Zolfo Springs, FL

After leaving Cortez we drove to stay with Jim and Chris in Zolfo Springs. They are working at the Thousand Trails - Peace River RV Park. Jim is so lucky! His job is to work 12 hrs/wk in the community center helping people with their computers and how to use WIFI. This is a perfect job for a Geek. This is what he loves to do and is a perfect opportunity for him and Chris to make contacts to promote their company Geeks on Tour. Jim does the hardware: installs Datastorm satellite dishes; installs WIFI systems in RV parks; repairs computers; etc. While Chris is the software girl: she builds websites for individuals and companies; she creates Access databases; she is teaching Picasa and Blogger seminars; and more and more and more. These two can do it all in my mind. By the end of the weekend I began to refer to them as "Gods on Tour". They've been bugging me to create email addresses @diandy.com. Well, I was having a problem and couldn't get it to work. Jim sat down at my computer and ,viola, five minutes later he had it working. I'm telling you - he's a god. I would've never thought to retype my password entered into my email account settings! Ha! Yeah, sometimes Jim has to deal with idiots like me who mistype passwords...but hey, in my defense - it's hard to know you mistyped something when it just looks like a bunch of dots.

We had a great time hanging out with them and we learned a lot, too. The Park had WIFI at the clubhouse, but not at the sites. We parked behind Jim and Chris and tapped into their Datastorm (satellite internet dish). Satellite is slower than WIFI but we could do what we needed to do. We learned, however, that JiWire, a new program installed for WIFI security, caused us some grief watching our video or audio casts. Chris and I spent a lot of time discussing Picasa and Blogger. Two programs that allow us to organize our pictures and share them with you all. She's gotten nitty gritty with these programs and I thank her for it. She is able to tell me the pros and cons to help me ensure I won't lose my precious memories. So, if you want to learn more about these programs - you can visit her site(s). She has articles and tutorials and all sorts of information.

Oh, it wasn't all "business". We played some pool and found that after several games we were better at giving away the win then deserving it. Only once did someone actually win the game and put the eight-ball in vs. scratching or causing some other foul. And, believe it or not, it was Andy that won. Yes, we were all in shock at that.

We also had two movie-nights. One was outside at the pool area and was hosted by Jim and Chris for the entire park to enjoy. The movie was 'Long, Long Trailer' with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez. It was a beautiful, starry night and a great movie for this RVing crowd. We actually found that it was a better movie than the more recent "RV" with Robin Williams. Alot of what was poked at is still true with today's RVers. For example, Lucy liked to collect rocks to remind themselves of all of the places they visited...well, doing that in an RV could be hazardous. But there is a desire to "collect" things along your travels. More on that later. Our second movie night was more intimate. It was in Jim and Chris' RV using their projector and pull-down window shade as a screen. We watched one of our movies that we got from Netflix. Yeah, we are still using them. We dropped down to the basic account: one movie at a time, two per month at $10/mo. We figured that with mailing time and viewing time, two would be the most we could get anyway. It's about the same as a rental, and cheaper than buying movies, and it's fun to get a movie delivered every two weeks.

Another exciting moment for us while in Zolfo was that we were able to see the shuttle, Discovery, take-off on Saturday night. I had my camera with me at the pool-hall, but not my tripod. Zolfo is about 100 miles away from Cape Canaveral, so we were surprised as to how bright the sky lit up at take-off, and then how clearly we could see the shuttle itself.



You can read more about our stay with Jim and Chris on their blog. Oh, while you're over there, take a look at the video from Namibia from Marilyn's trip over to Africa. Chris' mom, Marilyn, takes such wonderful, wonderful trips around the world. I want to be just like her when I grow up!