Hail storm = Homeless

We left Topsail on Wednesday, May11th, and drove to Biloxi, Mississippi where we overnighted. On the way to Biloxi, we stopped in Mobile, AL and picked up Julie’s nephew to give him a ride back to Texas.

We enjoyed dinner with old friends Paul and Darlene in Biloxi. Paul works for NASA at the Stennis Space Center and we learned that NASA has focused on deep space exploration. 

We arrived in Castroville, Texas at Alsatian RV Resort on Friday. Saturday morning we went to Blue Skies of Texas (formerly Air Force Village) to work on Julie’s mom Bobbie’s new assisted living apartment. Julie’s sister Cindy arrived from south Texas and all four of us worked on getting the remaining furnishings for the apartment.

Bobbie saw the apartment on Sunday and loved her new place. We then moved her in on Monday. 

 

On Tuesday, May 17^th, we had a severe thunderstorm, with large hail, hit the RV resort and surrounding Castroville area around 10:45PM. We were following the storm on radar and saw that it was coming from the west but we thought it would pass just north of us. The storm cell shifted south and hit us head-on.

It was the worse hail storm that Julie and I had ever experienced. The hail lasted about 15 long minutes and we really thought hail was going to come through the roof of our motorhome. Rain water was pouring out our air conditioning vents and ceiling light fixtures. The sound of large hail hitting our roof was deafening. After the storm subsided, we went outside and I picked up hailstones that were 3-inches in diameter.

The next morning we saw that all our neighbors in the RV resort had truck and car windshields, rear windows, and RV windows broken out and every vehicle and RV had suffered heavy hail damage. I used duct tape and quickly covered cracks and baseball size holes in our motorhome roof, because more rain was predicted for Wednesday. We also lost our roof solar panel, all three slide-out awnings, side mirror, and got hail dents on several cargo doors.

 

Our Ford F-150 pickup also sustained substantial damage. The windshield was okay because I backed into our space, rather than pull into the space the day before. However, hail broke our moon roofs, side mirrors, and dented most of the truck body.

Our insurance company adjuster found one of their blue ribbon RV repair and body shop facilities near Bandera, about 50-miles away, that could fix everything for us and could start right away. The downside is that we have to move out of our motorhome for 2 to 4 weeks or more while it’s in the shop being repaired and we’ll be homeless.

We’ve decided to go to Donna, Texas to visit Cindy and Terry for a couple of weeks. We’ve rented a small cottage at the RV resort they live at. We’ve also made reservations for 2-weeks at a Residence Inn in north San Antonio, a short distance from the RV repair and body shop.         

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Tupelo Honey

We thoroughly enjoyed our stay at Low-Key Hideaway Motel and RV Resort in Cedar Key, especially their tiki bar and amazing views of the sunsets from their pier.

 

We left last Friday and drove about 240-miles north along the gulf coast to Tyndall Air Force Base. We stayed at the Family Campground and had a nice, shady campsite.  

On Saturday, we drove about 25-miles east to the town of Wewahitchka, Florida to visit the L.L. Lanie & Sons Tupelo Honey family business, established in 1898. We were curious about Tupelo Honey and wanted to learn more about it.  

Here is some interesting information from the L.L. Lanie & Sons Tupelo Honey web site:

“Tupelo honey is produced from the tupelo gum tree which grows profusely along the Chipola and Apalachicola rivers of northwest Florida. Here in the river swamps, this honey is produced in a unique fashion. Bees are placed on elevated platforms along the river's edge, and they fan out through the surrounding Tupelo-blossom-laden swamps during April and May and return with their precious treasure. This river valley is the only place in the world where Tupelo Honey is produced commercially.”

“Real Tupelo honey is a light golden amber color with a greenish cast. The flavor is delicious, delicate and distinctive; a choice table grade honey. Good white tupelo, unmixed with other honeys, will not granulate.”

 “The Lanier family has been harvesting Tupelo honey from hives in the Apalachicola River swamps for three generations, with L.L. Lanier, Sr. beginning the tradition more than 110 years ago. L.L. Lanier, Jr. apprenticed with his father, and assumed the leadership role in the family business in the 1940's.”

We tried some tupelo honey this morning on some hot, out of the oven, bisquits and it was very, very good. The flavor was distinctive and as Van Morrison would say..."as sweet as Tupelo honey".

We left Tyndall AFB and Panama City on Sunday and drove 55-miles to Topsail Hill Preserve State Park in Santa Rosa Beach to spend three nights. We’ve stayed at Topsail before, back in 2010.

We enjoyed our three days at Topsail, but leave Florida tomorrow, heading towards San Antonio. We’ve been living in Florida now for four months, since early January. We’ll be back…but not until fall 2017.   

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Back to Reality

We left Key West last Thursday, April 28^th and drove to Naples. As we were driving through Key Largo, Julie saw the sign “Leaving The Florida Keys – Key Largo – Back to Reality”. We knew then we were no longer on “island time” and would miss the keys until we return in the Fall of 2017.  

 

We enjoyed two nights in Naples and even made a trip to Costco and Walmart (none in the Florida Keys).

 

Last Saturday we headed up I-75 towards Seffner and the Lazydays RV Park. We enjoyed dinner on Saturday night with an old friend Bill we hadn’t seen in 15 years and his wife.

We went to Safety Harbor on Sunday and took Julie’s Aunt Jo out for lunch and a nice visit. We did a little shopping and then went to my sister Cathy’s house in Palm Harbor. We had a nice visit with her, my nephew Ben and niece Brittany before we left for dinner. We went to Kobe Steakhouse in Clearwater to celebrate my nephew Tyler’s 20^th birthday. The food was very good and we enjoyed seeing my nieces and nephews.

 

On Monday morning we met our friends Carol and Mike and they took us out on their pontoon boat. We launched the boat from Fort Desoto and traveled to Egmont Key to see the lighthouse and walk on the beach. We also visited several bays near St. Petersburg beach where we spotted dolphins.

 

We departed Seffner yesterday and returned to Low-Key Hideaway Motel and RV Resort in Cedar Key, about 150-miles north of Tampa. We’re here for three nights and are enjoying the sunsets, as well as their little tiki bar.

 

Steve & Julie Cornelius