More gators pics and some visiting

I would like to welcome a new follower, Joe.  Welcome.  I couldn’t find a blog for you so if you have one, let me know and I’ll associate it with you.  Thanks.

I was able to finally get a picture of these guys quite close-up.  They don’t seem to mind humans (well we are a potential dinner I guess) and only run away if you get too close.  I really wanted a nice close shot of the big guy and I think I got one.

We have been to dinner at Ken’s sisters’ place and then over to a supper the church does once a week.  Iris’ dinner was great..the church supper, not so much.  Tonight some friends of Iris’ have invited Ken and I for dinner at their 5er.  Ken’s sister and husband too of course. 

Last evening the skies opened and it poured.  Started up again early this morning and hasn’t stopped since.  It has just let up a little bit as I type this.  Weather bureau says sun should be out later (???? yeah sure).  Rig needed a good dusting off so hopefully this rain got rid of some of it.  Just hard to get the pooches out to do their business in a torrential downpour.  We had a large umbrella that Ken tries to protect himself and them too.  Only takes them one at a time.  Maggie is smart, she goes out there and gets right down to her business so she can get back in where it’s warm and dry.  Now Jackson, well he dilly dallies around and of course gets both him and Ken wet in the process.  Guess he hasn’t figured out the do it quick and get back inside process yet.  

Weather here has been really great (not counting today of course).  We have had to have the air on and that is a first.  It was in the mid to high 80’s yesterday.  If it was just Ken and I in here I wouldn’t bother with the air, but it does seem to affect the dogs and Jackson has this huge fur coat and he hates heat so we put it on for them.  The things we do for our critters !!!!

Every morning these birds come walking thru the campground from the pond.  I’m sure someone out there must know what they are.  I don’t have a clue.  They kind of mosey around looking for food, don’t get too close, but don’t seem to be really wary of people either. They hunk and peck around then back to the pond.

Until later…take care. 

Bike ride and Alligators

There are several nature trails here at Sanlan RV Park in Lakeland.  Acres and acres of them.  As it was a perfect day for a bike ride, not too hot, we hit the trails.  There are many ponds here and I think most of them are inhabited by alligators.  We have seen gators in at least 2 of them.  On nice warm, sunny days they can be seen basking in the sun.  There are 2 here that are at least 12 feet long.  I was hoping to get a picture of them, but the big ones weren’t out when we passed by, but I’ll get a picture of them before we leave here.  The header picture speaks for itself.  Click a picture to enlarge.

The trails are lovely, quiet, beautiful and we had a great bike ride.  Although it is sand and sometimes it was difficult to get through.  My calves were starting to scream at me by the time we got home.  I must get a odometer for the bike.  I would like to know how far we travel.  Lots and lots of wildlife around, I’m not a bird person so I don’t know the names of the ones I saw.  I did recognize the ducks though, but what kind, well you have me there.

We are really missing Emerald Coast RV.  It was such a lovely spot and we loved it.  This park is fine, but for my liking, too big.  The people here are really friendly and I think the majority of them come year after year.  I know Ken’s family have been coming here close to 30 years now.  His Mom and Dad came down every year.  First they brought down a small travel trailer, about 30 feet long.  They lived in that every time they came down.  Then they had a huge Florida room built on and that must have made living much more comfortable.  The trailer now houses the bedroom, kitchen and a very small bathroom.  The Florida room has the dining room and a big living room area.  Since his parents have passed away, one of his brothers and wife and his sister and husband alternate coming down between October and April.  So that is why we headed this way for a quick visit before heading up to Myrtle Beach in a week.

Poor Jackson is missing Kooper (didn’t realize that is how they spell his name).  What a shame, those 2 got a lot so well and just loved each other.  They played very well together and never got too rough.

Ken’s sister has invited us over for supper tonight so we will be heading over there.  Always so nice to have someone else do the cooking.  Ken can’t even hardly boil water so I do all the cooking.  I love to cook but sometimes a break is nice.  That’s when we go out to eat.

Lakeland, Florida

We arrived here in Lakeland yesterday about 1 PM.  We over nighted in Lake City at a RV park called Casey Jones RV Park.  It’s an easy stop just off the highway and the sites are very long and pull through, so you don’t have to unhook your toad.  Makes for an easy departure in the morning.

We are here for 10 days then heading up to Myrtle Beach for the last month. 

I am going to try and post a video I took of Jackson & Cooper playing and you can see Reggie in there too and I think Maggie too.  The reason they run to the fence when the golf cart arrives is because all the workers drive around in those carts and carry dog biscuits for the dogs and those guys know it !!  Here’s a link to a longer one if you want to see them really romp..Click here

Until later..take care.

Farewells and Adieu’s

The RV park last night had a farewell coffee and cake gathering as many people are leaving today.  Sad, watching all these people that you’ve come to know over the past 2 months, driving by on their way to their next stop.  Of course that will be us 2 mornings from now too.  At the gathering last night most people here knew us by our dogs.  It’s ‘oh you’re the ones with those 2 big, beautiful, friendly dogs’.  Yes that’s us.  

Our dogs are major people dogs and everyone likes to stop and pat them and in a lot of cases, have little treats for them.  And they always know who has the treats for them.  There are a lot of workcampers in here.  They drive golf carts around, doing landscaping, picking up garbage etc.  All of them have a Ziploc bag onboard with dog biscuits, so needless to say when we pass one of them on the walks, they have to stop and get their treats.  Doesn’t take them long to get to know that either.  Jackson just about takes your arm off pulling you over to the carts.  He’s a big powerful guy.  He is so going to miss Cooper.  But they have re-booked for next year too as has Reggie’s folks.  It has been so good for Jackie to have these guys to play with and he has really lost some weight in all the running and fooling around he’s been doing.  I hope we meet up with another good dog buddy before we head home.  When we go to Myrtle Beach, dogs are allowed on the beaches there so we can take them down there for a good walk and run.  Wonder if he’ll still be scared of the waves crashing in?

Tomorrow we will be getting things organized for leaving in the morning.  We try and do as much the night before so there is less to do in the morning, just bring in the slides, put the jacks up and go.  Hopefully that is, always have my trepidations about the slides and jacks.

Yesterday we went for lunch at a burger place here called Five Guys.  Most excellent hamburger, it was delicious and real french fries with the skins still on.  Just how I like them.  Several people had raved about it so we decided to give it a try before we leave and it was worth it.  Yummy.

Wish the sun would come out today and get me out of this funk.  Makes me feel really sad to see all these people leaving.  But the majority of them come back every year so we will be seeing a lot of them next year.  We need a change of scenery anyhow so will be nice to be heading out and spend some time with Ken’s sister and husband.  And then when we head to Myrtle Beach, one of my sister’s and her husband is there.  After they leave we have some very good friends driving down from Moncton, New Brunswick to spend the month of April in Myrtle Beach so we will get to spend 2 weeks visiting them before we head north.  I’m hoping by then the good weather will have moved back into Ontario. 

And this is how a very lazy cat spends his days.  I’m looking down from the top of the recliner.

Until later…take care.

Night Out & A Palm Tree

There is a restaurant here in Panama City Beach called Breakers.  We had eaten there when we first arrived here and quite enjoyed it.  They also for the past month have an impersonator there who impersonates Elvis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Tom Jones just to name a few.  He is really quite good.  His name is Todd Allen Herendeen.  So for the price of dinner and a $10 admission charge we had an very inexpensive evening out.  Dinner was really good and very reasonable.  I thought the $10 admission charge to see the show was exceptionally cheap considering the quality of the show.  It was highly entertaining and even when he sings as himself he has an excellent voice. 

I have been really enjoying the new tile floor.  What a breeze to keep clean.  In hindsight, it was well worth the agro of all the kafuffle in getting it done.  Because of Maggie and her bad legs and her lack of traction, we still have to keep a few throw rugs down, but they are easy to shake out and if they get too soiled, I’ll just turf them and get new ones.

Just about ever since we started RVing, which was only about 4 years ago, I have been looking for those lighted palm trees.  I have seen several RVer’s who set them up on their site.  I realize that some people probably think they are tacky, and you may be correct, nevertheless, I love them.  Everywhere we have gone I have searched RV stores, outdoor patio stores to find one.  I did search online and found several, but living in Canada, having something shipped can end up costing you a small fortune.  If it’s shipped via Fed Ex or UPS then they automatically charge brokerage fees, custom duties and that can add up.  And most places use those companies to ship their products.  So since we were going to be here for 2 months, I thought maybe I could get it sent here.  So that’s what I did, ordered it from Amazon and had them ship it to me here at the RV park.  It arrived last week and I love it.

 

We are heading out of here on the 3rd and going to Lakeland, Florida.  Ken’s sister and husband are there and we’ll spend a couple weeks there before moving on to our last stop, Myrtle Beach for the last month.

We rebooked here for next year.  We haven’t decided yet whether we’re going to come down earlier, before Christmas, or not.  So we booked January and February again.  If we decide to leave earlier we’ll just find somewhere else to go for awhile.  It’s really difficult to get in here, there are a lot of repeat customers.  So we knew if we waited any longer we wouldn’t be able to get the site we wanted so we wouldn’t be stuck in the shade again. 

Until later..take care.

IT’S DONE !!!!

Well I don’t believe it..they came back yesterday morning at about 9 AM and stayed until around 4 PM, no breaks, no nothing.  It took that long to complete all the trim work.  So many nooks, crannies, corners in here.  But they did a good job.  And now I can say ‘IT’S DONE!’.  Only one little problem.  They used GooGone to remove some marks, pencil etc. from the floor.  Unfortunately GooGone makes the floor extremely slippery.  Poor Maggie, with her bad legs was slipping all over the place.  I washed it all, again, with the Swiffer but it didn’t help much.  So out came all the throw rugs again.  All I need is for her to slip and break an already bad leg.  This morning I washed it again with some mild all purpose cleaner.  It seems to have helped quite a bit.  I guess the rest will just wear off.  My goodness, just when I think that floor renovation can be filed away under ‘C’ for completed. 

This morning when Jackie got us up at 630 AM it was very foggy and humid.  Registered 80% humidity in here.  And it was warm 19 degrees C which is about 69 F outside so I opened all the windows.  I had left one of the small ceiling fans going all night to help with the humidity.  It seemed to help and not once during the night did the heat come on.  It is still very humid out as the sun is struggling to come out.  But it is coming and that will burn off a lot of the humidity.

Keep this blog short as I just wanted to finally say that the floor is done .. oh and the owner who tumbled from the ladder is fine.  It appears he didn’t hurt his back, but sprained his wrist, skinned his elbow and gave his head a nasty crack.  But he seemed just fine, thank goodness.

Until later..take care.

Needs to be more professional

I’ve been holding off blogging so I could take some finished pictures of the floor.  But we are still not finished.  They arrived on Tuesday as promised and the fellow worked till around 4 PM.  Said he’s be back first thing the next morning.  So we got up and got organized expecting him around 9 AM.  He didn’t show until 1230PM, worked for a bit then went on lunch.  The next day he was here on time and worked for most of the day.  All that was left was the trim and he said that he and the owner (who was going to do most of the trim work himself) would be back on Friday to do it.  Received a phone call from the young man who said that the owner had been up on a ladder fixing someone’s RV awning and fell off.  I asked him if Tim was in the hospital and he said no they were ‘deciding’ on whether to take him in or not.  WHAT??? Now Tim is not a young lad so in my opinion you take him to the hospital regardless.  Anyhow, the young fellow, James asks if it’s ok if he comes on Saturday around 1PM to do the trim.  Of course, I say, yes fine.  Saturday..nothing, no phone call, no appearance.  I phone, goes to voice mail.  Needless to say I am getting somewhat annoyed with this whole process.  I phoned today and left a rather abrupt message on their phone.  Now I understand that Tim could be seriously hurt, but they are running a business and they must honour their agreements with their customers.  A phone call would have been nice.  This is not the way you do business.  The only saving grace in this is that we haven’t paid them a cent so far, so if they want their money they better get their butts over here and finish the job.

And speaking of them getting their butts over here….this is what I had to look at all day…

So I will include some photos of what’s done.  Must say though that what is done I am happy with.  It already has been great not having the old carpet down.

Excuse the mess, was in the middle of washing floors and ‘swiffering’.

We have been blessed with some beautiful weather here.  Warm, sunny, just great.  Even noticed a lot of people with their shorts on, people in the pool, and sunning themselves on the pool deck.  All the RV windows open, it’s been great.  We rode our bikes around and around and around the park.  It’s not a big park so that’s what you do, just drive around the roads several times.  But that is just fine.

Until later..take care.