The Merry Month Of May

When  you live in one of the world's greatest vacation destinations, you just have to take it all in. 

Its not as though we haven't been to the theme parks in the past, but the month of May turned out to be the "Theme Park Vacation Month" for the Schrolls.  We took many visits to the Disney Parks as well as Universal Studios. 

We went to The "Fantasy of Flight" Museum.  It was incredibly interesting and very well presented.  They have a nice little cafe there, so we had lunch and then spent the afternoon in the museum.

 One evening we drove to Disney just to have Dinner and watch the Fireworks.  We ate dinner in France, of course, and lingered so long over our dinner and wine, that the fireworks were finished by the time we left the restaurant. C'est la vie.

 Claire spent many a "sleep over" with Mormor and Papa during May.  One of her favorite past times was to feed the ducks at Mirror Lake in downtown Lakeland.  Of course that meant having an ice cream cone before hand.

 I had a wonderful Mother's Day.  We Met Erika and the kids at Bok Gardens and Tower.  We had a little picnic lunch and listened to the Clarion Concert.  It is a beautiful setting, and as you can see by the photo, not terribly crowded!!!!!  Would love to do this again when the weather is a little cooler.     

We took a day trip to Indian Rocks Beach for lunch and some walking on the beach.  It was a beautiful day.  We miss seeing the Ocean.  It was part of our daily drive to and from work!!!!                                                                                                                                                 

As the month was coming  to an end, we started getting Carefree ready to travel. The Park was nearly empty as all the "snow birds" had gone home.  It was quiet and peaceful.  We said good bye to all the new friends that we had made in the park and at our Church.  We look forward to seeing Father Wally at First Church again in the fall.   

During our last two weeks in Lakeland, Peter started going to a Chiropractor.  Dr. Merrick was wonderful!!!  He helped Peter so much with the pain in his back and the numbness in his hand.  Now he is definitely strong enough for this big adventure that lies ahead of us!!!!!                                      

We left Lakeland on Friday, March 24 and headed to Sebring Florida to camp at Highlands Hammock State Park.  Peter drove Carefree & Paul took his 5th wheel camper straight to the campground to get set up. I took the car to Erika's house and waited for her to finish work.  Then she and the kids came with me to the campground.  It was a lovely spot.   Side by side camping is so much fun.  The weather was rather warm and muggy, but cooled off a little on Saturday. 

Sunday, Paul, Claire, Peter and I took a tram tour of the Hammocks.  It was a long hot ride, and Hammocks are not one of my favorite things.  When we returned to our campers, Paul started to feel sick.  After dinner, Peter & I started getting sick.  OMG........the dreaded food poisoning had reared its ugly head.  By morning Erika had it too!.  Not the best ending to a wonderful weekend of camping!!!!!

From Sebring we headed to Hallandale, and  back to the campground we had stayed in for several months while we finished working.  The next three days were Doctor's appointments and tests for Peter.  It was his one year anniversary of his Stem Cell Transplant. 

We also had a chance to visit with some of our dear Miami friends.  It was good being back in Miami as there are many truly wonderful people there. It was great to visit with several dear friends however, somehow, it just doesn't feel like home any more!!!!!

Bermuda - Part One

Whoever would have thought that we could actually live on the Island of Bermuda.  Some people might be lucky enough to go there for a vacation, but not many actually get to call it home.  But here we were arriving at the Sonesta Beach Hotel for our next adventure.

Staff Housing in foreground

We moved right into staff housing upon arrival.  It was a two story cinder block structure with approximately 20 rooms designed to house employees, same sex employees, not husbands and wives!!  The rooms were like dormitory rooms, with 2 of everything.  Two beds, two chairs, two bookcases, two end tables and one bathroom.   So with a little ingenuity we made it home.  It was a stones throw from the ocean.  We had our own "staff" beach and a "staff" club with a busy bar and lots of dart boards!!

We were of course the only occupants with a dog.  And a rather large dog at that.  The head of security lived 2 doors down from us, but it didn't seem as if it was going to be a problem. We just kept saying we were going to find an apartment to rent.

Staff Beach

Peter started work immediately. He was a Sous Chef at the hotel.

Inside our little home

I, on the other hand was now a lady of leisure.  I ate all my meals in the staff cafeteria, spent the day at the beach, played tennis in the evening and partied in the staff club. This went on for a few months, and finally Peter thought it would be a good idea for me to go out and look for a job.  I didn't mind the idea, as I knew once I found the job it would take a couple of months to get the work permit, as we had already witnessed in applying for Peter's Permit!  So, I contacted an employment agency and was interviewed by them on a Tuesday.  They sent me on an interview on Wednesday to Royall Lyme Bermuda Ltd, for a secretary/receptionist position.  I must admit, I was a bit put off when the 2 girls that were working there laughed when I came in. I was told when I started that just before I had arrived for the interview, Mr. Anthony J. Gaade, (the boss) had said I sure wish they would send me a tall young blonde for a change!!!!!  therefore, on Thursday I got a call saying I was hired and needed to come in that day to fill out paper work for immigration as the Immigration Department met on Fridays. AND guess what?  I got called on Friday to say I was cleared and could start work on Monday!!!!!  I didn't know at the time that the lady who ran this employment agency had a very good connection with Immigrations.  She had been responsible for getting the necessary secretaries, etc to work with Scotland Yard during the murder investigation of the Police Chief.  I was excited about the job but a not a real happy lady of leisure that weekend.

Bermuda version of a Harley Girl

So we bought me a used moped so I could get to work.  We lived out on the south shore of Bermuda and my job was in Hamilton.  So I had about a 20 minute drive to work. Such a new experience for me.......neither rain, nor wind would stand in my way of getting to work!!

I loved the job.  The girls I worked with were great fun.  My boss on the other hand was a rather stuffy brit!!!  But I got him to loosen up though.  Every morning as he arrived for work he would ask me "how I looked?"  This seemed like such a stupid question, so finally one day I said "I think I'm looking pretty nice today don't you?"  We got along really well after that. 

Bringing Home the Tree

Our first Christmas in Bermuda was such fun.  We had to wait for the boats to arrive in port with the Christmas Trees.  When they arrived it was a feeding frenzy!!

Christmas Eve guests

It was interesting being with many different nationalities, and learning about their holiday traditions. Jiffy Pop popcorn, in the aluminum disposable pan was the biggest hit as a present, as many of them had never seen it before!!!

This was our Third Christmas. The first one was in Connecticut, the second in Vermont and the third in Bermuda.  Where will the next one be???  To be continued...........

Christmas Eve 1973

The  "UPS and downs"  of April

Aahhh, month four of retirement.  The weather is fabulous, the RV Resort is thinning out.  Lots of folks have headed home.  The majority of Snow Birds here are from Michigan, which is much nicer than  on the East Coast of Florida.  Most of the Snow Birds there  were from Quebec, and they really aren't terribly friendly toward us non French speaking Americans!!!!!

Our month started out with my Oral Surgery.  Not a great experience.  A little bone grafting, a tooth extraction, and implants!  Slowed me up for about a week. But all is proceeding nicely. I'm sure to have my smile back soon!!!!!

We didn't let my dental problems keep us down.  Once I felt up to it we were off and running again.  A day at Hollywood Studios at Disney, with a side trip to Epcot for Wine in France and a Cold Brew in England !!!  Our next outing took us to Tarpon Springs for lunch.  Father Wally the Pastor of our church had recommended a restaurant there for lunch.  So we had to follow our Pastor's directions, and had a great meal waterside in Tarpon Springs.  

The week ended with us getting ready for our yard sale at Paul and Erika's house. We downsized our storage from a 5' by 10' unit to a 5' x 5'. We had a great turnout for the yard sale. Sold the majority of our "Junk". Anything that we removed from the storage that didn't sell went directly to Goodwill.

Peter woke up one morning with a severe pain in his back and numbness in is right hand.  It became intolerable so we went to an Urgent Care Facility.  They took an XRay of his neck & spine and said it was the vertebrae in his neck causing the pain and the numbness.  They gave him prescriptions for pain meds and muscle relaxers.  After a few days of pain meds and muscle relaxers with no relief for Peter we went to the Watson Clinic here in Lakeland.  The Doctor that took  care of him suggested that they give him a shot of Prednisone and Lidacane in the pain in his back.  Ok, something is better than nothing.  However, after the shot, he neared collapsed, his blood pressure took a nose dive, and I thought we we were going to lose him.  They hooked him up to an IV drip, Oxygen, BP machine.............slowly he regained his color, the sweat disappeared and he started to feel better.  So we spent the next couple of hours waiting for blood test results, etc.  They could not come up with any cause except his hemoglobin was low.  Well, that scared me as he is still in the process of building his immune system.  We contacted his doctor in Miami and we were told not to worry. Sure, easy for her to say!!!!!  He is now under doctor's care here and seems to be getting better.  I see now why you need to retire so you have time for all your doctor appointments.  I think we made more trips to the doctor and dentist than we did to Disney World and Universal Studios combined !!!  May will be a much better month!!

 The majority of our time however, is spent with our Grandchildren.  We are having a great time trying to make up all the time we couldn't be with them in years past.  Claire loves doing "sleep overs" at Mormor and Papas!  I think we enjoy it more than she does.  She loves going to our church with us and knows that if she behaves, we will stay for juice and "goodies" after church.

If anyone wants to know where all the parks in Lakeland are that have swings, just call us!!!  We are also finding out where all the ice cream shops are too!!!!! Nothing like an ice cream cone and then a swing in the park.......Life is Good!!!

The Summer of '72

So here we are back in Connecticut after a year of "seasonal work" in northern New England.  We weren't really excited about this move, but for the time being we just needed to make the best of it.

We put all our furniture back into storage in the barn at my Mom and Dad's house in Andover and moved into to Peter's Mom & Dad's house in Wethersfield. Yikes !!!  The room over the garage with no AC!!!!!

We were fortunate to get work right away.  Peter had a school chum that was now the Executive Chef at the Waverly Inn in Cheshire CT.  So Peter went to work there.

I was able to go back to work for J. Blake Caldwell at the printing plant. We had stayed in touch, and he was delighted to have me back if even for only the summer. On the weekends I worked in the kitchen of the Waverly Inn.  A very interesting job for me as I had never worked in a high volume restaurant.  Wow, we made garden salad in trash cans (clean and sanitized ones of course) for the banquets they would do.  I had to cut & serve a wedding cake for over one hundred guests one night, I had never done more than take a little bite out of our wedding cake,  nothing like on the job training!!!!! 

Trying to pass our dog off as our child!!!

Living with Ma & Pa Schroll wore a little thin during the summer, so we decided to find a place to rent.  We did however, have an Old English Sheep Dog.  The dog did make it a little more difficult to find a rent.  But we succeeded! We found a one bedroom apartment in Newington Ct.  We took our mattress, cardboard boxes for our clothes, a bean bag chair, tv, kitchen table & 2 chairs, and minimal kitchen ware.  We did not plan to live in Newington, Ct for very long!!!!!  We hardly remember much about the apartment, but we certainly remember lying on our mattress in the bedroom, watching the Summer Olympics held in Munich; the US Basketball team loosing to the USSR, Mark Spitz gold metals in Swimming and the terrorists attacking and killing the Israeli wrestling team and listening to Bob McKay talk for hours trying to make sense of what was happening.

Peter had always dreamed of working in Europe.  However, if you don't have European experience, you can't get a job in Europe.  Well Duh, that makes it hard to pursue your dream, doesn't it.  Someone in the business told him that if he could get a job outside the continental US he would have better luck getting work and experience in Europe!   So with this in mind, in July, Peter responded to an ad in the Boston Globe.  Sonesta Hotel was holding interviews for cooks for their Bermuda property, Sonesta Beach Hotel.  He met with the assistant GM in Boston, but was told he was too qualified for the positions they had available, but would keep his application on file.  Heard that line before haven't we ?!?!?!?

Well, lo and behold, a few weeks later he got a call back from Sonesta offering him a sous chef's position at the hotel in Bermuda, and believe it or not he also got an offer for a position at BlueBeards Castle in Saint Thomas that week as well!!!  Feast or Famine !!  In a 48 hour time frame we flew to both locations for an opportunity to see the properties, housing etc.  Unfortunately, you couldn't fly from Bermuda south, so we had to fly back to Boston from Bermuda and the next morning fly to St. Thomas!!!  We loved Bermuda, the assistant GM, and everything about the island.  On the other hand we couldn't find anything we really liked about St. Thomas.  So the decision was easy. BUT, getting the work permit wasn't.  It took almost 2 months to get the paper work  passed through Bermuda immigrations.  We kept hearing from the hotel saying that they expected to receive our permit that week, so we would give away refrigerated foods, pack our bags and be ready to go to the airport only to have to wait another week.

When we finally arrived on the Island in September, customs officials treated us very poorly.  I guess it was obvious to them we were not "seasoned" travelers, and charged us over a hundred dollars for the items we were bringing into the country.  (We learned later that it was a scam, but there was nothing we could do about it).  So when we hailed a cab to take us to the Sonesta Beach Hotel we didn't have enough money with us to pay the cab fare.  Great way to start out.  We also hadn't gotten  permission to bring our dog with us. Oh well,  we had arrived at the Sonesta Beach Hotel in Bermuda for our next adventure!

 

Love Living in Lakeland !

"HOME SWEET HOME"

We moved to Lakeland, Florida  on Friday, March 1 and haven't looked back.  This has been a terrific choice!  We absolutely love it here.  We have a site in the Lakeland Carefree RV Resort.  The resort is somewhat rustic with plenty of great Oak trees and lots of shade. Definitely our preference over totally manicured lawns, concrete slabs and a palm tree here & there. There is a large heated pool which we have yet to try, and a kiddies pool for our grandchildren, that is when the temperature finally warms up.  We have had two of the coldest weeks we have known in a long time.  Poor Peter has had to put on his leather jacket to walk the dogs in the morning, and once found frost on the ground! We are certainly  not living in Miami anymore!!

 

There is so much to do in this area, and we are only a half hour to Tampa and a half hour to Orlando.  Lakeland is a small city with great charm and lakes everywhere.  We spent a lot of time driving around getting our bearings.  We found the malls, found a number of wonderful playgrounds to take Claire to, went to the Plant City Strawberry festival, (more strawberries, whipped cream, and country singers than I have ever seen before.....everyone should go to the Strawberry Festival ONCE in their life), have been to an art festival, the Spring Obsession flower show and sale, a wine and food festival & Disney World twice.  After church shopping for three Sundays, found a charming little church to attend during our three month stay here.  Believe it or not, we are going to participate in the church's Passover Seder on Monday night. It is going to be far from traditional, but who cares, its the thought that counts. Peter is going to make Brisket, and I bet they hope we are here next year to cook again.  I am so looking forward to being on the "sitting down" side of the Seder, and not the "frantic side of running around".  LIFE IS GOOD!!!!!

Claire with her "sleep-over" suitcase

The most fun so far though, is having time with our Grandchildren. Claire has already spent 2 nights sleeping over with us and another one is planned for this weekend.  She is so much fun to have around.  Elliot is adorable, but still a little too young to go to the park or sleep over.

We plan to stay here until the beginning of June when we head down to Miami for 4 days for Peter's next check up with his Doctors.  Once that is behind us, we will return to Brandon, spend Erika's birthday with her then head out on our trip to Yellowstone National Park and places yet to be decided on.

Moving to A Winter Wonderland?!?

Leaving the Hide Away Lodge was difficult.  We had grown to love Wolf and Lilli and saying good bye was very hard.   However,  it was time to move on.....but first we had to take that inexpensive vacation to Florida.  We hooked up "Escargot" to the new car and we were off. It was October of 1971 and Disney World had just opened. We just had to stop there.  It cost $7.25 to get in to the Magic Kingdom and we can remember the people in front of us complaining about the price. Sheessssh, hope they don't try to go there now!  It was a great little vacation. We drove all the way to Key West and then  headed back to New England to start our new job.

 On our way to Vermont, we stopped in Connecticut and  bought an Old English Sheep Dog puppy.  We had our choice of 27 puppies.  We chose the runt of the litter, he just begged us to adopt him.  What a joy he was!!! As he was our Christmas present  to each other, we named him Kris Kringle!!

 

 We headed north to start our new position at the Sonnenhof Inn in Jay Vermont.  We had  been hired as a team to run their dining room.  Peter of course would be doing the cooking and I would have my very first Dining room to run. How exciting it was.

 They gave us a beautiful 3 bedroom Chalet to live in. The view from  our living room window was of Jay Peak Mountain.  They also gave us season ski passes so we could ski any time we weren't working.  It all seemed so wonderful. 

Everything went really well with the running of the restaurant.  I hired 3 older Vermont women to work as waitresses. They all had experience slinging hash, not necessarily working in a somewhat formal dining room.  But they always showed up and could carry more dinners on a tray than any waiter I've ever worked with.  They were from strong Vermont stock!
  

The only glitch with the job was the family that owned and ran the lodge. Hospitality and customer service were not part of their vocabulary!  Their two young children were totally without manners and terribly overweight!  The parents also lacked manners, were uncaring for their guests and had no respect for life.  The wife was always sporting a black eye that she would blame on the door knob of their bedroom.  They let one of their horses die of starvation, and nearly starved their two husky dogs to death that winter. However, they were the first people in the dining room for every meal and demanded they be fed first!!  We made it until the end of the season, despite them making our lives so difficult.  The guests of the Inn would come to us, to complain about how they were being treated, and the lack of concern by the operators. Unfortunately, there was nothing we could do to remedy their issues.  We had originally thought about staying on after the season was over, however there became no choice but to pack up and leave!!!  We weren't sure where we would go or what we would do, but we couldn't stay there any longer!!!

Good bye Miami.......hello Lakeland!!!

Upon returning from our cruise our thoughts turned to moving nearer to the girls.  We got our tax information  put together and met with our accountant, we reserved a campsite at the Lakeland Carefree RV Resort, and then started packing up what was left to travel.  We made a weekend trip to Brandon with the last load of "stuff" to go into storage there.  The day before we left for Brandon, Peter surprised me with tickets to see Andrea Bocelli in concert. It was my early Valentine gift!!!  The concert was wonderful. What a genius musician he is.

The next two weeks were spent with doctor appointments, finishing the organization to make our move and trying to see all our friends before we left the area.  It was a great time, but bittersweet.

The management team that had taken over our restaurant at the condo had turned in their notice to cancel their contract with the condo, after only 2 months. When we stopped in to pick up a few lasts payments, we were asked if we wanted to come back!?! "do I want to go from 7 days off a week to  one day off a week????"  Thank you but no thank you!!!

We planned to leave Miami on Tuesday, but I procrastinated in getting laundry and last minute things done.  How lucky was I when the phone rang Tuesday morning with a call from friends at the TowerHouse asking if we would like their tickets to see Les Mis that evening!! Our favorite show. So our last evening in Miami was at the performing arts theater in Miami! Sometimes procrastination is a good thing!!!

We left Miami around 10 am on Wednesday to head to Fort Myers for a 2 night stay at Seminole Campground.  It is a beautiful campground, and it was a half way destination.  We relaxed and had dinner outside by our campfire and enjoyed the peace and quiet.

Friday morning, March  1 we arrived in Lakeland Florida, and began setting up our newest adventure, hands on "Grandparenthood"!  LIFE IS GOOD!!!