Travels with Gunther and Kara

Saturday (Apr 23) we were up early for our 320 mile transit to the Louisville KY area…but we actually stayed right across the Ohio River from downtown in Charlestown IN at Charlestown State Park.

Our route from Chattanooga was I-24 to Nashville, then I-65 North to Charlestown…but after looking at the two cities we elected to bypass downtown Nashville where the freeways intersect in favor of getting off on TN-155 to skirt by the airport and around the east side of town before hooking up with I-65…it was only 3 or 4 miles farther and we avoided downtown. Our analysis also showed that the I-65 bridge over the Ohio River was under construction so we elected to bypass that as well although that was about a 15 mile detour. Good thing we did…turns out the bridge was closed for the weekend and our only option was to do what we had planned…which was to take I-264 (the Louisville beltway) around to I-64 to cross the river since there aren’t many bridges. From there we got on I-265 (the other Louisville beltway) over to IN-62 which took us to about 1 o’clock from downtown and thence to the state park.

This is one of the nicest state parks we’ve been…widely separated sites…but it was really full when we arrived about 1600…they don’t take reservations until next week so it was walk in only…of the 190 sites here about half are full hookup and the rest are electric only…and there were only 5 or 6 full hookup sites remaining. Turns out there was a festival with an air show in Louisville this weekend and people coming down to see that and the associated fireworks pretty much filled up the place. We got settled in and hooked up in site 101…great site with a satellite view.

We discovered that our front living room slide bolt had broken…again…so Neil had to crawl under with a crescent wrench and manually move the slide rear out as Connie slowly bumped the front out. He got out and replaced the broken bolt Monday morning.

Sunday we went to Mass then just sat around for the afternoon…luckily the campground cleared out pretty severely in the afternoon and by dinnertime…a delicious grilled NY Strip with grilled onions and mashed taters…there were maybe 20 rigs left in the campground tops. It will probably stay that way until Friday afternoon I’m thinking.

Monday Neil did his aforementioned bolt replacement and also taped up one of our cable loops…there’s a bundle of cables that goes from the frame out to the galley slide so it can move and still get power…the bundle is wrapped in flexible casing then spiral wrapped with duct tape to hold things together. Easy fix…as long as you’re underneath the trailer which he was. Luckily it’s a paved site so he was able to get his mechanics runner sled out and slide around instead of having to just crawl under.

Connie’s got a little Fun Stuff© scheduled but there’s not actually as much to do in the Louisville area as we thought…precious few hikes so we’ll go to a couple of breweries and mebbe a distillery or two.

Not many Interesting Things of the Week today…this is about all I found. Kinda makes you wonder how they’re going to get that ladder down, eh?

Hot today as well…lower 80s but at least it’s fairly low humidity and there’s a little breeze blowing…

Cyas.

Wednesday (Apr 20) was supposed to be a  lousy day…so Connie worked and Neil just puttered around. The only thing we did was head over to the 1885 Grill for dinner about 1700…we had tried to go there last Saturday when we arrived and it was wall to wall people with at least 25 waiting to get in so we punted then and ate at Logan’s Roadhouse instead. 

Wednesday…the lines were non-existent…in fact when we arrived there were very few people there. We sat at the bar as per our usual and had a couple brews each…started off with a Chattanooga Brewing Company Brown Ale…we didn’t think much of it as it was fairly spicy…not hops but more of a bitter type flavor which didn’t really do anything for us. After that we had a Vienna Lager from Devils Backbone Brewing Company. For dinner…Connie had some grilled trout and Neil a burger…both were pretty decent.

Thursday (Apr 21) we had a scheduled trip to the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park. This was a driving tour over these two battlefields…and while it was interesting it wasn’t as nice as other Civil War battlefields that we’ve toured as not having the docent to give you the guided tour makes for a harder to understand battle.

We watched the movie at the visitor center first…and found out a few interesting facts about Chickamauga…Neil had only vaguely heard of this battle and knew nothing of the details while Connie had just a little more familiarity with it. Chickamauga however…was the second bloodiest battle of the entire war after Gettysburg. Everybody has heard of the latter, Vicksburg, and the Wilderness…but Chickamauga’s 34,000 combined casualties ranks only behind Gettysburg and that number is more than the total US casualties in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 combined according to the Park Service movie…Neil’s not sure about this as it all depends on how you define Revolutionary War casualties. Wikipedia shows 6,824 killed in battle, 25,000-70-000 dead from all causes during the war, and up to 50,000 total casualties including wounded. The War of 1812 had about 6,700 killed and wounded…so he doesn’t see now the Park Service claim can be true…

In 1863…Chattanooga was strategically important as the intersection of 4 major railroad lines and the Tennessee River and control of it was considered vital to either allow Union forces to be supplied as they drove southeast towards Atlanta and for the Confederate army to prevent that surge. Southern forces were in control of the city until September when Union forces outmaneuvered him by crossing the Tennessee River and coming into his rear from the area of Lookout Mountain. General Bragg started withdrawing his forces to the southeast and was pursued by Union forces who assumed Bragg was retreating towards Atlanta. Bragg however…had been reinforced and ambushed the Union forces along Lafayette Road south of the city. His hope was to defeat them…thereby forcing them back north and allowing Bragg to retain control of Chattanooga.

The battle actually started accidentally when Union troops stumbled across Confederate positions near the Chickamauga Creek and over Sep 19 and Sep 20 gradually moved northward towards the city…a miscommunication in the Union forces allowed the Confederates to split them into two parts…the southern group surrendered and the northern group retreated to and occupied Chattanooga.

At that point…Confederate forces occupied the high ground on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge south of the city and laid siege to it…unfortunately the railroad lines on the northern bank of the river allowed supplies and reinforcements to arrive and on Nov 23 they marched forth to assault the two high grounds. Union forces were successful in retaking the two peaks due to strength of numbers…usually the forces on the high ground win but when outnumbered almost 2 to 1 they were not able to hold the heights. The occupation of the two ridges solidified Union control of the city…and Sherman used it as his stepping off point for his march to the sea in late 1863.

As I said…there wasn’t nearly as much about the battles themselves at this park…it is mostly a park full of memorials to the dead and wounded of the various units (Union and Confederate) that were involved. We did take the self guided auto tour but there was very little in the way of fortifications, signs, or docents to explain the why’s as we’ve seen at other battlefields.

We did get a few shots though…

This is a monument/lookout tower at the northern end of the Chickamauga battlefield.

A shot of Connie Neil took from the top of the tower (136 steps up…she declined to climb them).

From there we headed up Lookout Mountain sort of the back way after picking up a sandwich for lunch…unfortunately we got to the top and found that all the parking was metered, only took quarters, we had no quarters with us, and didn’t see any place to get change…so we pretty much blew off the Lookout Mountain portion of the battlefield with one exception.

Craven’s House…which was owned by a farmer named Craven…is situated on the northernmost tip of Lookout Mountain overlooking the city and was used by General Bragg for his headquarters during the siege…it was captured by Union force during the battle in November and the rest of the mountain was abandoned by Confederate forces afterwards as Union forces then controlled the northern end of Lookout Mountain and hence the heights over the city.

We had our lunch there then headed home…the view of Chattanooga is supposed to be great from there but it was an overcast day with pretty heavy haze down in the valley so you really couldn’t see much.

Friday (Apr 22) Neil’s sister Mary Jane and her daughter Lauren drove over from Knoxville for a short visit…we went to the Lookout Mountain winery and had wine and pizza for lunch before they headed home in the late afternoon.

Neil did all the outside stuff Friday afternoon for our departure tomorrow morning…dumped tanks and stowed the hoses and took down the flag. So all we’ve got in the morning is power, water, hitch, and go.

Cyas.

Well, we’ve already done some Fun Stuff© here in Chattanooga.

Sunday afternoon (Apr 17) after Mass Connie did all our planning for the week and when she was done with that we decided to head off and visit the Raccoon Mountain Pumped Storage Plant and the nearby associated reservoirs.

About 15 miles south of Chattanooga the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) erected a dam back in 1967 for generation of hydro-electric power. Due to the available area for containing Nickajack Lake behind the dam they were only able to make the dam about 80 feet tall. This means that in the generator room at the bottom of the dam there is only about 75 pounds per square inch of pressure available at the entrance to the electrical generation turbines. While this is sufficient to generate electricity you really don’t get very efficient generation at such a low pressure. So…in a twist on generation of hydro-electric power the TVA decided to include a pumped storage facility…there aren’t very many of these in the world so I figured I would tell you a little about it.

It starts with the dam downstream and it’s associated generation capacity…during hot days the output of this dam is pretty much completely absorbed by the power grid but during the nighttime the demand goes down and hence the load on the generators. The water still has to be released from the dam to keep the river flowing…so the question becomes do you just release it through the sluice gates or use it to generate power. The latter is obviously better as the power is essentially generated for free during nighttime/low demand hours…so what do you do with it.

Well…the answer is that you use a pumped storage facility back on Raccoon Mountain about 15 miles upstream in the lake. What happens here is that at nighttime when the demand on the dam’s generators is low you use that extra power to pump water uphill to the top of Raccoon Mountain into a manmade lake up there. This is about 1,000 feet higher than the river level…which means that once you connect a 35 foot diameter tunnel to the bottom of the 230 foot deep upper reservoir you have about 800 feet of elevation drop to a second set of generators at the pumping station…800 feet gives you about 350 psi of input pressure and generators are pretty efficient at that higher pressure. The same turbines that normally spin the generators when power is going generated pump water in reverse at nighttime…and then the water in the upper reservoir is used to generate power during peak demand times on hot summer days. Pretty neat idea if you think about it.

The pumped storage facility generates 1,6562 megawatts compared to the 104 megawatts generated by the main Nickajack Dam…and the upper reservoir proves 22 hours worth of water storage…it takes 28 hours to fill it completely.

The storage facility is about 4 miles from our campground so we stopped by it to take a look around.

First up on our tour was a display of one of the valves used in the system…this has an inner diameter of about 10 or 12 feet and the whole inside white part rotates 90 degrees towards the camera when the operating arm on the left side is moved by the actuator motor…thereby shutting off the water flow.

A couple of shots downstream and upstream from the lower pumping station where water enters the storage system for pumping uphill and exits the system after generating power on the way back downhill.

The top of the 230 foot tall intake structure in the upper reservoir…the slots in the side prevent whirlpools from developing when water is going downhill…when pumping uphill the water comes back out of these slots into the lake.

Looking out over the upper reservoir…there was an existing box canyon at the top of the mountain and the TVA built a 230 foot tall 8,500 foot long earthen dam to turn it into the upper reservoir. The dam starts on the right of the image and goes to the left then loops back to the right and then left again in an S-shape before exiting the frame on the far left. There’s a one way one lane road on top of the dam we drove around. The intake structure was immediately behind Neil when he was taking this photo and and the lower pumping station was over his right shoulder and down the mountain. 

The road and dam after we drove around to it…this location is on top of the dam just inside the right edge of the photo above. The dam is 250 feet or so high and I’m guessing probably 350 feet thick at the base. It doesn’t have  any spillway or sluice gates that we could see…I guess if it it overfills due to rainfall (there are no natural sources feeding into the lake beyond the water pumped from Nickajack Lake below) they just produce a little power or simply let the water bypass around the generators into the lake below.

On the way out…we stopped by another display we had seen…this is one of the pump impellers that is used to pump the water uphill. For those of you who aren’t familiar with pump impellers…it fits inside a casing with pretty tight tolerances around the sides and bottom. The suction (inlet) side of the pump comes into the bottom, it rotates towards Connie doing her best Vanna White imitation and each of the openings you can see on the side curves around and down into the inside of the suction side of the impeller. There’s a single discharge line connected to the pump casing just above Connie’s head so each chamber in the impeller (a volute in engineer-speak) essentially throws the water into the discharge plenum and thence into the piping up to the upper reservoir. Pumps like this probably turn 800 or 1,000 rpm maximum…and this one would be powered by a motor in the thousands of horsepower since it has to generate the same 350 psi as comes down during generation operations in order to pump the water 800 feet uphill. 

With that we headed home for dinner. Neil grilled some chicken breasts on the barbie and made a quite excellent corn casserole…corn, chopped green chilis and onions with a little cream and flour mixture to make a sauce then panko bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese grated on the top. It was quite yummy and we even had leftovers of chicken and corn for Monday’s dinner.

Monday (Apr 18) Connie had to work in the AM and Neil did some troubleshooting and figured out why our awning isn’t retracting. Long story short is we can still use it but since the fabric has stretched over the years it means that the brackets are binding a bit just as they’re almost fully in…but he knows how to work around the problem for now but we’ll have to get it repaired once we return to Fort Myers…but it’s just too hard on the road since we’re never in any one place long enough for a tech to see what it needs, order the parts, and get them installed before our departure.

After lunch we headed off on a 5 mile or so trip down to downtown Chattanooga to see the River Walk redone section of the area right alongside the river. It was pretty hot so we just did a couple of miles total before getting back to the car and heading off on our one errand for the day before heading back for dinner.

We walked by the river boat Southern Belle which moors right at Ross Crossing and does daily trips up and down the river for sightseeing.

We also got this shot of the Market Street Bridge…which when it was built in 1917 was the longest bridge of it’s kind in the world…the center movable span is 358 feet long. The bridge only raises to a 45 degree angle on each side. This bridge is a Metal Three Hinged Braced Ribbed Through Arch Movable Double Leaf Scherzer Rolling Lift Bascule bridge…which seems like a lot of descripters…let me translate for those of you who don’t do engineer-speak.

• Metal: Duh
• Three Hinged Braced Ribbed Through Arch: describes the construction of the middle movable blue part of the bridge where the traffic goes through the middle of the arch. Neil’s not quite sure what the Three Hinged part means though.
• Movable: Duh again
• Double Leaf: means that both sides raise as opposed to the whole thing raising from one end.
• Scherzer Rolling Lift: describes the mechanism by which the span is raised and lowered. Essentially the white concrete counterweights just about perfectly balance the weight of the span and the Scherzer mechanism is the curved part (best seen on the left hand end under the concrete) that rotates on a track to raise/lower the span.
• Bascule: means it’s a drawbridge that rotates instead of raising vertically and has a counterweight to allow for smaller operating gear to raise/lower it.

Connie wondered why we couldn’t just call it a drawbridge…but Neil told her that drawbridge was just too general…it would be like just calling them cookies instead of oatmeal-chocolate chip-pecan-raisin cookies or white chocolate-macadamia cookies.

With that we headed over to the nearby Camping World for some replacement sewer dump hoses…we had a catastrophic failure of one of ours the other day…but at least it was after we were done dumping and we didn’t spread poop all over the campground. Whew!

Dinner was leftover chicken and corn casserole and some canned pears with mayo on them for dressing. Again…pretty yum and even better it was easy.

Tuesday (Apr 19) we had more fun stuff scheduled…a couple of waterfalls associated with 2 short hikes…so after coffee and some muffins for breakfast we headed off shortly before 1000. First stop was Laurel Falls about an hour and a quarter northwest of the campground. We did most of the drive on 45 mph country roads and most definitely felt like we were deep into banjo country all day.

On arrival we got parked, changed into our hiking shoes and did the short hike…well, it was short in distance but dropped about 80 feet or so between the parking lot and the falls overlook…down to Laurel Falls.

Here are two HDR shots of the falls which were about 40 or 50 feet high Neil estimated. One was HDR’ed within his normal Adobe Lightroom photo management program…the second was exported to another HDR application Photomatix  Pro then the result was imported into Lightroom…he can’t decide which one he likes better so ya get to see both of them.

From there…we hiked back up to the car and set off for our second destination…Foster Falls…which was just about a half mile off the road we came up from Chattanooga on so wasn’t really out of the way.

The hike to the falls overlook was only a couple of hundred yards…we thought about taking the entire trail down to the base of the falls but it was most of a mile down there and probably 250 feet of drop into the gorge…which would have meant 250 feet of climbing to get back out. After talking about that, the temperature which was getting pretty warm, and considering this was basically our first day hiking of the travel season we elected to forego the base hike and take what we had…so we got back in the car and came home.

Connie found a couple of nice flowers…one from each short hike.

On arrival home we rested awhile then Neil grilled some Italian sausage, onions, and a red pepper we bought on the way home from the Ingles grocery stores…then made a wrap out of all of that and a tortilla. Had a couple of brews to wash it down and it was mighty tasty.

Tomorrow’s a work day for Connie…so I think I’ll go ahead and post this…we’ll have more Fun Stuff© Thursday and Friday before our departure on Saturday morning for Louisville KY.

Interesting Things of the week.

We discovered that if you crush a marshmallow peep you get Kim Jong-un.

This guy has to be the original source of the phrase…”You had one job.”

No photo for this one…but how come if you can buy Batman Shampoo…how come there is no Conditioner Gordon?

And finally…a rare view of where The Donald grows his hair.

Cyas.

On the road again

Just can’t wait to get on the road again
The life I love is making music with my friends

And I can’t wait to get on the road again
On the road again

Goin’ places that I’ve never been
Seein’ things that I may never see again

And I can’t wait to get on the road again
On the road again
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We’re the best of friends
Insisting that the world keep turning our way

by Willie Nelson

Click here if you want to hear the whole thing.

—–

 Well…that says it all…we’ve left Seminole and the 2016 Travel Season is officially underway.

Neil finished packing everyone on Thursday afternoon…and naturally we found another last minute problem…our awning won’t retract fully and stops about 4 inches before it is stowed. He zip tied it for the trip and we talked to our Fort Myers repair guy Gordon…he says that it’s most likely just that the fabric has stretched (it has) and now the spring in the roller bar runs out of spring before it runs out of deployed awning and it just needs a repair guy to add a little tension. So we’ll look for a guy to fix it up the road apiece.

Friday morning April 15…we started getting to leave about 0800 and by 0930 had hitched, said our “until next times” to all our friends…Dennis and Janet from Indy in the next site over and Rob/Tammy from Seminole, checked out at the office and were off on our 348 mile trip to Valdosta GA. It was pretty much traffic all day…and lots of construction although we didn’t really have any stop and go sections. Straight up I-75 we went and arrived at our first stop at River View Campground in Valdosta where we quickly paid our $35 nightly rate and got pulled into a nice 50 amp FHU site C6. It was a little downhill but we just lived with it for the night. No satellite visibility but there was cable TV so we plugged it in quickly then headed out for dinner. We saw an Outback not far away so just went there then back to the rig for the evening…we were tired from the combination of packing/hitching, a relatively long day, and it being the first day of Travel Season.

Saturday April 16 we were on the road by about 0830 for another 353 mile trip…this time to the outskirts of Chattanooga TN for a week. We’ll do some Fun Stuff© and Neil’s sister MJ is coming over to see us on Friday…and hopefully we’ll find an repair guy to solve our issue there.

We’re in site 164 at Raccoon Mountain RV Park…which is the next mountain over from Lookout Mountain which straddles the border between TN and GA just south of Chattanooga. Very nice place that the DLETC (Dining, Lodging, Entertainment and Transportation Coordinator) found for us.

Temps are going to be great this week…lows in the 50s and highs in the 60s to 70s…and we’re up on the mountain side a bit so have a nice breeze. After our quick setup (Neil didn’t do the flag until after Mass the next day as it was already 1820…we headed off to the 1885 Grill for dinner…a very nice looking place Connie picked out. Unfortunately it was 1830 on Saturday night when we got there and the wait was 30 or 40 people so we…simply shook up the Jello and went elsewhere. Checked out the Mojo Burrito across the street but it’s basically a local version of Chipotle and we wanted a little more upscale than that…so we ended up at Logan’s Roadhouse where Connie had ribs and Neil had a pretty outstanding Roadhouse Burger…along with a couple of Newcastle Brown Ale’s to wash them down. They have fresh, hot yeast rolls as an amuse bouche (that’s the freebie you get before dinner)…Neil ate one and we saved the other 3 and made cinnamon toast out of them the next morning.

After that it was back to the rig…TV…and bed.

Introducing a new blog feature…interesting things of the week. I’ve been posting them as funny pictures for awhile… but am going to expand it to include other interesting things we happen across on the interwebs this week. Some will be funny…some might be thought provoking…some will just be little tidbits that we found interesting. I’ll include links in case you want to go read the full article for some of them.

First up is the number 73. This link…Golden State Warriors and the Number 73…is from the New Yorker and deals with the defending NBA champs that won a league record 73 games (out of 82) this season…and it turns out that 73 is a number that…at least to mathematicians…is much more interesting than regular numbers. We could mostly not care less about basketball but we did find this treatise on 73 interesting.

73 it turns out is the sixth emirp…an emirp is a prime number which when you reverse the digits is still a prime number (hence the name emirp which is prime backwards).

73 is the 21st prime number…and 37 is the the 12th prime number…and 12 is 21 backwards.

If you multiply the digits in 72 you get 21…which is it’s prime number.

73 represented in binary is a palindrome…a number or word which reads the same both ways…1001001.

It’s the number of books in the Catholic bible.

Finally…the number of points scored in the Warriors 73rd victory by their star Stephen Curry…was 37.

Everybody talks about how the Titanic that sunk back on April 15, 1912…precisely 104 years before Travel Season 2016 started was one of the largest liners at the time…here’s how it compares to a current day cruise ship when seen from the front.

Continuing in the Titanic vein.

This is the Beartooth Highway in MT on April 13…a good reason why we don’t go that far north yet.

From the Department of the Ridiculously Obvious.

Looks like a design flaw to me.

And finally…a love note from Pluto to NASA…as you recall Pluto was recently demoted from being the 9th planet to dwarf planet…which was a completely idiotic decision by an agency that seems to be losing it’s head…their definition of a dwarf planet is “A dwarf planet orbits the sun just like other planets, but it is smaller.” So this means that if you are getting rained on and the water drops get smaller then you’re not getting rained on any more I guess…yeah, right (this is the only time that two positives can equal a negative).

I’ll post again later in the week once I have some Fun Stuff© to talk about.

Cyas.

Man…11 days with no post so I figure I should catch ya’ll up before we hit the road on Friday.

Well, we’re into our last 2 weeks here at Seminole…so that means all the “before you travel stuff” needs to get done. Neil accomplished a whole bunch of that last week and on Monday and Tuesday this week…got everything greased/lubed up that needs greasing, swapped out the anode in our hot water heater and replaced our sediment water filter…the charcoal one is good for another 3 months before needing to be done, checked air in all our tires and torqued all our lug bolts.

He’s pretty much done with his list though…just has black/gray tank flushing and taking the sun screens down off the awning but he’s leaving that until Monday or Tuesday next week. 

We only volunteered for 1 night each week the two weeks of April we’re here…but with Bingo on Tuesday, volunteering at Fun Nite on Wednesday and we might eat fried chicken on Monday again before we head out we  won’t really be missed at the lodge…I think we’ll pass on fish this Friday since Connie wants to go have sushi…and we missed going out there the night we had scheduled during Lent when she was sick.

Neil had a couple bike rides…16.5 miles on the 3rd, 15.25 on the 6th with very high winds both days holding the speeds down, and another 14.7 miles on the 13th…but nothing really interesting on the rides except miles.

Wednesday the 13th he hit it hard getting the last few things done…and as of today we’re pretty much ready to hit the road. Everything is stowed away except utilities and the awning and we’ll do these on Friday before we head out. We’ve got 2 more nights at the Elks for the season…tonight it’s Fun Nite and Neil is cashiering again, then it’s the Ladies of the Elks meeting tomorrow evening for Connie so Neil will go along and have a beer or three while that’s happening.

Friday we head out early for our 330 mile or so trip straight up I-75 for an overnight stop in Valdosta GA then another 330 miles Saturday to Chattanooga TN for a week’s stay. Never been there…well, we’ve passed through on the freeway probably 2 dozen times but never stayed there. Connie has some hikes picked out and who knows what other trouble and/or Fun Stuff© we’ll get into.

Ok, on to whatever funny pictures Neil found on the internet this week.

This has to be the most American photo ever.

For those of you still working…think of these two when you have a bad day at the office.

I think this bartender is going places.

And finally…my favorite of the week…a homework drawing a little girl did one night and mom didn’t see it before dropping her off at school the next day.

Cyas…next post from the road.

Well…it’s getting pretty empty around here at Seminole…folks leaving right and left for other climes as it’s the first of the month. There’s been a whole bunch of rumor and innuendo the past month or so about sites around for for not next winter but the winter after (2017-2018). The worst case scenario rumor is that all of the nice sites over where we are are going to be premium sites starting then at a fixed rate of $1600 a month with no discount for multi month stays and that site guarantee will only be available for stays of 6 months vice the 5 from previous years. Countering that is the rumor that a few sites will be saved for monthly rates but that most of them will still be available for multi month stays again and there will be discounts for those.

In any event…next winter we’re locked in to our site 101 for a 5 month stay which will again turn into 5 1/2 months as Easter  isn’t until April 16…so we’ll be leaving Monday April 17 for our travels next spring. In the fall we’ll find out what the real rules/rates are for 2017-2018 and then decide what to do at that point. We like Seminole…and would prefer to stay here but we need one of the sites over on the eastern fence where we have always been since those are the only ones with satellite visibility. On the other hand…if the price goes up considerably then we’ll consider other options…but as I said we aren’t going to worry about it until December or so when we know what the following winter rules/rates will be.

Neil’s been busy at work checking items off of his To Do list before we leave…mostly it’s a lot of lubricating stuff, checking tire pressure and lug nut torques, washing the house and vehicles and assorted other getting ready to leave stuff. He’s going to hit it hard starting Monday morning so that we don’t have anything to really finish up the last week. Our departure date is Friday April 15 with an overnight stop in Valdosta GA then onto Chattanooga TN and Louisville KY for a week each some sight seeing and bourbon tasting opportunities.

Neil has been on a couple of bike rides since my last post…3/31, 15.12 miles, 15.66 mph, 57:57 and 4/1, 12.22 miles, 16.48 mph, 44:29. Both were pretty windy…but he headed east the first day since it would be downwind at the end and clockwise around the Pritchett loop the other day…that one was upwind on the way back but since the wind was from the south and all of his routes pretty much go north from where we are and either east or west depending on which way he goes…the river is south of us so he rarely goes across there and even if he did there aren’t really any decent places to ride heading south.

We had dinner last evening with our friends Tom and Barb from Michigan and Dennis and Janet from Indiana…Tom and Barb will not be here next winter but it’s nothing to do with the park rumors. Barb want to go to the Pacific Northwest over the summer and they are leaving Jun 1 for that…and then going to the Southwest the following summer so they are going to stay home for the winter…they might come down for a month or so but will probably stay a little farther north where they can get a monthly rate at relatively the last minute…something that is mostly not possible if you are as far south as we are. Barb told us at dinner they were not leaving until Sunday morning…but they were gone when we got up Saturday so they must have changed their mind. Dennis and Janet are staying a bit longer but will be headed back to Indianapolis soon…their family is there and they’ll spend the summer at Lake Haven where we stayed for a week on the way east last fall.

Check this video out…Florida Panther. It was shot earlier this week at the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary about 40 miles south of here…we’ve been there many times although we passed on it this season as the water has just been too high for any of the wading birds to be near the boardwalk and hence visible. We recognized the section of boardwalk right away…quite a sight for the visitor early in the morning I’m guessing!!

Connie’s getting installed as the LoE (Ladies of the Elks) Secretary this afternoon…don’t know why she needs an installation when she’s had the job ever since November but whatever. We’re going to back down on volunteering the last 2 weeks  we are here…just doing the Wednesday night Fun Nite cashier for burgers and going for Bingo on Tuesday. What with all his chores still left to do we don’t want to start the travel season worn out.

Ok, a couple of funnies for ya before I go…

Anybody who has ever cooked pasta will appreciate this one.

And the Japanese don’t beat around the bush on clothing sizes.

Everybody has probably heard of the Maslow Hierarchy of Needs pyramid…but it needed a little updating for the computer age.

Seen at a grocery store…say what?

And finally…a historical marker.

That’s it for now…at least in another 2 weeks we’ll be on the road and there will be something to post about besides the daily grind of the tough life in Florida during the winter…I’m looking forward to mountains, waterfalls, pubs, hikes, and other Fun Stuff©.

Cyas.

Gosh we’ve been busy the last 2 weeks…seems like we’ve been on the go with one social thing or another just about every day and we’re smack dab in the middle of a 4 day stretch of having something at the Elks Lodge every night…chicken dinner, bingo, fun night, lodge meeting and initiation for our friend Jeff…it’s just one thing after another.

Nothing else much new since Sunday…it’s been downright hot…high 80s with 80% humidity. Neil went over and got new tires for our Mazda today and found out the rear brake pads are worn out so he’s got an appointment for Friday to get that taken care of. Afterwards he went on a bike ride…14.72 miles, 15.57 mph, 56:43 but that didn’t include the 15 minutes he got stuck at the railroad crossing…if he had been there 30 seconds sooner he would have gotten across but instead the train pulled across the road. It went almost all the way across…the last car in the train was 1 car length from entering the 4 lane divided road when it came to a stop. Decoupled just after the road and left 6 or 7 cars blocking the road while they pulled ahead 100 yards, moved the switch gear and backed into the local concrete/landscaping materials business to drop off a hopper car full of gravel. Once that was in place they unhitched the car, pulled again, moved the switchgear back to normal and reconnected to the road-blocking 6-7 cars and went on their way. In the evening we went and were the casher and 50/50 raffle host for Fun Night…sold some burgers and fries, made $107 for the lodge, and had dinner afterwards.

Thursday Connie had a district meeting for the Ladies up in Deep Creek about 25 miles north of here…Neil ran down and got groceries from Walmart before she left about 1000 and then went on a bike ride before it got too hot…it was not a cool day but definitely better than it was later in in the afternoon. 12.44 miles, 16.39 mph, 45:32…route was just around the Pritchett Loop as  he didn’t feel like going out on any main roads today. We had breakfast for dinner (hash with potatoes, onions, an Italian sausage and an Andouille sausage fried up nice and then topped with an egg. Then she’s off to bingo in the park and he’s off to the lodge for the bi-monthly meeting and initiation of new members including our friend Jeff.

Friday Connie worked and had her mammogram while Neil got the rear brake pads on our Mazda changed…they were worn out. We skipped the Elks fish dinner and had some sautéed Halibut with an oriental sauce along with a summer squash with pecans, butter and cinnamon…pretty good. By the late afternoon Connie was feeling bad…she musta caught some sort of flu bug because her head was draining, body aching, and stomach not happy either. She felt pretty bad all evening and into Saturday.

Saturday was another bike ride…scheduled thunderstorms in the afternoon so he went early…14.85 miles, 16,41 mph, 54:18 and I gotta tell ya there were a lot of idiots on the road…3 of them on the Pritchett Loop which is normally pretty scarce traffic wise flew by him with no moving over and blasting the horn…morons need to watch out for bikers. Connie was still feeling poorly so she skipped the quarter auction at the lodge and decided to only do 1 ofd the 2 masses she was supposed to do tomorrow…will skip the normal choir mass and we’ll go to the later one where she’s cantoring only.

We got an email from our mail service this week and are going to give their new service a try. What we’ve done for the past 4 years is get our mail sent to Fort Myers once a week while we are here but during travel seasons it goes to Bryan who scans it and puts it up on DropBox for us. America’s Mailbox has a new service where they scan the front of the envelopes and put the pictures up on the web…then you can select items to open/scan into a pdf file, trash, hold for shipment later, or ship now. Our preliminary indication is that it will end up being a little more expensive than what we’ve done to date…but will get Bryan out of the role of having to scan all our mail for us…with his job and baby Alex he and Jen are pretty busy so we’ll lighten the load on him a bit I think. Anyways…we’re going to try it out as it’s free for 2 months and see how we like it. We had also toyed with the idea of shifting our residency to Florida in the fall…since we would have had to go back to SD to renew our licenses next winter and a trip to SD in the winter didn’t sound like a great idea to us. SD has finally gotten their act together though…and we can now renew our licenses online so we decided to skip changing residency as the cost for FL is about the same as it is in SD overall and it’s a lot easier not to have to fix our address with banks, credit unions, and all that jazz.

Sunday Connie was still feeling a bit poorly…but struggled through cantoring at the 1100 Mass and then we came home. Neil grilled some chicken and we had bake taters to go along with it for dinner along with the rest of the bottle of Pinot Noir he opened  Saturday night. He did have a nice nice ride in the afternoon…18.41 miles, 15.94 mph, 1:09:19 and he headed east around the Eco loop area so that it was at least downwind the last few miles.

Connie continued to feel bad…doing lots of drugs and basically just laying around. She skipped the quarter auction at the lodge on Saturday, choir at Mass Sunday, and choir practice today. The good news is that she is improving today…she has a positive startup rate as we used to say in the submarine biz…so hopefully she’ll be well on the road to recovery by tomorrow. We found out there’s going to be a big announcement at Seminole Campground on Thursday…several rumors abound but it looks like  for winter after next they’re going to change back to regular/premium sites…that’s the way it was the first year we were here and I guess they’re going back to it, lets them charge more money I guess. Bryan the park manager told me the other day that they were going to start keeping a few sites open for daily/weekly/monthly stays even during the high season…all this winter he’s had people calling looking for a site for short term and keeping a site open will being in some serious extra money if it’s on a daily rate…he thought that he would have been able to fill a site 4-5 nights a week this winter if he had one open.

Anyway…that’s about it…guess I’ll go ahead and post this…here’s a couple funnies for ya’.

The most accurate pie chart evah.

OK…everybody stay back now.

Neil likes to ride…but I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be bike riding here. We did walk along this area on the Cliffs of Moher during  our Ireland trip in 2014 although not at this exact spot.

Speaking of Ireland trip…the island in the last scene of the most recent Star Wars episode is Skellig Michael…about 10 miles off the southwest coast of Ireland. We visited the beehive huts up at the abandoned monastery there…and were standing in the same spot that Luke was standing in during his brief, non speaking role in the movie…for which I read he received $10 million. They shoulda hired Neil…he’s got a gray beard like that and he woulda done it for $1 million, $2 million tops.

And since we’re on the subject of Star Wars…I think this guy went to the wrong rebel re-enactment.

Cyas.

We had a great time at the Elks Volunteer Dinner on Saturday night…prime rib and baked potatoes with chocolate dipped strawberries for dessert. Pretty Yummy.

Sunday after church Neil went on a ride…14.07 miles, 14.47 mph, 58:23…very slow pace today as it was really windy again. After that we just lazed around the rest of the day as Connie wasn’t feeling very well…Neil made some pork stroganoff for dinner and we pretty much did nothing else.

Monday was another do nothing day…Connie worked on our last few campground choices for this season and Neil did some around the outside stuff.

Tuesday was a pretty full day…we ran a couple of errands in the morning then Connie did some Ladies of Elks secretary stuff while Neil went on another in what seems like an unending series of very windy rides this winter…14.45 miles, 15.43 mph, 56:10. His average was low…but he was doing between 19 and 20 mph on the way west on the way home…much better than the 13 on the way out…he can’t recall as many high wind days in our previous 3 years here as we’ve had this year…but then we’ve had a lot more rain this year as well.

Speaking of rain…obviously with the increased rain this winter Lake Okeechobee has gotten pretty full…so for the last month or  6 weeks the Army Corps of Engineers has been doing their job of flood control and releasing water from the lake into the Caloosahatchee River which flows from the lake to the Gulf at Fort Myers. The alternative was that homes and agricultural fields/livelihoods would have been flooded otherwise. So…obviously with the increased flow in the river…the water picked up a lot of silt so the water was a bit muddy. In addition…due to the CoE’s flood control systems…the naturally fresh water river has gotten brackish (mix of salt and fresh water) for about 5-10 miles upstream from the mouth of the river…which means that salt water fish have populated a lot of the canals and marshy areas. The increased flow of fresh water turned the water from brackish to fresh…and as you know salt water fish can’t survive in fresh water so they died, got washed out of the river, and drifted up on the beaches.

You won’t believe all the hue and cry in the media about this down here…all we’ve heard since January was hand wringing about the Corps polluting the river, killing the fish, and destroying the tourist industry. Never mind that the Corps is doing exactly what Congress charged them to do back in the 1930s or so…control flooding of homes and agricultural fields. Never mind that the river would be having these periodic high flows due to rainfall. Never mind that it’s only fresh water and isn’t polluting anything. It’s all the government’s fault of course…and the state legislature is “having hearings” during which they are insisting that “we’re going to legally force the Corps to stop the polluting release of fresh water”. Seems to me that Federal laws override state complaints and while I’m sure the Corps would have liked to not release the water…it was either that or the levees would be overtopped and then damaged by the resulting uncontrolled flooding…not to mention loss of homes, fields, and jobs.

Idiots I tell ya’…idiots.

Neil found this dog’s picture this week…I really like it.

And Mother’s Day is coming up…so don’t forget her.

Wednesday Neil worked on some campground reservations…although a lot of the northern campgrounds aren’t answering their phones or email yet…it’s their closed season and I guess they’re having some time off. Dinner Wednesday night was at a local…well, it was a 40 mile round trip so maybe it wasn’t so local…place named Micelle’s…it supposedly had fantastic ribs on Wednesday night. Well…I gotta tell you they weren’t all that fantastic…in fact they were mediocre at best. They were nice and tender as they had been baked awhile before being grilled…but the sauce was pretty much taste-free. Connie had seared ahi tuna and some oriental salad on the side. 

Thursday she worked on more Ladies of Elks stuff while Neil went on a bike ride…22.14 miles, 14.54 mpg, 1:31:24. This was a new route…he went east (upwind over to US31 then south (more upwind) across the bridge. Turning east (sorta downwind but not completely) on Palm Beach Boulevard which parallels the river on the south side he continued about 7 or 8 miles down to the Tamiami Trail  bridge…this is the next bridge you can ride across, the I-75 one in the middle doesn’t have a pedestrian crossing. Heading north (mostly downwind) back across the river and continued up to Bay Shore Road where then east another 6 miles (again upwind, seriously upwind by now as it was getting pretty close to 20 mph wind) and back home. When he got back we had to close up the house and turn on the A/C…already well into the 80s today on the way to 87 and will continue that through most of next week. In the evening we headed down to the Lodge again…Connie has  Ladies board and regular meetings to attend so Neil will just hang out and drink a beer while he’s waiting.

Friday we pretty much stayed at home.

Saturday we drove down to Bonita Springs to St Leo’s parish where the bishop of this diocese was doing a celebration of significant anniversaries for this year…it’s due to be Neil and Connie’s 40th so we attended the Mass, renewal of vows, and reception. There were about 50 couples that were celebrating their 50th…including 2 that had their anniversary the date of the Mass…and the longest married couple was celebrating their 75th. What a lot.

Neil didn’t feel very well Saturday afternoon…must have eaten something that didn’t agree with him. These symptoms continued on Sunday so it was luckily that he went with Connie Saturday afternoon when she was being the cantor…so he just stayed home while she went.

And finally…this sign is a perfect illustration of why I have trust issues…ya think you’re getting one thing and the actuality is completely different.

Cyas.

Saturday dawned pretty chilly here…down into the lower 40s when we got up and we had to turn on our furnace for a little while to get the house warm. After coffee and breakfast it warmed up pretty quickly and by 1100 it had gotten into the upper 60s on the way to lower 70s for a high temperature. Neil headed out on another ride…15.78 miles, 15.08 mph, 1:02:47. It was (again) a pretty windy day so he did the Echo Loop to the east and then turned north a mile or so on US-31…really windy going that way…before heading back south and then west for home. Going south (all of 3 miles maybe of the total ride) was downwind but while it was a crosswind at least it was slightly abaft of the beam on the leg back westward towards home.

Getting back about 1230 he had a shower and by the time Connie was done with her Ladies of the Elks Secretary work and wanted to eat it was going on 1430…Neil declared that it was past lunchtime and we proceeded directly to Afternoon Snack…a bag of chips. About 1645 we headed out to Hogbody’s for dinner…had some of their excellent ribs before coming home. The movie in the park was “The Martian” which he wanted to see and she didn’t…so he went and she stayed home and watched some recorded TV shows that he doesn’t think much of. Getting home  about 2230 we watched some more recorded TV that both of them like before bedtime…another cool night in the forecast although only high 40s so not quite as bad as Friday night was.

Sunday was just a bike ride day…about 15 miles in about 56 minutes…his GPS track didn’t work on the iPhone so he had to estimate it.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty much workdays for Connie…although we did go down to the Elks for fried chicken Monday and Bingo on Tuesday…Mindy the cook comped our dinner since we missed out 2 Friday’s back and Neil got both pitchers of beer free for schlepping a keg 2 different times…so our dinner cost us a grand total of $2.50 for a Captain Morgan’s Rum and ginger ale and $5.00 for the tip. Tuesday Connie won a quarter pot so picked up $13 in winnings…but spent $22 on cards…so it was a net negative for her entertainment for the evening. We skipped the hotdogs this week and had a couple of frozen pizzas for dinner.

While Connie was working Neil cleaned our ventilation fans out…took the screens and fan blades down and scrubbed them…he still needs to get on the roof to do the inside of the covers as they’re pretty grungy too but will do that Thursday morning before it gets hot. Tuesday afternoon was Computer Club in the park for Neil…he and Tom fixed 3 problems for folks this week and Connie had choir practice before pizza and bingo.

Wednesday she was back to work…so he went on a bike ride before it got too hot…19 miles, 16.23 mph, and 1:10:04. He did see some young yuppies out on a group ride and rode with them for 3/4 of a mile or so when their route was the same as his…but they turned off as he headed north onto the Pritchett Loop extended. Wind was a lot less than earlier in the week but was still 10-12 mph from the west/northwest so at least it was (mostly) downwind on the way back.

Thursday was even more work for Connie…I’m starting to see a pattern here…with Bingo for her in the evening while Neil went down to the Lodge for the monthly meeting…our friend Jeff is applying for membership and went down to make sure he was voted in. They did head over to Hoolihan’s Irish Pub for some pints of Guinness and Kilkenny Ale and some dinner before the meeting…potato leek soup for Connie and shrimp and grits for Neil. Hoolihan’s is right next to the Nauti Parrot…and has been there the whole time but we just never saw it. We’ve not found another Irish Pub here in Fort Myers to frequent because our initial search way back when didn’t reveal any that were close…but this one is just about 3 miles past the Elks so is easy to get to.

Friday Neil woke up feeling not so well…stomach felt off all day until about 1600…turns out Connie had felt the same way on Thursday so she probably had something and then passed  it along to him. He headed off  early to the local Mazda dealer…our Mazda 6 has the recall for the faulty airbag initiator…and they finally have parts available. However…they broke the airbag connector while installing the driver’s side one so it’s not drivable until they get the parts next week…but they gave us a gratis Hertz rental…a mighty Kia something or other…it’s about the size of a roller skate. After he got back from that we had lunch and he went on a bike ride despite feeling poorly…did the Pritchett Loop 12.37 miles, 16.21 mph, 45:47 but at least it was partially downwind on the way back home. After that we headed off to the Elks…we were not due to work this week and had planned on staying in and making sous vide halibut using a filet we brought back from Alaska and the sour cream/mayo/wasabi sauce we stole the recipe from Linda for…but Patti called Thursday and asked us to work as she needed a cashier. By the time we started taking money she had talked us into working Monday the 14th as well in addition to what we had already signed up before…which means that starting Saturday we’ll be at the Lodge for one reason or another 7 out of the next 14 days…only 2 of the 7 don’t include dinner so he won’t be cooking much I guess. We’ve also taken a look at our remaining time here and put all the pubs/restaurants we want to revisit on the social calendar…and let’s just say it’s mighty full with 19 of our remaining  41 days having something scheduled and that doesn’t include whatever nights we volunteer for at the Elks in April.

Today is Saturday and we’re off this afternoon for the Elks Volunteer Appreciation Dinner…it starts at 1600 and includes Happy Hour and dinner (last year it was steak and I imagine it will be that again as it definitely won’t be chicken or fish)…with open bar so ya can’t really complain about that.

OK, let me give ya a couple funnies and go ahead and post this before Neil goes out to regenerate our water softener…sounds thrilling eh?

Since it’s still flu season…I figured ya ought to know how the Irish vaccinate themselves.

And it’s important to let your wine breathe before ya drink it ya know.

In the interests of a greener environment you should always, always recycle.

And finally…as you know we only drink good beer around our house…Guinness on tap if it’s available but otherwise the darkest stuff we can find on tap…and we don’t drink Bud Lite at all under any circumstances…this is how they make it so now you know why we don’t.

Cyas.

Well…been 10 days without a post so I guess I better do some catching up.

Since my last post we’ve mostly been just chilling out…at least in between all the other stuff we have scheduled.

Connie had a Ladies of the Elks District Council lunch on Thursday the 18th and Neil did some outside chores off of his Winter Action List. 

Cyas.