May 2021

The week of May 9th we had our first campout of the year with the Carri-Yals club. It was held at Whittington Woods campground at Rend Lake. It was a little chilly all week long but luckily we had an activity room we could use to have our meals in. The cooler weather made for great campfires.  Here is a picture of the group after touring the Information Center at Rend Lake. Celina is missing because she left early to attend her grandson's graduation in Oklahoma.

Getting back home I got to work again on the carburetor issue with the generator in Marge. I have dumped several bottles of carburetor cleaner in it over the last two months with no improvement in performance. It starts and runs fine but surges whenever the load is changed. I had a local mechanic look at it and he determined that it definitely is a carburetor issue. (Thank you ethanol.) 

The generator is out of a 1985 motorhome so getting parts is a real problem. There have been several different carburetors used over the years on this size generator. After much searching on the internet, and studying the carburetor while on the generator, I finally found "Walbro" stamped on the carburetor and contacted that company. They said that that carburetor hasn't been made for 35 years. I would need to send them the number stamped on the carburetor flange to determine a rebuild kit. They didn't have any kits anymore but could tell me what kit to order if I could find one on the internet. They told me where to find the carburetor number. I couldn't see the number anywhere so I had to pull the carburetor off to find the number.  Here is a picture of the carburetor. The number I needed was stamped on the very bottom edge.

I emailed the carburetor number to Walbro and they told me the kit I needed. Luckily I found one on the internet and ordered it immediately because they only had two kits left. I received the kit in a few days and I am now waiting for the mechanic to pick the carburetor and kit up for rebuilding. The carburetor will need to be boiled out then rebuilt. I'm hoping he can get started on it this week sometime because we will be leaving for two weeks to go fishing in Minnesota.

Grandson Kellen graduates eight grade on Friday in California and on Saturday he will fly into St. Louis to go with us to Minnesota. We will pick him up at the airport and head north. It will be great fun. Big fish pictures to follow!

April 2021

The end of March I had Marge washed and waxed in Florida. Our RV site in Florida is under a huge oak tree. The whole winter leaves drop, then pollen pods drop, then acorns. This all makes for an ongoing mess on Marge's roof and sides. This was the first time I ever let anyone else wash or wax her. Two guys did it in four hours. It takes me four days or more. Of course they didn't buff it, etc. like I do but it will provide protection for about six months.

The trip home from Florida was uneventful except for a huge traffic delay about 30 miles south of Atlanta that slowed us down an hour. We never did see any reason for such a lengthy delay of traffic. The delay put us in downtown Atlanta at rush hour. While traffic was bad at least it moved at a decent pace. 

We stopped for the night north of Atlanta at Cabella's and stayed on the parking lot. This worked out well since when leaving in the morning we didn't have to go through Atlanta rush hour. We arrived home around 3 p.m. and spent the next hour unloading all the food and clothes out of Marge. 

After spending several months in Marge there are always things that need to be repaired, improved, etc. While in Florida the porch light quit. I did a post on its replacement. In Florida I did not have the proper materials to seal it properly. I have removed it and sealed it at home. 

One of the things that has been bothering me is the lenses on the "scare" lights on each side of the fifth wheel have yellowed considerably from age making the entire RV look "old". I ordered new ones and installed them. Here is a before and after picture. 

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Over the course of the winter the LED lights I installed several years ago over the sink burned out. I wasn't impressed with their lack of longevity. Aren't LEDs supposed to last 50,000 hours? Not these. I'd be surprised if they had 500 hours on them. I ordered different ones. I also learned from the installation of the old LEDs that they generated too much heat to be boxed in. I want something bright for this area so I ordered LED flood lights that are made to go on the front bumper of an off road vehicle. I mounted these externally using the brackets they come with. I installed them both on the wooden mounting box I had built some years back but I didn't like that because the light is still in back of you when you are working at the island. To remedy this I attached a wooden arm so that one of the lights extends over the island. We will try this set up for a trip or two. If we like it I will make an nice "L" shaped wooden box for the lights to be mounted to permanently. Here is a picture of the new temporary setup.

I still can't get the generator to run right. In fact today it burned up my converter/charger so I will have to buy a new one. I have the name of someone locally who may work on these generators. If that fails I will pull  it out and buy a new inverter generator. It won't be nearly as convenient but it will work for the limited times we use it.

A couple of years ago neighbor John in Florida gave me a folding table with a plastic top. Something had burned a hole in the top so I patched it with Bondo. My Bondo repair cracked so I worked on it again. This time I broke out the burned area and placed screen in the hole to help hold the patch. I also spread the patch out wider to strengthen it. We will see how it holds up.  When I patched it last time I painted the patch beige to match the rest of the top. The beige showed every little spot so we decided to paint it gray. We will see how this patch and this color hold up.

We didn't take the big under cabinet fridge to Florida this year and decided an outside fridge is quite handy. The under cabinet fridge is large, old, and heavy. It was hard for me to load and unload so I bought a used mini-fridge the other day for us to take next year. It is much easier for me to handle and is plenty big enough for our cold drinks. Here is a picture of it cleaned up and ready for action.

I'll keep you posted on the generator and converter/charger.

  

 

  

 

March 21st - March 25th - Beach Again and RV Repair

Yesterday a group of us hit the beach again at Passe-Grill. We like this area because it isn't very crowded. Here is a picture of part of the group as we sat under the shade of the palm trees and enjoyed the view and weather. 

It is amazing how white the sand is and how blue the water is in this area. We had takeout lunch at the little restaurant nearby and in the early afternoon headed back to the RV park.  We were sitting around visiting at the RV park when we noticed a small heron sitting on the light pole across the street. Here is a picture.

Of course, upon approaching he flew off. In the past I have watched him walk around on vacant lots on occasion. He is about two feet tall. The RV park adjoins Sawgrass Nature Park and I'm sure that is where he lives.

The day before yesterday I noticed that our porch light wasn't working. A burned out bulb right? Not my luck. I pushed the bulb in and it would light but it wouldn't stay lit no matter what I did. I took down the fixture and determined that the insulating wafer that suspends the hot wire in the middle of the socket had disintegrated. I needed a new fixture. Here is a picture with an arrow pointing to the hot wire with the wafer broken off.

This fixture was original (15 years old) and had been painted over when the rig was built. I wanted a new one to match the old 0ne as close as possible so that no unpainted areas would show. I quickly learned that all the new light fixtures come with LED bulbs pre-installed. I ordered one from Amazon and got it the next day. It was an easy install except, of course, none of the screw holes matched up so I had to put four more holes in the side of the RV.  I will leave it unpainted. It came with a yellow lens cover and a clear lens cover. I put the clear cover on and it is brighter than the original. Here is a picture of it installed. It should outlast me.

I hired to two guys to wash and wax the RV on Saturday. I know it will be a mediocre job since they are doing it all in one day. It takes me five days to do it right, one day for the roof and one day for each side. It needs washing and waxing badly and I can not find anyone at home to do it. It will be one less project for me when we get home.

It's another beautiful day today. Sunny with a slight breeze. Neighbors went to the American Legion Hall in Mediera Beach where you can sit on the deck overlooking the bay, drink and eat, watch the dolphins play, and listen to live music. We were invited to go but decided to sit this one out and just hang out here. When they get back this afternoon several of us guys may go to the Tampa Auto Museum just a few miles away to check it out. It is a private collection of very limited production cars from what I read. Should be interesting. If we don't go today we will go tomorrow. The great thing about retirement is that every day is Saturday. If you don't get to it this Saturday you can do it next Saturday. 

 

March 17th-March 20th - St. Pat's Party and the Beach

On St. Patrick's Day we had a party on an unoccupied lot nearby. Kelly supplied all the snacks with everyone bringing their own drink. Here is a picture of the picnic table loaded with plenty of individually wrapped treats for all. (There were lots of leftovers for Mike to consume.)

Here is a picture of half the group listening to 60s and 70's music and shooting the breeze.

As the evening wore on the music encouraged several couples to get up and dance. Here are a couple of pictures. The first is Don and Donna and the second is Chris and Marj.

We listened to music until almost 11:00 p.m. (Past quiet time but no one complained that we know of.)

Friday daughter Alexa and her friend Aaron flew in to drive Kelly's car back home. They didn't get in until midnight so it was 1:00 a.m. before we got to bed. I almost had to take a nap to stay up that late.

Saturday we took them on a tour of the beach areas. We stopped at a well-known place, Caddy's, for a drink and lunch. We sat outside on the second floor and had a great view of the ocean while we ate. We left there and headed down the coast. We ended up stopping at St. Pete's Beach, recently voted the best beach in the U.S. Parking at all of the beaches is always a major issue. We lucked out and as we drove up to the concession stand area a lady was backing out. We were so lucky a guy walking by gave us a "thumbs up". We plugged the kiosk for two hours and hit the beach. It was very cool and cloudy but the beach is the beach after all.  Here are some beach pictures.

It was spring break but the area we were in was not crowded because it was earlier in the day, windy and chilly.  This suited us fine. We left after a couple of hours and headed down the coast to the Passe-Grill area. Then, instead of driving right back, we took Alexa and Arron for a drive through Fort DeSoto State Park. It is a huge, magnificent park on a peninsula with miles of paved bike trails, a great campground, miles of beaches, and acres of parking. It costs $5.00 to enter the park but there is no charge for parking. It is a great family destination with lots of room and lots of pavilions to have family outings. We love it. We may try to camp there a week at the end of the season next year. The campsites are cut out of the woods on windy roads with limited spots for big RVs like ours. It could be a challenge to get Marge in and out of there.

I broke down yesterday and hired two guys to wash and wax the RV before we head home. (I don't know anyone in Perryville who will do it.) It will be one less project for me when we get back and it really needs it after sitting under this oak trees all winter. It is one less time Kelly will get nervous see me climbing around on the roof cleaning so that is a good thing.

It is cold (60) and breezy today so everyone is indoors enjoying a lazy Sunday. 

March `16, 2021 - Recap

March 10th a bunch of us took a road trip to Plant City for a strawberry ice cream. It is a a little crazy to drive an hour for an ice cream but it is a tradition when the strawberries start to come in. Here is a picture of our neighbors, Marj and Chris, enjoying theirs. They are from Oxford, Michigan and are great folks and great neighbors.

After the ice cream we made a trip to the local winery. They had a nice outdoor dining area so we had hors d'oeuvres. Some had a sampler of five wines, we had a sampler of five beers. It was a great time. Here is a picture of our group.

This is a picture of a blue heron on the winery grounds by the pond. (He wouldn't let me get very close.)

March 12th was the annual St. Patrick's Day Golf Cart Parade here at the park. (Don't ask me why they don't have it on St. Patrick's Day because I have no idea.) One of the ladies down the street decided to cook corned beef and cabbage for everyone. With the number of people she needed help so Kelly cooked four corned beefs. It was a great meal. Here are a couple of pictures of people sitting around having drinks and dinner. There were about forty in attendance.

After dinner the golf cart parade came down our street. Here are some pictures of carts of friends on our street. It was a nice parade.

I could have decorated my bike and rode in the parade but I didn't.

Saturday night about six of us went to the stock car races because they were having regular races plus  figure 8s. It was quite exciting at times. I had never been to a figure 8 race before. I tried to take pictures of the close calls on the figure 8s but they didn't come out very well. One of the classifications was "Old School" stock cars. They were the high dollar cars and seeing them brought back memories of going to the stock car races fifty years ago.  Here is a picture of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners.

Sunday Kelly and I drove to Tallahassee to get our second Covid shot. It was a ten hour trip up and back but now it is over with. I felt fine until about twenty-two hours after the shot then I got a 101 fever, chills, and a headache. I bundled up and went to bed. The fever broke after about three hours. I still have the headache. It kept me up most of last night. It is like a dull sinus headache. Hopefully by the end of today I will be totally back to normal.

Tonight there is a hamburger supper. We bought tickets. You get two hamburgers and two side dishes. It is a good deal. Normally it would be a sit down dinner but this year it is a drive through. They have always been great burgers and I'm sure this year will not be an exception.

February 28, 2021 - Oak Tree Seeds

We are parked under a huge oak tree in the park. It is the time of year when the leaves fall off followed by seed bods with the new growth of leaves. This is about the third or fourth day of seed pods falling continuously. They fall like snow. If I am sitting outside I have to cover my drink or they fall in it as well as all over me. Here is a picture of the patio area. Which was just cleared off yesterday.

When  they all quit falling I will climb on the roof and blow all this seed junk off. 

It is pretty darn warm today - in the mid 80s with high humidity. Feels like Florida. Nothing planned for today, just a lazy Sunday. I took an hour this morning and got many of my tax records together for tax preparation as soon as we get home in April.

February 29th is my daughter Annie's wedding anniversary. I guess we will call them today and wish them well.

February 27th - What's Been Happening

While Covid has caused a shut down of all park-wide activities, those of us on Audrey Street have tried to put some fun things together. It was decided to have a "Fat Tuesday" breakfast of Paczki Donuts and wine. We had never heard of Paczki Donuts but they are a big hit with the folks from Michigan and others here. They are round iced donuts filled with various fillings. We bought some with rasberry and vanila cream fillings. The wine and donuts were put out on a table so people could help themselves and social distance.  They were delicious but so sweet you could only eat one. The event made for a fun time out on the street.

The other day there was a Pileated Woodpecker in the tree above a neighbor's camper. Someone told us that there are three of them in the RV park, which adjoins Sawgrass Nature Park. I had never seen this beautiful bird up so close. He was busy pecking for bugs so he could care less about us. Here is a picture of him and a short video as well. So cool.

On three different days the guys worked on three different RV awnings. Chris and Marj next door needed new fabric on theirs. Don, from across the street, works at an RV facility in Indiana and every year he brings down awning material which has been taken off rigs for various reasons and would otherwise be thrown away. One of these fit Chris and Marj's rig perfectly. Several of the guys here are familiar with the complicated process of replacing the fabric. A learning experience for me.

The next day we replaced the awning material on Jake's motorhome. He had to order new material because his awning has a metal cover so the material setup is different from a standard awning. Also it is much more complicated to replace. It took us 3.5 hours but here is a picture of the result. It came out great.

I took the old awning material and put it down on our lot so that we walk on it rather than the sand which gets tracked into the RV.  Here is a picture of the striped material staked down.

The next day we worked on putting an entire awning on Dave and Jean's trailer. It didn't have one. Annie, our neighbor on the other side, had an awning which had broken arms and rotten material. She didn't want to pay for parts to fix the awning or for new awning material so she gave the hardware to us to put on Dave's trailer. It was a slightly smaller size so it took a little engineering to get it done. We had to reinforce the area where the arms attach to the trailer so it could handle the load.  We also had to fabricate the broken piece that connected the roller to the arms. Putting our heads together and after a trip to the hardware store we had a fix. Again, Don had awning material that happened to be the right length so we were in business. It took about five hours for this project but it was worth it.  Here is a picture. They are thrilled.

Last Tuesday we played golf. My neighbor Chris loves to golf but has been having some back problems so he has been afraid to try and swing a club. He wanted to get out so I talked him into coming along and doing my putting. Here is a picture of Dave (on the left) and Chris putting on the 9th hole.

They are such nice guys we have a great time whether on the course or off.

After all the awning work all week on Thursday we relaxed and went to the beach to watch the sunset. It was awesome. Here is a picture of me and the women and a picture of me looking at the sunset. 

Watching the sunset over the water is very popular. Here is a picture of people lined up to watch.

Here is a great picture I caught of the pelicans flying between us and the sun.

Sunset.

We will have to do this again.

 

February 15, 2021 - Vaccine and Another Repair

Kelly and I spent our Valentine's Day driving to Tallahassee and back to get our first Covid vaccine shot. It was a 4.5 hour drive one way. We arrived early because it was a Sunday and there was no traffic even though we had to drive though multiple towns and dozens of stoplights. We easily found the Publix store which luckily was on the south side of Tallahassee. The system they set up for the shots couldn't have been simpler. You checked in at a table and then were given a seat near the pharmacy.

There weren't many people there upon arrival s0 I asked the young man manning the registration table two questions. Can I get my vaccine before my allotted time and can Kelly get hers right after me rather than us having to wait an hour after that for her appointment? We used his walkie-talkie to confer with the pharmacist and she answered "sure" to both questions. We had about a fifteen minute wait after that. Kelly didn't have her Medicare card with her so it took a little longer to do the paperwork but the pharmacist was really sharp and got it done using her SSN.  (They need the Medicare number to get reimbursed from the Feds.) We both had our shots and were waiting out the 15 minute observation period when the time for my appointment came up.  Here is a picture Kelly took of me waiting.

I'm hoping I can contact someone at Publix and tell them how nice and accommodating the pharmacist was to us. It was really a pleasant experience, which was a relief in itself. Nothing would have been worse than driving 4.5 hours and there being some type of glitch.  I started having a little arm soreness last night when we got home but it is nothing. We both feel fine this morning. Our second shots are scheduled for March 14th at the same time.

In the mail I the other day I received bobbins that I ordered.  I ordered a package of 20 for $4.00.  They even came with a fabric tape measure which is really handy to have at times.

Since I rarely sew on a machine and don't have a sewing machine here in Florida, you may wonder why I ordered bobbins. Well, I use them to replace the tie down strings on the day/night shade on every window.  The ones installed at the factory are plastic and, like all other plastic, disintegrates after several years. I can buy metal bobbins, which are about the same size, for less money than the plastic ones. (Not my idea, I picked this idea up on an RV website several years ago and used it before.)  Here is a picture of a couple bobbins up close ready to be put to work. They are a perfect upgrade because the holes give you something to tie the string to. 

Here is what the plastic ones look like on one shade. Pieces break off then the strings come loose and the shades fall down. The arrows point to the broken off areas and cracks.

Most of these tie downs are located behind the valance on the side of the shades. I may have to take each valance loose from the wall to get to them if my stubby screwdriver doesn't work. Today's project. Always a project.

February 13, 2021 - Vaccine, Laundry, and Rain

The other day I was driving back from getting a few ingredients to make a pot of chili and while stopped in a construction area I took a picture of this guy with the beard. Why would anyone want to have a beard braided ponytail to deal with all day everyday? It seems to me that working construction this could be very dangerous. Maybe he wasn't working. Maybe he was just "visiting" with the construction worker. He didn't have a safety vest on.

For the last two weeks I have been online for many hours trying to get Covid vaccination appointments. The Florida system to sign up is totally jacked up. Limited doses were released through Publix grocery/drug stores. You have to register and then get online at 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. on certain days waiting for a chance to book an appointment. I was using both the laptop and the iPad to try and snag appointments. Here is a picture of my setup. For hours and days on end I would just sit at the table and watch the screens until it came up - "All Appointments Are Booked". GRRRRR!

What is really bizarre about this system is if you do get a chance to "Book Now", you then had to input all your personal and medical information again. Often by then the slots were all filled. This happened about a dozen times over several days. A fifth grader could have designed a better system.

On Wednesday morning, AFTER 3.5 HOURS ONLINE, I finally got appointments for Sunday, February 14th but they are in Tallahassee, a 4.5 hour drive away. HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! I was lucky to get mine at 12:48 p.m. and Kelly's at 1:48 p.m. so we won't have to spend a lot of time hanging around there. We will drive up and back tomorrow. We will have to go back there for the second dose as well on March 14th. We are barely getting in the second dose before we leave here on the 31st of March.

Today is Saturday - laundry day. I filled the car up with gas for the trip tomorrow and arrived at the laundromat just after 7:00 when it opened. I was the only one there because everyone else looked at the weather forecast.

I go early because I like being there by myself. Floridians and retirees here do not get up early. It was interesting that several dryers were full of clothes. They tell people to not start drying after 8:30 p.m. because they lock the place up at 9:00 p.m. but people do it anyway. As a result their clothes are still there this morning. Ignorant.

Not long after I arrived at the laundromat a major rain storm moved in. It rained so hard I could not hear anything in this metal-roofed building. Here is a picture.

The picture didn't capture the rain so I tried a video for the first time on this blog. I hope it works.

Since it is supposed to rain all day today I will make my famous chili. I found a recipe that Kelly likes. We get two meals out of batch. We do a lot of cooking because we are not going into any restaurants while down here. 

I believe the forecast is rain off and on until Monday. It is 72 degrees so I'm not complaining about some rain. Tomorrow we will be on the road all day so who cares if it rains?

While it is gloomy today, it is not that way many days. Here is a picture of the sunset from our patio the other evening.