Southern Palms in Eustis, FL

We had stayed in contact with Ken and Bonnie and when we found out they were going to be close to where we had been staying in Silver Springs, we decided to go spend another week with them at Southern Palms in Eustis, Florida.

After we got set up on Sunday, we walked over to their campsite and sat outside talking about all each other had been doing.  We told them about all of our Porta-Bote woes and we all laughed so hard we were in tears.  By the way, in case you were wondering, this is what the Porta-Bote looks like all set up and folded back down:

Southern Palms has shuffleboard courts and bocce ball.  Ken and Bonnie taught us how to play both games and we played either shuffleboard or bocce ball almost every day.

On Monday, we loaded all the bikes on our bike rack and drove to a trailhead and parking lot along the West Orange Bike Trail, another rail trail.  This trail had more hills but was a lot more interesting because you rode through the town of Winter Garden.

We rode all the way to the end and had a picnic lunch.

On the way back, we stopped in Winter Garden, parked our bikes

and bought some ice cream.

 

We walked to the median and swung in their swings for a few minutes.

We got back on our bikes and headed the rest of the way back.  When we got back to our car, we found out that the car next to us had been broken into and the women's purses had been stolen.  Thankfully, we had not left anything in the open and our car was untouched.

We rode further than we ever had today, 24 miles, but again the time seemed to fly by because of all the fun we were having with Ken and Bonnie.

On Wednesday, we drove back to Silver Springs so Ken and Bonnie could paddle the Silver River in their Sea Eagle kayak.  On the way to Silver Springs, we got behind these old cars that were traveling about 25 mph. 

 

After we got to the boat launch, we both began unloading and setting up our boats.  Chuck and I kept reminding each other:  don't forget to take the wheels off.

We watched Ken and Bonnie paddling up the river in their Sea Eagle and realized how much easier they and everyone else that uses a kayak or canoe can paddle up that river...even with 3 -5 mph current.   They seemed to just effortlessly paddle along...

 

...while we struggled to keep up with them.

We pulled off at a little sand cove and ate our picnic lunches.

 

When we were sitting there eating lunch, we talked about the monkeys and wondered if they could swim.  On the way back, we heard this splashing in the water, and got our answer:  not only can monkeys swim...

 

 

but they also like to climb the trees and jump into the water before swimming back to shore.

 

We tied off and watched all the monkeys for awhile. 

Despite our difficulties with the Porta-Bote, it was really cool getting to see the monkeys playing and swimming.

On Thursday, we loaded the bikes up again and drove over to The Villages and rode our bikes on several  of their bike trails.  The Villages was pretty amazing with all of its golf courses and houses.  And golf carts were the preferred mode of transportation.  In one of the town squares, they had the water dyed green for St. Patrick's Day.

 

When we got back to the park, we walked around a little bit and I finally got a picture of one of the owls that had a nest in one of the trees.

 

On Saturday, we rode to the town of Tavares and watched part of a boat show they had going on.

 

They also had some antique cars on display.

 

Later that afternoon, we ate out at Sonny's Barbecue, one of Ken and Bonnie's favorite restaurants too.

We had such a fun week with Ken and Bonnie.   They taught us shuffleboard, bocce ball, Kubb, 5 Crowns and Sequence Dice, and we taught them how to play SkipBo and 7 Up.  We also got our 10,000 steps in almost every day.  It was such a great week, that we hated for it to come to an end.