December 22 & 23, 2016 - Okeechobee, FL

December 22, 2016
The sun was playing peek-a-boo all morning long. The clouds started to thicken up some.  It was quiet and peaceful at the prairie.

Edith was biking toward the east end of the prairie when she saw the black smoke, became alarmed. She turned around, biked as fast as she could to the ranger office.  The ranger assured Edith that the brushfire was not part of the park, was far away from us, so we were safe.

Brushfire

Like we mentioned before, there is nothing much exciting going on at the campground and nearby.  We decided to chill out today, went biking, playing games, taking naps, etc.

December 23, 2016

It was a very windy morning. The Spanish moss was constantly swaying in one direction.  

We contacted with Tommy, Erwin’s 2nd cousin, to get directions to his place.  We will be leaving tomorrow morning to go spend the weekend with him and his wife, Sheri. Tommy’s parents will be there, also.

We decided to put away the puzzle because we will be  driving the Lil’ Home to Lake Wales.  Instead of breaking up every piece Erwin managed to save pieces of puzzle and placed them inside the box.  It will save our time for when we come back here Sunday or Monday.

Edith decided to make crockpot turtles (recipe copied from Facebook).  They will be given to Tommy and Sheri, along with a bottle of wine or two. It took only two hours to melt all the chocolate and butterscotch pieces.  There were 18 pieces (Edith hopes they will be enough for the family).  Clean-up was a breeze.

While Edith was making candies Erwin went over to next door campers and chatted with them about trips we had been to. 

Edith fixed deer chops (from the deer Erwin shot and bagged last month) for supper.  We had never eaten them before and were surprised at how tasty they were.  We have few more in the freezer.  

It was around 8 pm when Edith decided to drive out to a spot for stargazing and astrophotography.  She brought her IPad along to use Stellarium app to see where the Milky Way was.  After finding the locations she set up the tripod and camera, shot several pictures.  She was planning on staying there much longer, but noticed the indicator for camera battery was blinking.  This means not much juice left in the battery. Feeling dejected, she packed up her camera gear and went back to the campsite. Not to worry.. We will be here for another week and Edith may have a better opportunity of taking great shots of the Milky Way.