You say it your birthday

What could be more magical than Key West…..well how about the Magic Kingdom itself. Yes we decided that for my birthday we should take the kids to Walt Disney World. It was a gorgeous day both in weather and events. We took in as much as we could pack in for 12 hours. To make sure it was educational we watch the Hall of Presidents where the kids watch a movie about the US and then heard animotronic presidents talk about their experiences and what makes America special. Patriotic and corny, I love it. The park we are returning to is like the animal kingdom with deer, wild turkeys and alligators (sounds like a menu don’t it.). We thought it was the most peaceful place we had found until the weekend. One of the biggest sports in this part of Florida is frog hunting at night with air boats. I don’t mean a small boat till 10pm, I mean a boat that sounds like Hughes Spruce goose till about 3 am. We spent about 2 hours trying to figure out what it was and decided some developer was behind on his loan and was developing land but when we asked we found the real source of the racket. We found a genuine small town in Lake Wales. The people are friendly and act unthreatenend by the impending Mc-america-ing of Florida. I suspect the farther north we go the better it will get. The other great attraction at Lake Kissimee was an 1860 cow camp, authentic down to the “cracker” that was living there. For those of you interested and not in the know, a “cracker” is what the native Floridians are called. I say the rest of the natives are called Seminoles… Anyway the term “cracker” comes from the sound of the whip that the cowboys used to control the dogs that helped round up the scrub cattle. It imitates the sound of a gun but is cheaper since after the civil war, powder was “dear” down in the south. Florida at one time was the largest cattle producer in the US so it was big business down here.
Spring must be here because we are traveling without reservations. After a night at the Ocala National Forest where we left the airstream so we could go to a bluegrass festival in Live Oak, we had our first brush with life threatening adventure. It started with our power steering gear box seal developing a leak. We tried some stop leak magic fluid but that didn’t encourage it to quit. What we didn’t realize was how bad the leak was and how it can affect the brakes if the reservoir runs dry. We were pulling up to the Suwanee River Music Camp when the brakes and steering simultaneously chose to go on vacation. We were extremely lucky for several reasons. We were on a hill so we were slowing down naturally due to gravity and we were able to, using the Armstrong method, to get the truck off the road and we were not towing the airstream. We went into the park and met the most helpful, nicest people who helped us get mechanic and then let us spend the night in their camp. If you are going to break down I highly recommend doing it outside a bluegrass festival. We met a great guy named Bill who is letting us camp in his cabin until our truck is fixed. Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers.
Fluffy rides again! We managed to get our beloved truck back and get to Ocala to pick up our bigger half (ha ha) and wing our way to Daytona Beach where spring breakers rule this week. We are visiting a class mate of my mother who lives here. After a great time in Ormond Beach and Daytona where we were absolutely spoiled rotten by mom’s friend, we have moved to St Augustine which I will write a great deal about when I have more time.
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