Happy 80th!

Mom's 80th Birthday!! It's hard to believe that she's 80. She looks and acts years younger! We decided to try a new restaurant, Old Town. We were pleasantly surprised. Run by a Romanian couple, they are only open seasonally and had great food. Mom and I had stuffed grouper, E.D. had prime rib and John had weinerschnitzel. It was all wonderful. We gave Mom her birthday surprise- an Alaska Cruise!

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve but were so exhausted that we opted to open presents the next day. On Christmas day, we made the Cajun turducken (turkey stuffed with a duck then stuffed with a chicken).

Mom and I got a chance to shop and spend time together and it was nice to have some relaxed time. Seems like when we lived at TGO, things were always so compressed. Living this close has made it easy to get together on a moment’s notice.

Back at "The Great Outdoors"

The next morning, we got our 6 AM wakeup and took off on the familiar roads back to TGO in Titusville. Hard to believe that we had just left the factory and already we had problems. This time, one of the 3 new air conditioners (all three replaced at the factory in November) had failed. Knowing that Mike at Eagle’s Pride could handle the repair or replacment, we met with him and they diagnosed a replacement necessary. After pleading with the factory, they agreed to air freight the replacement. Even so, we were going to be at TGO for a while. With no car and the motorcycle rule in effect, we rented a space on Sunset (close enough to walk to Mike’s to pick up the motorcycle and drive outside the park. Mike loaned us his truck so we made a major grocery run.
We called Bob and Janet and before we knew it, we were meeting for drinks with the two of them and John and Pat. After dinner at the Roadhouse – steaks and lots of wine, we drove back to Pat and John’s for more drinks and to meet the new dog.

A week later, we were ready to leave TGO. After a week there, we were definitely ready to leave and most definitely not regretting our decision to sell.

A Cajun Thanksgiving

How does one describe a Cajun Thanksgiving? John called it “Brenda Ann’s Train Station”. Coming from our typical Yankee Thanksgiving with 2-4 people and a 12 pound turkey, we walked into a house filled with 40+ people (almost all related) and tables upon tables of food. They had 4 turkeys- baked, smoked, fried – salads, stuffings, and two tables of desserts. A number of the people there were from New Orleans and we got an earful of stories about Katrina and the aftermath.

After the craziness of Thanksgiving, we had a chance to drive into New Orleans to see the devastation of Katrina. It was truly horrifying. It is impossible to describe the damage and destruction of this storm. 3 months later and there are huge areas of the city still uninhabitable. The French Quarter has some life and appeared to be trying to make a comeback. The Uptown and Garden District looked fairly unscathed, but the debris was still everywhere, piled on the curbs. We drove to the Lakeview area and through the 9th Ward area. It was hard to imagine these areas ever coming back.

On Sunday, EJ and Sharon invited us all over for dinner. It was another family dinner- and Sharon made a killer gumbo. It took her two days of cooking to make the gumbo.

After our wonderful Thanksgiving with the Cajuns, we were heading to the Cruisin' Cajun Christmas Rally. What were we thinking? We had volunteered to be the Emergency Coordinators for the Rally! We had to arrive at the rally on Thursday morning. They had our front row parking spot ready for us. We picked up the buckets of supplies- a suitcase of medical supplies, the AED, walkie talkies, cell phone, etc. We had Bert give us a golf cart ride around the property so we’d understand the lay of the land. We frantically pulled out our notes from our Red Cross training session- trying to recall how many breaths and how many compressions, when to use the AED.....

As emergency coordinators, we were on 24/7 and the responsibility was weighty. No drinking, no leaving the premises. On Saturday, as everyone got “happier and happier” and they announced “Open bar”, we started to look at all of these seniors out there dancing and started praying for no accidents. Sunday morning and the end of our duty couldn’t come soon enough for us.