Sparky Learns Something New

Sarasota, FL        High:              Low:

Sparky met up with one of the ladies in the park, Jean, who has been making pine needle and reed baskets for over 28 years. Jean told Sparky she has over 100 baskets in the living room of her house back in Michigan! Must be a BIG living room! Sparky wanted to get some tips from an expert basket maker and see maybe how to do something different on her next basket. Jean had MANY baskets in her fifth wheel and all were amazing and wonderful to see. She had basket bottoms using agates---cool!

She had basket bottoms with a weaving stitch called teneriffe. This photo is from the web, and it's a very elaborately woven teneriffe basket bottom. Jean's were much simpler, just a little woven design at the bottom of the basket. Sparky's photo of her beautiful basket didn't turn out.

She got to talking about her teaching career, and Sparky and Jean exchanged stories and events from their lives while kibitzing over baskets. Sparky didn't learn any new stitches today, but she DID learn that the way she's been stitching her first three baskets is a lot harder than it has to be. Sparky always does things the hard way, never the easy way...sigh....That's what happens when you are pretty much self taught. You might develop some bad habits.

Some of Jean's baskets....This one has a metal jewelry piece for a bottom starter...

This one had a PERFECTLY fitted lid....

This is one of Jean's reed baskets...

She has made many many Nantucket baskets over the years as well. A Nantucket basket is a specific style of basket. Sparky is always in awe of people who are talented at their craft and she hopes she will get to be a better basket maker one of these days. Sparky is always shooting for perfection before practice. Jean has 28 years behind her, Sparky has four months. Here's her fourth basket she's working on....

Sparky and Jean are going to get together again soon, when Jean starts another basket. That will help Sparky see the error of her ways and maybe the next basket she does will look even better! One thing about making pine needle baskets, each basket maker develops their own way of doing things, whatever works best for them based on best practices in the art of basket making.

Too late to change the stitching to the easier way, it will have to wait till the NEXT basket. Jean was a sweetheart for showing Sparky how she does some things when she makes her baskets, and for giving Sparky some North Carolina long leaf pine needles. Holy cow! North Carolina needles are a LOT longer than Florida long needle pines!

Hm-m-m-m...Who does Sparky know in North Carolina that could send her some? (Sparky, you'll just have to wait until we get there, says E.) But we're not headed there any time soon, so Sparky will just have to be patient and wait. We're actually going to be headed west towards Texas when we leave Sarasota....First, northern Florida, then Alabama to Red Bay, then to Houston,Texas, to see my little munchkin grandson! Yay! Then onward to Colorado...At least that's the Jello plan at the moment...

Sparky played a BUNCH of pickleball games at the women's night pickle ball. There was a lady there who was a very good pickleball player who was battling cancer. She has lung cancer AND brain cancer. She was very upbeat and positive, and everyone was very glad to see her. Another lady who's a regular every Monday and Thursday was there, the one with the morphine pump, the 18 back surgeries and two knee replacements. Makes you stop and think about how life is so short. Don't waste time feeling sorry for your little aches and pains, Sparky said to herself. Some people have much bigger battles to win..My sister, for one. She's whipped breast cancer for the third time, and she is one tough, funny, loveable lady. Sparky is going to go see her soon...She and her husband are here in Florida in Matlache, one of our favorite family vacation spots!

Time to head off to bed, Sparky's whipped!

See you later!

A Little Bit of Everything Lately

Gulf Shores, AL      High:  66    Low:   41

Dinner with Laurie and George Owens (Owens on the Road) at The Oar House in Pensacola...Lovely time...So much fun hearing about what they have learned so far in the first month of full timing...Don't drive after dark! Everybody gets crabby and it's tough to park...Yep! We can vouch for that! :-) The food was VERY good and very reasonable.....

More bike riding around the park and on the trails... This is an observation deck for gator habitat at Gulf State Park, but Sparky has yet to spot one. Phooey!

Sparky is now on a mission to look for L-O-O-N-G pine needles to practice making baskets...(Uh, boy, I'm gonna start seeing mysterious Walmart bags all over the place, I'm sure! says E.)   Yep! :-)

Here's a sample....Sparky thinks they look cool! The long leaf pines can have needles from 7-18" long, the longer the better for baskets.

More visiting different parts of town....We visited Buena Vista, an up and coming upscale RV resort just across the beach in Gulf Shores. The coach houses were absolutely gorgeous and very different from the standard coach houses you see in so many RV resorts. What's cool about the phases coming in Buena Vista, is they are going to have one entire section devoted totally to full time RVers who are in need of rehabilitation services. They will transport people to needed medical services and they are going to have a physical therapist on staff. Sounds like a fabulous plan along with everything else they are building......The park is going to have 111 sites when completed.

Watching the skid car..Hunh? Yeah, a skid car..A skid car is an ordinary car outfitted with a set of "training wheels" that are controlled with a hydraulic system controlled inside the car. The attached wheels lift the car just enough to simulate driving on ice, wet pavement, snow, or oil slicks.  A retired state police officer demonstrates the skid car all over the state of Alabama, training officers and members of different police departments how to control skids. The skid car was going through its paces in front of the pavilion at Gulf State Park. Sparky, always looking for blog fodder, stopped to take a photo and ask questions. An insurance company sponsors the demonstrations and it's only offered to the police departments that are covered by this insurance and this particular car is only demonstrating in the state of Alabama. Which is too bad, because wouldn't this be a terrific thing to have for driver's ed for teens all over the country? THEY need it more than the police department does, in Sparky's humble opinion. Maybe some high schools with a lot of money do use this system, Sparky hopes so! It doesn't look that expensive to outfit the car, but like anything else, it probably is. However, what a great concept! Sparky would to love to try that out! She needs all the help she can get on wet, slick and icy roads...But now that we are not in northern Indiana any more, it's not so much of a worry.

And other stuff....Sparky went to a craft group meeting for the first time at Gulf Shores State Park. The ladies were doing all kinds of crafts. Some were making jewelry with pop can pop tops. The group was fun! Later in the day, Sparky saw a lady on Gator Street in the park making pine needle baskets. Sparky stopped by and Carol Moore, the lady making baskets in her "front yard", offered to teach her how to make a basket...Carol makes BEAUTIFUL baskets and is working on some now. She sells them at a shop in Foley. These have either hickory nuts or walnuts in them. Sparky hopes she can figure this out and make one similar some day. Carol has been making them for about 15 years so Sparky has a long way to go.

Dinner with Greg and Jan White (Our RV Adventures) at Sea 'n' Suds in Gulf Shores...We forgot to take a photo. Eldy had the best raw oysters he has ever had. Sparky had steamed shrimp that was absolutely delicious and she doesn't really like seafood! But she does like shrimp. We always love seeing Jan and Greg, they have great stories to tell, and they know the BEST places to eat! Safe travels, you two!

And if that isn't a little bit of everything lately, Sparky doesn't know what is! See you later......

Basket Class or Not?

Gulf Shores, AL     High:  66    Low:  39 (!)

Sparky was all set to take a pine needle basket class this morning at the Orange Beach Art Center. She had read about it in the local newspaper. After calling to get directions to the art center, she found out there was no basket class...Not today, not every Wednesday, as the paper had said. Well, PHOOEY! That would have been very cool to have learned how to do that...There are long leaf needle pine trees all over this park, and the baskets you can make from them are fabulous! Well, maybe another place, another time....(Whew! I thought we were going to have bays full of pine needles, says E., with a relieved sigh.) Um-m-mmmmm...I might still collect them just in case I run across a basket class...Ya never know! (Sigh.....)

Sparky headed over the Orange Beach Library to find out about their digital mobile book lending service...She has a Kindle Fire and wants to get some FREE books on it. There are lots of free ones on the internet and through Amazon, but Sparky can't tell the good from the bad, 90% of the books she's never heard of, nor is she familiar with the authors. It seems that the wish list of books she has compiled and wants to read cost a fair amount of MONEY! Phooey! Time for another strategy to start reading more. Sparky wanted to know if you had to be a county resident to obtain books on loan, digitally or otherwise, and if they had some kind of special arrangement for snowbirds. Guess that's what we are, although we don't stay long enough in one place like most snowbirds do in the winter.

It turns out that I got to get a FREE library card, I can check out digital books from this library any time for two weeks at a time, and I can check out materials from this library digitally any time. They have what's called a Visitor Library Card. It was FREE!  For now, no restrictions and it's good forever. Yay! The Digital Bookmobile was COOL! They had videos showing you how to download from the library using a free app called OverDrive. Apparently, all (?) the libraries use it for patrons to download digital library books, at least that's what the guy said at the Digital Bookmobile today.

They also had all the latest gadgets for people to try out---Nooks, iphones, tablets, Kindles, every kind of device and manufacturer you could want. It was terrific! If you were having trouble trying to decide which device to get, this would have been a great place to try them out...all the different ones there at once. Fun!

Back home again....Eldo had gone for a 7 mile bike ride...He's really enjoying the park and the trails here at Gulf State Park...Sparky went out this afternoon and checked out the Rattlesnake Trail and the Twin Bridges trails, and darn if she didn't see a snake on the Rattlesnake Trail! It appeared to be dead, like somebody had previously run over it.  Sparky was busy checking out the long leaf pine needles right pretty darn close to it and didn't see it until the last minute. Scared the bejesus out of her!  UGH!

Beautiful scenery, beautiful day again today.....The Rattlesnake Trail is not as pretty, in Sparky's humble opinion..It's just a short straight shot from the park to the trailhead end, which ends up at Orange Beach City Hall.

The Twin Bridges Trail is much prettier...two wooden bridges, lots of curves, prettier scenery....

There were some interesting plants growing beside the bridge...Spore heads on these plants or seed pods? Where's a naturalist when you need one?

Sparky just loves ornamental grasses and even the weeds!

The park has all kinds of different habitats...Here the fire ravaged forest is trying to recover. The brambles looked like they were on fire in the setting sun of late afternoon....

There are places to sit and picnic on these trails....This appears to be a new shelter that wasn't here last year.

To cap off our wonderful day...We caught up with Jan and Greg White who are in town for ten days here at Gulf State Park. They've been gate guarding in Texas over the summer and had quite a few stories to tell about that, the scorpions Jan killed, and their experiences can be relived at Our RV Adventures if you'd like to know more. We talked over dinner at Lulu's this evening, the restaurant owned by Jimmy Buffett's sister. They are a warm and friendly couple, and we always enjoy seeing them again. Glad you are back, guys!