Orlando, FL

Well we got home safely. It was a long day and over half of the drive was in rain. We stopped at a rest area on I-10 to let the worst of it move off to the north of our route, then continued on home.

Yes, the pool was over flowing. Luckily it flows away from the house when it does that.

It was a fairly short trip, only eight days, but we covered 847 miles.

Fort Rucker, AL

Today we drove Barbara around to see of few of the local sights. Anyone who has spent any time at all at Ft Rucker knows the story of the Boll Weevil monument in Enterprise, AL.

After the boll weevil destroyed the area's cotton in the years between 1910 and 1915, locals began diversified farming. In gratitude for the resulting prosperity, the city erected a monument to the boll weevil in 1919. Strange to have a monument to a crop destroying insect, but there it stands. In the early sixties an unscrupulous flight school class stole the weevil from the monument and created quite the political mess between the base and the community (alcohol might have been involved). The folks take their bug seriously! It was returned, but there are carryover insecurities. We noticed that there is a video surveillance camera directed at the monument. 

Sorry for the poor picture. Too much traffic to get closer. Had to get picture while walking on the 'green' to not get cars in picture. Click on the picture to enlarge. Bug is the dark object held aloft by the statue.

We drove through parts of the attractively wooded military installation and gave Barbara a look at a few of the heliports that are home to the hundreds of helicopters used for training here. We then headed back to our quiet campsite and strolled through the woods so Barbara could collect pinecones for Christmas decorations.

It was a nice relaxing day with occasional light rain showers. Real peaceful! Tomorrow we are on the road home to what I imagine will be a real full, if not overflowing, pool. This weekend they received a lot of rain at home.

Fort Rucker, AL

HOKIES WON! Wow, what a game: 38-35. It went right down to the wire with VT regaining the lead with just under a minute left. Both teams played very well.

OK, back to the trip. We spent the part of the day leading up to the game seeing the Army Aviation Museum. They have done a very nice job restoring and displaying many older aircraft. As you can imagine, most of these aircraft were helicopters, but there were World War I vintage aircraft and World War II vintage helicopters from the Army Air Corp days. It was fun to show Barbara the types of aircraft I flew, but it was unnerving having a curator following me with a tape measure sizing ME up for a display.

AH-1S at entrance.

AH-1S in front of AH-1G suspended from ceiling. I flew the AH-1G as one of the first instructors in the aircraft, and then the AH-1S in the Colorado National Guard in the early 80's.

UH-1B gunship like the one I flew in Vietnam. I later flew similar UH-1C and UH-1M models in the California, Colorado and Connecticut National Guard.

The venerable UH-1D/H model Huey. I flew these in Vietnam as well as the California, Connecticut and District of Columbia National Guard. What a versatile workhorse she was.

The H-19. It saw a lot of service in Korea and was the aircraft we took our advanced training and tactics in at Ft. Rucker in 1965. We finished training flying instruments in the turbine powered Huey.

CH-37. I got a few hours in these while first in the California Guard in the early 70's. It was not the largest helicopter I flew. That was ...

The CH-54 Flying Crane. We could lift a 25,000 pound load on the hook. We did a lot of work recovering buoys for the Coast Guard while I was in the Connecticut Guard in the late 70's.

Barbara got to try out the cockpit of an AH-1 Cobra. She fits better than I did.

We spent a few sobering minutes in the Army Aviation Vietnam Memorial. I say in because it is a quiet room to itself with all walls covered with columns of the names of Army aviators and crewmembers killed in Vietnam. There were close to five thousand names on those walls. The earliest were from 1963. I was there from March 1966 to March 1967.

Fort Rucker, AL

We had a nice drive up from the panhandle today. The weather continues to be perfect, although stormy weather is brewing off the coast of Florida this weekend.

What a wonderful surprise this campground has turned out to be. We knew that they had just opened a new bathhouse, but it turns out that is the last step in a refreshing of the whole park. All the sites are newly paved, as are the access roads. It is like they just built it for us! Put that on the banks of a nice fishing lake and you have a sweet setup. Even sweeter? They take the Golden Age Pass so we got an already low rate reduced even further.

Tomorrow we want to see the Army Aviation Museum and get some kayak time on the lake before the Virginia Tech/Miami game. GO HOKIES!

Saint Joseph Peninsula State Park, FL

Flies 50, Bill 8.

I have to tell you the Stable Flies have been a real pain in the, well, ankles. These damn things bite like hell, but can’t seem to get higher than the knee. We are not talking about mosquito itchy bites. The little buggers hurt! They tend to fool you because they look just like a common housefly. We made a special trip out of the park to a mini mart so we could arm ourselves with fly swatters. Curt refers to it as hillbilly hand fishing. Here are Curt and Elly with their defenses up.

We have been pressing Curt to provide fish and today he came through with two nice size Bluefish that he grilled to perfection this evening. We have been blessed with great weather this week and have eaten very well.

Tomorrow we depart. Curt and Elly return to Orlando and Barbara and I continue up to Ft Rucker, AL for the weekend. We are already discussing a return next year about this time since the temperature and humidity are lower in October. We have had a great time here at St. Joseph Peninsula State Park. The beaches are fantastic, there are miles of roads to bike on, and good fishing for those that know what they are doing. We can highly recommend the park.

Next we are off to Ft. Rucker, Al and the home of Army Aviation. They have a campground on Lake Tholocco. I have not seen the lake since 1966, but I hope it is still nice. We will see. The main reason for the trip is for Barbara to see the museum.

Saint Joseph Peninsula State Park, FL

We arrived at Saint Joseph Peninsula State Park at 5PM yesterday and after some effort managed to get ourselves backed in to the site we were assigned. It is a great park and our site faces the sunset and the beach with only two rows of sand dunes between the beach and us. It would have been nice to have a little wider space as you can see in the photo, be we are quite happy. The temperature just right at around eighty and there is very little humidity. Not a cloud in the sky, either!

We have Curt and Elly Anderson with us from Orlando. Curt went to school at FSU and spent a lot of time here during his college days. He is having a great time revisiting his old haunts, fishing and swimming. Elly, as the only working stiff in the bunch, is enjoying the chance to chill and read while we retirees amuse ourselves at the beach.

Speaking of the beach, it is magnificent! There are miles of white sand, and very few people. There is about nine miles of beach in the park and it is far enough from the closest homes that there are very few people.

There has been a bit of an off shore breeze that has the bay side kicked up a bit so we have not had the kayaks out yet. The wind seems to be abating some, maybe tomorrow. Meanwhile, Barbara is hunting shells.