Tag: #amblogging

Posted in Blog Series

#23: Adventures in RV Travel – February 16, 2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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The End of the Road

Hello everyone! Tonight, I’m writing you from our home in Kentucky. It’s exciting that now we have two homes, one in Kentucky and one in South Florida! I do love both places. The pictures above are of each place — Kentucky on the left, then South Florida. Both beautiful places to live for very different reasons.

Our RV trip to South Florida, then to the Florida panhandle, couldn’t have been more wonderful! In South Florida, we got to have a wonderful, month’s long, vacation. But, even more important than that, we got to buy a small place of our own on an island that we’ve loved for almost ten years. We love the island, the people, the environment  there. It’s a true “Jimmy Buffett” lifestyle. I feel like I’m living in Margaritaville when I’m there!

Then we got to visit the Florida panhandle for the first time. The panhandle may have the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen this side of the Caribbean. Nothing can top the beaches of the Bahamas and the Virgin Islands, but the Florida Panhandle comes close. Of course, our viist to the Panhandle was largely to see our friends, Marty and Phil, and we enjoyed that so much.

We did have one mechanical problem with the RV. For me, RV’s are like boats! It’s always something. Some small problem and there was one trip, one time (to New England in the RV) when there were several BIG mechanical problems. This time, for those of you who are RVer’s, it was the donut gaskets and my traveling companion replaced them within a couple of hours.

One WARNING to all of you RVer’s. Before you schedule a stay at a RV park, ask them if they allow you to make small on-site repairs if need be. The RV park at Carrabelle Beach on the Florida panhandle did not allow such small repairs. The RV park at Pine Island on the Florida peninsula did. It makes a world of difference if you have a problem. We had to find a parking lot as we left the panhandle and an owner who would let us stay for a while in order to make our repairs.

It was sort of a long, hard trip home. We spent a lot of time on two-lane roads, leaving the Panhandle and getting back to the Interstate where we needed to be. A good bit of that time was at night. There are very few services, these days, on two-lane roads since most services are found around the interstate highway system. We had to drive long distances to find places to stay. We were grateful when we had made our way to the interstate. Since we started our trip home late one night, we spent that night on the road and then another night, fairly close to home. We got home in the middle of the day today.

All of you RVer’s know what it’s like to unload an RV after a month long trip! It is not for the faint of heart! We have not nearly finished but we have stopped for the night. I’m going to have to get accustomed to the cold again before I can be out at night in what passes for a Kentucky winter this year. It’s 38 degrees here tonight.

I will look back on this RV trip as a huge highlight in my life! Part of the fun has been writing these blog posts almost every night for all of you. I’ve enjoyed knowing you experienced it with me. We will be traveling more and I will always include you in my travels!

Posted in Flash Fiction

Dolly

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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“Caroline, you have disobeyed me,” her mother said, slurring her words, as she stepped toward her daughter. “Give me that doll you have behind your back.”

Caroline sobbed. Her favorite aunt gave her Dolly. Her aunt that was so nice to her. She would not give it to her mother.

“No,” she shouted. “I didn’t disobey.”

Her mother staggered toward her and grabbed Dolly from behind her back. She was drinking and she dropped Dolly on the hard floor. When Caroline looked, Dolly’s stuffing was all over the floor.

“You killed her,” she screamed at her mother. “My only doll.”

Posted in Blog Series, Uncategorized

#21: Adventures in RV Travel – February 10, 2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Carrabelle, St. George Island, and Appalachicola

Above are pictures of Carrabelle Beach on the panhandle of Florida. Beautiful, isn’t it?

Yes, we have been a lot of places today! We started out the day at Carrabelle Resort RV Park. Early on, we took a drive about 20 miles away, over the bridge, to St. George Island. It’s 14 miles from the RV Park to the bridge to St. George and it’s a four-mile drive across the bridge. A beautiful drive on a beautiful day across the Gulf. We drove around the island a bit and visited the lighthouse. Quite a lighthouse which has been rebuilt since the original one fell after a hurricane. It was very old. This one is very sturdy and built to withstand hurricanes.

Then, we took off on the ten-mile trip to Apalachicola, again a gorgeous drive. It’s a quaint little town and we were looking for a good restaurant to take our friends, Marty and Phil, to tonight when they arrived from Tennessee. We found several. I also think we found some interesting shopping. Marty and I will make a return trip or two and check it out. I think I’ll like this interesting little town.

I’m still not crazy about Carrabelle Resort RV Park, but for those of you RVer’s who like a lot of peace and quiet and don’t mind doing most of your own cooking, you may like it. I’m a little more high maintenance, I guess. And I don’t particularly like a lot of peace and quiet! 🙂

Marty and Phil arrived tonight and we had dinner in a very good, rather frou-frou restaurant in Apalachicola. Everyone liked their meals very much. They had a very long day and after a rest, we will see each other tomorrow!

Below is the St. George Island Lighthouse.

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Posted in Blog Series

#20: Adventures in RV Travel – February 8 – 9, 2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

Trip to Carrabelle RV Resort Park

Hello everyone from Carrabelle RV Resort Park in Carrabelle, FL. It was a reasonably long journey from an island off the coast of Ft. Myers, FL to this rather isolated spot right after you make the turn onto the Florida panhandle from the peninsula. Had I realized just how isolated, I might not have made reservations here. Maybe I should rephrase that. Had I realized that they warn you about BEARS here, I probably would NOT have made reservations here!! At Pine Island, I was accustomed to walking my dog, in the dark, at night, without worrying about tripping over a bear. Not so at Carrabelle. I am unhappy. I am also spoiled because I love Pine Island so much. 🙂

On the upside, there is quite possibly the most beautiful beach I have ever seen on the other side of the road from this park. I promise some pictures tomorrow. This afternoon, we had to get settled. The view of the Gulf of Mexico and the beach is phenomenal. It would have been better had it not been for the spectre of BEARS. I am looking forward to some time on the beach with my friend, Marty, after she and her husband, Phil, get here tomorrow evening. I can’t wait to take some pics to share with you of that beautiful beach.

We had no RV problems on our journey here, but my traveling companion can tell we will have one on the trip back home. An elbow gasket on the exhaust is giving him a problem. It will not be the first time it has been replaced. I’m hoping we can get home without replacing it. On a trip to New England in the Summer of 2015, replacing it became an emergency.

Back to Carrabelle. Be forewarned. The beach is beautiful. However, if you don’t like to cook much and prefer eating out, forget it about it in Carrabelle, FL. Unless you undertake a 40  mile roundtrip, you won’t be eating out. More about that after I do just that tomorrow night!

The RV Park is not quite what I had in mind. It is very nice, almost too nice. There isn’t the same friendliness that I’ve found at some other RV parks. Everyone stays very much to themselves. We will only be here for a few days, and we have Marty and Phil joining us, so it won’t bother us much. I’m glad I didn’t book a longer stay.

We will prevail! I’m going to go down to that beach tomorrow and find a place for the four of us to have dinner tomorrow night (the 40 mile trip). I’m planning on some beautiful pics to share. More “Adventures” then!

 

Posted in Flash Fiction

Guitar Man

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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She was only sixteen. Oh, all right. She wasn’t quite sixteen. Just fifteen and a half. She liked the way that boy looked when he played his guitar. He worked on her granddaddy’s farm. Just a field hand, working in the kitchen garden and in the corn. Sometimes working in the dairy with the milking machines. Her granddaddy said he’d make something of himself some day. All she knew was how much she liked to watch him play that guitar.

Jake would use his breaks from work to practice guitar playing. He was already good but she overheard him say he wanted to be better. That he wanted to be famous. She would hide and listen to his guitar playing. That boy could play that guitar and make her feel things she’d never felt before.

Then he was gone. They said he went to Nashville to find a band that needed someone like him. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t quite sixteen. She hopped on a bus with a suitcase and a few dollars, determined to find the boy. She thought she was in love. She went to find that guitar-playing boy that made her feel things she couldn’t forget.

Posted in Blog Series

#19: Adventures of RV Travel – February 8, 2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Leaving Pine Island, FL

Tomorrow, February 8, 2017, we leave Pine Island Resort RV Park in Florida to travel north to Carrabelle Beach RV Resort in Carrabelle, Florida, located on Florida’s Panhandle. I’ll have to admit I’m sad to leave Pine Island, as I always am. But, I’m very happy too since we bought a little place to stay here this year. We will be back soon.

It took most of the day to get the RV road ready to make the 432 mile trip from Pine Island to Carrabelle. We had an issue with the front cab air conditioner. The good thing about staying in a large RV park is that mobile RV mechanics and technicians are available to come to your aid. My husband can fix just about anything that goes wrong with our RV, but he couldn’t figure this out so we used a mobile technician. About $150 later, the air conditioner was fixed.

Since we have been here for three weeks, we had some significant packing to do. It’s done. The RV is packed. Everything is safely stowed away. We are ready to pull out tomorrow a.m. Check out time is noon, but I suspect we’ll be on our way before that.

There is one issue. That issue is Betsy, our little dog. She is ill. She seems to be getting better, but she is not well. If she isn’t well by the time we get to Carrabelle, I will be finding a veterinarian first thing. Issues plague you on a long RV trip just as if you were home. Betsy is number one in importance to me. The innocent puppies and kittens have to be cared for first. There are lots of dogs in a big RV park. Betsy is not usually around other dogs. I suspect she has picked up some sort of virus.

I don’t know if we will stay somewhere on the road tomorrow night or if we will drive all the way to Carrabelle. It depends on my traveling companion since he is the driver. We may end up at a Flying J since we do not have a reservation at Carrabelle until the night of February 9. I will write from the road tomorrow night about the first leg of the trip! Good bye for now, Pine Island! We’ll be back in about seven weeks!

Posted in Non-fiction

The Case for Political Correctness

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

Speak Out

In the spirit of speaking out, I believe in political correctness. There. I said it. Do you know why I believe in political correctness? Because I call it, for the most part, manners and being polite to other people. Maybe I’m old fashioned. Maybe my mother taught me well. I always thought that being respectful about someone else’s politics or religion was the polite thing to do. In fact, as I grew up, I didn’t know the political affiliations of most of my classmates or neighbors. Sometimes, I knew their religion only because I knew who I went to Sunday School with and who I didn’t. No one really talked about it.

Over the last five years or so, political correctness has been a hot topic. The consensus among the public seems to be, at least during the last Presidential election, that political correctness was not a good thing. Who am I to say? But, I think the lack of it has caused chaos in our society. Lack of political correctness pits neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend. Why not just go vote or go to the church of your choice without making a big deal about it? Keep your business to yourself?

Dropping political correctness from the vernacular and from our behavior has had an effect on our society and, I say, a detrimental effect. As I run around out in the world these days, I feel like people are studying one another, trying to figure out these very personal things about each other. I further feel like that if you don’t pass muster, if you aren’t the correct political or religious persuasion according to their standards, then they aren’t interested in your friendship. Meet the galvanizing of America! Meet the red people and the blue people! Can this possibly be a good thing? I don’t think so.

I have many friends who have different political and religious beliefs than I do. We have lots that we talk about that is not associated with politics or religion. Don’t you? Are those two topics suddenly the only two that Americans can speak intelligently about? What happened to music, literature, relationships, and everything else that is going on in our world?

I refuse to surround myself with people who think just like I do. How boring would the world be if we all thought alike. On the other hand, I don’t want anyone pushing their beliefs down my throat. That brings us back where we started. To manners. And political correctness.

Does this mean that we can’t discuss these hot button issues? Of course not! We need to discuss them, particularly when we are electing the government of our country. We need to discuss them in the proper forums. If the government tries to ram its beliefs down our collective throat, then the people of the U.S. are going to rise up and protest as we should in order to protect our rights as a nation. The government needs to remember that not all the people support their particular point of view and the government is representative of all the people, not just half of them.

 

Posted in Blog Series

#16: Adventures in RV – January 30, 2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Our Neighbor, the Anhinga

We have another neighbor, who is a bird, at our RV park on Pine Island in Florida. Since he is so unusual, I thought I would share him with you. This is the Anhinga. Pretty awesome, huh? He lives at the edge of the water, one of the lakes on the property. The lake closest to where we are parked.

Our anhinga is a large bird. About four feet tall with an equal wingspan. It is a glossy black and swims underwater to fish. After swimming, the anhinga cannot fly. It has to sit at the side of the lake and hold its wings out to dry as it cannot fly with wet wings. It makes them too heavy. They also become a bit tame around people and like to sit on a perch along boat docks. Many anhinga’s live in the Everglades and close by. It will be interesting when Betsy, my dog, runs up on it!

The anhinga is a protected species.

 

 

Posted in Flash Fiction

My Face

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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“My face looks sort of cracked,” the little boy said as he looked at his reflection in the water puddle. When he looked up, if anyone had been looking at him, they would have known why. His face was screwed up because he had been crying.

The little boy looked back in the puddle of water. He said to his reflection, “Where is my mom? She said she would be here a long time ago to pick me up.” His reflection didn’t answer him.

He looked up, but he was afraid to go toward the street. He looked back down at the water puddle at his reflection.

“My school is closed. I don’t know what to do. I can’t call her.” He saw his face screw up again. He started sobbing.

Suddenly, he heard his mother’s voice as she comes running toward him. Her car had trouble.

Posted in Fiction

The Good Detective

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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A sociopath was terrorizing his girlfriend. She wanted nothing to do with him. She didn’t think he wanted anything to do with her either. He just wanted to torment her. Why? Because she existed and because he felt she had led him astray. Never mind that he had been the one that had invited her to get together with him all those months ago.

Jax was a detective. He had been seeing Eliza since her divorce and her move away from her long time home. Also since the end of the relationship with the sociopath. She and Jax weren’t young anymore, but they had found happiness with each other. The only glitch was this man, this man who was the detritus of life. That’s all you could call him. He wasn’t really a man at all. Jax was determined to stop him from tormenting Eliza. He’d done enough to her. Far more than enough. The end of that relationship was harder than the divorce on Eliza.

There was only one problem. Jax knew how to stop the sociopath. In order to do it, he had to betray Eliza.

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