Day #9

     Today we left Tampa.  We are in a place that is a dream-come-true for kids.  I've never been to a camping place like this.  The boys had a ball with all the water features here.  They have a section called Meltdown, which is like a mini-WipeOut.  I didn't get any pictures of the boys doing this, but I will tomorrow.  Simon, Theodore, and Alvin love the television show WipeOut, so they had a ball doing it.
     There a several features they will play on tomorrow, but for today, they had the best time on the mega slide.

Mega Slide

Drew and Brody

Brody

Ty

Drew

     They have a day spa and a huge pool-side bar with many frozen drinks.  Grandma could get into this place, too.  :-)  After a few pina coladas I might even tackle the mega slide.  Film at 11.
Until the next time,
Dolores

June 12, 2015 Day #8

     Today, went by way too fast.  This was our last day in Tampa.  My cousin, Sandy (Robb) Bair and her granddaughter, Jenna, came to the bus.  Our grandsons met their 3rd cousin for the first time.  They swam for about an hour. 

TY

Jenna and Drew

Jenna and Ty
Brody spent so much time under the water,
I couldn't get his picture.

     Then Richard took over babysitting duties.

This is how grandpa babysits.  Moe, Larry,
and Curly on our bed playing x-box.  Actually,
we limit the time they play video games.
Richard keeps them busy with different things.

      Sandy, Jenna, and I had a girls' day out.  We did some shopping, went to lunch, and did more shopping.  We took Jenna to her grandpap, Jerry, who took her back to swim some more with the boys.
     Sandy and I went to a movie in Brandon to see SPY with Melissa McCarthy.  If they removed the F word, it would be a silent movie.  Other than that, it was HYSTERICAL.  For me, it ran a close second to Identity Theft.  But, then again, when we are together, Sandy and I would laugh at a divorce hearing.  LOL  Oh, wait . . .  we already did that.
     For those of you who have read my Bertie books, Sandy and I are the real live people who ran over a mattress on the Interstate 75 on our way to the final hearing for her divorce.  For those who haven't read my Bertie books, what happened was, Sandy and I landed on a mattress which had fallen from a truck.  It stopped us dead.  When we would drive forward, the mattress would go with us.  Once we dodged the interstate traffic and got to the shoulder, I backed out of the mattress which we had been perched on.  Springs bounced out with a big boing!  It was a brand-new car, and I was sure my husband (at the time) was going to kill me. 
     Sandy and I got off the highway and pulled into a gas station to ask the attendant if I had done any damage under the car.  I hadn't told him what I hit.  He wiped his hands on a rag and asked, "What did you hit?  A mattress?  You have stuffing all under there."  Sandy and I lost it.  We never laughed so hard in our life.  We found it hard not to laugh during the divorce hearing.
     Sandy and I have all kinds of crazy times together--happy, sad, scary, crazy.  Oh, I could write a book about our adventures.  Actually, I already did. 



http://amzn.to/1cRBWcH
Check them out on Amazon

---

 

Until next time,

Dolores

Day #7

      Wow!!  I had the best time today. When I was a kid growing up in Tampa, I LOVED going to Lowry Park and Fairyland.  When friends and relatives would come from West Virginia to visit, Fairyland was always high on our must-see list.  They had large concrete statues depicting fairy tales and nursery rhymes along a winding path under oak trees.  You entered the whimsical park over a large rainbow bridge.  Cinderella's carriage was among the statues.  The old woman and her shoe.  The whale that swallowed Jonah was there, too.  You could walk in his mouth.  Since Disney World hadn't been built yet, I believed this was as close as I'd ever get to Disneyland.
. 

The old rainbow bridge to Fairyland, Lowry Park Zoo, c. 1980

     Then it had a small zoo, but now it's huge.  In 2008, Parent's Magazine picked Lowry Park Zoo as the #1 family friendly zoo in the US.  We were there for four

hours.  It was really hot, but it didn't rain.  So, all in all, it was a perfect day.



Lowry Park has a night-time show with Chinese

lanterns all through the park.  This is a replica of

Manfeilong Pagoda in southeast China.  It is made

entirely of 68,000 porcelain plates, cups and spoons.

They are all blue and white.  I would love to make

one of those from the collection of blue and white

plates I have gathered over the years.



The zoo has several white rhinos.  They are really

gray, and they are in the neighborhood of

6,000 pounds.  I never realized how huge they are, but the guy told us they are the second largest

animal next to the elephant.



The brown thing is a medium-size

stingray.  We got to pet them.

That was really fun and something

I've never done.  Neat.

Brody and Drew in

a hurricane simulator.

Pretty interesting.



Drew in front of the

manatee exhibit.  He didn't see

the turtle behind him. 

Ty, Brody, Drew

in front of the African

penguins exhibit.  If you

look closely over Brody’s

head, you can see one of the

penguins.



This picture is for my sister, Nancy. 

I’m not sure what kind of birds these are

but they look like flamingos hanging

out in the trees.



Brody inside a hollowed-out

cypress tree.

 

 

Until next time,

Dolores 

 

 

 

 

 

 

June 10, 2015

Day #6

     Today was a traveling day.  And it rained all day.  Once we got to the campground, Dewey, Huey, and Louie were not happy they couldn't go swimming.  They kept insisting they were like ducks and could play in the rain.  I, being the worrywart of a grandmother that I am, insisted they would be more like lightning rods since there was quite a bit of it bouncing around the pool.
     Tomorrow we are going to a zoo I haven't been to in a long, long time.  I hear it has transformed into quite a spectacular place.  I'll let you know tomorrow night. 

Here are a few of the pictures I took at Bok Tower yesterday:

Koi fish  They are gigantic.



Lily Pads



Magnolias

Until next time,
Dolores

June 9, 2015

Day #5

     We needed some glass replaced on the coach.  So we stopped at a glass place and they had a space for us to park behind their shop. Nice. Right by a snake and alligator pit.  I mean, a lovely pond. 
     When I was in either the 6th or 7th grade, my class went on a field trip to Lake Wales, Cypress Gardens, Spook Hill and Bok Tower.  I thought Cypress Gardens was one of the most beautiful places I'd ever seen.  The beautiful flowers, ponds, garden paths, and, of course, the gorgeous Southern ladies in their hooped skirts, bonnets and parasols mesmerized me.

Cypress Gardens at its best.

     Even at that young age, I found the whole place so romantic. That may have been when the seed was planted for my love of romance novels, but my BFF Jeannie, is the one who fueled the fire.  She introduced me to the most fascinating authors like Dorothy Eden, Victoria Holt and later Lavryle Spencer, Dorothy Garlock, Rosanne Bittner, Parris Afton Bonds.   I then moved on to Rebecca Paisley, Sharon Sala and Dinah McCall.  Now there are too many for me to name. 
     At the time, I could never imagine that I'd grow up to be a romance author, but I  made that goal.  And, I'm proud I did.
     Today, we took Art, Bart, and Fargo (3 grandsons) to Bok Tower.  This, too, is a place I remember fondly from that class field trip.
     The tower (also known as the singing tower) was built by Edward W. Bok, editor of Ladies Home Journal and his wife.  They commissioned the famous landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmstead who also did the grounds of the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina.

     It was originally a bird sanctuary and then the Singing Tower was added.  The Carillon Bell Tower is one of four in Florida.  I've been to the one in White Springs at the Stephen Foster State Park.  I've eaten many picnics in the park while listening to the noon concert of Foster's songs being played on the carillon bells.  I know some of you have joined me there.
     Bok Tower has 60 cast bronze bells and the whole tower is grand.  We caught the 1:00 concert.  It lasted 30 minutes.  It was so peaceful except for my screeching, "Brody, don't touch the squirrel.  He might have rabies, then you'll have to have shots in your stomach and stay in the hospital while we go on the rest of our vacation." "Brody, get your hand out of the koi pond.  Those fish are bigger than you are."  "Brody, don't pick up that snake."  He would have, but instead he just sorta nudged it along with his foot."  In case you haven't guessed, he is my adventurous one.  On one of the trails at Disney, he wanted to get off the golf cart and walk out into a wooded area to pet the 6 Bambi's and the 2 Thumbers out there.
     Now for the best part of the day--(no, not nap time).
SPOOK HILL, LAKE WALES, FLORIDA
     The story goes that ages ago an Indian town on Waile's Lake was plagued with raids by a huge gator.  The town's great warrior chief and the gator were killed in a final battle that created the huge swampy depression nearby.  The chief was buried on it's north side.  Later pioneer haulers coming from the old army trail atop the ridge above found their horses laboring there at the foot of the ridge and called it spook hill.  Was it the gator seeking revenge, or the chief protecting his land?  We were instructed to drive down the incline to a white line, place the car in neutral and let it roll back up the hill all by itself.  We did and it did and the boys have been freaked out ever since.  As a sixth grader, I remember being facinated by that hill.  Our whole school bus backed up the hill by itself.
     Richard took Brody and Drew to the movie to see Tomorrowland.  Ty grabbed his Xbox (he's been without it since he left home) and said, "Give me Wi-Fi and no one gets hurt."  He is playing XBox.  LOL  I am typing this blog between doing laundry, scrubing toilets, and washing supper dishes.  Aaahhh, vacation.  It's so wonderful.

Four of my favorite guys.

Until next time,
Dolores
 
    

What I did on my summer vacation 2015

June 5 thru June 7, 2015
 

     I can’t believe we are in our fourth day of our summer vacation.  I blogged a little every day, but, for some reason, I couldn’t stay awake to post it.  So, I’m going to give you a cast of characters for this journey and then I’ll post the goings-on of the past three days.

     On this looooonnng vacation, we have:

Main members:

Me

Richard (my dear husband)

Ty (11) (Tiffany’s oldest)

Drew (8) (Tiffany’s youngest)

Brody (7) (Ryan’s) 

Temporary Members for the Disney Adventure only

Tiffany

Jey

McKinley (5) (Jey’s daughter) 

Day #1 June 5, 2015

     Well, we certainly know how to time a vacation.  Right now we are sitting in 4:00 traffic, bumper-bumper, in Orlando.  So much fun.   While Richard drives, I usually sit at the table and do important computer work, or Facebook, or Pogo.com, whichever strikes my fancy.

     Over the last forty years, Richard’s hearing has become a little less than sharp.  We had McKinley with us (the others will be arriving later).  It was quiet, so I yelled from back at the table to “Turn on the music.”

DH: “Huh?”

Me: “Turn on some music.”

DH: “I can’t hear you.”

Me: really yelling now “Music.  You know, songs, tunes, lalala”

DH looks at McKinley, “What did grandma say?”

McKinley:  “She said she wants some music, songs, tunes.”

DH:  says in a rather annoyed tone.  “Well, why didn’t you say turn on the radio?”

     I know from experience, my eye twitch will go away eventually.  I just wish it would have waited a little longer to start.  Three hours from home is not very far.

     A little while later, McKinley joined me at the table and we played a game of what each animal says.  When we got to the owl, she said “Hoot-Hoot.”

     DH hollers from the front, “Where?  Where’s Hooters?”  I assume the sound of the letters in Hoot have the same sounds as a silent dog whistle to Richard, because he heard that coming from the whisper of a five-year-old.  BTW, DH normally stands for Dear Husband.  In my case, it stands for Deaf Husband.  If this keeps up, it could possibly stand for Dead Husband.  Don’t worry.  DH is safe with me, because I don’t like to drive the bus.

Here's a picture of McKinley hitchhiking just before we pulled out.  Yes, we are towing that truck with the slide-in camper.  AMTRAK has nothing on Richard.  The bunk is where Tiffany, Jey and McKinley will bunk while we are at Disney.  They will drive it home and leave my Jeep for us to have on the rest of out trip.

     We took very few pictures because things just moved so fast, but here is one of my favorite.

 

 

Ty, Brody, Drew and McKinley

 

     We covered a big amount of the Magic Kingdom all day Saturday and Sunday.   Tiffany and Jey took the kids to see the fireworks on Friday night.  Last night we watched the light parade and then headed back to the campground on a boat.  We got to watch the fireworks on the way home.  It was magical.  

      Saturday was my birthday.  I got a nice surprise of a beautiful box filled with things I love.  A journal, pens, scratch-off tickets.  The boys were trying to guess how old I am.  Suddenly, Brody asked me how old I was yesterday.   I said I was 65.  He said, “She’s 66.  I win.”  He gets that from his grandmother.   :-)

     Be sure to comment so I know who is following me. 

Until next time,

Dolores



Contest Winner

Hi everyone,

The winner is

Carole Neal from Florida

      Thanks to those who entered my contest.  I enjoyed seeing who entered--longtime fans of Bertie, new fans, and friends I don't see often enough.  I'll be posting another contest after Christmas.
       Salt Run Publishing has re-released the second book in the Sweet Meadow Series.  Barking Goats and the Redneck Mafia is available in e-book form and will be available in print some time soon.  The third book, Jail Bertie and the Peanut Ladies will also be re-released shortly.  The three-book series will be out in time for Christmas.
        Bertie Byrd-Fortney is in the process of setting up a blog so we will get first-hand reports of what is going on in her wacky town of Sweet Meadow in the beautiful state of Georgia.  Be on the lookout for notification that Bertie's blog is up and running.

Until later,
Dolores
Check out my web site     

Take a look at Book #2 of the Sweet Meadow Series with Bertie Byrd-Fortney