Thursday, January 10, 2019
We are camped at the Silver Slipper Casino on the Gulf Coast near Waveland, Mississippi, headed for Florida.
This is my view of the Gulf of Mexico from my window:
Steve’s at the nearby Stennis Space Center, where at least the Visitor Center isn’t closed due to the shutdown.
I’ve taken a walk on the beach, and as soon as I get this written, need to get back to organizing and putting stuff away after visiting Natasha’s family in Plano, TX.
December was a busy month for us. We had scheduled maintenance on the trailer for the first week of December and wanted to leave home on Nov. 30 to drive the trailer to the Kansas RV Center in Chanute, Kansas. Our trailer was built there in 2006. They no longer build trailers, but do an excellent job of repair and maintenance.
When I was packing in the trailer on Thursday, I turned on the water pump to flush the toilet. Steve rushed in to turn off the pump and say that water was gushing out under the trailer. Uh oh. When you’re in a trailer, you get water pressure one of two ways – a connection to city or campground water, or from a water pump. Steve had had us connected to city water earlier without a problem, so we test that and that worked with no problem. Whew! We could still camp our way to Kansas.
We got up on Friday, November 30, and actually managed to leave home before noon. This was the best we’ve ever done at leaving “on time”. We wanted to leave before noon so that we could make our first stop the Beef House at Covington, Indiana, for lunch. The afternoon trip went well and we found a campground for the night that still had water connections (it is winter in the Midwest and some campgrounds are closed and/or have the water turned off).
We settled in, had dinner and went to bed.
I was up much earlier than usual and Steve hadn’t taken his shower yet. Turns out, neither the gas or electric hot water heater was working. Campgrounds usually have showers, so not a big deal, but I certainly was glad we were headed to the repair shop and already had an appointment. I started getting ready, went to the bathroom, flushed the toilet and broke off the pedal that flushes the toilet! Swearing was involved.
We had been going to take two days to drive to Chanute, but decided to “put the pedal to the metal” and get to Chanute that night, check into a hotel, and chill out on Sunday. So that is what we did.
Driving in the winter has its own pleasantness, assuming the weather isn’t bad. If it’s a gray day, the bare trees appear black against the sky. If it’s sunny and the skies are blue, the bare trees are brown and beige. And in either case, we see hawks, perched in the trees, watching for prey.
We are not good bird spotters at the best of times, but when the trees are bare, we managed to notice a fair number of hawks or hawk-like birds.
We arrived at Chanute, checked into the Holiday Inn Express and enjoyed our down day. Steve got to watch the Big Ten Football Championship and I read and napped.
Monday morning, Steve delivered the trailer to the Kansas RV Center at 7 am and came back to pick me up, and head for the Kansas City Airport. We were flying back to Indiana so that I could have surgery the next day.
I have had a lipoma on my right thigh for several years. It was a hard patch under the skin that caused no problems – until this fall. One day I had gotten up from the computer and walked a few steps and suddenly I experienced excruciating pain if I tried to put weight on my right leg. After a few minutes, I was able to limp to where I wanted to go. Doctor visits, surgeon visits and an MRI later, it was determined that I needed surgery to remove the lipoma. During much of this time, I was using a cane to keep some of the weight off that leg.
Surgery was scheduled for Dec. 4, we flew back from Kansas on Dec. 3. Everything went well; I had a much bruised thigh and an incision. I could walk, mostly without the cane, immediately after surgery and took pain pills for about a week, just in time to fly back to Kansas and pick up the trailer.
I was wearing shorts most of the time during recovery, and some of the bruising showed. The 5 and 7 year olds I encountered seemed to be fascinated by my injury and would asked to see it periodically. I was surprised and touched by their interest and would assure them that it was getting better and was hurting less and less.
We picked up the trailer and headed for Plano, stopping for lunch at a restaurant in an old railroad depot that has great sandwiches, pies and cinnamon rolls. The salads are good, too.
When we visit Natasha’s family in Texas, we usually park the trailer at a campground about ? hour away in Aubrey, Texas. The first time we camped there (5 years ago) it was bordered by a horse farm. Now there are housing developments everywhere and we just hope the campground will still be around for our next visit.
We stayed a few days in Plano and on the 17th we flew to Orlando. I succumbed to an email for the Ultimate Christmas Package at Walt Disney World. This was only the second year they had offered the package and it wasn’t widely advertised. It was a 5 night, 4 day ticket package, with something special every day. On Monday, we had two hours in the new Toy Story Land, 8:30 – 10:30. Only package participants were there. Tuesday night included admission to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, Wednesday was 8:30 – 10:30 pm in Animal Kingdom, including Pandora, Everest, and Dinosaur and a presentation of their Rivers of Light show. Thursday was early shopping and the Christmas tree trail at Disney Springs (which we skipped) and Friday was a dinner with live entertainment at Epcot.
Since most of the events were in the evening and I expected my mobility to be limited, I booked us at Animal Kingdom Lodge. This has been a bucket list item for us for awhile and this would be the first trip in several years without anyone else. For those of you who aren’t Disney fans, Animal Kingdom Lodge has rooms which overlook savannahs where African animals roam. Spending lots of time in the room gives you time to enjoy the animals. There’s no point in staying at the Lodge if you’re going to spend all day every day in the parks!
This was the view from our window.
There are 3 giraffes, two antelope and two storks, who seemed to be permanent residents of the pond area. We also saw zebras, wildebeests, cattle, several other types of antelopes, ostriches, and African crown cranes.
It was particularly fun to step out on the balcony and listen to the comments of any kids who happened to be watching from their balconies. They were amazed.
The African crowned crane elicited the comment “that bird has a Mohawk!”
Zebra grazing near the pond.
Ankole cattle and wildebeests.
The wildebeests were seen running on two separate occasions. Steve thinks that in one instance they were chasing one of their own, who apparently had teed them off. Every crowd has one! Maybe he was just trying to get them some exercise.
Giraffe.
We didn’t spend a lot of time in the parks; we’ll be back in January. But we did manage to do some of our favorite things, including the Candlelight Processional (telling of the Christmas story in song) at Epcot and going on the safari ride at Animal Kingdom, where Steve managed to get our best picture ever of the lions.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen them all awake and alert. This was a late afternoon safari and we usually go earlier, so I’m sure that made a difference.
We thoroughly enjoyed the trip!
Deb
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