FLORIDA & SPRING TRAINING 2012

We left Sun City on Saturday, the 24th of March, for Ft. Myers, FL for two weeks to see some Spring Training games. On Friday I checked out the motorhome, all seemed fine. Saturday morning while loading the refrigerator, we discovered that it wouldn't work on propane. Since Dick Gore's RV place was on the way, we stopped there to have them check it out. Turned out that the Norcold recall affected the components that allowed the refrigerator to operate. The mechanic there cut out the propane option so that the refrigerator would run on AC. This took about four hours, but we were able to have refrigeration and continued on our way, stopping at the KOA in Starke, FL. We liked this KOA and would recommend it. We left there Sunday morning and arrived at Shady Acres Travel Park in Ft. Myers, FL around 5 pm.  As you can see from the picture below, our large site turned out to be anything but large.

But, the guests were all very nice, most were staying for more than one month to escape the winter up North. There were many Canadians. The couple on our left were from RI while on our right were some college students. The RV park was quiet, but very crowded. The smell of sewage made its way around the park as it was pumped from one area to another. I was told that just before we arrived, the odor was in our area.

On the 28th, we saw the Phillies vs Twins at Hammond Stadium, home of the Twins. The Twins won.

Hammond Stadium was really beautiful, we had lawn seats as shown above. Great view, but we had to be alert for balls coming our way. One of the things I really liked was the 24 oz Modello cans of beer. They also offered great dogs and burgers. The bad thing was no shade, so we were out in the hot sun for over 3 hours. Used plenty of sun screen.

The following day, we visited the Edison-Ford Winter estates. Edison purchased 14 acres there in 1885 and built two homes, one for himself and one for his guests, and a laboratory. He conducted lots of botanical research there in an effort to produce natural rubber from trees/plants that could be grown in the US. After Henry Ford had been a guest there, he purchased an adjacent home in 1916. We had been there a number of years ago and liked it so much we went back again. We got a season pass which cost us $5 less than what a day pass would have cost. We took a behind the scenes tour which allowed us to enter most of the rooms in the Edison and Ford winter homes.

As you enter the museum, you are greeted  by Thomas Edison standing by his gigantic banyan tree which covers over one acre. Across the street are the Edison and Ford winter homes.

This is our guide Alison Giesen giving us a tour of Edison's laboratory in which he tried various plants to get rubber extract. Since Giesen is my mother's maiden name, I did ask, but apparently no connection since she was not that familiar with her husband's family history.  He even tried Confederate jasmine which we have covering our arbor back home. He eventually settled on a Goldenrod hybrid which he developed that grew several feet tall. His experiments came to an end when synthetic rubber was discovered. Both Ford and his friend Harvey Firestone helped fund his research.  

 Above are two views of the Edison home.

 This is Edison's bedroom.

Above is one of Edison's offices on his Winter estate. He had one in his laboratory, one in his home, and one in a separate building which is that shown.

Above are shown some of the items invented by Edison, light bulb and phonograph. He had a total of 1093 patents during his life time. Amazing in scope, from Portland cement to iron extraction to telephone to phonograph to hybrid goldenrod to dicta-phone. His one folly was his refusal to recognize alternating current for commercialization.

Below are some pictures from the Ford estate

This is one of several Mysore fig trees on the estate. They come from Mysore, India. The Ford house is seen in the background.

 The root system is really fabulous.

 Between the two homes is a building containing a Model T and a '29 Model A Ford, along with a life size picture of Henry himself.

Above is the Ford home behind a row of magnificent Royal palms.

On the following two days we again went to Hammond Stadium to see the Twins play the Red Sox on Friday, and the Pirates on Saturday. The Twins lost to the Sox, but slaughtered the poor Pirates, out hitting them by 20 to 5! Below is a view from our seats watching the Pirate game. Again, beautiful weather, but the sun was strong. Lots of sun screen.

 On Sunday, April Fools day, we took a Mystery Train Ride that included dinner. We were surprised as to how good the food was. We both had prime rib that was about the best we've ever had. As good as what we've had in Iowa! The mystery was a murder on a train and we all had to figure out who committed the murder. We were wrong. Never the less, the show was very entertaining and well done, considering that the actors were working among four cars.

 I'm really not sleeping! The ride was great, although not very scenic. But, hey, after a few glasses of great Australian sheraz and some entertainment, who really cares?

On the following day we saw the Red Sox play the Washington Nationals at Jet Blue Park, the Spring Training home of the Boston Red Sox. This gave me the opportunity to wear my Nationals cap, only Nationals game I've been to. We moved out of Reston, VA before they arrived.

This was the first season for the Sox at Jet Blue park. The stadium is so new, that it is not completely finished. One nice thing about it, is that it did offer some welcomed shade. The food and beer was not as good as at Hammond Stadium.

 Their taste of Fenway left something to be desired.

 Where else can you go in as a man and come out as a woman!

 Or for that matter, go in as a woman and come out as a man. I'm no longer the woman I used to be!

 This is Jet Blue's version of the Green Monster at Fenway in Boston.

Nationals are in red, they lost 4-2.

The following day we went to Everglades City for an air boat ride with Captain Doug.

On Tuesday April 3d our neighbor to the left packed up to go home. About 8:30 am I hear a shout from outside, "Walt" loud and multiple times. I thought he was just anxious to say goodbye. I went out to see what was up, and there he was all wet holding down the water spigot which had come apart while he was disconnecting his water line. I called the office to get help, but they weren't in till 9am, so Lill went to round up the maintenance man while I tried to help my neighbor. Well, he held on until the maintenance man went to shut off the water to the RV park, about 30 minutes later. Otherwise, the water would have gush up all over my motor home. He wanted to get an early start, but no luck. On Wednesday, the RV repair man came to install a new inverter. Mine had gone bad several days before in the evening and so I called  the On Site RV repair. He came, charged me for double time, but diagnosed the problem. It took him about 4 hours to complete the installation, which included some re-wiring and installing a new remote control unit compatible with the new inverter, at a total cost of $2,405. That evening I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. I've never had back problems before, but this really hurt. Being a few days before Easter, it was impossible to get a doctor's appointment, so I waited until the following Monday when I'd be back home. Tylenol provided me some relief, the pain was at its worst during the night while I was in bed. In the mornings, I could hardly move and get out of bed. However, after being up a while, the pain subsided and I could walk OK. Thursday and Friday we didn't do much, mostly rested and went out to eat. Prior to this, I had made reservations at the Broadway Palm dinner theater to see "Legally Blond, the Musical" on Saturday evening, the night before we were to leave. What a pleasant surprise that turned out to be: the show was really great, the cast was excellent. The girl who played Elle Wood and the guy who played the UPS man were really great, they did an outstanding job. The food was so-so, the best parts being the roast beef and the deserts. We both had a really good time and my back pain was momentarily forgotten.

We left Ft. Myers Easter Sunday morning taking I75, I4 through Orlando, to I95 north to SC and home. We made it back in one day, which really surprised me. We had little traffic going through either Orlando or Jacksonville, which is unusual. There was traffic both before and after these cities, but it moved along. This trip was a little over 500 miles and consumed about $300 in diesel fuel.

On Monday I got an appointment with Dr. Batson who diagnosed my back pain as primarily arthritis pain, prescribing Meloxicam 15mg and two pages of exercise. Here's hoping this works!