New Orleans

We spent the weekend in Biloxi and enjoyed meeting our friends Paul & Darlene for dinner on Saturday night. They introduced us to Patio 44 where we enjoyed Cajun creole cuisine.

On Monday we drove to Belle Chasse, Louisiana, a community on the west bank of the Mississippi, to spend the week visiting New Orleans. We picked up our friend Wendy at the airport who we’d invited to spend the week with us in New Orleans to celebrate her birthday.

We also met up with our friends Vince & Lisa and we all stayed at a Navy joint reserve base campground. I mixed up some Steve-o-Ritas to kick off visit as we hadn’t seen our friends from Colorado since last August.

Tuesday was our first day to explore New Orleans and we started by having lunch at Mothers Restaurant. Then we visited the Confederate Museum, Lafayette Cemetery and drove through the Garden District. We were very lucky as we found on-street parking and could park for free for up to 3-hours with my handicap tag. 

Wednesday, Julie stayed home to recover from her cold. The four of us ate breakfast at The Ruby Slipper and then spent the entire day at the National World War II Museum. It had very detailed, informative displays, and was well worth a visit.

On Thursday, all of us began the day with French coffee and beignets at Café du Monde and they were all very tasty. Next, we did a two-hour riverboat cruise on the steamboat Natchez followed by a two-hour city tour by bus. We walked a few blocks over to the French Quarter for dinner. It was a fun day.

We got up early today and drove to the airport to drop off Wendy for her flight back to Denver. Tomorrow we head to Natchez with Vince & Lisa for a 2-night stay and some more sightseeing. It's our first time to visit Natchez.       

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Leaving Florida

We stayed six nights in Seffner, near Tampa, visiting family and friends. Last Saturday we spent the day at my sister Cathy’s new home helping her unpack and putting things back together. Her new townhome is very nice, 3 bedrooms and 2 ½ baths, and a double car garage.

We spent last weekend resting as I caught a nasty bug, I think while at Disney World. Sore throat, coughing, congestion. Two trips to the MedExpress and two different doctor diagnoses. I believe Julie was right…that I had a “bad cold”. The second doctor diagnosed acute bronchitis and finally prescribed medications to clear it up.

Julie visited her Aunt Jo last Tuesday. We enjoyed dinner with our friends Carol & Mike at the Columbia Restaurant in historic Ybor City. We especially enjoy the Sangria de Cava, a sparkling white sangria made tableside.        

On Wednesday an old friend Bill stopped by the Lazy Days RV Resort to see us and we enjoyed hearing about his downsizing from a large house to a villa in preparation to retire.

We left Seffner on Thursday morning and drove up to Tallahassee to spend a night on the road. In the RV park I met a couple across the road from us. From Poland, Mark & Tina had an interesting RV. They told me they had already travelled to Africa and Australia. They planned to travel around the USA for a year, including a trip to Alaska this summer, before they head to South America. Mark showed me photos of when they got stuck in the mud in Australia and they were 300km (about 180-miles) to the nearest town. They had to be winched out by another big truck.  

We enjoyed the warm weather while in Florida, mostly in the 80s during the day. We ran into rain and cooler temperatures when we travelled to Alabama and Mississippi.

We enjoyed dinner here in Biloxi with our friends Paul & Darlene at Patio 44. It was very good, especially dessert, the chocolate-filled beignets in a special bourbon sauce.

We head to New Orleans on Monday morning for a 5-night stay.  

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Walt Disney World

We drove up to Disney’s Fort Wilderness last Sunday from Labelle. As we were checking in, we saw my sister Marcia and my brother-in-law Mike in their motorhome just ahead of us.

The four of us picked up our Disney 4-day park hopper passes on Sunday afternoon. We enjoyed dinner and catching up as we hadn’t seen them since Christmas in Sacramento in December 2016.

After dinner, we planned out our 4-days at four different Disney parks and linked our tickets for our FastPass+ selections for attractions each day. 

Magic Kingdom

On Monday we went to Magic Kingdom, just a short boat ride from across the lake from Fort Wilderness. We rode the Peter Pan’s flight, saw the Haunted Mansion, and enjoyed the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor. We spent about 10-hours at Magic Kingdom and walked over 5-miles.

Animal Kingdom

We went to Animal Kingdom on Tuesday. Our first stop was a 3D attraction called “It’s Tough to be a Bug”, housed inside the Tree of Life root system. Next we enjoyed watching the Festival of the Lion King and then took the Kilimanjaro Safaris. Just after dark we watched a new attraction called Rivers of Light. It was another 10-hour day with almost 6 miles of walking.

Epcot

We went to Epcot around 11AM on Wednesday and saw the Disney & Pixar Short Film Festival. We enjoyed lunch at a U.K. Fish & Chips stand. After lunch we watched “The Seas with Nemo & Friends”. We called it a day and rode the shuttle bus back to Fort Wilderness for dinner, as we planned to go to Disney Springs. We bought a few souvenirs and stopped at Ghirardelli Ice Cream & Chocolate Shop for dessert.   

Disney’s Hollywood Studios

Our last full theme park day we rode the shuttle bus to Disney’s Hollywood Studios. The new attractions here were Star Wars and Frozen. We opted for the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular show.

Later Mike, Marcia and I rode the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. I clearly remember the ride from our visit two years ago so I don’t know why I got on it again. The haunted elevator is a dark ride that drops 13-stories at a speed of 39 mph, goes to the top of the building and drops again. Although we are sitting in seats and are buckled in, it’s pretty scary. You can see us in the upper right-had corner of the photo below.

We drove 65 miles to Seffner today for a 6-day stay at Lazy Days Resort near Tampa to visit family and friends. 

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Our Last Week in LaBelle

We enjoyed playing Bingo a week ago Wednesday night here at Oak Grove RV Resort. I won a Bingo game for $40. Then a couple of games later Julie won and got $40. That makes up for those Wednesday nights we played and went home empty handed.

Last Thursday our F-150 got rear-ended by a Tundra pickup while we were waiting in a left-turn lane in Fort Myers. The Tundra driver was distracted and didn’t see that we’d stopped for traffic because of a stalled vehicle in our lane. We sustained some damage to our bumper and left-rear fender. Luckily the guy has good insurance that will fix our pickup.

On Friday night we drove down to Bonita Springs and enjoyed dinner with my cousin Sue and her husband Scott. Then after dinner we all went to the Don McLean concert at the Southwest Florida Events Center just down the road from their house. It was a good concert. I didn’t realize how many songs he’d written, that other artists recorded, and he sang many of them at his concert. Some of those songs included “Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)”, “Crying”, “Castles in the Air”, “Since I don’t Have You”, and “And I Love You So”. However, my favorite song is still “American Pie”. 

We got home about 11:30PM from the concert and then we were up at 5AM on Saturday to get ready for the Caloosa ASPCA 5K run/walk this weekend. It was one event that was part of the 52^nd annual LaBelle Swamp Cabbage Festival this weekend.   

After the 5K walk, we watched the Swamp Cabbage Festival parade. Besides the fire trucks, bands, parade floats, pickup trucks, and ATVs, there were many huge swamp buggies.

On Sunday we got up again at 5AM to get ready at 7AM preparing for the bi-weekly Sunday breakfast here at the RV resort. This Sunday we served 61 people.

We heard about a place in Fort Myers called Shrimp Shack so we gave it a try last Tuesday evening for dinner. It wasn’t very expensive and the seafood was pretty good.

Today (March 1^st), we saw an exodus of about 15-20 RVs from our park. Folks heading home after spending the winter months here in Florida. We leave on Sunday after spending almost 10-weeks here in LaBelle and head to Orlando to camp at Disney’s Fort Wilderness.

Steve & Julie Cornelius