sandcastle – Page 150 – The Sandcastle

Two Museums

We finally left the SKP park in Bushnell, Florida, this morning. Ten days in one place is a long time for us and we’re feeling restless. So we decide to stop at two museums on our way south today.

The first one was the Citrus History Museum in Dade City, Florida.

If you look closely you can see the theater marquee to the right of the building. And that’s as close a look as you are going to get. See the fence between us and the museum? It goes all the way around the place and the only gates we found were firmly closed with signs saying “Private Property” on them. We could see some of the displays through the fence. We could see part of the sight-seeing tour tram through the fence. But we couldn’t see a way to get us on the other side of the fence.

Now, I know what you are thinking. How often have we arrived at a museum outside of the hours it is open? But their website says the tours are Tues-Sat at 10, 12, 2 and 4. Today is Tuesday and it’s a little after 11 Why can’t we go in? We’re in Florida; we want to learn about citrus here. Whine.

So we left Dade City. As we did so a sister RV beeped a hello to us. We were too slow to respond in kind so I posted a message on the owners’ group saying, “Beep, beep.” I hope they get it.

I saw a muffler man. Do you remember the muffler men statues we saw along Route 66? We’re pretty far from that route but we still see an occasional muffler man. This one was at a repair shop so he was holding a wrench.

We stopped at Cracker Barrel for lunch. I really like their roast beef. It was a little early for us to be stopping but we wanted to be fed before arriving at our second musem today. So I have lots of leftovers. And Dave ordered a huge hamburger with huge onion rings so even he has some leftovers today.

I saw a sign from a realty that said, “Drop Dead Gorgeous 3 Bed Pool.” What a thing to do–put three beds in a pool so people will sleep there then tell them to drop dead. They will if they try to sleep underwater.

In Tarpon Springs, Florida, we arrived at our second museum of the day, The Sponge Factory. This place apparently is primarily a store with some displays and a movie about the sponge industry inside it. That’s OK with us. Cracker Barrel is essentially a store with a restaurant inside it but that doesn’t keep us from going there. So we headed for the Sponge Factory’s parking lot. Not so fast there. There was a craft fair in the parking lot and they were charging admittance. OK. Three dollars to park to see what the in-store museum has to offer. Except they want $10 from us because we are driving an RV. More than half the parking lot is empty so we object. They tell us if we spend at least $20 in the sponge store they will refund our parking fee. Well, at least $3 of it. The parking attendant doesn’t think they’ll go the whole $10 for an RV. We now feel ripped off so we leave without seeing the inside of this museum either. There’s more than one type of fence.

So now we are in Largo, Florida, at Lee’s Travel Park. We’ll be here two nights. We won’t be here two days, though. We’ll spend tomorrow in Tampa getting service on our Sprinter and shopping at the Apple Store and Best Buy and maybe having a really good steak dinner at a place one of my blog readers told us about depending on how much time and money we spend at the Dodge dealer. And the next day we’ll be on the road early; check out time here is 10 a.m.

TTYL,

Linda

We’re where?

Still at the SKP park in Bushnell through today’s forecast thunderstorms. Spent most of the day doing more research on potential places to visit. Ran across this statement and laughed so hard I had to share it.

“Visitors using GPS or internet mapping programs from Hwy 441 or Hwy 98, please follow the brown state park signs.”

We’ve driven by so many things our GPS said we were about to come to that it’s almost not funny anymore. Almost.

TTYL,

Linda

Golden Arches

They mostly don’t build things the way they used to. So when I saw this McDonald’s in front of the Super WalMart in Bushnell, Florida, I had a strong urge to show it to those of you who may not understand where the term “golden arches” came from. They all used to look like this. Even before they had dining rooms attached to them they had golden arches. Not just those puny things you see on their signs nowadays, either. Real arches. Like these.

See how old I’m getting? I’m telling stories of how it used to be back in my day. When McDonald’s was a new thing and we thought it was cool to go to a drive-in and get such skinny hamburgers. Of course, we didn’t think of them as skinny–just affordable to kids who didn’t have much money. I’ll try to stop now and not tell you about the time some driver broke the door off our friend’s car at McDonald’s or all the time we spent hanging out at Porky’s.

TTYL,

Linda

Social Security

I am officially old. I applied for Social Security yesterday. I still can’t believe how easy it was to do.

I started by filling out their on-line application at ssa.gov. That takes awhile because they ask for a lot of information but it was all stuff I knew so it wasn’t difficult. The only thing I had to look up was what was the last year I worked.

I know, I know. How can I not know the last year I worked? My last job was as a free-lance writer. I wrote as topics occurred to me and stopped when I couldn’t get around well enough to do the research anymore. Why would I want to remember when that was?

Anyway, I filled out the form and sent it on its electronic way.

Last night I got a phone call from a lady at Social Security in Kansas City. She wanted to verify my information and talk about me filing under Dave’s earnings rather than my own. I already knew I wanted to do that since he worked a lot more and earned a LOT more than I did. I took a lot of time off to be an Army wife then raise our daughter in addition to retiring very early. When I did work for pay it was mostly part-time. So my benefits weren’t going to be wonderful if they depended solely on my own earnings. Fortunately, Dave and I have been married more than four times the required ten years for me to qualify to file under his earnings and he told them that back when he filed for his benefits so they already had a record of that.

So, the lady and I talked awhile, then she and Dave talked awhile, then she said she had everything she needed. I don’t even need to go into an office with any of my official documents like Dave did when he applied about six month’s ago. I get to just wait for my first payment to show up in our bank in September. Isn’t today’s technology marvelous?!

TTYL,

Linda

Beds

When my mother was a child, I think she and her twin sister slept in a twin bed. I remember Mom telling me that when one wanted to roll over both had to roll over.

When I was an infant, my father got me a 6-year crib. So, I slept in it for six years. You’d think I’d be embarrassed to be going to school and still sleeping in a crib but I don’t remember that being so and I have memories going back to age two.

At least, I didn’t have to share my crib. Except once. My cousins came to visit after my brothers and I were already asleep. So Mom and Dad tucked me into the the foot of the upper bunk where my brother, Wayne, was asleep at the head. They put my cousin, Karen, who looked a lot like me except she was three years younger than me in my crib across from the bunk beds. When Wayne woke up and looked down at my crib he started screaming, “Mom! Dad! Come quick! Linda shrunk!”

I slept alone until I got married. As a new couple we had a double bed. Which is not quite as wide as two twin beds. In fact it’s about as wide as two cribs. Good thing I had lots of experience sleeping in cribs, huh?

When we bought our first house, a mobile home, it came furnished with a queen sized bed. I felt like royalty.

Now I have a memory foam bed. It doesn’t seem to be helping my memory, though.

TTYL,

Linda