Gulf Shores Wrap Up 2016

It's our last week here.  Lois survived bad weather  & made it down.  She got to experience great spring/early summer gulf coast weather before the tornado breakout and our fun experience of evacuating to the restrooms as one of the tornadoes passed just south of the state park before targeting Pensacola.  Then she got a bumpy ride back home and is back there now safe & sound.  Before she left she took the above picture of us on the Alligator Marsh Trail.  Guess I should keep my hands out of my pockets?

For our last weekend in the park, Donna goes swimming & joins the F-O-S group for a bike ride in Florida. She also makes one last trip to Mikee's with the HitchHiker folks.  Me, I get to spend the weekend at an AOPA FIRC in New Orleans.  The Doubletree Hotel it's being held at is nice, and they gave me a large oatmeal cookie on checking in.  Donna thinks I should have gotten a chocolate chip instead, but I didn't have a say in the manner.

Either way, at least this time I made a copy of my license (as I was suppose to do last time).  Hopefully, they'll like the copy we made.   Otherwise, it's back to begging the hotel staff to make a copy for me.  Apparently, giving the FAA the certificate and keeping a receipt while the new one is issued isn't acceptable anymore.   (Correct bureaucratic terminology is "It isn't necessary.")

Plans are to leave Tuesday and try to get a visit in with Randy & Shirley before heading on down to Mt Dora, FL for a couple of weeks visiting David & Mary.  I'm trying to talk Donna into a day in Downtown Disney while we're there.  I need my Earl of Sandwich & Ghirardelli fix.  David & Mary will help us fill in the rest of the time.

I also plan to go back to weekly blog postings as we begin moving.  As always, that's the plan.  Everyone enjoy your weekend!  David

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!  Hope you have a good one.  We'll be eating!

We've had a good couple of weeks.  It got kinda cold and windy here, but we survived.  We've made it over to Pensacola to visit Steve & Susan - spending the weekend with them.  Had a nice meal out at Nick's Boathouse.  Then there was Susan's soup.  Oh, and Susan's three pies & one cake to choose from.  OK.  I'll admit.  I eat some of all four deserts!

Replaced our Windows 8.1 Toshiba with a Windows 10 Toshiba.  The old one's keyboard was going bad.  New machine is a Intel i7 machine with a high resolution screen.  Downside of the new machine is that I almost always have to have my glasses on or close by due to the new screen resolution.  Some of the old, obsolete programs I like to run don't adjust fonts all that well.   Can definitely lead to some interesting variations in size of icons and info boxes.

We've had a nagging water leak in the hot water line to the washer since we got here.  Finally got it fixed (or at least it appears fixed) so we're glad that's over.  Within a day of that repair I broke a closet door latch.  These latches are somewhat fragile just like most cabinet hardware manufacturers install in RVs today.  No issues there.  We carry extras just for this occasion.  Got the old one off & tried to install the new one.  Shouldn't be a problem.  Just screw it in, right?  Nope.  Our frame around the closet hates screws.  Not that screws sent with RV parts are made of all that high quality.  But nothing should be that hard to do.

So we get the screws stuck. Didn't know you could do that, but we did.  Can't screw in.  Can't screw out.  As time went on, I striped the screw head.  No problem.  I got a Grab-it just for such occasions. Read the instructions.  Watched two YouTube videos to ensure I knew how to use it.  Then promptly destroyed the screw head.  Can't travel like this.  We've got a neighbor that's a darn good handy man.  Hopefully, he can give me pointers on what to do next.  Let's just say its an interesting day when a Windows OS computer works better than a screw & screwdriver.

So that's been our two weeks.  Hopefully, yours have been good.  Until next time.  David