cedar Key. If you visit Florida add these to your must list.

Next I'll tell you about trees in Florida.

Back to Florida

About a month passed since we paused our trip for a visit back home to Israel.
Meeting our family and friends was fabulous! Passover was as good as possible... One of the best!
It's spring time in Israel, the weather was perfect, the Galilee and Golan Heights are covered with grass, it's green wherever you look. The best time to visit the country.

Now we're back to business... We spent the weekend with our friends Batia and Claudia in Oakland Park near Fort Lauderdale.

Batia and me

Batia is my highschool frind, this month we had a great reunion after more than 45 years! Well, we did meet a year and a half ago in Israel... but this stay with Batia was the real reunion.

With Claudia and Batia on the beach

Marty 

It was wonderful to meet again with Marty and Kooshi... what a welcome party!

Now we're ready to move on! Today we're starting the second part of our trip. We're going west, to Collier Seminole State Park, on the edge of the Everglades.

More adventures to come.

Ilan Ramon at Kennedy Space Center

Wed. Feb 28, 2018

Time for Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral.



We spent a long day at the space center and enjoyed it very much. I'm not going to describe what we saw. You can find a lot of information on line. My suggestions are: First, if you are in Florida, don't miss it! Second, take one of the tours available, it adds a lot to your experience.   www.kennedyspacecenter.com



As Israelis, we were interested in Ilan Ramon's story. He was the first and only Israeli astronaut.

He went to space mission on board of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The disaster of Columbia shook us all in Israel 15 years ago. The findings that are presented on display touched me. 

The next day was one of the best! We came back to Cape Canaveral to watch a rocket launch!!!

We watched it from the top of the Exploration Tower at Port Canaveral. 

This is really an amazing experience, you hear the roar and feel the vibration of the air.

It was so exciting that we plan to watch the next launch on April 16th. This one is going to be even better since it's a much bigger rocket, the Spacex Falcon!   http://www.spacex.com/

Bridges

In a place where nearly everyone drives a car and there are so many water ways, bridges are a necessity.

On our way to Kenndy Center at Cape Canavarel we had to stop on the bridge. We stood at the traffic lights on the bridge, the gates of the bridge went up towards the sky and a tall mast of a big yacht crossed in front of us. The same happened few more times while crossing bridges.



We found here different kind of bridges... Tall, wide, flat, long and short bridges.

For walking...

 

As well as for cars