Where are Cheryl and Dennis?: Visit Carmi and Manatees

Monday - temps: High 73º, Low 59º

Today we headed over to Orlando to visit Carmi Schultz. Carmi is one of our neighbors back at the lake in Wisconsin. She spends the winter at the Outdoor Resorts Park in Clermont Florida. This park is just down the road from Disney World. We arrived before noon and Carmi treated us to a nice lunch of ham, salads and dessert. We chatted for a while then took a tour of the park. It is mostly park models with a few RV lots. There is one Olympic size pool and another smaller pool, a par 3 golf course and all the other park amenities such as tennis, pickle ball, shuffle board, etc. It is on a 173 acres lake with some sites on a canal with lake access. We checked on the price of some of the RV lots that were for sale. Dennis was very interested in the lots on the canal and perhaps purchasing one for our use and for potential rental income. Not sure if this is the right time for us.

We spent the entire afternoon with Carmi then she invited us out for dinner. We tried going to the Texas Road House but the waiting line was out the door which was similar at most of the restaurants in the area. We went next door to a Pollo Tropical. The food was OK but I don't think we will be going back to one of those. It had been sprinkling on and off all afternoon but on the way back to our park we ran into some substantial showers. Arrived back safely around 10:00.

View from Carmi's Porch

A RV lot for sale

Tuesday - temps: High 66º, Low 50º

Tuesday we had planned to kayak the Wicki Wachi River with some of our friends here at the park. However a cold front is moving through with today's high is predicted to only reach 66 degress and be very windy. We all decided to postpone. We spent the day just hanging arouind the camper. I decided to make some more coconut oil candy and to use up some of the oranges I purchaed last week and make some orange marmalade. I used the electric pressure cooker to make and can the marmalade and it turned out great.

Orange Marmalade

Wednesday - temps: High 60º, Low 35º

Another cold day predicted for today. Brrr! Its amazing how quickly you get used to the warm temps. Anyway before we leave this area I wanted to make sure we visited Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park so we decided to go there today. This is a very nice park on the Homossasa River and is one of the best places in Florida to see manatees and boy did we see them. Partly because of the cold temperatures there were many manatees in the river today. It was hard to tell but there must have been a hundred or so. There is an underwater observatory on the main spring which we were able to see hundreds of fish as well. The park also has a zoo with mostly Florida native wildlife including birds, otters, deer, bear and alligators. We also took a boat ride on Pepper Creek which takes you between two of the park visitor centers. It was a very lovely day despite the rather cold weather.