Oh, my goodness, Thanksgiving has already come and gone!
I hate it that this favorite time of mine is going so fast, actually, faster each year I think ..

And despite all our troubles, we had so much to be thankful for!
Yes, the truck is toast and it's going to wipe out all our savings, and than some, but our wonderful family stepped in once again to help us out. 
And how amazing is it that one of our neighbors towed us to our new spot, and that another one has lend us one of his trucks to use and a third one offered James a job for as long as we're here!?
You see? I cannot for the world complain or whine a lot. Don't you hate it when that happens?
(Oh, and thank goodness we weren't hooked up while it happened, or on the freeway, or worse ..)

Any-who .. thanks to all this wonderful help we were able to spend Thanksgiving pretty much in our traditional way, watching Macy's Parade followed by the Purina National Dog Show, which was won by Whiskey the Whippet!
We'd been able to get the turkey and all the trimmings and we got a delicious pumpkin mousse pie. (I swear I'll never bake another pumpkin pie myself anymore, it was that good!)

 

 And guess who OD'd on turkey .. again ..

The weather has been a little weird, going from too hot for the time of the year (85F) to way too cold (41F!) and back again!
It's nice enough though to get some morning walks in. This park is huge and has quite a few great nature hiking trails ...

 

Spanish moss, (Palmetto) Saw Palm trees .. I guess we're not in Kansas anymore!

And there's these guys: Gopher Tortoises!

Interesting animals, these turtles. They dig deep burrows that provide shelter for at least 360 other animal species. They're all over this campground, I see a few each day.

Merl' is 'not amused' ...

Florida is apparently a birders paradise. Lots of species either migrate here for the winter or fly 'through' to South America and some just live here permanently .. good choice guys!
I haven't seen too many exiting ones so far but did find these:

   

On the left just an 'ordinary' little Flycatcher, but on the right a bird that only lives on the Florida Peninsula, the Florida Scrub Jay.

I really love these Loggerhead Shrikes. See the little hook at the end of his bill?

Oh, and of course there's some snakes in this 'paradise' State:

 

This is a Southern Black Racer. Not a venomous one, but he's feisty and has a painful bite when challenged.

He's protected by the way.

In the meantime, we're just waiting for the new engine to arrive. The garage has been working at removing the old one. It looks quite dramatic, doesn't it?

For the warranty of the new engine the old injectors also had to be removed and tested. We've send them to BK diesel repairs in Dubuque, IA, where they were installed last year. If they're OK, they go back in the new one.

And James has been working for Shaun all week, he's mostly been painting and is making some good, and badly needed, money.

Well, that's about it for this week, I think. Here's a few more shots of the beautiful park ...

 

And of the Thanksgiving Full Moon ... spooky ...

 

Let's hope we have good news next time .. like the new engine being here and being installed.
We'll see .. I'll keep myself busy finishing up the blogs of our travels down south. I've done 2 so far, only 4 more to go!