Winter Workamper Position

Well it looks like we will be heading back to Florida this winter. We accepted a workamper position at the Ocala RV & Camp Resort in Ocala, Florida starting sometime the middle of October through April of next year. This is a volunteer position working 25 hours a week between the two of us in exchange for full hookups including electricity and cable TV. Barbie will be working indoors checking people in and taking reservations and I will be working mainly outside doing maintenance like lawn care, cleaning restrooms, keeping up the heated swimming pool and spa. The Ocala RV & Camp Resort is the old Ocala/Silver Springs KOA Kampground that went independent about 2 years ago.

Great Lakes Naval Training Center

We took a road trip today along with our friends Frank and Jill to Great Lakes Naval Training Center (GLNTC) in North Chicago to checkout the area. Once there we went by the house where Barbie lived on base from 1964 until her father retired from the Navy in 1968. They were in the process of tearing it down to build new housing. Barbie's dad was a Company Commander for the Navy boot camp there. Frank also went to boot camp there back in 1956. Then we visited the Navy Commissary and the Navy Exchange. We then went to get on the base but we had to get a visitor pass first. Instead of the visitor pass I went ahead and registered our Dakota there so that we could get a permanent base sticker good at all the military bases. After about 45 minutes we were able to get in then proceeded to look for the base RV park and marina. After driving around awhile getting lost a couple of time we finely found the RV park. The RV park we thought was very nice. We then proceeded to find our way to the marina but ran into a road block. The Navy was conducting training maneuvers and the marina was closed to guest today. We'll have to come back some other day to checkout the marina.

Cruise Date Set

This past March in St. Petersburg, FL, Barbie and I took a 2 hour sunset cruise aboard the The Schooner "Ellida". After that she was hooked. Barbie's life long dream was to take an ocean cruise so today we booked a Caribbean cruise aboard Windjammer Barefoot Cruises' S/V Yankee Clipper. We will fly to St. George's, Grenada for a week of sailing on a "tall ship" between Grenada and St. Vincent boarding on November 25th. Why a Windjammer cruise you ask? 1st I really didn't have an interest cruising on a large floating hotel and 2nd after watching the movies Pirates of the Caribbeans, Barbie wanted to sail through and visit the beautiful Caribbean Islands where the movies were filmed. History
Built in 1927, CRESSIDA, was one of the only armor plated private yachts in the world. Confiscated during World War II as a war prize, she was later acquired by the Vanderbilts and renamed PIONEER. Racing off Newport Beach, California, PIONEER was considered one of the fastest tall ships on the west coast. In 1965, she joined the Windjammer fleet and was christened YANKEE CLIPPER.

Ship Specifications
Berths: 64
Crew: 30
Length: 197 Ft
Beam: 30 Ft
Draft: 17 Ft

Click on the label below to read our adventure aboard about the Ellida.

SOLD!

Today we sold our older 1972 Balboa Motorhome on eBay. With too many toys and too many projects going on we had to get rid of something. I'll be sad to see it go since it's been a part of our family since 1993. It had been my refuge for a couple of years and Barbie & I had a lot of great times in it. Before we bought OWFISH in 2003 we put a lot of work and new parts in it planning on using it to tour the country. Winter before last we used it down in Presidio, TX as a bus taking people from the campground across the border into Old Mexico and back. Last summer we brought it up here to Wisconsin to do some work on it and to use it as a camper exploring the local area. That 18 foot motorhome would have been a lot easier to get around in the state parks than a 36 foot bus would have been. Well we didn't get all the work done on it that I had planned and we didn't do any travelling in it as we planned because we put all our efforts into the Shangri-La. Goodbye old friend. Now lets see I have a 12 foot boat and motor sitting in storage and my old Ranger pickup to do something with....