BEEFALO?

Hasn't been much to take pictures of. Then I saw this buffalo, actually a Bison, but people call them buffalos. By the time I got to the camera to take it's picture, IT had layed down. I tried waving my hands & making noise, BUT NOT TOO LOUDLY, as there was only about 75' & 4 strands of barbed wire between me & it. Buffalo can charge as I saw that happen once in Indiana as I was taking a picture of a herd of them.
Only one more animal in the field & since this is definitly a bull, I'm taking for granted that since the 2 of them are within 50' of one another peacefully that the buffalo is a female & that they are trying to cross breed them to get Beefalo meat to sell. Beefalo meat is leaner & more healty for your body. I ate some once at Ocala Florida as a bowler I met there had a ranch of Beefalo. I don't remember if it tasted wild, but do remember it tasted dry.

Not much going on here. Won't be back into the campgrounds for another week. This weekend is supposed to be back up to 80. We've had some days 65-75 & nights in the 40's-65. Had a night of tornado watch & another evening of forest fires in the next county. I hear the miniture golf course is getting built here in the campground. Wish all is well till next time. Ron

Just Sunsets

I haven't had much to make a blog out of recently. So Tuesday I went to Siesta Key Beach & other beaches with Daryl, a friend of mine. She got her feet into the water, but when she said it was really cold, I didn't stick my feet in. Besides the beach pictures I took there were other pictures I wanted to include here, but will have to do in another posting. This boy running along the shore was one of my favorites. He was there with his dad & 2 sisters that I also took pictures of.
I really love sunset pictures & even though there were some that I took that I didn't care for, it seems that each has it's own personality. I'm not gonna tell you what I liked about each of these pictures, but you can write back & tell me which you like best, starting with the top picture as #1 & the bottom picture as #5.
This is #3.
#4
#5

Went to the beach today......

Siesta Beach is a famous beach at Sarasota, Fl. It has white sand which is beautiful & soft to the feet, but the lifeguard said it is actually harder than diamonds. I got a cup full to bring back with me. The water temperature was nice today, about the same as the air temperature.
Not a whole lot of people out there, but maybe 100 or so. I wanted to show the lifeguard station & the flags blowing. The wind must have been blowing 15-25mph. There are 4 lifeguard shacks there & each is painted a different color to help people keep track of where they are. There is nothing worst than a child missing. I've seen that several times. Once a girl made a new friend & wandered away with her, here at Siesta 3-4 years ago when I was here. Last summer there was a girl missing for over an hour. I never knew if they found her.
It wasn't too cold for gals in bikinis or for guys to take their shirts off.
After leaving the beach, I saw this sign. It was hard to believe the amount of the fine set at such an odd figure.
Farther away from the beach I saw this city bus. Hybrid diesel-electric. It was really quiet zooming away from a stoplight & was hitting 40 mph. I had to wait till both of us caught a stoplight for me to hop out of my car to take this picture.

I had a low of 41 last night. It was beautiful here today. Supposed to be in the mid 70's this coming weekend.

What is it?

A few of you may know what this is. Like a dummy, I had to ask & the answer to me was we charge $5 per answer, LOL. Well, you can guess free & send it to me in an e-mail at zaqphoto@gmail.com
This is a 1956 Chevy Bel-Air. It has all been disassembled & put back together, but no bondo on it. All of that work was done by a man in a wheel chair. It is almost all stock including the paint color. Engine is a 365 cu. in. Tires are even bias ply wide whitewalls. He strips down the wax each year & gives it 3 new coats. He was showing me where the right side of the hood only had 2 coats, but I couldn't see the difference.

In the last year he has had 2 offers to buy it. The 1st offer was $50,000, which I guess I would have taken it, but his other offer was $65,000, plus there has been 3 auction houses that wanted to sell it for him. I didn't realize it, but it is worth more than 1957's, because of the overabundance's of them & few of 1956.
So do you have an idea of when this car was made? Well, the body style is still stock, but it has been made into a hot rod. It has a small block Chevy engine in it, but a lot of work inside the engine. It has a Corvette rear end. The owner, a friend of mine named Phil said he had it to 130 mph, but said he'd never do that again as he felt like it was about to go out of control as there seemed to be air getting up under the fenders. But he did say it is a fun car to drive. He brought it to Florida in a trailer behind his motor home. It may appear to be black, but it is a dark cherry red with sparkle in the paint. Phil's other car is a Chrysler Crossfire convertible that he left in Maine this winter, as that model is no longer being manufactured, so he wants to preserve it for more value.

OK, so if you look at the license plate, it is a 1933 Ford Vicky.

Back in the campground for about 2 weeks. Weather is fine here. Set records yesterday by 2 degrees. But by this coming Thursday morning, it is supposed to be down into the 30's. Brrrrrr. Will probably be too cold to be playing Pickle Ball that morning. Ron

It's a bird, it's a plane.........

No, it is Odie, the Poodle dog from our friends Jim & Chris chasing a radio control airplane. Jim & Chris is out in the desert in Arizona. Go look at their website at: http://www.geeksontour.com You can look at their blog there & learn a lot of information, plus you can sign up for their newsletter to come directly to you. I didn't take this picture. This came to me from their blog.

This picture was so funny to me as I used to be into RC airplanes & never saw a dog chase an airplane before.

As you can see Odie caught the airplane & put some teeth marks in it. I can see this is a foam wing & the airplane doesn't weigh much. It has an electric motor which doesn't fly as fast as the gas powered ones I had.

Might hit 84 here today & possible set a record high, but by next Thursday morning it might be as low as 32 at Orlando.

You Might Be A Redneck If...............

You are going camping with an air boat. The engine is a Continental brand, so I thought it was an airplane engine, but he said it wasn't & you could tell because there is only 1 spark plug per cylinder in his engine. Seems unusual to me to go camping with an air boat, but his brother-in-law & several cousins are going. They also went around Thanksgiving on the Peace River farther downstream from Wauchula here. They fish a lot for their food.
The boat is pretty well loaded down with other supplies including fruit drinks, grapefruit, etc. They also had an ice chest full in the pick up to be loaded in the boat when they get on the water. He plans to be camping for 8 days.
This was the Christmas day sunset. Nice & peaceful. I aimed to get a full moon picture this month as the moon was full at Christmas, but never got the picture taken.

There were a lot of well decorated houses. This just happened to be one on Florida Av. in Wauchula. When I started driving the school bus, I didn't even know where Florida Av. was, but now use it frequently as it has a nice angle that saves driving through downtown & the stoplights.

Cloudy here today & a little cooler. Supposed to be back into the lower 80's this next weekend. Ron

Christmas Dinner

We had a great Christmas dinner here at http://www.1000trails.com/ at Peace River, near Wauchula, Florida. We had a 40' X 60' tent. At each stake in the ground there was some kind of Christmas decoration so people wouldn't walk into the stakes.
I think there were 4 picnic tables they brought in, plus 2 other tables to put food on. When I took this picture, the food wasn't all here yet as it ended up about all of the seating area of these tables having food on them also. I took deviled eggs & they all disappeared. I counted & 8 people took deviled eggs.
Here's Deb to make announcements. One thing she mentioned was a tornado watch, LOL. Actually the sun is shining & it is beautiful today, but last year it was windy & they were having to hold onto the tent & food to keep everything from blowing away. I took other pictures of Deb, but liked this one the best. She works the whole crowd & "WE HAVE FUN HERE!" She makes us laugh. You'd love Deb if you ever met her. She said this is the biggest gathering we had ever had for one event. This tent will still be here for New Year's.
As Deb said, no matter how we handled this, there was gonna be chaos. Well, after the food was blessed & handicapped people got their food, Deb explained what would work best. Well, I decided to just take some pictures & sit & wait awhile. I waited about 15 minutes before I went through the line. There were 193 people signed up for the dinner, so they'd know approximately how much ham & turkey to fix. Looking, there may have been more show up.
As I was sitting I heard this woman say, as she was fanning her face with her plate, "Between Hot Flashes & being hungry, that people better not pout & better not shout.", LOL. Well, I had to get her to repose this picture. There were other people fanning their faces with their plates also. This morning when I went outside at around 8AM & it was 63 degrees, it reminded me of one time when I was a kid & we played football on Christmas Day outside without coats on in northern Indiana. I think the temperature here today was to be 75+, which I'm sure it made it.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas, Ron