Introduced P and B to the Lion

Went down to Flagler Beach and introduced Porter and William to the Golden Lion, then had a leisurely drive back up A1A, then stopped at the big Thrift store, buying nothing, then, on a whim, showed them the fabled St Augustine Lighthouse. 

Busy week this week, last minute editing then packing on Thursday, the electrician is coming Wednesday to wire up the garage, and then we leave on Friday. Thinking we'll have a "last supper" with our Coquina buds on Thursday night. 

Slow week

Not much happened this week, sorry for the non posting.

Bette had her colonoscopy and got a clean report, so that worry is gone-
Today, we're going to the Golden Lion with Porter and Bill- 

Next Friday, we begin our trip to California-  start packing soon and editing. 
Still waiting on the electrician to come wire up the garage, maybe Monday. 

Play time with Porter, Bill and Bexar

We had a super "Florida retired this is what we do on Saturdays" day-  as previously mentioned, breakfast, followed by a fun visit to the flea market, then fooling around at the house most of the afternoon, think Porter got in a couple of loads of laundry, loving on the lovable Bexar, the wonder dog-  then out to Harry's (where else) for dinner, then we "did the street" for a while, then walked along the ICW back to the car, all in by 8 pm.  We are so retired!!!!!
Note how milleneal Porter and Bill are, as we were seated, they were looking over reviews of the place on line... Bill chose an online recommendation that was not on the menu, and scored!   Harry's NEVER lets us down!!!

Heard from Dan and Kippy down in Miami metro, they are settled in, and at the NC State/Miami basketball game as we speak, for a noon tip off.  Thier son Chris is the something Athletic Director at State, and came down with the team. 

Posted some schoolwork just now, getting ahead, and working on finalizing jello plans for the California trip, now just 13 days away! 

Coquina pal Jerry undergoes the knife tomorrow, good luck buddy, thinking good thoughts on ya- Semper Fi.   He's in Tucson and we'll seem them for a week starting Feb 10th. 

Found a pin on St George street from the Pirate's Museum to add to the Florida pin collection.... 

Went to Home Depot this morning and picked up the supplies to have the garage all wired up properly with additional outlets and having the water heater installation tidied up by a "professional" (off the books) electrician....  Then, maybe, after some more organizing, that will be all set- Post photos of that deal later.  Hopefully, the house is now just about finished as far as alterations.  Got it pretty much like we want it. 

Beautiful weather here now, highs to be near 80 for the next couple of days, hope Steve calls me to go fishing!!  Hear the redfish are running like mad.....

Bingo Bust

Didn't win at Bingo.  We both came within 1 square a couple of times, but no luck. 
This morning, we picked up Bill and Porter and went to Village Inn instead of McDonalds, yummy.  Then we went to the flea market, I found 3 good Roosevelt era books, and we're all vegging out at the house this afternoon-  They've all gone to look at houses -  We're going to head downtown to the street and Harry's tonight for dinner. 

Tonight is Bingo night at the ballroom, woopee!  May not be a lot of folks there since they changed the date, and a lot of our regular table are out of town this weekend. 

Enjoyed golf yesterday, but paying for it today, back is very very sore.  I had about three pars, and a few bogies, and several "others"  I almost sank a shot out of a bunker for a birdie, so maybe I should take it up again. 

Beautiful weather the last few days, tomorrow, we're going to play with former colleague Porter and her fella Bill as they are in town camping for a couple of weeks, planning on McDonalds and flea market-  Looking very forward to that. 

Did lots of school work today, today was "friday turn your work in day."  Had my usual suspects of late, no shows and such-  oh well, its their money. 

Bette had her stitches out today from her other hand operation, and her frozen shoulder rehad seems to be working some, although like me, the therapy is worse than the original pain-  but she's working through it. 

Went to our insurance agent today and did a good audit of coverage, found 40 dollars worth of stuff I didn't need, and we agreed the other coverages were right in the wheelhouse.  It's amazing how to me it seems folks just are sort of ho hum about their coverages, and or worse, have no real idea what is covered and what is not.  Our lesson learned was when Bette was rear ended by a kid with minimal insurance and that was an ordeal. 

Next Tuesday night, I'm going to induction or induction training not sure which, at the Elk's club in Palatka.  They offer camping at many of their national locations, so we will be taking advantage of that starting with our trip in the next two weeks. 

Golf Today, and busy planning the California trip

Made a plan to try another round of golf today, hope my back will stand up to it.
Playing next door. 

My Lander classes have been up and running for a couple of weeks now, and I am now back in that routine, some days are very busy, 8-10 hours of grading and commenting on papers etc, some days are light.  Great class load this semester, and the students are turning in outstanding work.  Lovin it!

Been busy this week too doing more research and noodling out the upcoming trip to Dallas, Tucson, and San Diego-  I have been accepted as a member of the Elks Club, so that opens up a big source of places to stay- We also renewed our Passport America membership, and RPI will be renewed too, even though we lost out it seems on some of their properties due to some sort of fight they were having with Thousand Trails. 

Went out to dinner last night with the Coqina group, the Kingstons and Colagiovannis, had a super dinner, and much fun.  Had an issue settling up with our gift card, but got it fixed, thanks to the Dusenbergs  for the gift card to Longhorn! 

Safely back to Coquina

Left Pasco at about 8 or so, after breakfast at McDonalds- got a worry when we started up, had another "alternator failure" warning light, and were prepared for the worst, but when we restarted the coach, it went away- so I guess we're clear.  We did run the heat pumps all night, and I was afraid we may have shredded another fan belt on the alternator.  But no sign of it on the 158 miles home, so I guess we are ok.  Got 8.4 mpg again, and got ourselves unloaded in record time, since Bette has a new system of loading up the car the night before/morning of departure, then all we have to do is unload the cold stuff in the street before we move the coach into storage.  Works perfect for shorter trips- 

Back to the Coquina routine tomorrow-  coffee in the morning, Haircuts on Tuesday, Bette to mah jong, setting up the garge, blah blah blah.  We leave for California in 2 weeks or so. 

Another Canadian from far off

Florida, along with Texas and Arizona, and of course California are magnets for Canadians during the winter months, but its rare to see one on this side from Beautiful British Columbia!

Downtown Tarpon Springs

Even though we had come to this area practically every year for the last several years, we never had gone to "downtown" Tarpon Springs.  Tarpon Springs was the sponge boat capital of the world for a long time, and sponge boats still operate here.. There is a street in town that is right next to the canal out to the bay- and lots of colorful shops and eating places.  We were in a bit of a hurry, but I did find a toy boat for the toy boat collection, complete with sponges on it. 

Here's a sample of the fishing fleet:

Another visitor from far off...

Actually there are a couple of PEI plates in the park-  Haven't had a chance to talk to them as yet, hope to before we leave tomorrow

Quick repair job- thank goodness for handy men!

Early yesterday morning, our power suddenly went off.  Rat farts.  We thought it might have been in the park's pedestal, and had visions of having fried our coach system with a power surge, perhaps. 

A visit to the office got us Mike the park handyman, who checked the pedestal out, and decided it was a bad plug on our end.  Yikes....  We had visions of pulling up, heading over to the closest Camping World or something similar and replacing the entire power cord or something similar-  something in the 4-6 hundred dollar range of course. 

Emter Al, a half year resident of the park who is a retired electrician/electrical engineer/ electrical everything man.  Saved!!!!  We went over to a local electrical supply place, and for 32 dollars, got a replacement plug.  Al then came over and after about 15 minutes, we rewired the new head on, and all is well again.  He wanted to charge 10 dollars, but we paid him more, mostly in gratitude!  He really knew his stuff, and we were happy to have an expert be close by.  He didn't even mind having me as his electrician's helper!   Turns out the prongs in the old head had worked loose, and it wasn't able to make a connection between the 2 legs for 50 amp service.  All is warm and toasty and fine in the coach again. 

Random Tampa stuff

 This was a shot from the downtown Tampa pier, which as I said before is apparently being torn down, or at least totally going to be redone.  Below is a shot of Pelican Pete- there were several of them dive bombing the waters around the pier for lunch. 

As we headed into Wal Mart this morning, we were startled a bit by these 2 large cranes just sauntering along-  Must have escaped from Busch Gardens just down the way.... Beautiful birds about 5 feet tall each.  This is as close as I could get- they had beautiful coloring on their heads. 

Funny bumper sticker in the park today

"Save Montana- Have an anti-hunter spayed or neutered"   Right. 

Big Carnival Ship at Tampa Docks

 This fair sized Carnival Cruise Line Ship was docked next to the American Victory this morning-  suspect it will be pulling out tonight-  There were lots of folks milling around the dock area- including lots of nannies wheeling kids around-  Must be the life.....

Tampa Firefighters Museum- Not so much.

Stopped in at the Tampa Fire Fighter Museum, and I was literally the only one in the building.  And to be honest, it was pretty much a disappointment- but it was free.  The museum is on one floor, and they have 2 older pieces of fire trucks, and a big communications display, but that's about it.  Clearly, the museum is used to bring children in and teach them about fire fighting and related subjects.  The gift shop was closed. 

An old picture on the wall

USS American Victory Ship at Tampa Bay

I spent about a long hour or so going all through the good ship USS American Victory, which is a WWII era cargo ship.  Victory Ships were somewhat different than Liberty Ships, in that they were "built to last"   Seems Liberty ships liked to break apart. 

This ship was in excellent shape, way better than the Red Oak Iowa that I visited out at San Francisco.  The ship is actually still sea worthy-  On 24 March, they are actually doing a 4 hour nostalgia voyage! 

The ship was commissioned early in 1945, and the dropping of the atomic bombs sort of cut her career short.  The ship spent its life doing rescue missions throughout the world.  It was towed to Tampa in 1999, and underwent a big drydock operation in 2011.  They really are doing good work here. 

Tampa's YBor City

Got me a terrific little history lesson today- Back in the 1880's or so, Tampa was a sleeply little fishing village of maybe 400 people or so.

Along comes a fellow Mr YBor, who came up this way from Key West, after he had left Cuba because of a revolution there-  Within a short time, the cigar industry had boomed to over 4000 people and Tampa became the epicenter of cigar making in the United States.  The industry flourished until the depression, and then, with the inroads that cigarettes made, faded out in the late 40's and 50's.  The YBor area faded badly, bad crime came in, people left for other work, and the area fell into disrepair. 

Urban renewal decimated the area, and a lot of the buildings were knocked down. Then a dedicated group of folks committed themselves to redoing the area, and today, the YBor city part of Tampa is very vibrant.  I went to the Museum, which is a state park Museum, and they have some restored casitas that the workers lived in- At one time there were several hundred of them- a real company town.

The workers were from several areas, Cubans, both light and dark skinned, Spainards, Germans, and others.  

Within the area, there were several big social clubs that dominated the area culture.  The men would work in the cigar factories from 7 am to 5 pm, go home, change and eat, and then go to the club several nights a week, and on Saturday night, there were dances and entertainers- What a grand life it must have been! 

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This was one of the original social clubs, this one was for folks from Cuba.

This was the original YBor cigar factory building.

A factory scene.  the workers could come and go as they pleased, smoke as many cigars as they liked during the day, and could take cigars home for the evening.  Average pay was 50-70 dollars a week, and a good roller could do 125 cigars a day. 

This is 7th Steet, the Main Drag of town-  There are several cigar stores, eateries, and shops...  pretty cool area. 

I was able to get a pin at the museum. 

A 2 for 5 day- Yikes

I know I know better, but I went ahead anyway and made some stops today before calling, and boy did I hear about it from the co driver. 
First stop: Bright House Field, home of the Phillies spring training, I needed a pin and ball-  Field was open ok, but the gift shop was closed until Jan 12, complete with a sign that said "sorry for any inconvenience."  I was plenty inconvenienced....

Since it was only 5 miles or so away, we headed up to Dunedin to try and catch the Toronto Blue Jays training field, Florida Auto Exchange Stadium-  it too was open, but only for ticket sales, the store was not.  So now I am 0-2.  Co driver is not happy.

Undaunted, we headed over to downtown St Petersburg over the big causeway, and headed for the Armed Forces Museum- and of course, it was closed Monday- locked up actually.  Now I am 0-3. 

Well, I knew Haslan's Book store would be open- trouble is, we both didn't like Haslans last time, and it wasn't any better this time-  their prices were way too high. 

By now, the day was sort of going downhill, I was getting the supreme lecture on bad planning, the dog was about to suffer permanent damage from heat stroke, (it was almost 80 here today), and so forth.  In a gallant move, we headed to the St Petersburg Pier- that would be a triumph we thought. 

NOT-  it is so boring the city is going to tear it down- and no wonder really, it isn't a big tourist draw-  No candle to the Chicago Navy Pier, that's for sure.

We were back to the coach by about 2 and rested up.

At 6, we headed over to go out with Scott and Sheila, and wound up having a super fun meal at Cracker Barrel, which we love anyway.  They are fine and in good spirits, Scott is retiring on March 31st- so he's looking forward to that. 

Today was a repeat of yesterday- I headed to my first stop for the day, the Tampa FireFighters Museum and discovered that I had left without my wallet.  So today's plans were scrapped.  Wound up going to Big Lots where Bette found some storage stuff for her stained glass and some craft stuff. 

Tomorrow at least, I know we are going to the big RV show-  Might go down to Tampa Bay again if the show isn't as big or as interesting as we want. 

Easy run on down to Tampa...

Left Coquina about 8 this morning and did the 160 miles or so on down to Lutz and arrived right at noon.  We got checked in with not much problem, and they assigned us space 83-  which is sort of in an open area of the park, backing uto some permanents.  We had to repark so we could get sat reception, but all else is good.

We got a chance to use our shiny new custom made jack stands that my SC pal Dave designed and built, and they are the bomb.  Our site is in a kind of loamy sandy grass area, and these babies work in spades!!!

Here's a shot of our site:  before we had a neighbor in a trailer pull in about an hour after we set up:

We're vegging out for the day, taking advantage of the beautiful 79 degree weather here-  tonight at 5 they have a park hamburger/weenie cook out, so we'll head on over for that. 

Lots of local things on the agenda to go see and do while were here....  in addition to visits with Bette's brother and cousin.  Some baseball venue visits also... 

We did two stops on the way down, fuel at TA (254.00) and a rest stop for Buster...