Danny's Diner and Pig Fest

This past weekend we didn't get a lot done towards our preparations for another yard sale. I did get a few more items posted on Craig's List on Sunday, but that was about it. I hope this round goes as well as the first round did. Ellen has  been a little under the weather the last few days and has stayed inside trying to get over it. She went to the doctor Friday and got a shot of steroids and a Z Pack of antibiotics. She was beginning to go stir crazy by Saturday so I decided to take her out for a little while during the day. It was such a nice warm day.

We went over to Tampa to try this diner we recently saw on an episode of "Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives" on the Food Network. Ellen and I love to watch this show and write down some of the more interesting places we see in hopes that once we retire and start Rving full time that we will be able to experience some of them as we travel. On this particular episode they finally had a diner that wasn't too far away that we could try. It was only about a 35 to 40 minute drive from our home in Auburndale to the diner. It is called "Danny's All American Diner and Dairy Bar" and on the show they featured the "Home Run Chili Cheeseburger" and the "Cuban Sandwich Danny Style". It really looked good, so we decided to drive over and try it out. We ordered one of each and had them cut in half so we could share.The first thing we noticed was Danny was not doing the cooking like he did on the show. When our order arrived the cuban sandwich was barely warm and the burger was overcooked. When asked how we liked it after we were basically finished, Ellen was honest and told the lady that the cuban wasn't hot, the cheese wasn't melted and the bread was chewy. (If you don't want an honest opinion, don't ask Ellen what she thinks) She isn't rude but she will tell the truth if asked. The lady she was talking to told us they have told the staff over and over again how long the sandwich needs to remain on the press in order for it to come out right. Maybe they were having a bad day. I sure hope so because the lady gave us a card for a free burger to entice us to come back and try it again. We'll see...

After we left Tampa we stopped by the "Lakeland Pig Fest" for a short while to see some of our friends that were competing, this was a KCBS competition. It's been quite a while since we've seen them. Our friend that got us started, well is our mentor,  was there. His name is Terry McKay and he is a one man BBQ team. The name is "Get-R-Smoked". He won team of the year last year with the FBA (Florida Barbecue Association).  In this KCBS competition there were over 70 professional teams competing this year. We stayed long enough to hear him get the call for 1st place ribs but they were taking so long to make the award announcements between back yard division and the pros we had to leave. It was getting late and I wanted to get Ellen back inside before dark. We looked online that evening and saw that Terry took 4th place over all in the competition. What a great accomplishment.  "Congrats Terry".

That was about it for our weekend. Now it's back to work.

Until next time...

Yard Sales and BBQ

We've spent the last couple of weeks posting some of our larger items that we need to get rid of on Craig's list and continuing to get things ready for the yard sale. I posted 5 items two weeks ago and sold the fourth one yesterday. We sold our beloved kegerator, a couple of Dell desktop computers and a motorcycle windshield. I'm sure going to miss that kegerator. I guess I'll need to get busy soon and post some other things that need to go. This coming weekend is the Lakeland Pig Fest so I don't think I'll get much accomplished toward that goal  in the near future.

We went to the Tampa RV Supershow on Saturday, the 14th. That was a lot of fun. It was the first time we had attended this show and man was it huge. We arrived about 9:00 AM and didn't leave until almost 6:00 PM. We attended two seminars that were about an hour each. One was  "Basic RV Maintenance" and the other was "Extended and Fulltime RV Travel". The rest of the time we checked out the vendors and walked through a few motorhomes. You just can't see it all in one day. It was reported that a new record of over 54,000 attendees visited over the five public days of the show. We really enjoyed going and checking out all of the vendors. There were some vendors soliciting for workampers which is something we're interested in doing once we hit the road. It was nice talking to them and finding out about that part of the RV lifestyle.

"Lakeland Pig Fest" is the first BBQ competition of the year for KCBS. We've been every year for the last few years and enjoy it so much. We were judges in the professional division last year for this event but decided this year we just want to hang out, have fun, meet up with some of our buds that compete in this contest, and listen to some good tunes. The following weekend is "Smoke on the Water" in Winter Haven. This is an FBA competition and we'll be judging it, so we can't miss that one either. Three weeks after that is "Ribs on the Ridge" in Haines City and we've decided we'll compete in that contest. We haven't competed in 9 months and we really miss it. We competed in it last year and didn't do too bad. Maybe we can get something done in between all these BBQ events in the next few weeks. We'll try. We fired up the smoker this past weekend and had a test cook. We had 4 butts and 8 slabs of ribs on the smoker. Our friends really like it when we test.

Forging Ahead

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a safe and happy New Year. Ellen and I decided to stay home and stay off the streets again this year to celebrate the coming of 2012.  The couple up the street rang the door bell on New Year's Eve to invite us over for a little get together around their fire pit with some of their friends.  We should consider them our neighbors but we really haven't spent any time with them only a wave as you pass on the street.  We had a great time and enjoyed being invited to a new circle of friends.

Now that we've had some time to digest the news about the "State of Real Estate in Florida" we have come to a couple of conclusions. First, we can't change what has happened to the real estate market in our part of the country and "it is what it is". The second thing after talking to a lot of people in the real estate market, some who are friends of ours, is it doesn't appear that it will change within the next 3 - 5 years. Some are even saying real estate prices could go down even further before it begins to turn around. With all of this wonderful news we have decided to forge ahead with our plans to sell the house and move into an RV park until the day comes we can take off. We could continue making mortgage payments for a couple of years and still have to go to closing with cash in our pockets or we can sell now and go to closing with cash in our pockets and pocket the mortgage payments for a couple of years. When you look at it that way it just makes sense to continue with our original plan to sell now.

With the decision made, we have spent the last couple of weekends getting things together for a second yard sale.  We have taken pictures of the bigger items and put them on Craig's List and will probably have items for Ebay.  The realtor told us that we needed to "stage" the house.  Staging is the process of removing all of your personal belongings leaving generic items so the house looks less cluttered and the vision of their items can be imagined. I guess we have our work cut out for us for awhile.

Until next time...