582 ceiling tiles

March 14 2016

Tuesday morning is the end of our 14 day stay here in Orlando so I figured this is a good spot to bring the blog up to date. It's been a whirlwind of activity around here, entertainment, flea markets, a little work and an exciting RV fire!

Another of the dreaded RV refrigerator fires

I guess I better explain the fire first, no it wasn't our motorhome. A motorhome in the park was pretty much toasted the other morning. The fire started with a malfunction in the ammonia gas absorption refrigerator. This is the third frig fire I've seen here in Florida, very scary stuff that's why I have a HALON fire suppression system in my refrigerator compartment. BTW, the unlucky owner of the destroyed RV is from Milford Delaware, I've spoken to him in the park before, but never knew him when I lived up that way.

Halon fire protection for my frig

 

Flea markets and yard sales; I'm blaming most of it on Millie, I rarely buy anything. Luckily she doesn't either as we have very little storage in the RV. Mostly we walk around and look at stuff, it must be in the retired snowbird rule book because cotton-tops is about all you see walking around the markets.

At the Webster Flea Market

Shortly after our arrival here in Orlando we went to the huge Webster Flea market with Clay and Rebecca. Clay and I walked at least 10 miles thru the vendors looking for an electrical connector we needed for an Ahooga horn we were installing on his coach. Don't ask, I think Clay spent too many frozen winters in Upstate New York. Anyhow, we could have bought it from autoZone for $3.59 but what fun would that be, we found one at Websters for $1.

You never know what you will see at a Florida flea market, in past posts I've told of Blingo the used car salesman, Deep tissue massages right out in the open in a vendors stall, pretty near anything you would want to buy, switchblade knives is the latest contraband item I've seen openly displayed. The other day as I passed booths of salesmen selling “Miracle” products that cure everything using magnetics or copper, or mystery metal from space I was reminded of the miracle I witnessed last week at Renningers Market. In the time it took for me to walk past a booth, the proprietor who was some kind of faith healer cured a man of Bi Polar disorder. I'm not kidding (wink), I don't think she would lie about something like that and the man said he felt better!

Lakefront at Howie in the Hills

Our discovery tour to Mt. Dora was such a success Millie and I went on another one to Howey in the Hills on Saturday. That's about the coolest name for a town as I've ever heard, so we decided to give it a visit. It's a sleepy village on Lake Harris but it had a few interesting surprises. First, this was town wide yard sale weekend and we stopped at every one. I'm thinking maybe I was hoodwinked into this trip on this particular weekend! The second good discovery was Boondocks Bar and Grill, we enjoyed an excellent lunch there overlooking the lake.

Boondocks Bar and Grill

The final and neatest discovery was an old mansion we found on the edge of town. It was built in 1927 by William John Howey the founder of the town. An entrepreneur born 1876 he was in many ventures before settling in Florida. At one time he started his own car company, Howey Automobile Company. He only built seven cars before closeing the company and moving to Perez, Mexico. There he bought a large tract of land, hoping to develop pineapple plantations, but the Mexican revolution forced him back to the USA. Eventually he relocated to Florida where he became a citrus grower and land developer. His widow lived in the house until her death in 1980, it has gone thru several owners since then and is presently in receivership, waiting for someone to restore it to its former obulence.

Millie at the Howie in the Hills Mansion

At the campground this week we've attended a couple music acts, neither of them really very good. That's IMHO of course. Mercy Seat is a gospel trio, I liked the first few gospel standards done in three part harmony, it went downhill for me after that with contemporary church music. Windswept is a couple who played music from the 1920's on a variety of woodwind instruments, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

L-R Clay, Rebecca, Millie, Larry

Wait, I do have one observation from the Windswept performance, there are 582 ceiling tiles in the activity center ballroom. 

Millie and I returned to the Strawberry Festival to see Martina McBride in concert. I had selected the Charlie Pride concert last week and this was Millie's choice for our second show. To be honest I was being the dutiful husband, but wasn't expecting any wow factor from Ms McBride. I was pleasantly surprised, it was a really good show. She has a great band which includes not only the standard guitars, drums, and keyboard but also a four piece brass section. Martina's and her three backup singers not only did some of her hit songs but also covered popular music. It may sound strange, but mingled in with Broken Wing, This ones for the girls, Wild Angels and Independence day, they did Come see about me (Supremes), Wild Night (Van Morrison), Prefect (Pink) and Bring it home to me (Sam Cooke). The whole show was a mix like that and it was a huge success.

Martina McBride at the Plant City Strawberry Festival

That's about it for this blog, Tuesday we head south about sixty miles to Wauchula, home of the sister Thousand Trails campground here in Florida.