Jerry has left me

Thursday, Jerry left this morning for home in upstate NY to watch the super bowl game with his buddies. I took him down to Tampa to fly home this morning. I didn’t want to go back up north to all that cold weather and snow. I’ll stay here where it is nice and warm.

Every year he goes someplace with his buddies to watch the game. They have been doing this since the first super bowl. When it first started they would go to whoever had the best resection on their TV. The last 15 years or so they have been going to the local bowling ally. The bowling ally has a big party for the guys.

Jerry has been going with three of his buddies Terry, Bob and Russ from the beginning.

They have always made a day of it by having pitch tournaments. In the beginning it was the older fellows against the younger. Jerry was one of the younger ones in the beginning, now he is in the older group.

When it first started  everybody had young children then, so the wives would go to one of the homes that the men were not at and spent the day together. Now the women usually go shopping.

Since Jerry won’t be here for the next 2 weeks I won’t be going golfing but I plan to go to the driving range when I can.

Jerry will be coming back down with his buddy Terry around Feb 10th. Terry is driving down to spend a couple of weeks with his sister, who lives in the Villages. Terry’s wife will fly down the end of Feb and then both will drive home after the four of us go on a 3 day cruise to the Bahamas.

Ocala JAI-ALAI

Sunday we wanted to see if they still jai-alai in Ocala. The place is about 12 miles north of Ocala. They also have an OTB there. They had the jai-alai teams there for about a month then they go back south.

I watched a couple of matches while Jerry placed a few bets in the OTB part. There is also a poker room there.

It was fun to watch a few games but it gets pretty boring after a while. You can also bet on the players just like the horses.

Pine Island and Hudson Beach

Sat, the 23 Jerry wanted to go to the west coast of Florida so we went driving and ended up on Pine Island. It is very touristy.The weather was very nice. We road around the area and did a lot of walking.

We went a little farther south a stopped at Hudson Beach. It has a very nice beach area.

These Black Skimmers were on the beach.

Golfers All Around Us

We plan to go golfing today. I’m sitting on my patio and watching the golfers go by here at the condo. There is a golf coarse here but we don’t golf this coarse because you have to use a golf cart and we want to walk the coarse. Here is a picture taken from our condo. This is the 13th hole.

This one is the closes tee which is right out of our back door.

Here are some pictures of some of the birds which we see from our patio.

A closer look. I think they are called ibis.

We also have sand cranes.

More Golfing

Wednesday was more of the same. Yes, we went golfing again. We need a lot of practice. Plus we are walking the coarse so we get the exercise, too. We don’t carry the bags, we both have wheels on the golf bags.

It has been really nice the last couple of days. In the low 70’s. We go golfing about 3:30 the the afternoon so we are not holding anybody up if they are in a hurry.

Martin L King Day

After, we went for our walks we went for a ride. We headed north and went on back roads through Ocala National Forest then west were we saw a lot of beef farms. The picture above was taken in Lake City in front of a medical clinic. The flags were out in honor of Martin L King.

This was taken west of Ocala on our way home. One of many horse farms.

We got home in time for dinner and our nightly walk.

Weekend

Saturday, it was rainy all day so we didn’t do much. Went for walks between the rain.

Sunday, it cleared up a little bit. Went for our walks then Jerry wanted to go to OTB, so I dropped him off and I went shopping.

That was our exciting weekend.

No Clue

Friday, after our walk we went to the Blue Parrot Mobile Park in Lady Lake to a flea market & craft fair. 

It was a medium size fair. There was quite a few vendors.

We walked around and visited all the booths. The only thing I bought was a pair of ear rings.

On the way out were meet up with this “cop” looking for clues. I told him I didn’t have any. LOL.

Jerry went to the gym in afternoon and I stayed home.

Being Friday I wanted to go get some fish. I’ve been looking for a place to get some catfish, but haven’t found any yet. I though maybe, Golden Coral would have some on their buffet. Well, we went to the one on 200 but no catfish. I’ll find a place yet.

Golf

Well, we went for our morning walk. We go past the pond in blog picture and we try to spot an alligator. If it is warm enough we have spotted a couple warming themselves in the reeds along the bank. This morning we didn’t see any.

It has warmed up quite a bit so we wanted to go golfing. We usually wait until later in afternoon to go. We are not that great of golfers so we don’t want to hold anybody up. The first couple of times we went we rode a golf cart but lately we have been walking because we need the exercise. At first we got there about 2:00 but the parking lot was all filled up so we knew there was a lot of people there. So we decided to run down to Belleview to visit Bob and other relatives. We went back up to golf coarse about 4:00 and went golfing.

I did a little better. Jerry stays the same. I think I posted some pictures of the flowers at the coarse before. Well, with all the cold weather you should see the flowers now (or lack of). They were hit pretty bad. The flowers were almost completely wiped out. It still is a pretty coarse with all the green bushes but now it doesn’t have hardly any flowers.

Usual Slow Day

Wednesday, didn’t do anything different. Went for morning walk then went to visit brother Bob while there brother Bruce and BIL John stopped in.

Jerry went to gym in afternoon while I went to clubhouse to use internet. After dinner Jerry & I went for another walk.

We are both trying to lose weight. Since I came down here I have lost about 6 lbs and Jerry stays the same. I have been sticking pretty close to my diet. Jerry will be all right for a day or two but he still eats some ice cream and other goodies that he shouldn't. With all the walking we do you would think that we would loose easily, but if I just have something that is not on the diet I’ll gain a pound or two. Well, I guess that’s life.

Manatees

   Tuesday,  we decided to go to Blue Springs State Park. It is located in Orange City which is southeast of here toward Daytona.

The manatee swim up into Blue Springs in the cold weather where the water is warmer. The water temperature in the springs is about 72 degrees year around. 

Last year when we were here we went to Homosassa State Park in Crystal River to see the manatees. There they go up into the springs because it is warmer. They have a few manatees that stay there all the time that are protected by the state. Homosassa also have other animals and birds.

At Blue Springs the manatees are “wild” and from Jan-April they stay in the springs. When the waters of the river warms up they swim back to St Johns River out to sea.

Today, we saw quite a few manatees. They were swimming in the springs, laying in the spots were the sun hit the water.

There are quite a few viewing spots along the boardwalk that you can walk along the shore of the spring to the head where it comes out of the ground.

Lewis Thursby bought the land there from the government in 1872. He built the house above for his family. He also had a boat dock there in St Johns River that people used to travel by steamboat from the north. He even had a railroad car that was pulled by horses. When the railroad was built from the north to other places south the steamboat travel can to a halt.

It was a very interesting place to visit.

Monday Blues

We didn’t do much Monday because of the cold weather. I went on a walk in the morning while Jerry went to the gym.

In the afternoon we went for a walk in Marshall Swamp. It had turned warmer in the afternoon. While walking a wild turkey ran across the path in front of us. So far that is the only animal we have seen there besides a few smaller birds. There are a lot of deer tracks in there but none we have seen.

After dinner we went and got groceries. That was our exciting day. Hopefully it will warm up enough soon to go golfing.

Sunday was just as cold

Well, it was just as cold. The weather says that it will get a little warmer this week.

We got tired of laying around watching TV so we decided to do something. Jerry decided to go up to OBS to the OTB parlor. I dropped him off so I could go shopping. I went to the mall at Heathbrook. It is a mall were the shops are not connected. Luckily I could park close enough so I didn’t have to walk outside much. I found a couple of tops and a pair of dress slacks. I also got Jerry a new pair of sneakers.

After that I picked Jerry up and we went for a short drive west of Ocala. Ocala has a lot of horse ranches west and south of town. Jerry wanted to find George Steinbrenner's horse farm Kinsmen. I had looked it up on line so we had the address. We found it but I forgot the camera so I couldn’t take any pictures. I thought it would be more impressive looking but it looked like any other ranch out there. There was a big K on the gates but most ranches down here have fancy entrances.

After we got home Jerry watched the footballs games that were on and I read some blogs. I download them when I get a chance to go on line so I can read whenever I want to. I did go for a walk after we had dinner but Jerry was to involved in the ball games. Then after the game we went to grocery store to get a few groceries. Not an exciting day but …..

Snow on Saturday

We woke up to snow on Saturday. You could only see it if you looked closely.

This was taken through a window. I didn’t want to go out that early to take the picture. If you look closely you can see a couple of the leaves have died.

The rest of the day we didn’t do to much. We went to the gym at the club house in the afternoon. It was just to cold out to go out side and walk. That’s our day.

New Coffeepot

Friday we didn’t do to much. It was cold. When we went up to Gainesville yesterday I forgot to turn off the coffeepot. Luckily, there was some coffee in it, but it didn’t have an automatic shut off so the motor must have burnt out because when I tried to make coffee in the morning it would not work. So we had to go to Wal-Mart's to get a new one.

We didn’t do to much the rest of day.

Butterflies, Devils and Gators

Yesterday we went up to Gainesville to the Florida Natural History Museum to see the Butterfly Rainforest but the butterflies were not out because it was not warm enough. We saw the labs that they work in to help the butterflies from their larva state to the time their wings dry out. There was enough other exhibits in the museum of Florida past & present to keep us busy for awhile. The tour book said one hour minimum but we were there about two and a half hours.

In the afternoon we went to the Devil’s Millhopper Geological Park which is just north of Gainesville. It has a sinkhole that is 120 feet deep and 500 feet across. You can walk down a 232 step wooden walkway that descends to the bottom. Then we took a half-mile walk around the top.

This is one of the many small waterfalls that go to the bottom.

Here you can see it go into the ground.

This is a picture of Flo resting on hike around sinkhole.

Went we got done we wanted to go out to eat. Jerry asked me were I wanted to go so I told him that on Thursday's it was all you can of fish at Gator Joe’s. So we went all the way down to Lake Weir to Gator Joe’s.

It is an interesting place. Lake Weir is a small Lake southeast of Belleveiw. The picture of the sunset was taken thru a window so there are soon background lights in picture. Until tomorrow…

Jan 6, 2010

Sunday Jerry went up to OBS (Ocala Breeders Sales). Ocala is called the horse capital of the world. They also have off track betting. You can bet on tracks like Aqueduct, Belmont, Gulfstream, Tampa and a few more.

I dropped him off so I could go shopping. I went to the Paddock Mall. They had some after Christmas sales. I got a few things. Then I picked him up and came back to condo and walked around the area.

Yesterday, it was pretty cold so we stayed home and didn’t do much but tried to stay warm. Here is picture of bird that was behind our condo. I think it was a blue heron.

Today Jerry went back up to OBS and I stayed home to clean and go to clubhouse to catch up on blog. Take care.

COLD WINTER

I’m sorry that I don’t get to post much.  Here at the condo I don’t have internet so I have to go over to the clubhouse to get online. We have been taking it pretty easy here. We don’t get up until about 7:30. Then set around eating a light breakfast watching TV until we decide what we plan on doing. We went for a ride over to Cedar Keys the other day. It wasn’t to busy there because of the weather. We walked around and went into some of the shops there then went out on the pier where some fishermen were fishing for sheep's head fish.  I never heard of them but that's what they said. 

New years Eve day was nice so we went for  walk in the swamp near here. It isn’t wet in there so I don’t know why they call it a swamp. Maybe sometime of the years it gets wet. But it isn’t this time of year.     

For New Years Eve we went down to Jerry’s sister Bev and BIL John’s place in Belleview for a party. We all brought something to pass and had a good meal. Then we played pinochle which I haven’t played since we were first married.  We all had fun. We saw the new year come in then we all left.  Well, Happy New Year everybody.