Giving Thanks and Growing Older in Florida OLA

the little cake for blowing...after the big cake was gone

Last Sunday the parish priest at St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church in Wildwood, Florida echoed the sentiment of the week when he said that we have a lot to be thankful for but that sadly…turkeys don’t!   Everybody had quite a laugh. According to the National Turkey Foundation, the U.S. raised a whopping 244 million turkeys last year. Approximately 46 million, a high 20%, found themselves roasting in ovens over Thanksgiving across the country!

my birthday cake and the dessert spread!

Thanksgiving

This is indeed a big American holiday, dating from the Plymouth celebration in 1621. And at the Three Flags Resort (for Canada, US, and Mexico), the campground was guilty of providing the roast turkeys. Most of us campers contributed dressings, sides, and dessert! Since it was also my 63^rd birthday, Bill surprised me with a huge birthday cake plus a little one (for the singing ceremony) to decorate the spread! I had an instant big party of about 80 people!

the turkey and dressings and sides spread

Three Flags RV Resort

The campground has a great clubhouse where we held the party. It is also equipped with a billiards hall and a card room. The campground also has a heated pool, mini-golf and horseshoe courses, free DVDs and coffee. But the reason many Eastern snowbirders congregate here for the winter is because of its weekly well-attended activities: bingo, Texas Hold’em, karaoke and jam sessions, great potlucks and ice cream socials. I classify it as an RV haven, an hour from Orlando with special amenities or activities.

    

Bill takes me out to TGIF near Universal Studios

My 63rd Birthday

The day after Thanksgiving was my birthday and it started with our usual session at Bally’s Fitness Center in Orlando, Florida (when we settle down after all this traveling, it will have to be where there is a Bally’s!). Then Bill took me to lunch at TGIF near the entry to Universal Studios. I finally got a smart phone on my fingers as Bill gifted me with the newly launched, most powerful, and thinnest Droid Razr! Afterwards, I had a taste of America’s Black Friday complete with crazy traffic jams and even crazier store crowds! Next time we will just do online Black Friday deals and Cyber Monday!

balloons and gifts

The Gift of a Cruise

I also got another perfect gift…a Caribbean cruise for birthday and Christmas leaving Miami on February 24…from my kids! They figured that since we are in Florida, we might as well. We definitely would like to experience this other kind of cruising...on water. It will give me plenty of juicy stuff to write about, comparing and contrasting the two! Maraming Salamat, my three lovely daughters: Trisha, Claudine, and April!

Bill and the 'plain-looking' Hooters girls

Hooters

The day before Thanksgiving we went to Hooters to watch the Nadal-Federer match of the ATP Finals in London. (We thought they would have it because they had the Pacquiao-Marquez fight on ppv the week before). I was so thrilled and even wondered what the kids will say when I tell them I, not Bill, want Hooters gift cards for Christmas! But alas! They didn’t have the Tennis Channel! And Nadal was trashed! Utterly dismayed, I vented my frustration on Bill! He had to deal with three plain Hooter girls!

the dance at The Villages

The Villages

As if the 3 day celebrations were not enough, on Saturday we still went with full timer friends Bev and Dan Johnson to an evening dance with live rock and roll music at The Villages and some chowder, nachos and chili at a bar nearby. We met them at Moses Lake last year. They own a Mountain Aire, too, and, like us, originated from Seattle, Washington! The Villages is a fabulous retirement community where, out of 77,000 residents, there are 40,000 golf carts plying around neatly manicured golf courses, sports/recreation centers, and shopping havens through special lanes, overpasses, and crossings.

music provided by the jamming campers led by Jim

Bill and I have a lot to be thankful for that we regularly include in our prayers. But this Thanksgiving 2011 we give special thanks for the opportunity to live this cruising lifestyle and the wherewithal to capture, in writing and photography, this exciting period in our lives. We could not have done it without the continuing support of our children and their beautiful families and the ‘company’ of our lifelong friends. Relative good health helps, too, as well as the new friends we meet on the road.  And my birthday that always hovers around this great American tradition makes for a grand celebration for me each time!

  

WOW: Classifying Campgrounds

Star and Vino at the Joshua Tree National Park, a nature preserve

RV camping is very much alive in the US. Out of 30 million RVers in almost 9 million households, about 1.3 million are full timers like Bill and me. We all have almost 2,000 campgrounds to choose from. Cost, location, and facilities may be hard to balance. Being members of Thousand Trails, we can stay at any of their campgrounds for three weeks at a time so it is not that hard. But those three weeks should be as enjoyable as possible so there is still a choice to make. I came up with the following system.

3 quadrants: RV Park, country club, RV haven, and nature preserve

 Construct a chart with an x-axis and a y-axis. Let the x-axis stand for the location of the campground from city to country, going from left to right, and let the y-axis represent amenities and activities from basic to special, going from up to down. We can thus subdivide the space into four quadrants. Going counter-clockwise, at the upper left quadrant is the RV Park, lower left quadrant is the Country Club, lower right quadrant is the RV Haven and upper right quadrant is the Nature Preserve.

camping at the Docks' driveway

RV Park
This is an RV campground within or almost within city limits and has basic amenities or activities, often none. An example is The Oaks at Point South which became our jump-off point to Beaufort, Hilton Head, and Savannah for my friend Dittas when she visited us. But the best example of this category is a hotel in Hermosillo, Mexico which allowed RVs to park at their back parking lot. Another great example is the campground which was within walking distance of the French Quarter in New Orleans!

Walmart RV Park

Now Walmart is America’s best known RV Park! It is said that the average “campsite fee” is $45, the amount one spends for one night of stay. So other grocery chains have followed this excellent strategy. Canadian Tire even has dump stations and fresh water. Belonging to the same class are rest areas (a great number is being shut down due to lack of funds), huge truck stops, and even casinos. But the best example is the driveway of the Rosemary (Bill’s sister) and her husband Jack’s home in Pittsburg,

Country Club 

Palm Springs Country Club

Close to a city, this campground also has many amenities and activities! Where we will be next week, Orlando Thousand Trails in Orlando, Florida is of this type. So is Las Vegas Thousand Trails in Las Vegas, Nevada. They are both just a few miles from great tourist spot and have all the musts: amenities like pool and hot tub, fitness center, mini golf, table tennis and billiards, tennis and other outdoor courts and activities like karaoke, dancing, Texas hold ‘em, pot lucks, movie nights with free popcorn, and concerts.

Nature Preserve 

dry camping at the roadside enroute to the Arctic Circle

Far from a city, this campground may not have amenities or activities but there are fantastic views afforded by its special location. A good example is Kirk Creek Campground of the US Forest Service right at the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Big Sur! State Parks are the same. The campgrounds within well-known national parks of the National Park Service like Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Tetons, Great Smoky Mountains, the Grand Canyon are perennial favorites but require months in advance to book.

Bill relaxing at our campsite in Green Mountain, an RV haven

RV Haven 
Farther from the city, this type of campground is also well equipped with amenities and activities. At Green Mountain Resort in Lenoir, North Carolina, each campsite has a large deck beside a little stream which makes soothing ‘music’ throughout the day. The park also has a lake for fishing and great hiking trails all around, a tennis court, a 9-hole golf course, a large clubhouse with pool and table tennis tables, and eature great concerts and parties. Because it is near the town of Lenoir, we could also use the community center’s gym and spa.

a nature haven in winter...

The statistics of RVers is up by almost 10 percent from 5 years ago! And although the 2,000 campgrounds may not all be full all year-round (northern ones are busy during summer while southern ones are cramped during winter), given the right time of year, they can be literally buzzing with activity. To maximize enjoyment, we need to choose the campground well. After all, it is our home for the duration of our stay. So I have found this classification system very helpful.

a country club in fall

We like country clubs and RV havens best. But we also take short breaks in nature preserves. M’A can comfortably dry camp only for 4 days max (constraints of fresh, black, and grey water tanks and battery power). On the other hand, RV parks are places we use to rest for a night (or as a jump-off point) as we make our way to our next campground. We usually try to limit RV driving to at most 6 hours a day. Driving longer can become pretty tiring for Bill (and really boring for me)!

We looooove the campground infrastructure in the US but we often wonder how it is in Europe or Australia/New Zealand? Can we RV there as well? Watch for the results of our research!

WOW: Planning and Mapping Itineraries

OUR CURRENT ITINERARY
18 months, Phase 2 from Seattle to Las Vegas, May 2011 to Nov 2012

View Full Size Travel Map at Travellerspoint

OUR PREVIOUS ITINERARY
16 months, Phase 1 from Seattle to Seattle, June 2009 to Sept 2010

View Full Size Travel Map at Travellerspoint

Now that we are staying for a while in Florida, we will not be writing a lot about Our Lifestyle Adventures (OLA). We have covered the state extensively the last time we were here from January to March 2010. So I now write about some thought pieces on this cruising lifestyle in Wonderings on Wanderings (WOW). This particular post is about how we dream, plan, and schedule our cruising, including the attractions we will cover and where we will stay. 

Actually deciding on those things entails many areas for consideration. But, really, after almost 3 years, it has become almost second nature to us!  But Bill says it’s easy for him because I do all the research and planning; he just does all the driving. As for me, I would not want it the other way around. My driving the RV is definitely out of the question…if we both want to live long! Kidding aside, below are the factors we consider in planning and scheduling the trips that fulfill our dreams.

Climate

The number 1 thing to consider is climate. At our ‘young’ (67, 62) age, we have to follow the sun; cold no longer agrees with us (never did with me!)! Winter finds us either in Florida, Arizona, southern California, the Philippines and other parts of Southeast Asia, or later, Australia/New Zealand. Summer, spring and fall will catch us in the Northwest, Northeast, Canada, Europe or northern Asia.  Hopefully, the white Thanksgiving we experienced in Seattle in 2010 when I had to wait for my naturalization will be the last!

Family

The next thing to consider is visits and reunions with family. At least once a year we have to see each child and his/her family. If we or they really cannot make the visit, then we plan a family reunion at a mutually convenient place and time. My children and I have had reunions in Mazatlan, Mexico, Spokane, Washington, Glacier National Park, and this New Year in Orlando, Florida. We had one reunion with Bill’s children in Yellowstone National Park. 

Friends

We also have to consider visits or reunions with friends. At this time in our lives, relationships are truly number 1! We take particular care in considering reunions with Bill’s beloved high school group, the DUs. First was in Sunriver, Oregon in 2009, then Crested Butte in 2010 and next, Nova Scotia in July 2012. Their 50^th year high school reunion in Pittsburg, Kansas is also in September 2012. However, 2013 or 2014 it will most probably be in Provence.  So we will have to time our European cruise then!

Every time I visit the Philippines, reunions are a matter of course. This year WIT, our Women in Information Technology group, had our first out of the country meeting in Las Vegas with Ann and Jingjing. Next year it will be in April in Atlantic City, NJ. My other group, the Institute of Advanced Computer Technology (I/ACT) had a reunion in Chicago, Illinois near where Loy, Lea, and Watet live. The next one will probably be next year in Toronto where Marissa and Mon live.

Attractions and Fuel Expense

Those three areas pretty much decide which states (or countries) to visit. Now the route we take usually depends on what states or attractions we have not yet visited. And then the final area we consider, given equal alternatives, is which will give us the lowest expenditure in fuel.  Please see our Phase 1 (Seattle to Seattle) when we started up to the time we left for the Philippines last February and Phase 2 (Seattle to Las Vegas)  when we came back last May until next year when we get to Las Vegas  which will be our springboard for foreign travels in the future.

Campground

Now for the final detail, that is, where should we stay?  We are Elite members of Thousand Trails and Resorts of Distinction, giving us 81 and 92 campgrounds, respectively, to choose from for our campground at absolutely no charge! If there are no campgrounds available within those two systems in the areas we will be going to, we choose from Resort Parks International or Enjoy America systems which are much larger but charge $10 a night or 50 % off the first night. As you might have guessed, rarely do we use those! 

Given equal alternatives, we decide the campground based on: 1) how far the attractions we want to visit are relative to its location, 2) which one has a hot tub or sauna, heated pool, fitness room, table tennis, billiards, mini-golf, 3) what activities are held, preferably Texas Hold ‘Em, karaoke, dancing, water aerobics, potlucks, 4) how well the campsites are laid out, preferably pull-thrus with 50 amp electricity, cable TV and wi-fi, with a deck, patio, or nice grass, and lastly,  5) whether our friend RVers will stay there, too.

Vacation Internationale

There are also times when we have used Bill’s Vacation International membership when we want to spoil ourselves a bit or there is no suitable place for a good reunion. Once we stayed at Clock Tower in Whistler, British Columbia. My family had a reunion at Torres Mazatlan in Mexico. This year Bill and I are spending Christmas in Sand Pebble in Tampa, Florida and Valentines at the Newport Resort in South Beach, Miami. When this happens, we use a storage facility for M’A!

Not really a rocket science but there are definitely many things to consider in making sure our trips are comfortable, affordable and loads of fun!

OLA: 'Turning Wounds into Wisdom', Oprah

a giant Coke bottle stands as an ethereal symbol atop The World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, Georgia

It was Oprah who once said…’turn wounds into wisdom’.  And that is what Georgia did, judging by the many great institutions it fostered out of the ravages of war, years of division, and adversity for its people. As we visited the following in Atlanta and Americus, Georgia we were greatly inspired. It was truly a different kind of sight-seeing.   
                                                                                         
Center for Disease Control

Bill in a safe suit at Center for Disease Control

The world will forever be grateful for CDC. It was created as a US federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services headquartered in Druid Hills, Georgia, in Greater Atlanta in 1946.  CDC works to protect public health and safety.  Successful efforts to avert two world crises, tracing contaminated poliomyelitis vaccine to a California lab in 1955 and tracking the massive influenza epidemic of 1957, positioned the agency’s future as a leader in disease surveillance.

The CDC also played a key role in one of the greatest triumphs of public health, the eradication of smallpox in 1977 through an "eradication escalation" technique.  In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, it found the cause of Legionnaires disease and toxic-shock syndrome. In 1081 CDC successfully identified the fatal disease that was subsequently named acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). What a record in making the world a better place to live in!

Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site

Martin Luther King's Tomb in the MLKJ National Historic Site

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) is the iconic figure in the advancement of civil rights in the United States and around the world, using nonviolent methods following the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi. A Baptist minister, King led the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott sparked by Rosa Parks and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, serving as its first president. King's efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work. By the time of his death in 1968, he had refocused his efforts on ending poverty and stopping the Vietnam War. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. The MLKJ National Historic Site in Atlanta, Georgia includes the museum, the adjacent Baptist church from which he preached, his home just a block away, and his tomb and eternal flame. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a U.S. federal holiday in 1986. No other American is so honored, not even Washington or Lincoln.

Cola Company

Taste-It Room with over 65 flavors of Coke for free tastes!

The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation. Its flagship product Coca-Cola was invented in 1886 by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia. Then the formula and brand were bought in 1889 by Asa Candler who incorporated The Coca-Cola Company in 1892. It now offers more than 500 brands in over 200 countries and sells over 1.6 billion servings a day! It is the world’s best known brand.

The Coca-Cola Company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. And there it operates the World of Coca Cola, a complete museum with a 4D Theater featuring ‘The Secret Ingredient’, a Taste-It Room where you can taste 64 different coke flavors plus concoct your own, a Red Room with memorabilia over the years, have your picture taken with the Coke Polar Bear, a Room of Souvenirs, and a tour of the manufacturing/bottling process. It was such a fun museum for little Bill and Carol!

the CNN Center at 1 CNN Center

CNN

When I spent many a night in various hotels as part of my globe-trotting career in computers, CNN was my constant companion. I felt some excitement as I saw the familiar letters on the façade of the CNN Center in Atlanta. CNN was founded in 1980 by Ted Turner, the first to provide 24-hour television news coverage and the first all-news television channel in the United States. As of 2010, CNN is available in over 100 million U.S. households, 890,000 American hotel rooms, and 212 countries. The proliferation of news channels over the years that followed CNN is testament to the service news channels provide.

the monument at Habitat's Global Discovery Center

Habitat for Humanity/Jimmy Carter

Habitat for Humanity is an international NGO devoted to building "simple, decent, and affordable" housing, a "Christian housing ministry." Its international headquarters is located in Americus, Georgia with the administrative headquarters in Atlanta, 1,500 US satellite offices and five area offices located around the world. Its mission is to "eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action."  Homes are built using volunteer labor and are sold at no profit for affordable monthly payments.

Jimmy Carter's boyhood home in Plains

I was general manager of MegaLink (the ATM consortium of banks in the Philippines) when my staff and I built a home for the Philippine Chapter of Habitat. Now, a Philippine nonprofit called Gawad Kalinga has become popular extending the Habitat vision to provide not just at cost homes but also funds and training for the establishment of livelihoods. I was inspired to see firsthand where Habitat started and to visit the nearby birthplace and boyhood home of Jimmy Carter who, at age 89, still goes on a Carter-Habitat project each year with a thousand or so volunteers to build homes.

the first Flatiron Building in America

These visits will keep Georgia in my mind…for a long, long time. And we even found two bonuses in Atlanta. The Flat Iron Building, the city’s second skyscraper, was completed in 1897 on a wedge-shaped block, five years before New York's own version, placing it on the National Register of Historic Places. Then Margaret Mitchell ‘s home (she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for Gone with the Wind, one of the most popular books of all time, selling more than 30 million copies) is very well maintained. The film adaptation of the book, released in 1939, became the highest-grossing film in the history of Hollywood, getting a record-breaking ten Academy Awards. 

Margaret Mitchell's home

Next Post: WOW: Planning Itineraries