Orlando...again

For some reason, John is taking us to many of the places that we have already visited. We were here at the Orlando Thousand Trails last year and here we are again. John says that he doesn't like the "big city" atmosphere since we are so close to Orlando, but technically we are closer to Kissimme and Clermont than we are to Orlando. There are orange groves less than a mile away, but we hear the Disney fireworks every night being only a few miles from Magic Kingdom. The sand hill cranes are still here but not as abundant and noisy as last year. We had a gopher turtle home near us so I fed it lettuce every day. My neighbor Sue and I called him Tommy.

We traveled 40 to 50 miles every Monday, so John could peruse the Webster Flea and Farm market. This place is huge and you could buy just about anything. Look at the colors of these birds one of the vendors was selling. They were beautiful.

There is even entertainment. This guy played the blues very well. We listened while munching on hot dogs.

Last year my sister Patty and her husband Pete bought a double wide trailer in a park in DeBary, which is north of Orlando. We traveled the 60 miles from where we were to see them. We got a guided tour of their winter digs and area. We ran across an art festival in DeLand (a near by town) and enjoyed looking at the wares of the juried artist. On Thanksgiving day we traveled back to have our meal with them and some other friends. John got to do his delayed picture taking again.

Here is Pete, Patty, me, John, Pam, Donna and Sam. The food was great and the company exceptional.

We had some good neighbors while in the park. On one side was Sue and Mel Thomason from Washington State. Sue is a retired nurse, like me, and we spent several days crafting together. They are traveling with 2 dogs and 2 cats.  On the other side was Steve and Betty Ball from Virginia. Steve and John found several small projects to do together. Betty is a quilter.

John and I went to Downtown Disney with Patty and Pete to see some of the Christmas decor. Here is the lobby of the Grand Floridian. The tree was almost 3 stories high.

This is a ginger bread house made out of real ginger bread. They used over 800 pounds of flour.... Patty and I ate some of it.... not very tasty. I think they were going for stability instead of taste.

We saw some awesome things in Downtown Disney. One of them was this statue made completely from Lego's. There were many great ones but this one caught my eye. It stood well over 12 feet high and 12 feet wide. Every inch is Lego's... how they got the fire to stay like that I'll never know.

We leave Pa in the winter to get away from the snow and cold , right? What do we do? Go to Florida and participate in the City of Celebration's Christmas Tree lighting and First Snowfall of the season. Yes, I said snowfall. It snows at 6, 7, 8, and 9PM every night in Celebration until January.

See.....

They had ice skating, and roaming carolers also.

Even though we had been in this area before , we found lots to do and enjoyed ourselves. Next we are going further south to another Thousand Trails situated next to the Peace River in Wauchula.