8-5-09 Wednesday (Wheels and Deals)

We’ve moved to a much better site. We’re less than a block away from the pool, hot tub, fitness room and showers. Fortunately, most of this RV park is empty. There’s many mobile homes but this is more of a winter vacation resort than a typical trailer park. Most people will return from the North starting in November. After moving, we set up the screen room again. We may be here a couple of months while we job hunt.

Above: Here’s one of the many empty nicer mobile homes. You can tell what units are empty based on the nonexistent outdoor furniture, a covered car or a car on wood boards (such as this one).

Above: Foreground = Dasher. Background = a 5th wheel that is now a “trailer in the sky” as my friend Carl would put it.

Above: Tennis courts.

Above: Funny little Airstream with a giant added on sun room.

Above/Below: We assume this 5th wheel is awaiting skirting. It’s strapped down to the ground with metal straps. The wheels have been removed. Soft hoses have been replaced with rigid PVC. The park is running a special. They’ll pay $5,000 for you to move a park model here. You pay $300 a month rent for 3 years. Or they pay $4,000 for you to move your travel trailer or 5th wheel here and pay $300 a month rent for 3 years. With all deals they must be strapped down per county code. It seems like a great deal for people who want to live inexpensively.

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I was surfing the net and somehow stumbled onto this very funny and possibly offensive website. The site groups pictures into lists. Like “11 Neighbors From Hell” which displays photos of homes you wouldn’t want to live next too. It doesn’t seem to be active anymore but you may enjoy it. It’s TheMishMash.com.

We met Carl and Tim for dinner and then went to their house to talk. I forgot to get the server to take our photo. I keep forgetting this stuff. I guess it’s easy to fall back into the old ways. Who carries a camera with them all over the place when not sight seeing? See what I mean? Anyway, I got one picture of them.

Oooops, wrong button.

No, it’s a different picture. Look closely. Tim is on the left and Carl is on the right. Oh and Alix, I think Tim wants to meet you. You sound “cool” or something.

8-4-09 Tuesday (An Eye For Fitness)

Jim and I have decided on a fitness plan.  Get fatter this week and maybe next, by  having the foods we’ve missed, and then do the evil, dreaded, diet and exercise.  We’ve done it before and it works.  Salads, crunches, fruits, cardio, vegetables, yep, that will be us.  Sigh.

Jim has put together a things-to-do list and it’s becoming quite massive, and at times daunting.  We’ve agreed to put the list aside for now, and enjoy visiting with friends and family.  Jim and I have been struggling lately with goal differences.  I won’t get into it here but let’s just say this is the first time (fortunately) in 10 years that we want different things.  Now comes time for compromise.

It’s been a rather dull day.  Jim took BettyAnn to the eye doctor and the 3 of them met Jim’s Dad, Terry, for lunch.  I stayed home to get laundry and such done.

Eventually, we went to Walmart for a bunch of crap.  Hardly any of it was food, but yet a $117 total.   For dinner, we had Chinese food from Jackie’s and crossed another item off our cravings list. 

8-3-09 Monday (Surprise, Pie, and Some Guys)

Surprise! We’re in Fort Myers a day ahead of schedule. We were just too close to not hurry home. It was about 1:30 when I called Jim’s Grandmother (BettyAnn) and my mother (JoAnn) to ask them to lunch at Perkins. When we left Fort Myers, 13 days shy of a year, we ate at Perkins on our way out of town, and now that we’ve returned home, we ate there again. JoAnn and BettyAnn were surprised. I must say that despite the capitalized “Ann” in their names, they’re not related. Funny thing is that Jim’s Mom’s name is Ann.

I’ve used the word “home” a few times. For now this is home. Maybe it will stay home, maybe it won’t. It’s just too early to tell.

Jim and I checked into the RV resort and got our site set up. We haven’t installed the screen room yet as we’re having second thoughts about the site in regards to it’s distance to the clubhouse. Due to the tub leaking (again) and another installation of Caulkenstein Part VVII or something like that, we went up to the showers and checked out the fitness room. The fitness room is very well equipped. The pool area contains 2 pools (lap and swim pools?) and a hot tub. The showers are average size and air conditioned. With all these amenities that we plan to use we drove around the resort writing down ideal site numbers that we’d like to move to. This time of the year is so hot, I sweat walking a block. Walking 10 blocks to the clubhouse or driving there seems dumb.

Above: Drying out the wetness from under the tub.

Later in the evening we met up with Jim’s Mom and stepdad, Ann and Morgan, for dinner at Rib City! We love Rib City! After dinner, back to their house for Jim’s Coca-Cola Birthday cake. It’s made with Coke, not shaped like a Coke bottle… in case you were wondering. Mmmmm good. I took off and visited with my Mom, Dad and Grandmother.

Jim and I later regrouped and went off to see Mike, Dave and David at their house. We played Buzz, a Playstation 3 trivia game. I love this game. Fun. I should have taken a group photo but didn’t think about it. Next time.

8-2-09 Sunday (Balancing the GPS)

We’re almost home. I’m so excited I could spit. Well, actually, I can’t spit very well. It would kind of dribble out. OK, more than you need to know. We’ll leave it at “I’m excited”. Go with it.

Jim went to visit with a friend today. Although Erica went to school in Fort Myers (High School and Junior College with Jim), she now lives in Port St. Lucie. Off he went for a 1.5 hour drive each way. I opted not to go. Erica was leaving her husband at home too. This gave Erica and Jim time to catch up with one another. They went to Chili’s for lunch, end of story.

I will tell you of the rough start this morning. When the washer went into the spin, the ice maker sitting on the shelf above it vibrated causing the front feet to come off the counter. I’m glad I was there so that no more of it could fall off. In a year, that’s never happened. The shelf is just barely up off the washer so as not to conduct vibrations on the counter above. Every load after that was OK so I’m not sure what the hell happened. Perhaps it was severely out of balance?

Before Jim left, he was going to program the GPS to take him to Erica’s. The GPS wouldn’t power on. I can’t tell you how handy the Internet is. I Googled the problem and found the solution. If you’re wondering, the solution was to hold the “on button” for 10 seconds or longer.

I spent the day doing laundry, cleaning and surfing the net. Once Jim got home we were off to TGI Friday’s for dinner. Yum.

8-1-09 Saturday (Bad & Good Food)

The drive from Cape Canaveral to Fort Lauderdale went smoothly. We were to have lunch at Whataburger on the way, figuring it’s probably the last time for a while that we may get to have it. We arrived, parked at a Walmart in the same lot, and walked over to where Whataburger USED to be. I sobbed quietly. Well, OK, no I didn’t. I sobbed loudly. No, not that either. We’ll go with bummed. Bummed it is. Whataburger was gone. Boarded up. Closed. Done. A moment of silence please. No laughing.

We settled on Panda Express. This is the second time we’ve had it and the second time we’ve been unimpressed. Blech!

Where are we? Well, now we’re at Paradise Island RV Resort. It’s pretty cramped here and our site’s grass is over grown. This park has many mobile homes in it. To me it’s a trailer park rather than an RV park, but whatever. Other than that I think it’s OK. It’s home for the next few days.

Jim coordinated getting together with his ex-CitiFinancial boss, Kerry and an ex-coworker, Geri from this part of the state. They met us here at the RV where we did the tour before leaving for dinner. It was awesome to point out different things and have Keri, an obvious blog reader, finish the story about it or even remember funny little stories. She was quick too.

“Here’s the shower/tub and where we’ve…”

“Oh that’s Caulkenstein.”

I was so amazed, one would have thought we were interviewing for her to take our place, and she was surprising us with her knowledge. By the way, she’s in the lead… ya know, if it were a contest or something. I’m just sayin’.

Oh, so we went to dinner at a Jim-selected-dining-experience at a place he had went to once a long time ago when he lived in this part of the state. The Bizaare Ave Cafe was awesome for both the food and the atmosphere. The atmosphere, was eclectic. Mismatched dining chairs and tables. Some were chairs gathered around an end-table and some you sat on a couch and ate at the coffee table. Jim, Keri and me had the couch and Geri had a chair. Some of the coffee tables (not ours) even lifted up and toward the diner. Really a cool place. The food was good. For appetizers we had chicken empanadas and a white chicken pizza. Divine! 3 of us had the NY strip. YUM. Jim had the Chicken and Artichoke Crepe (pictured below). He said it was delicious. 3 of us enjoyed the steak but regretted not being more adventurous.

Above: Kerry and Jim.

Above: Jim, Geri, and Garret.

Above: Geri, Kerry, Jim, and Garret.

Above: Geri enjoying a martini.

I must admit, it was challenging at times to eat from a surface lower than my ass. I’m out of shape and my body doesn’t move as well anymore. The gut seems to get in the way. By the time dinner was over, it was like exercise. Like sit-ups or crunches. Does that count? You bet it does! Dessert time!

Above: My peanut butter pie. Awesomeness on a plate!

Above/Below: Geri and Kerry shared a molten lava cake. As the server promised, it was orgasmic. Geri started licking the bowl, we tried to take it away and she growled.

Above: Jim had the 31,586 layer (or something like that) chocolate cake. He too said his was yummy.

I forgot to put the battery in my camera so luckily Geri gave me hers to be the official photographer of the evening. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me and this camera this week. Thanks Geri for sending me the photos so quickly so I could post them.

After dinner we came back to the RV and sat around for quite a while catching up on things.