Depressing in Tampa East

Some people have a level problem!

HI, my name is Richard. I am retired. I am 52 years old… 53 in a week! (I haven’t post for so long, I thought I should introduced myselfL)

I could come up with thousand excuses, (after all I am a man) but I’ll just skip ahead like if nothing happened…

Just a quick recap… We Returned to Florida on January 4th. We were greeted at the airport by André who had volunteered to pick us up on our return. It was past midnight, we just went back to our trailer in Tampa. The trailer was in the overflow and was happy to see us back.

The following day, we moved the trailer to our assigned spot. Now, I am the kind of person who looks at the glass as being half full, but there was nothing in that campground for us...

The noise from the highway was constant and loud (24 hours a day). I souldn’t complain, once in a while we couldn’t hear the noise, it was overtaken by an chopper that was landing very close by.

We were parked under big trees and lets just say, the sun was not shinning on us! Strangely, the tree leaves were falling, for crying loud, can someone tell me since when do trees lose there foliage in the middle of winter? I hate to compare but in Canada, we trained our trees to loose there leaves in the fall.

The ground was dirt with a carpet of leaves, no grass, no cement pad, just a place in the deep dark shade. The back of the trailer was only a few inches off the ground where the front was a few feet.  If you didn't get that description… it means we were parked on a slope!  Nothing levelled  here and as if that was not enough, there were roots running all over the site.  I’m surprised we didn’t trip and break our neck. It seems to me that a stay at a nearby hospital would have been a big improvement.

Do you think that I’m done with the whining… NO! We also had guests, ants that is! Boy those guys can sure walk in a straight line,  I served in the army and I can tell you that we were not that disciplined! Now don’t tell on me, but I poisoned them. Whouhahaha maybe the ants were there just to distract us so we would stop looking at our poor living conditions.

No I’m not done yet… behind us, there was a small ditch with stagnant water, a nice greenish glow was emanating from it, needless to says we stayed away from that ditch!

Almost done but stay tuned… across that ditch, a busy RV store. They had a loud PA system that kept going on all day: “Roger please come to the front desk”, “Jim please flush the toilet”, “Jane please pick  up line 1”… on and on and on. I don’t really know if they were that successful  a business or pretending to be busy but they kept moving thosetrailers with the tractor…

Last comment, location, location, location!  It was not there. To get anywhere we were always stuck in traffic, it was minimum one  hour to go do the groceries.

If you are travelling, and what I described is what you are looking for, just book at Tampa East RV resort, specially to their Palm lot. I don’t know why, but there are people there that keep coming back every year for the winter… just to tell you, they won’t have to over bid me for it, I’ll gladly let them have the whole place. We had payed for 2 months in advance but when I went to the office and told them we were leaving at the end of January, they refunded me.



For the month of January, we didn’t do much (other than complain). Hockey was in lockout but relatively close by, the players from the Tampa’s Lighting were practicing. We were lucky enough to see  Vincent Lecavalier, Martin St-Louis and many more there.

Martin St-Louis
No he is not waving at ME :(
 

A "montreal Fan" watching the enemy practice. Notice the Nordique sign on his purse... maybe he is a "hidden Nordique fan"

At the same level as the players... but we are retired, they have to go to work now... Who is the winner?
 

We also attended the Tampa RV show, I think it is one of the biggest in the state… it’s so big that they have shuttles going around. It was crowded, not only with people, but animals too. Please if you have a pet, leave it at home, it will be much better off than being in an event like that one.

Well that was January, a month that I would like to erase from my memory. We were even thinking that the snow and the cold back home was not that bad after all… but February is a completely different story, you will have to tune in the next few days to find out!

The next picture is to give you a taste of what is coming J
 
P.S. This post happened because of Hugo's begging, who couldn't man up anymore and was on the verge of blog withdrawal.  (Note from Christiane: Actually Hugo, you gave Richard the spark to start on his blog again)

 

Howard Park
I was lucky, I found a free parking spot right by the gulf!

  

 

Let it snow... let it snow

 

“The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches.”
― E.E. Cummings

 

This morning more snow came down. I went out and shoveled the driveway. It reminds me of something I read over 15 years ago… I’ll type it from my poor memory:

 

Monday

Last night it snowed. We got a beautiful 4 inches of fluffy white snow. This was the first snow of the year. Many more inches of joy will be coming down over the winter. I just love winter!

I put my mittens, a warm coat and went out to clean the driveway. After about half an hour, my wife brought me hot cocoa, she gave me a quick kiss, we started throwing snow ball at each other, just plain fun. I finished clearing the driveway and was on my way back inside when the snow plow went by. Those guys are doing a fantastic job at keeping our streets cleared from snow.  I waved at him while he cleaned our street. I didn’t mind, it gave me a good workout! I was smiling at the driver and he waved back.

We need milk; I took the car and drove to the store. You have to remember to change your driving habit for winter condition. A dear crossed right in front of me, I wished I had had my camera.

Tuesday

This winter will be a “good” one; another 6 inches of snow fell down. I got my mittens, my coat and went shovelling. I was about finished when the snow plow came back. He left me with about 3 feet of hard packed snow to shovel.

Wednesday

Come on now, we got a foot of snow… what the heck! I put on my mittens, the coat and when out AGAIN. If I hear one more time Bing Crosby signing I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, I’m going to send him a truck load of that white shit!

I swear the son of a bitch on the snow plow is waiting at the end of the street for me to finish cleaning up the driveway, to come down and shove the entire load from the street in my just-cleaned-driveway. I gave him the finger; he flipped his finger back at me!

                                                                                                                       

Thursday

WHAT THE HELL!!!! A foot and a half of the frozen white poo came down. My mittens are still wet from yesterday. My coat is just not arctic proof!  

My back is killing me and I’m starting to have blisters from holding the devil scooper. I just don’t know where to put the damn shit anymore. I have to lift the shovel 5 feet just to dump my load over the bank.

By the time I got back home, removed the mittens and the coat, I heard the plow go by. That is one lucky driver, if I had been outside when he came, I would have jumped on his truck and made him eat the shovel, the bastard.

I went back outside and shovelled the new load off.

My wife told me we ran out of milk. Since I already had my coat on, I hurried up to the store. A deer jumped right in front of the car. I swerved and missed it by a fraction of an inch, however, the plow didn’t bother to clean this part and I lost control of the car. I went right into the snow bank, which was hiding a brick wall. The car is totalled! I wish I had my gun; I would have shut that four legged beast!

 

Friday

FUCK THERE IS MORE FREEZING WATER COMING DOWN. The house is for sale, we are moving to Mexico. SCREW YOU ALL in this un-bearable land!!!!

 

 

 

I am NOT dreaming of a white Christmas... It's a nightmare...

Leaving this

For that!

 

My guilty conscience has been talking to me a lot. It kept reminding me that I didn’t post any thing for a while. It is right but I was on “vacation”. Did you know that retiree take vacation from time to time? Ok it’s a poor excuse, but it’s the only one I have. I didn’t post and I was not reading my favourite blogs either… so I’m really late, I’ll try to do some catching up.

I will spare you all the last 4 weeks of happening and just fast forward to last week (Isn’t it marvellous the technology!).

We left Naples on Thursday Dec 13^th. We drove to Tampa where we spend the night and store the trailer. Dec 14^th we flew back to Ottawa… We were wearing, running shoe, a light coat and a sun tan. We didn’t need our sun glasses :( After our escapade in Ottawa we are going back to Tampa for 2 months.

We are home for the next 3 weeks to spend time with our daughters. The oldest will be arriving tomorrow, unless the Mayans were right! She will be with us for a week.

Monday, I went to the place I used to call w-o-r-k. I was going for breakfast; it is cheap, and as retiree, I am always looking for a cheap meal. Food was a good excuse but the true… I want to see how much the people at work miss me hahahaha –Just a joke! I was glad to see many and only few were not available. I even score some cookies from one of them (probably she was feeling bad for me… I’ll encourage that feeling if goodies is what end up being offer :) )

Yesterday we went back to our trailer in Val-des-Bois. We enjoyed a nice warm fire. There was not much snow on the ground, but the lake was frozen. I didn’t try to walk over it, just didn’t want to end up swimming in it and becoming one of the sad statistic.



There was no one else!!


Today, the sky opened and let fall upon us over a foot and a half of snow… if anyone had any doubt about having a white Christmas, it is bury deep deep deep under it!

Arm and dangerous

But to tell you the true, I am joking, I love this, it doesn’t bother me at all. One of the advantage of the snow… there is no fire ants, nor no-see-hem LOL.   

I know it’s early to have resolution, but, mine will be to post every day (when feasible), even if it’s only a single paragraph!

Our cat getting in the Christmas mood!

Peace and love from the frozen North.

Scratch this post!

Another day ending in paradise

Before getting to the post, I want to warn my loyal readers (about 3) that I didn’t start to refer to myself at the third person or by my first name. This post was written by Christiane. I didn’t see anything news worthy, but it seems I was wrong…

Thursday Nov 15

In the morning we went to Sam’s Club.  We had just arrived when Richard, who had decided to wear socks and shoes to alleviate the itching from the insect bites, turned around and told me he was going back to the truck to remove his socks as the bites were too itchy and he couldn’t take it.  After he got back and found me, he left right away after saying he couldn’t bear the itchiness and the pain and was going to wait for me in the truck and for me to take all the time I needed.  All the time I needed… in a store?  Well, by then I was sure the poison from the bites had reached his brain!  J  Well I hurried up so we could get back to the campground and work (of course, if Richard were writing this, he would make a comment about the word work…) on those bites. 

I finally convinced Richard to soak his feet in a combination of water, sea salt and baking soda.  It was instant relief!  He was almost crying from joy!  Well, ok, I made that part up but in fact, the real Richard was back! J 

In the afternoon we went to the swimming pool.  The water was warm and in the blink of an eye Richard was already in the deep end, swimming.  That’s a first for him as he usually takes 10 – 15 minutes to barely dip his feet in the water!  I had to do a double take to make sure it was him!  At the beach, when he goes in the water, he barely gets his knees wet, and that’s because the waves hit him.

While at the pool we overheard a guy mentioning that a good place to eat was the Naples’ Miller Ale House, near Costco, which has great food and prices, so we had to investigate…  It turns out he was right.  More about that later.

We had supper with Jo and André at their place.  We enjoyed delicious beef kabobs with asparagus and a rice and broccoli casserole we found at Sam’s Club. 

Friday Nov 16^th

Richard did another foot soaking session and declared the itchiness was just about gone and he wanted to go to the huge Wal-Mart and some other places and did I want to join him?  So, away we went but as we reached the first set of lights which is 20 seconds from the campground he informed me that the itchiness was back and he would just go to the smaller and much closer Wal-Mart…  I bought some gel, same one as Jo, to threat the bites and some antihistamine, as suggested by the Mayo Clinic website.  We did some quick grocery and were back to the campground for another feet soaking session.   By that time, I was through being the tough one and had a soaking session as well!

Saturday Nov 17

Richard declared himself fit to travel.  We wanted to buy a printer so we went to Best Buy, Staples and Costco but didn’t find what we were looking for.  Well, we couldn’t let that “trip” go to waste so instead we tried Naples’ Miller Ale House for lunch and we let the potato soup in a bread bowl go to waist… J.  It was delicious!  We both had the soup, which was a meal in itself with the bread bowl, I had a pop and the whole bill came to $11.00!  Now, that’s almost cheaper than eating at home and there were no dishes to clean!  Actually, we were gracious enough to eat our bowl so there were fewer dishes for them to do as well…  That’s how considerate we are.

(Note from Richard: Sorry Christiane you forget a very important fact that will be necessary for tomorrow post… I bought sandals at Kohl’s for $30. Every time we went out, I couldn’t wear socks because it activated my itching, I didn’t want to wear croc in stores so it was necessary to get a pair of “dress up” sandal.)

We had invited Jo & André for supper.  Richard cooked some salmon, giving his cooking secrets to André because Jo doesn’t like André’s salmon.  The secret?  Cook it until it’s crispy brown! (Note from Richard: Probably chief Ramsey would send it back to the kitchen saying that it is burn!)

Not invited but there was No see um (Can you see them?)

 I had prepared a dressing with an oil/vinegar base which is very similar to St-Hubert’s restaurant’s own recipe.  The coleslaw was “marinating” in the dressing since last night and when I did a taste test it was just awful!  Saltier than sea water!  I couldn’t understand, I had made that dressing before and it was delicious.  The only possible explanation, which turned out to be it, was that my plastic container labeled Sugar was filled with salt and not sugar and since I had added 3 table spoons of “sugar”…  Well, at least we had green beans and Jo and I pulled our resources together and she prepared a salad.  Supper was delicious, once again. 

We ate outside on our patio but were assaulted by mosquitoes (Note from Richard: Grrrrrrrrrr!).

After supper, Richard and André went to watch a rerun of a Canadien/Nordique hockey game, in André’s motorhome while Jo and I chatted at the table.  Richard was happy; it was a game where the Nordique beat the Canadien! (Note from Richard: AGAIN!)

After I cleaned the dishes and put everything away I watched some TV.  I soon discovered and killed 5 mosquitoes in the trailer! When Richard came back, he killed another 5 just while brushing his teeth!  L (Note from Richard: With Christiane's toothbrush, NOT!)  We hunted and destroyed another 15-20.  I went to bed and turned on the light we had installed that day and I counted 7 more mosquitoes at the foot and head of the bed! So, we armed ourselves again and smashed some more.  When we finally turned off our light, we could hear some buzzing around!  Richard turned back on his light and killed a few more.  Had Julie been there, she would have gone mad (Note from Richard: Mad-her :-))!

Here some miscelanous pictures:

 

 

 

 

When you are NOT on top of the food chain

I don't know what kind of wine would go with you!

Tuesday Nov 14^th

I went with André to Camping World at Fort Myers. He was returning a small cabinet that they bought the last time we were there. He seems confident that he can built one that will be stronger and to the exact dimensions.  I don’t want to judge but, it sounds like work to me… I might help him… someone has to hold his beer while he does the work!

We have PVC chairs, they are heavy and not easy to store when on the road so I bought 2 aluminium chairs.  I will have to return one; I think I can build one better…. NOT! One of the chairs has an imperfection (that is my excuse for more trips to Camping World :-)).    

Something old, something new, something blue...

On our way back, we stopped at a tool store. You can get bargains on all kind of tools. André needs to replace the batteries for his drill, but the last time he did that, he ended up buying a new drill… it was cheaper than buying a new battery! I had picked a few items, but the service was so bad… I left them there. There were 2 cashiers and they were both busy with returns. The return process seems to be out of whack… for example, one man was in front of us, and all he wanted to do was exchange his multi meter with the exact same one because it was not working. The cashier wasted about 10 minutes dealing with him, and then I changed to the other line… to find out that someone else was returning something! grrrrrr

In the afternoon, my wife and I went to the beach. I was surprise for a Tuesday by the number of beach goers. Doesn’t anyone work anymore? It’s a long beach so we found a spot to claim our own!

I didn't know that some mermaid could have feet!

The waves were gentle, the birds were singing, the sun was shining, the biggest noise was the page turning from my book.    

Our spot in paradise





One small step for man kind... one giant leap for retiree!

Opposite thumb... must be humain!



The umbrella $20... the view priceless!

Coming back, I took a shower and showed up for happy hour all cleaned and without salt. This is when I think I became a victim… but I’ll talk more about that in few paragraphs.

By the time we had nothing else to be happy about… We returned to our home and had left over for supper. We ended the day by watching two episodes of  “The closer”.

 

Wednesday Nov 15^th

In the morning, I installed the bike rack on the truck and we went biking in Naples. This is such a good way to visit a town. Christiane will surely agree with me that one very good thing about Florida… there is NO hill!

Caro can you memorize this phone number?? Whouhahaha

I tried to take a picture of this mural... but that lady kept popping up!

After 2 hours, she still smilling!

However, there were not many streets with a bike path. The streets were narrow at times and you ended up riding on the sidewalk. We had to be careful because there were a lot of small lizards warming themselves on the sidewalk.

Scene you don't see in Ottawa... Double park golf cart!

After so much exercise, we thought we were entitled to stop at Tin City for Ice Cream. I had a 5 dollar bill out and I could see a small jar for tips. I was about to give her the changes as tips… When she told me that the total was $12, I re-opened my wallet, got a fortune out, and didn’t leave any tip.  

Cold cash!

On this journey, we have been seeing all kind of signs: Do not feed the alligator… Do not feed the pelican… but there should be one saying do not feed the no see ums and the ants!

We both have no see ums bites and maybe there is a new kind of ants: no see ants! I am suffering a lot from those bites. On one foot, I may have something like 100 bites… well could be 15, but it is like a fire and the only thing I can use to extinguish it is my nails… It’s a fight to the end… and I’m losing! You should not be scratching insect bites… so to make sure I stop, I might have to get my finger nails pulled! I bought two types of insect bites relief and applied one brand to one leg and the other brand to the other leg to compare their effectiveness. I also tried a third product that Jo has.  It helps when you apply it but after few minutes nothing works anymore… I ended up putting one product over the next just for the feel-good-for-a -few-minutes layer.

Last night, I had a really bad night; I kept having to fight the good and the bad… the bad Richard was yelling at me: “Yes Richard scratch a little you will see it sooooo good” and the good Richard was murmuring really low to me.   “No Richard, don’t scratch, it will heal faster”

My wife’s bites don’t seem to have the same effect on her. For one thing, she has a fraction of the bites I have. By that I am deducting that she is tougher than I am. I don’t mean her will of not scratching… I mean her meat is tougher… when the biters have a choice between a nice softer bite and a tough one; they seem to go for the “good stuff”. If it were not for the dilemma of should I scratch or not, there would be a hahaha at the end of this statement!

Calamine's art!

Hunting alligator

One of the fearless hunter in hot pursuit!
The green Croc I'm wearing are to prevent noise and on top of that they are camouflaged!

 
Sunday, Nov 12^th

Saturday evening, we had planned with André & Jo to go to the flea market in Fort Myers. It opens at 09:00, so we had decided that we would leave at 08:30. When it was time to go, I looked in our truck and Jo was already quietly sitting there . I’m not sure but she might have spent the night there, afraid that we would try to sneak out without her :-).

The flea market is a good size and we finally found a bag of Bungees cords. I also scored on 3 books by Nelson Demille. He is my favorite author so I’m trilled! I paid $1. per book… now that’s a bargain!

Bungee anyone?

Christiane bought a decal for the window and a magnet thingy for the screen for the trailer… I agree with you, it's not as exciting as my finds!

We didn’t buy anything for our girls, they just don’t like surprise!

We were close to Camping World, so we had to go there as well. My wife – the shower bum- wanted to buy a curtain rod that could extend the space of the shower. I’m posting a picture, it will be easier to see then to explain. On this improvement, I’ll have to agree with her (a first in my life hahaha), it really is making a difference! She might have problems getting me out of there now :-)
 

This way it leaves more room when you are sitting...
Do I need to say more?

Now you get extra space in the shower!
Almost enough for 2 persons hahaha

In the afternoon, after so much excitement, it was time to go back to my book.

For supper we ate at “The Cheesecake Factory”. Every time we drove by, Jo was pointing it at us.  It took me 2 weeks, but I got the hint! I thought they were only selling cheese cake… it’s a restaurant! Christiane and I had Salisbury steak and to be reasonable, we shared a Chocolate Coconut Cream Cheesecake (Sorry Julie no picture of that!).  (Note from Christiane: Here you go Julie, I added a link to a picture ... http://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/menu/Cheesecake/chocolate_coconut_cream_cheesecake)

Coming back from the restaurant, it was dark, usually with people of a certain age hahaha, when it’s dark they want to go back home. But André and Jo wanted to walk at “The Village”. This is a place where there are shops by the river.  It was really safe… being Sunday, after supper, all the shop were closed :-), I didn’t need to open my really thin wallet at all!. It was really special, we were in shorts, the palm trees were decorated with lights, at one of the restaurant there are lights in the river and you can see a lot of fishes swimming, about a foot long, (pleeeeease don’t ask me the specie, if it is not in Costco, in a well identified package, I have NO clue! ).

There was also a nice fountain with different color lights projecting from the ground right where the water was coming out, one light per stream.  If you timed the streams well, you could probably walk across the fountain without getting wet… I'll wait for another time to do this :-)

 
Monday, Nov 13^th

Monday was the beginning of hunting season. We drove to the Everglades, and found and shot one alligator. André spotted the Gator in the river, I walked as silently as I could, I aimed, and BANG… we had our very own wild gator picture! A few minutes later, Christiane using OUR new camera, also shot the alligator. The new camera being so much better than the old one, the picture posted are from it… it has NOTHING to do with my hunter skills…

This is NOT photoshoped!
Our new friend was a little shy... he (could be a "she" we didn't turn it around to see) just stayed on the bank on the opposite side of the river

We also saw several fishes, they seemed like they were over a feet long.

Can you see the fish?
I am the ONLY one that shot a fish and that is using the old camera!
Mad skill at best!

The everglades turned out to be like everything I've seen in documentaries and movies. It is mostly swamp, with small pounds and rivers crossing here and there. I find it surreal to see trees' root coming out of the water.

Driving back, we took a road that had high fences to keep panthers away. We didn’t see any, however, we saw a dead wolf with all kind of very big buzzard feeding on it (I am writing this and we haven’t had breakfast yet… I report everything… YERK!).

Talking about feeding… for supper we got a pizza from Papa John’s… this was the best we had so far (the first too).

On the home front... We booked planes tickets for the holidays. We will be flying back for 3 weeks, from Tampa. We are praying for a warm front to follow us from Florida!

We also reserved a camping in Tampa for January and February. We will be driving there December 14th and store the trailer at our camping.