Mayonnaise Jar and the 2 Beers

I'm not sure where I got this but wish I'd adopted it about 50 years ago.

2014 Florida Trip –Photo Practice

In addition to professional musician Gabe who has entertained us, professional photographer Dave is also at the campground, has been coaching me a little, and inspired me to get away from the auto settings on the camera.

Here are a few taken around the campsite (shot on manual) with the second one being about the way it looked to my eye light wise and the third one with a little warmth added to the second shot to get the color right.

2014 Florida Trip – Lunch With The Hoffers

Do you know how you can tell when a friendship is developing – when someone is willing to drive clear across the state to have lunch with you.  So it was with Meakin and Sam (My CarolinaKitchen) who drove from Ft. Myers across the Florida to Jupiter for lunch with us at the

 Food Shack. 

They had lived in the area at one point and knew the places to go so we were more than willing just to be where they told us to be.  The Food Shack is located in a strip mall and would be very easy to ignore from the outside.

2014 Florida Trip – Palm Beach Gardens Green Market

When we travel, we enjoy visiting and shopping at farmers markets and while the pickins are scarce where we are staying, there are several within an hour’s drive on the Atlantic coast.  Our first one was the Palm Beach Gardens Green Market which seems to be put on by the city and is held in a parking lot beside the municipal building.

With more than 120 vendors, it is a very big market with my two photos showing only about ¼ of it.

It is a collection of arts & crafts, produce, prepared foods, bakeries, plants, seafood, cheese, and food & drink vendors and they were all intermingled so you had to walk the entire market to find all of the produce, for example.  I didn’t take many specific shots but this quiche looked too good to walk by.

As you can see from above, it was very well attended and a parking space was hard to come by – I’ve never seen so many clean cars in my life and being where we were the high dollar models were pretty common.

We ended up buying a little produce, some baked goods, two quarts of bisque, made from Maine lobster, and a quart of spicy sour pickles – hard for me to believe no jewelry was purchased.  If in the area and you like farmers markets/ craft fairs you will probably want this one on your must see list.

From the market, we headed over to the beach and drove Ocean Drive north to Jupiter before heading back to the campground.

We all commented at never seeing the Atlantic look prettier.

Photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

1/19/14 event date

2014 Florida Trip – Country Music At The Campfire & Philosophy

Some of the best times I’ve had were the result of an impromptu event and this was no exception.  Our camping neighbor, Gabe, had mentioned that he had been a performing musician during his life and when some old friends of his unexpectedly showed up in the campground, they decided some music around a campfire was in order.

About 30 minutes later we were gathered round the fire, where some roasted weenies, others just sipped a beer, some bundled up under a blanket – it was a little cool - and we all enjoyed the sunset over Lake Okeechobee.

For at least three hours, Gabe played and sang classic country using his guitar signed by The Hag.

We had such a good time and only wish more campers had joined us.  While it's been cool here, the house sitter reports it's downright cold at home.

A Little Philosophy
As I have gone through life, three things I’ve learned – be honest with myself about who I am down deep, love myself for who I am, realize that others opinions of me are just that and only I know the real me, only then I will be comfortable enough to allow others to see the me that I see. 

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry 

1/17/14  Event Date

2014 Florida Trip – Penny’s Shredded Beef

While picking up supplies at the market, we discovered a 2 for 1 deal on chuck roast and I knew I had just the recipe, so into the cart they went.  As we are fans of balsamic vinegar (especially Bev) I had recently saved Penny’s recipe for Crock Pot Balsamic Shredded Beef from her Lake Lure Cottage Kitchen blog.

Since I followed her recipe, rather re-print it here, please head over to her blog for the recipe and some delicious shots.  As I've mentioned, I like to camp and do as much as possible outside using the Coleman propane and Weber Jumbo Joe charcoal grills.  Since I discovered the Coleman is a real pain to clean after grilling, I now use it as a stove and grill on the Weber.  Since we have only a 4 qt. crock pot, I had to cut the meat into pieces and used the opportunity to remove some of the major fat.  

Then, after browning in a skillet, I stood the pieces of meat on edge to fit into the crock pot and poured the sauce over it.  After cooking, I removed the meat from the pot along with half the broth and after shredding the meat, I added back just enough broth to provide the moistness I was looking for.

We just boiled some potatoes, mashed them on our plate (remember, we're RVing) and topped them with the meat.

It was delicious and a fine alternative to the normal roast beef flavor - thanks Penny.  It made an outstanding sandwich as well.

Photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

1/18/14 meal date

2014 Florida Trip – A Drive Around The Lake

Before we decided to spend a month near Okeechobee, FL we were warned by our friends that there is not much there and during the tour they gave us of town, they said it was just one big fish camp.

After the first week of getting organized, getting relaxed, and waiting for Pat to fly in (you can tell she came from the North), 

we decided it was time to make the roughly 100 mile journey around the lake to see the sites.

We began at our campground and headed south on US-441which is a much busier road (especially semis) than I would have expected considering the location.  I guess it may be a good route between the West Palm and the Tampa areas. 

There seem to be three main industries in the area - farming, ranching, and fishing based tourism.  Lake Okeechobee claims to be the best lake in the country for crappie and one of the best for bass.

In general the bottom side of the lake seems to be farming while the upper end is ranching.  This is a Google Earth shot of the lower part.

Here are some shots of some of the richest looking farmland I’ve seen and the crops of corn and sugar cane.  The smoke in the middle shot is from a cane field that is being burned to remove the greenery prior to harvesting the stalks to make sugar.

These are some shots of the Port Mayaca dam & lock and the lake from the rim (dike) near it - most of the rim has either a trail or road atop it.  We were hoping to see the Mantees that had been spotted in the canal but no luck, however, we managed to catch a boat coming off the lake and headed for the lock and at this point, the canal and lake are at the same level.

This lock is part of the Okeechobee Waterway system which runs from Stuart thru the lake, 154 miles across the state to the Fort Myers area.  This allows boats and some barges to save the extra190 miles required to go around the keys.  
       

I have been amazed at the lake-surrounding rim and extensive canal system that provides for flood protection, transportation, and water to cities and the Everglades.  I had no idea such a massive project had been undertaken.

I know there is a tremendous amount of wealth in Florida and I suspect most of it resides within 10 miles of the coastline as it sure isn’t around here.  Most of the area around the lake is pretty economically depressed and the further south we went the worse it became.  I can only assume many folks are farm workers and it doesn’t pay well.

While on the other side of the lake, we made a brief stop at the Brighton Seminole Reservation to make a small donation to the tribe.

I’ve shown shots of our RV park, 

but most of them near us look more like these.

Then there are some between these and ours, such as the KOA and the one in the last two shots.  Most places seem to have started out as RV parks but they became permanent with the addition of a room alongside - there is a heavy concentration of these parks at the north end of the lake and most seem to have been around for quite a while.

This is one of our favorite places as the Honey Bells are in and the grapefruits are delicious - hard to beat a Salty Dog made with good fresh grapefruit juice which Ferrell's squeezes.

While this area certainly seems to be a fisherman’s paradise, there is not much here to offer the average camper unless it’s a warmer-weather-than-up-north-place to kick back, which is what we've been doing.   We’ll be making day trips over to the Atlantic coast soon to check it out.

Photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

1/14/14 meal date