Masters Golf, Immigration & Total Eclipse

April 12th - 13th, 2014

We stayed in, watched car racing and Masters Golf.  We always watch the Masters every year and hope that Tiger loses (sorry, but we don't like him). This year he didn't play so we didn't have to worry about him.  Unfortunately for mum, Ian Poulter, her favourite, didn't do very well but did make the cut. Glad that Bubba Watson won as we both like him.  He seems very down to earth.  Although it would have been great to see 20 year old Jordan Spieth win in his first Masters and become the youngest to win the Masters and take that honor away from Tiger.  He will hopefully have another chance and more experience next time.

April 14th, 2014

I started off the day by calling the Immigration office.  I had applied online to renew my visa as it expires in July and they had set a biometrics appointment for me.  This takes my fingerprints and picture, before they will renew my visa for another 10years.  This will be my second renewal as have lived here for over 20 years now. Unfortunately, my appointment was for April 21st in Louisiana, near New Orleans.  This is actually the nearest office to our Florida address but because we are traveling, is 8 hours from Jacksonville, which is where we're scheduled to be on the 21st.  I spent part of the weekend researching what I could do and thought that I could probably go to a local office but needed to confirm that and hence the call.  Once I got through to them they confirmed that I could go to the office in Jacksonville on the 21st or I could go into the Orlando office this week and see if they could fit me in as a walk-in.  As most of you know I'm not a procrastinator and so didn't want to leave it until the last minute and so we decided we would go to the Orlando office tomorrow afternoon.  I had also read that they're not as busy in the afternoons. It was a huge relief that I could do this.  We had be getting ready to drive the 8 hours to New Orleans and 8 hours back but weren't looking forward to it.
After sorting that out, we went on a road trip to look at another park that has homes and sites for sale.  This one was about an hour south of Orlando.  Lily Lake Golf Resort has a very apt name seeing as how our motorhome is called Lily.  It was a nice park with a golf course and lake.  You can buy a lot for a motorhome or put a park model on it.  They are sold out on new lots but there are some resales available.  The monthly association fees are $130.  This covers water, sewer, landscaping and cable tv and is not bad.  They have a storage area where you can keep your motorhome if you have a park model and that is only $100/year.  So the prices were not bad.  It looked as though it was a little out of the way but if we had driven a little further there were more stores and an Executive Airport.  It is a little further from Disneyworld than I would like though.

On the way home we saw this truck full of Oranges, maybe on it's way to Florida Natural which we passed, and this orange tree.  Needless to say the oranges here are very good.

Tonight there is a total lunar eclipse or blood moon as it is also called.  We decided to try and stay up to watch it.  We were fortunate as the skies stayed clear and we could see it through the trees outside the motorhome. The partial eclipse started at 1:58am EST and ended at 5:33am but the Greatest Eclipse which was when you would see the best red effect was at 3:45am.  We managed to stay up to see the Greatest Eclipse.  Here are some pictures that Bryan took as his camera is better than mine, although still not a professional one by any means.  These were all taken outside of the motorhome.

Before the eclipse, full moon through the trees

It was very bright for a while

Full

Partial Eclipse has started

Total eclipse starting, see the red shadow

Getting redder

Greatest Eclipse

 It was fascinating to watch the moon changing and to see the red getting brighter and brighter and covering the moon.  I was amazed that you could see it with your own eyes.
We went to bed very tired but happy that we had managed to stay awake to watch it.

Tomorrow or should I say today is another day. :)  Take Care