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.

Just few more days

Friday, Nov 9^th

We were so excited that it was finally Friday (see even retiree can be excited by Fridays!)… On Friday, the Naples Flea Market is opened! So we went with André.  If you are looking for sunglasses or jewelleries… it is the place. We were not! We wanted some tools and bungees cord and were disappointed not to find any.

We were right there at the opening, so we didn’t have to fight the crowd.  I expected the Flea Market to be outside but, interestingly enough, to me anyway, the Flea Market is inside in a looong building where you just walk the aisles.

We bought some Christmas stuffing for the girls – You understand, we will not be posting pictures of those…

In the afternoon, we went to Sam’s club… got our membership card and we just had to try out the card… bought a camera. It’s a Canon SX260 HS.

Our black box!

The difference between our old camera and the new one is like going from snail pace to warp speed in nano second!

Its zoom… amazing! Just to give you an idea: Christiane could not read some small print on a package of rechargeable batteries; she asked me if I could read it… Heck No! I could guess some characters but that was it. So I thought,  (kidding she is the one who thought) using the zoom of the camera could be helpful. It was! We could read the entire small characters without guessing… I am so clever sometimes (but not this time, she was)!

Later in the afternoon, after so much stress, I just stayed home and read. Speaking of reading, I finished my daughter book “Earth Abides”. Without giving too much away, it is a story about Dooms day, where most of the humans die. It took me 5 weeks to read it, I was expecting to read at least one book per week, but we are just too busy (a good thing we don’t have j-o-b-s!). I started another book and I have less than 100 pages left to read and should be done on schedule (this is MY deadline now :-)).

In the evening, while the ladies were playing Skipbo, I watched Hockey with André… it was a junior game, Halifax against Gatineau. After 2 periods, I heard my bed calling; the score was tight 1-1, so I decided they could finish the game without me… I was wrong! Gatineau lost 5-1!

Saturday, Nov 10^th

In the morning, Christiane went shopping with Jo and André at Kohl’s clothing store. I was so worried! I am the responsible one and didn’t know if upon her return I would need to get a job ha ha ha. She came back with… a piece of wood from Lowe’s. She used it to hit me right in the  back of my head… NOT! She wanted to make a small shelf over the stove. (UPDATE: She changed her mind, we will return the lumber … I avoided that w-o-r-k project fast, ouf!!!)

While she was gone… I washed the beddings… which I rather do than shopping! When I first started the laundry load, I noticed a man cleaning the front end of his fifthweel.  Doing the laundry took me about an hour, and I was checking his progress…  Well, after one hour, he was still cleaning the same spot over and over …

In the afternoon we slept, this lifestyle can be tiresome at time… It was a bit warm so I had left the air conditioning running. When we woke up, the temperature inside the trailer was 13.4 C. (56 F.)!

At 16:00, of course happy retiring hour was upon us. We played 2 games of dices, André won the first one, and I couldn’t hold it any more, I had to win the last one! I just hope by writing this, my reputation won’t get tarnished and no one will want to play with me anymore hahaha.

For supper, we had Lasagna at André and Jo. Delicious!

 

 

Better late than never

Wednesday, Nov 7^th

In the morning we installed the awnbrella. The operation involves drilling holes in the trailer. I enjoy drilling holes in the trailer! My wife was assisting; I think she just doesn’t trust me with my electric drill!



Before
See how much the awning sags in the middle

After
Voila!


It was windy so, while installing one bar, the other bar kept falling down. It was NOT because my holes were not perfect, it was because the awning was not stable and kept moving with the wind. I solved that by inserting some awning holder clip.

We visited Sam’s club with A & J. I found that it is larger than Costco. I know it sounds like we are doing a lot of shopping but we are just making our house on wheel homier. We don’t have a Sam’s card, in the near future, we will get one! 

We bought a table that adjusts to three different height (coffee table, dining table and counter height) and some wine (with all the happy hours, it looks like our wine cellar has a leak! ).

On our way back, we stopped at Publix (grocery store). My wife and I split the grocery list. I went one way, she went her way. I was done finding all the items on the list, while she only had ONE item to find but was nowhere to be seen. So I went to the cash register and paid. I was just about to leave when she got at the register. She started talking to me in French, I looked at the cashier like I didn’t know her. I told him: “You have some strange customer here, that women is talking to me”. He smiled! I told him that next she might be asking ME to pay for her! He kept smiling! I said, I sure hope she won’t follow me home… Hey if you can’t have fun at the grocery store, where can you have fun!

We Spent the happy hour with J & A, Lillianne and Alain… it was windy and too cold (for us snowbirds), so I didn’t need to fake loosing at dice; we just didn’t play!

In the evening, we ate spaghetti and watched Survivor  on TV. This show reminds me of us; we also have to keep surviving this lifestyle… poor us! Ya right!

 

Thursday, Nov 8th

In the morning, we went for a walk downtown Naples with Jo & André. It’s so amazing to just be here. We can see some nice buildings, coconuts in palm trees, flowers. There were several workers in the street putting up Christmas decorations. We are wearing shorts… my mind can’t register that soon it will be the holiday season. 

The distance walked according to Google map as shown in purple is 3.6 mi /5.76 km walk. But for one stretch, we really walked on the beach, orange line shown here, so let’s be fair and call it an even 3.99 mi. J

 

It's a bird, it's a plane, It's... on a building!
 

 

We saw our first Gator... it is wearing camouflage in order to attract tourist and get them closer!

 

Coconut!!
It's above the sidewalk... if one of those fall... you might get a splitting headache!

We had lunch at Pincher's Crab Shack at what is call Tin City (not to be confused with Sin city pleeeeease!). Tin city is a grouping of tin buildings along the river where you can enjoy all kind of tourist boutiques and restaurants. If you have a boat, you can dock by your favorite place, enjoy a meal and go back to sea. Not wanting to look pretentious, we left our boat at home...

 

 

 

We had delicious fish and chips. The restaurant had a special, 2 margaritas and/or 2 beers for the price of one. Christiane and Jo had the girly drink (margaritas). Myself and André had the manly drink… beers! We were sitting right by the canal, after our walk, I was so happy to sea food!  

 

 

At four o’clock, you might never guess what we did? If you guessed happy hour… you were right! It is important to be consistent in life!

Till next time!

More days of the NOT rich nor famous

Monday, Nov 5^th

In the morning, we went to Camping World in Fort Myers. I should have forgotten my wallet at the trailer but I didn’t…  $450 later, we had bought:

-2 LED light fixtures. We had to replace some in the trailer, and we chose LED because they last longer and mainly they consume less electricity. It is a really important feature when we are not connected only on the battery (like at a Wally). I already installed those and what a difference! It is so much brighter.

 

 

 
 
- A water filter. As we are never too sure about the quality of the water where we are, this is a must. Because there is only one water entry, even our toilet will be getting filtered water :-(

- 4 Awnbrellas (tension bars for the awning to rest on which creates an arch so the rain water drains away. I will post picture as soon I have them installed.

- A shower head. My wife is so happy with it, I can’t barely get her out of the shower anymore ha ha ha (Note from Christiane:  This should have read: “- An Oxygenic shower head. (this adds water pressure and also saves on water. It works really well and I recommend the productJ)) (Note from Richard: I wanted to take a picture but Christiane is in there... again! JJ)

After coming back from our shopping trip, we just stayed home and relaxed.

Around 4ish, we met at Jo’s for a happy hour. This seems to be a daily occurrence where we try to solve all the world problems… One thing I learned… Don’t talk politics!

In the evening, we stayed home and watched TV.

Christiane didn’t have a good night sleep… and since the house is 180 square foot… neither did I!

Tuesday, Nov 6^th

In the morning, I went for a bike ride. I biked 22.5 KM (13.5 Mi.). I took my time; the weather was perfect, there were a few clouds, no wind. I started on a bike lane… which is located on a boulevard where cars drive 55 Mi. (95 Km) an hour!  There is only a white line that separates you from them… I was glad that I didn’t have a rear view mirror showing me the traffic coming at me! As soon as I could, I took a side road, but it was a dead end… I went back on the boulevard and after a while, I saw a road where there was no bike lane but a side walk. This seemed like an excellent alternative for me. I rode to the beach, took a couple of picture to tease my ex-colleague on Facebook, and just took my time exploring.

This is what I post on FB! I had that it was the hallway to me office!
No one drop me from their friend list... yet!

One of the mask superhero

 

On my way back, I was happy about the ride and I was smiling and thinking about how lucky I am… and that’s when I swallowed a fly! I know it sounds “cliché” but that’s the truth! When I got back to the trailer, I told my wife that I probably wouldn’t be hungry at the same time as her since I already had a little something to eat. 

In the afternoon, we went with André & Jo. A friend had told them that on 2^nd Ave., there were stores where Jo could buy a small credenza she wants for their Motorhome. André had programed their GPS to get there… a good thing because trying on our own would not have worked… It is a small road that is about 100 feet long and ends up in a parking lot… No store around! We thought that maybe it was on the other side, and we drove around a few blocks and couldn’t find the 2^nd Ave. You would think that it is between the first and Third Avenue… but no, couldn’t find it anywhere!

No dear crossing sign, Puma crossing!
For crying out loud, it's only a cat!

We also went to visit another campground.  We don’t have reservation for January and would have liked to stay in the area. But at $1200, the campground is too expensive for my taste.

We drove to Island of Marco. It is located beside Island of Polo (just joking!). You can see a lot of houses with their own personal dock. Let just say that if a gardener, a cook, pool maintenance persons are not in your budget, you might not live there!

No officer, I was not trespassing!
 

One of the local... From what he said, he hates tourist!

One of the rich owner... she took me to her home!
Does that made a kept man?

When we came back, we played dice. The last time we played, I won all the games. But this time, I decided to graciously let others win.

In the evening, we watched some TV. The US election was on every channel … Barack Obama won!