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.

Strawberry Festival & Start of Renovations

On Saturday we went to the strawberry festival here in town.  It was a poor attempt at a festival and they charged $10 a head to get in.  It wasn’t worth it.  There were many food booths, 1 booth that had loads of strawberries and then maybe a dozen booths with vendors, mostly people flogging their own crafts etc.  We grabbed a bite to eat which was forgettable, bought some strawberries and some local honey.  There was a fellow there who was selling the berries and he was going on and on about how wonderful they were and how sweet.  They were neither.  I’ve had better berries from my local supermarket.  These were claimed to come from Plant City, famous for their strawberries here in Florida.   They were not sweet at all, and I must have had to throw out at least half a dozen due to them being rotten.  We were very disappointed.  The honey is good though, expensive, but I find that local honey usually is, but I love it.  Oh well it did kill a couple hours and it was a lovely day weather-wise.  We then drove down to the beach area that has been designated as dog friendly.  The area was so small we decided it’s not worth it to put the dogs in the car and drive down there and they have to be leashed too.  The Pier Park Mall is right there so we walked around there.  It’s an outside mall.  Very interesting shops, a tad on the pricey side, but different. 

Ken always has to have a hotdog, his favourite.

Today the fellow was here at 8:30 to start the new floor installation.  Good thing we were up and at ‘em early today.  They said they would be here between 9 and 9:30 AM.  Could have caught me in my jammies, fortunately I had showered and dressed.   What a mess it is.  I hate renovations of any kind.  And with ripping up the carpet there’s dust and bits everywhere.  But the end result will be well worth it.  I just keep telling myself that.  Thankfully it’s a lovely day and Ken can sit outside with the dogs while this initial part is done.  Once the old carpet is removed and the area swept up, it won’t be so bad. 

He finished removing all the carpet that’s coming up and will be back tomorrow morning.  He should be finished by end of day tomorrow.

Until later..take care.

Don’t want to bore you

As we haven’t done much of anything, I haven’t blogged just because I didn’t want to put you all to sleep.  We really have been a couple of slugs.  But as much as I hate to mention the weather, it’s mainly because of the weather.  It’s been cold and we have actually been wearing our winter coats when we go out.  The temperature in the mornings has been hovering around freezing.  But the weatherperson has said that it’s warming up.  Yeah right, like I haven’t heard that before.

They are coming Tuesday morning to start on our carpet removal/new tile installed project.  I will document in pictures as we go along.  And none too soon, so fed up with this darn carpet.

There is a lovely dog park here, that is totally fenced and very large.  The dogs can really run in there.  It’s Jackson’s favourite place to be especially when his buddy Cooper, who is a black standard poodle, is there.  Sometimes Lady, a labradoodle is there too, but she just loves to run and Jackson loves to wrestle.  And fortunately, so does Cooper.  Sometimes a little Yorkie, Reggie, joins them.  He’s a feisty little bugger and has no fear of the big dogs.  And he loves to play with them too.  Amazingly the big dogs are very careful around him when they are playing.  Jackson is really going to miss Cooper when we leave, he’s never had such a buddy before.  Cooper is a young dog, just a year and has a very sweet personality.  The playing is so great for Jack as Maggie just can’t and won’t play like that. 

I see that my blogging pal, Al & Kelly, are on the move.  Even if it is only 1/2 mile down the road.  A change of scenery is a change of scenery.  Looks like a new camera is in Al’s future.  Can’t be all bad Al if you get a new camera out of the deal.  And Willy, take care out there.  You’re very lucky that all your truck got was some scratches.  Very lucky.  Rick and Paulette bid goodbye to their daughter, but had a lovely visit.  Appears the stores have all had to restock after she left. Sam and Donna are still riding out the cold.  Fortunately they are in their stick house and not the RV.  Judy and Emma are also still braving the cold.  And Laurie and Odel should be back in their newly renovated MH.  That must be exciting and a real treat.  Enjoy guys.

Until later..take care

A leaky A/C gets me a new floor

It seems that just about everyone is talking about the weather these days.  Whether it’s on the blogs, or forums, or e-mails.  It appears to be the topic of choice and that is because it seems to be somewhat abnormal in some areas.  I mean people are experiencing severe cold where it should be warm, snow where there should be none, wind, rain, you name it, it’s happening.  Willy and Al were having problems with their water lines due to the cold.  Fortunately, it doesn’t appear it was too serious.  Weird and wacky weather all over.

And on the topic of weather one of our roof top A/C units has had a persistent water leak.  It was just a drip here and there and it only seemed to happen if the rain was blowing and falling heavy and coming in at a angle.  Just a couple nights ago we had a typhoon here (just joking) but it really rained hard.  There was a lot of water dripping around the edges of one of the  A/C units and even the other one had some drips.  So much so that we had to set up something underneath it to soak up the drips.  So I’m thinking, ok this is going to be big bucks to fix.  Ken had gone up on the roof before to check to see if there was anything to see that would explain the problem but there wasn’t.  There is a mobile RV service here that comes highly recommended so I phoned them bright and early the next morning and explained the problem.  He came over right away and seemed to think that it was just a minor fix.  He removed the inside cover of the A/C units and there are 4 bolts the secure the unit to the roof and all of them were loose, on both of the units.  That might explain the squeaking noise when we travel too.  So he tightened them all down.  We had another typhoon last night and not a drop of water came in.  YAHOO.  And he only charged $50 to come out and do the job.  I thought that was excellent.

But….he also does renovations and we starting discussing having the carpet removed and tile put down, something we have wanted done since we got the rig.  With 2 big dogs, carpets are just not practical.  Every single time we get home from a trip I have to shampoo the carpet.  And they are so hard to keep clean when living in the rig.  He gave us a great price and we don’t have to move out of the rig to have it done.  It will be somewhat of an inconvenience for a few days, about 3, but it will be worth it in the long run to finally get rid of the carpet.  I think Ken was really relieved as it was his job this summer to replace the carpet.   So I will take some before and after shots and post them.  It will be such a treat to just have to quickly mop the floor instead of vacuuming and shampooing the carpet.  So much easier to keep clean.  I know that it will be a little colder under foot and a little more slippery for the dogs, but we have throw rugs that we put down now and will continue to do so.  We just pick them up and take outside for a good shake.  That is not a big deal.  The product he uses is the same product that I had researched, it’s called Allure and is only available at Home Depot.   

Well until later..take care.

Rain, lazy days, and a sick dog

We’ve had a fair amount of rain lately, but the temperature has been warm.  It keeps us house bound or should I say RV bound.  But between, books, TV and computer we’re not bored.  Rain is in the forecast on and off over the next few days.  Today cabin fever has set in and we’re headed off to the store.

On Saturday night I discovered Maggie sleeping out in the living room on the couch in the middle of the night.  She never does that, prefers to sleep on her memory foam mattress in the bedroom.  Found that odd and I don’t like it when our animals do something ‘different’.  It’s always a warning sign.  Sure enough the next morning, she did not want to go out and ate her breakfast only with some coaxing.  And it took her several tries.  Ken finally got her outside to do her business, but she really didn’t want to go out.  She seemed to be having a difficult time putting her head down to sleep.  She’d put it down then up again like it was making her dizzy.  It worries me to death when one of them is ill.  And Maggie is getting on in years and has been a worry now for several years since she required cruciat surgery 4 years ago and then the other leg 2 years ago.  I knew she felt like a bag of ‘who know what’.  Now I know it might seem odd to some people, but she also suffers from heartburn (go figure) and has to take Zantac once a day.  And she takes various supplements for her arthritis.  We call her our ‘Six Million $ Dog’.  So I’m wondering What Now?  I gave her a Gravol and when it took effect I could see she felt a little better and was able to finally put her head down and sleep soundly.  She was a tad better the next day, didn’t want her breakfast but was interested in biscuits.  Gave her another Gravol and she slept most of the day away.  Ken took her out a couple times by herself and she just did her business and came back in.  By end of day yesterday she looked much better.  She did spend the night on her own bed though.  This morning she needed no encouragement from Ken to go for their morning walk.  Came back ate her breakfast and appears to be her old self.  So I am hoping it was a one off thing.  She has had this sort of thing before but not quite so severe.  Like Al said ‘it’s sad watching our best friends age’.  Where they once used to run and jump they now just saunter.  They give us so much love and joy and ask nothing in return, except maybe a belly rub or scratch behind the ears, and of course a treat now and then, mostly now.  They steal our hearts and just never seem to let go of them.  There is always a place in my heart for those critters that I have loved and lost.  Always.
She looks every bit her 11 years in this picture..

Anyhow that’s enough of that as I’m getting all teary.

Hard to believe that it’s almost 1 month ago that we left home.  I know one of my sister’s will tell you that it seems like many months.  Unfortunately she couldn’t join Ken and I and my other sister and her husband in Myrtle Beach this year.  We’ll be heading over there in another 6 weeks.  For the last few years all of us have spent time there together.  We have a great time.  We’ll really miss you Marlene this year but you’re never far from our thoughts.

Until later..take care.