When last we spoke we were still in Florida but now we are in Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Getting here was a bit of a trial. While sitting at the Orlando airport Terry discovered that she did not have her car keys. Hm. We both went through all the bags. We called Dave and Debbi and they checked the house – no keys. What to do? Called the airport parking in Phoenix where the car was parked and they said no problem – they have a locksmith they use. Guess we aren’t all that unusual.

On the second of the two flights getting here we had a late middle aged woman (let’s call her Lady X) sitting behind us. Next to her were a black man and a white woman. Lady X leans over and asks the woman “Is this your husband?” and gets a yes. Then Lady X says “When I was 15 I was in love with a black man but then I got pregnant by a white man. I was heartbroken.” It was a good thing for the couple that the plane wasn’t full – they were able to find a couple of seats elsewhere.

As we waited for the locksmith, I decided to go through Terry’s suitcase one last time. And there, tucked into the bottom corner of the outer pocket were the keys. Thank goodness – who knows how much a locksmith would have cost us at 12:30am.

The road in to Oatman has many trees/shrubs decorated with Christmas decorations and tinsel. Oatman is an old gold mining town. (Side Note: Arizona’s Barkerville but with burros.) Between 1906 and 1941 they took 1.8 million ounces of gold out of the mine. When the gold ran out, the prospectors turned their burros loose. Now there are approximately 5600 of them roaming the desert. Apparently some government department says there should only be 1700 so there could be some serious culling going on at some point.

They not only roam the desert, they come right in to town looking for food. As we wandered in and out of the stores, I thought about how similar tourist stores are around the world from Oatman to Xian. Local artists, local crafts, t-shirts, kick knacks. It is all the same junk/stuff.

Lake Havasu and environment are in the Mojave desert. It is not a welcoming environment. Look carefully at the horizon. Just left of centre is a building. It is a school. Nice.

Saturday morning was “Camaros on the Bridge” on London Bridge in Lake Havasu City. They close the bridge for 20 minutes so the Camaros can get a group shot. Some pretty nice cars – old and new.

If you are a car guy, here is a video of the 89 Camaros arriving for their photo shoot. It’s 5 minutes long – but has cool music from the Ramones and Rascal Flatts to listen to.

 

And now, this from the “Let’s Do Something Really, Really, Really Stupid and Laugh While We Are Doing It” department. At Desert Vista High School in Tempe they have a seniors photo shoot for the school yearbook. This week, it was on the Friday of the week when America celebrates Martin Luther King Day – you know – the famous black civil rights leader. A number of the students make up some slogan and spell it out on their t-shirts.

Nice idea. However 6 girls decide to make their own word.

There have been calls for everything from extended suspensions to expulsion to firing the principal.

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Here we are in sunny (LOL) Florida. I’m not advising everyone not to travel with us, but our ability to attract rainy, cloudy, cool weather is unbelievable. One example among many. A few years ago we travelled to the island of Cyprus. They had not had rain in 5 years – yes FIVE years. The day after we arrived the skies opened and it rained or was cloudy for almost the entire two weeks we were there. Condos found out for the first time that their roofs leaked; roads were flooded out; the water on our front porch washed under the door and into our apartment.

Anyway, since it was cloudy and cool, we decided to take the 1 1/2 hour drive to the Kennedy Space Centre. It was a very cool place – took me back to when we used to get up at 4 am to watch the lift offs.

Just after the entrance is a rocket garden consisting of Apollo and Saturn rockets.

A tour of the Space Centre gives you an entirely new perspective on what the early astronauts, and I assume, cosmonauts had to deal with.

How big is that capsule?

From there it was off to the bus tour of the grounds.

(Side Note: When going on a bus tour and you are the 3rd and 4th people on, always ask the driver which side of the bus you should sit on, otherwise the best you can get may be this.)

At 160 meters tall, when this building was erected, it was the largest building in the world. The American flag is 28 stories tall.

The crawlway from the VAB to launch pad

Then it was the Saturn V building.

How massive are the rockets?

This is the last actual Saturn V rocket. It was the backup for the Apollo III mission (Side note: I am pretty sure that is what I heard the guide telling his group as I eaves dropped.)

Terry and the service module and command module for Apollo XIII. When you see how small the command module actually is, you wonder how the three astronauts were able to get home.

Next up was a visit to the Atlantis Centre, which houses the last space shuttle. Did you know that NASA began designing the Space Shuttle in February, 1969 – even before they landed on the moon.

We took a simulator ride, which simulated the actual take off of the space shuttle – including the noise and the G4 thrust. I could feel my cheeks shaking. Almost as cool as skydiving!

Okay, enough about space, let’s talk about God or at least the God Cafe’. This place has been , I thought, in Leesburg Florida for 8 years. It is a Christian restaurant which started out taking donations only for their food and giving meals to this who needed them. Nice thought. Their sign says they have the best breakfast in town, so I thought I would check it out today. (Side note: This photo is from a couple of days ago – I went alone for breakfast.) Gary is the owner and, according to Yelp, he can be a little, hmm – mercurial or moody. Today he was tepidly friendly. The food is not the best in town by a long way but the coffee was good. That isn’t what was interesting though.

Ten minutes or so after I got there an older – 80ish couple arrived and sat down at a table in the window next to me. It was easy to hear their conversation and they were clearly a Christian couple. Ten minutes after they arrived, a second couple pulled up and parked right in front. The woman quietly says “There they are.” I thought, “Hmm – could be good.” The driver got out and as he waited for his wife to join him on the sidewalk, he looked anywhere but at the couple. When they came in, the woman forced a smile on her face and said “Good morning” and they replied in kind. Then the man said the same and they also replied “Good morning”. As they moved away, to the other side of the room, my male neighbour mutters “Well, there you go.” Is this how 80 year old Christians are supposed to act? I don’t think so.

(Side note: You know how I wrote earlier that I thought The God Cafe’ had been there for 8 years. Well, apparently that wasn’t so, as I heard Gary saying that he had closed a few years ago and then “They prayed me back.” Also, he now charges – no more what you think it was worth.)

Finally, today we were at Walmart in nearby Clermont. A visit to Walmart in nearby Clermont would not be complete without a visit from the Budweiser Clydesdales.

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Finally, finally, finally. I was sitting in Starbucks at 8:30 am and this woman came prancing in. What I couldn’t get was a photo from the front – the over the knee top and accompanying short skirt. She never turned around.

Do we go with The Irish Rovers “Wasn’t That A Party“, The Guess Who “Guns, Guns, Guns” or “I’m Afraid of Americans”  by the Nine Inch Nails/David Bowie? You tell me.

As we were coming home from having a great lunch AND seeing Terry’s big HUGE butt at the Ramshackle Diner,

we saw a sign advertising ‘GUN SHOW January 9-10’. Off we go! What a way to spend an afternoon.

The first table we stopped at had a couple of good old boys who were pleasant to chat with. We told them that we were from Canada, had not been to a gun show and was it okay to take pictures. After some jibber jabber, the one guy says “No, it really is morally unethical.” Terry held her tongue. So, taking that into account, I had to be quite surreptitious in my photo taking. I will say that the folks at the gun show – both dealers and individuals selling their own guns, did not look as if they would be pleased to see me taking photos – and they did have, you know, guns.

The building was a free standing building about the size of a school gym. According to the good old boys, next week the show is in a building approximately 3 times that size, but THE show to go to is in Tulsa – one in November and one in April. The building area there is 11 acres. How big is that? A Canadian Football field is 150 yds by 65 yds which is 2 acres. Do the math.

We began our wandering.

Terry has decided that if she ever needed a hand gun, it would be a Glock. “It just looks like it would scare someone – and would take a big piece out of anyone you hit.”

Just before we left, I asked this guy if I could buy a gun at the show. He said not from him unless I came down to the shop. If I could prove I was a Florida resident, I could leave that day with a long gun. If I wanted a handgun, it would take three business days for the background check. However, if I went to one of the private guys, I could walk out with one that day. (Side note: Terry saw one exchange where after the money had changed hands the seller said “I guess I should see some id.” Good luck enforcing your new regulations President Obama.) When I said that we didn’t have gun shows in Canada (Side note: As far as I, who knows nothing, knows), “Yeah, after all the guns were taken away and put in metal chippers.” Huh?

There were probably 10 tables of ammunition as well as another 10 of knives.

These are handbags – and quite fetching ones – specially designed for carrying concealed weapons.

Some things mystified me.

This fellow was doing a lesson on “Florida State Law on Use of Deadly Force”. When he saw me listening, he asked if I was in the class and then said “No standees, move along”. Okay. The charge was $65.00 – $50 for “Class” and $15 for “Other Things”.

Mr. Trump has his followers.

And I won’t even get into what the Libertarian Party was handing out as we left.

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Okay, so maybe they didn’t actually have these and maybe I just pulled the pictures from the internet, but where would the wearer of these be going?

Here I sit on a Saturday morning observing life in central Florida. Dave and Terry are golfing, Debbi is at work and I, well I am at a temporary office – outside the Starbucks in a “census-designated place” know as The Villages. If you haven’t heard of or visited The Villages, it is a fascinating place. It is a retirement community which covers approximately 30 sq. miles (Side Note: Burnaby is 34 sq. miles), with a population of approximately 114,000 – in 2010 it was 51,000. As of July 2014, it was the fastest growing city in the U.S. for the second year in a row.

The Villages consists of a large number of communities and three throwback town centres which are designed to reflect a far simpler, idyllic time. Think “The Music Man”. The main street in Sumter Landing is the “Old Mill Run”. Get the picture?

They have everything here – recreation centres, a hospital, Panera Bread, Starbucks, Chico Women’s Wear, Bass Shoe Outlet, Winn Dixie Groceries, theaters, over 60 restaurants and golf carts galore!

It also has people from all over the States – you can tell by the accents. However, New Jersey seems to dominate. It has been fun listening to them talk about the Jets, the Colts (Side note: Baltimore, not Indianapolis), and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Sounds to me like everyone has left Pittsburgh and lives here now. (Side Note: Nothing about Donald so far though.)  In an area roughly the size of Burnaby, serving approximately the population of Coquitlam, there are 32 executive golf courses – when you buy, you get free golf for life on them, and 12 18 hole championship courses. Kind of puts something into perspective, doesn’t it. Today they had a 5K run starting and finishing in the square and there seem to have been an awful lot of over 55 fit and not so fit participants.

(Side Note: There are 2 groups of approximately 10 men each just along  from me. Why is it there is one Alpha’s voice you can always hear and the other 18 or so are just background noise?)

(Side note: Just saw a three wheeled motorcycle go by with  a dogue de Bordeaux sitting on the back with an old time pilot’s helmet. Everybody oohed and aahed, so I guess it was unusual even for here. Sure wish I could have taken a photo for you. 🙁  Instead here is a unusual daschund/dalmation – dalmshunation?.)

I have been sitting here for an hour now and it has been a steady stream of people going by or going in to get their latte. When I got in line there was one person in front of me and by the time I had my latte, there were 6 or 7 in line and it has been that many ever since. Even Jiaxing had the odd break of motion, but not here.   The retirees of America are certainly on the go.

A brief video of a few of the Old Mill Run shoppes.

 

Tomorrow we are off to the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, Florida – should be good.

On the way back, this car was in front of me.

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Typical Villages Footwear.

 

 

 

Before we hit Florida, here are the flamingoes which guard the entrance to the JW Marriot Resort Hotel in Palm Desert.

And at a rest stop on the highway…

We had an interesting time getting here from Palm Desert. Thinking we were leaving ourselves lots of time to make our flight, we stopped at Starbucks and weren’t even frustrated at how long it took the barista to take our order. Amazing how many people show up on a Saturday morning at 7. Just like Christmas, why aren’t these people at home doing something – like sleeping? Anyway, we cruised along at 75 mph through California and 80 mph from the Arizona border. More often than not we were the passee and not the passer.

We finally arrived at the long term parking lot 1 hour an 15 minutes before our flight. Hmm, getting a little close. The driver of the shuttle says “No problem, lots of time”; the United Airlines pilot says “Cutting it a little close aren’t you?” We get to the curbside check-in and had only one person ahead of us. Great! Except she and Debby, the check-in person, were having a grand old time talking about the woman’s teaching job in Bahrain. Move it lady!

We get to the security line – oh oh. The security guy says that he can’t do anything – all we can do is to ask people if we can go ahead of them which we do and everyone says no problem. Very nice people. We finally get through, get to the gate and we still have 30 minutes until take off. Perfect. Sadly, for the writer in me, there were no incidents at all.

And now here we are in the Sunshine State.

Here’s the problem with travelling in the good old U.S. of A. They are just like us – not particularly worthy of note since they are so darn normal. We are having a very pleasant time visiting with Dave and Debbi (and son Jeremy) – and for all those of you who ask about Dave, here are the words straight from his very own mouth: “I am cancer free and able to eat most things, feeling stronger every day and generally doing hunky dory fine.”

Unfortunately we will not be making it to Charleston this trip since our good friends Sherrie and Tim will be busy with the birth of their grandchild. Hope all goes well there and we look forward to seeing them down the road. Update! Update!

We have played a little golf thus far at Crane’s Roost Golf Course. Terry was a standout in the all male shotgun, and Dave, despite shooting higher than the other three of us, won all the money. Boo, hiss..

Apparently the cranes all move in pairs –

Many of the incredibly beautiful oak trees in Florida are being slowly killed by the Spanish Moss which covers them.

And please check out the “Why are we not surprised” department. (Side note: Click on it)

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