Visiting Steve & Marcia in Sebring

After waking, having morning beverages and doing our language lessons, we took the dogs on a short walk on the street. When we returned to the house, Mark warmed the breakfast burritos that he had made the night before. They were tasty and filling for our drive to Sebring.

We were able to get out by 8:30 and chose a route that avoided I-75 and the Tampa area. Even though it was Saturday morning, we knew that traffic would be bad around Tampa. While driving we heard a pebble fly up and tap the windshield, fearing a crack, but we kept moving not seeing a chip.

Progress on the "hippie van"

Once we left the Gulf Coast and started driving through the less populated central part of Florida, the landscape was very pretty. Some of the citrus groves had fruit hanging, and lots of cattle were in fields.

We arrived at Steve and Marcia’s place a little before noon and had a great visit. Steve updated us on his job as an elementary special education teacher, and Marcia took us out to see the progress on restoring her “hippie van.” She had removed the wrap and repaired areas with dents or rust. Although the top of the van will remain white, she painted most of the van’s body an almost turquoise blue. The amazing thing is that she painted the van with spray cans of Rustoleum. I couldn’t believe how smooth and uniform the paint looked. She hand-painted some of the graphics and used an air brush apparatus on other graphics.

Marcia & Steve

After our visit, we took them out to Dimitri’s Restaurant for lunch to celebrate Steve’s 66th birthday which is on February 25th. Marcia had a flounder sandwich, Steve ordered the Philly cheesesteak, Mary had a Cuban sandwich, and I had fish and chips. Mary and I swapped some fish for half of the sandwich. We all enjoyed our meals. We appreciate that Dimitri’s has a good selection of Greek, Italian and Cuban menu choices as well as American favorites.

We returned to Steve’s house and spent some time in his gardens assessing the needs of his lime tree and examining the tiny bagworms on the palm trees. It is always great to see Steve and Marcia laughing about old times and planning new adventures. We left Sebring around 3 pm for the 3+ hour drive to Homosassa.

Looking at Steve's garden

The drive to Homosassa was uneventful, although traffic was heavy. We saw a large group of Jeeps that had apparently been to an event and were heading north. We stopped at a Walgreens to get a birthday card for Cindy then got to Whittington’s a little before 7 pm. Dinner was the Schmidt’s meatloaf that Mary had prepared on Friday along with green beans and rolls. We watched an episode of Astrid and Professor T on PBS before going to bed.