Work and Play

We have been busy since our return from St Andrews and we have been also "playing" a lot.

While on or trip I found that the spotlight on the roof of the RV had burned out and also the CB antenna finally broke from hitting trees. Replacing the antenna was easy but finding the right bulb for the spotlight was not easy. The GE bulb had no good marking on it to identify it. Tiffin Motorhomes finally gave me some good information but I bought it from them for $86.00. Then I found another source for the same bulb for $46.00 after I had already installed the expensive one!!

While on the roof, I also sealed up a small opening that leaked rain occasionally.

On that same day, with the help of Gus and Marilyn we installed the curtain rod for a drape to cover the bingo board in the Clubhouse. I had to revise the brackets for the rod so they would extend far enough for the drape to hang over the front of the board. Also had to lower the bingo board from its original hanging position. Here are the before and after pictures.










Earlier in the week we did a major trimming of an overgrown shrub and we both wore ourselves out on that job. I even pulled some muscles in my right shoulder and couldn't play racquetball.

But we still were able to go out to dinner and dance 2 evenings in a row! That is always fun with our friends.

It is only a month and we will be in St Thomas for our annual 2 weeks there. I have already scheduled SCUBA dives on 5 days for 10 dives. I hope they don't have a hurricane to cause our trip a problem.
More later.

St Andrews State Park

We left Riverwalk on SEP 11 to head to Panama City Beach, FL and St Andrews SP. Since Carol's meeting of the Co-Op board was cancelled she decided to go along. My plan was to do SCUBA diving at the inlet.

On the way we stopped at Gainesville to break up the trip. Naturally we stayed at our favorite campground, Sam's Club!! It was hot and we had to run the AC a lot comfortable. The next day, Sunday, we drove about an hour to get to the Suwanee River park and toured around it some. There was a lot of Stephen Foster stuff there and we got to see the actual Suwanee River.

Since our reservation as St Andrews was not until Monday we stopped in Tallahassee Sunday night at where else but Sam's Club!

We arrived at St Andrews an hour earlier than expected since they are in the Central Time Zone. Not a problem though because the park was not very full at all. We had a nice pull-thru spot and a good clear shot at the Direct TV satellite. We were in view of the Lagoon and it was a nice quiet park.

The SCUBA diving is done at the inlet from the Gulf to the lagoon and has a rock jetty that makes a large wading and swimming pool. The diving is done on the inlet side across the jetty from the pool area. Since it is an inlet there are currents that you have to be aware of when the tides are coming in or going out. The currents can be strong and it best to dive at high slack tide or low slack tide when the currents are not there or are weak.

I did a lot of snorkeling as I did not find anyone to dive with and I did not care to SCUBA dive solo where I had not dived before. The snorkeling was good as I saw a decent sized sea turtle on two occasions, a crab and plenty of bait-sized fish. the bait fish were so plentiful they actually blocked vision and I had to try to chase them away.There were a good number of other fish also.

We ate in most of the time but one night we went to a spot on the beach called Pineapple Willies and split a dinner. It was good fresh seafood and for one dinner it was not unreasonable in cost. However we each had the house specialty drink and they were more than our one dinner!! We did get to keep the cups though. WOW!!!


While on the way to dinner we saw this one large "fish" and Carol nearly got swallowed by it.


The area was not very active since it was after Labor Day and not a week end. It seemed there were a number of places that either close for the season or maybe forever!!

We were scheduled to depart on Sunday SEP 19 but decided to leave on Saturday and take two days to drive back home. Before we left on Saturday morning I went to the jetty and since it was the weekend there were plenty of divers in or going in to dive. I counted at least 15 at one time.

The drive back was uneventful and we realized that for our entire week we did not have any ran at all. Naturally we stopped at Sam's in Gainesville on the way back.

The week of rest helped Carol's back and she was feeling quite good by the time we got home. However we decided that it was not a good idea for her to bowl this coming season since it was a real problem for her back last year. My right thumb is getting some arthritis in it and has a spasmodic pain at time and I may not be able to handle a bowling ball so I decided to also forgo bowling.

I guess we are getting old.

Back in the routine

We have been home a week and are now back in our normal routine. Carol has been doing her aerobics at the YMCA on MON, WED, FRI while I have been doing 45 minutes of laps in the pool using only my legs with my SCUBA fins on. I need to get back in shape for some diving coming up shortly.

I have been doing some woodworking, making doors for our bingo cabinet at the clubhouse. They are just about done and then I can get to work on re-positioning the bingo board that hangs on the wall.

We did go to Nokomis Beach on Wednesday evening to watch and listen to the "Sunset Drummers". It was a real good evening as there were very few kids running around making a scene. There were at least 3 belly dancers putting on a pretty good display of their craft .... and bellies!! Th sunset was one of the better we have seen. A heavy rain cloud looked like it was going to block the sunset but the sun came out from under the clouds and did a perfect sunset between the clouds and the horizon. Everyone cheered for it when it went down.
We have already planned 3 evenings with Jay Smith, to dine and dance during September.

For several days we have no rain which is welcome after having heavy rains every day for a week or so. However, today it looks like we are going to get some rain. At least it will not be from a hurricane!!

More later, Jim