A Lazy Sunday--February 8

The day dawns sunny, clear and warm—65 by 9 AM. Norb decides to go hear the preacher at the gathering hall; I stay ‘home’ and play my piano. When he reports back I am even more convinced that I haven’t missed anything. We eat the rest of the ribs for lunch, a little cole slaw and then get the bikes ready to ride. We are going to Mt Dora to see the art show. Using the iPhone we plot a back roads route. I put the cue sheet on a piece of paper just as insurance and we set off, first wandering through Umatilla. We get out into the countryside and see tree after tree of blackened fruit, the result of the week’s cold wave. Word is that the tomato crop really got hit bad; only some of the oranges are toast.

The roads don’t match the names on the iPhone so we stop to take a reading. The iPhone will only show us a blue dot in the middle of a gray background—no roads, nada. We move out from under the tree. Nada. I know that the iPhone knows abouts these roads because it sent me here! There are 5 bars so it’s not a reception problem. I check the settings. Nothing there that I can see to change.

When we hit Hwy 44 and turn on to Hwy 44A, which should take us right into Mt Dora, Norb decides that he just doesn’t feel comfortable riding on such a busy road with no shoulder. We stop at a BP, I check out a detailed local map to see if there is a different way to get there, we get some ice cream, eat it and decide to head back ‘home’. I call Shawn to see if he can figure out why the iPhone is not cooperating and he has no clue.

Once back at the RV park, I check out the pool and hear people playing euchre. When we check it out, we learn that a lesson is going on. We ask about bid euchre and one of the men there volunteers to give us a quick lesson. You need 6 people to play and you bid on the number of tricks you are going to take. Looks interesting.

When we get back to the RV I check the iPhone again. Nada on the maps. I do an update and voila! the maps are back again. Grrrr! I also go to mapmyride.com to see how far we have ridden—18 miles. The roads in mapmyride aren’t the same names we saw on the road OR the ones the iPhone used. Really frustrating. We relax, I update the phones and sync them, we take showers, it’s all quite mundane and generally uninteresting. After dinner we play cribbage and go to bed. Not much to write about, but very relaxing.

Most of the people in this park come here for the winter; some have been coming for 20! years. Everyone we talk to assumes that we are going to stay the rest of the winter. They can’t imagine why we would be moving on tomorrow. But, of course, we are the smallest thing here.