When It Rains, It REALLY Rains

Tuesday gave us heavy cloud cover and off and on rain.  During one of the rain breaks, Doug and I walked down to the beach area at the RV park to say "so long, see you soon" and throw some pennies in the water for loved ones gone and loved ones here.

Less than an hour after I took these photos, the rains came hard and the wind starting really blowing.  We turned to TWC.com to take a good look at the radar.  Sure enough, a totally red area was headed right for us.  Okay, batten the hatches time.  The MH was rocking and we hurried outside to bring in the chairs and few miscellaneous items that were outside.  The NBC station out of Pensacola was reporting a 60 mph wind gust about 4 miles north of us.  We got another "calm before the storm" and closed up the awning.  Thunder and lightning everywhere around us, to the north, to the south, to the west and to the east.  The mother of all storms we have been in while in our MH. This was worse than the weather we had Saturday morning when there was a waterspout out in the Gulf.

As the storm moved east of us, we realized we had dodged the bullet.  I grabbed the camera and took some shots to the east where you could still see lots of lightning.

We ended up with about an inch of rain, although the total rainfall for the 7 day period was 3.32 inches.  We've had plenty of cool, breezy days in all of our trips to Florida, but I'm sure this is the most rain we've ever had there.  Even with the rain, it was a great stay.  We went to the beach, I took the dogs on lots of walks (the better to walk off all those extra calories from great deserts from Publix), I listened to music every day and I'm on book 18 in the Prey series, Phantom Prey, and will probably finish it tonight.

We headed north this morning and drove to Cornersville, TN and are staying at the Texas T RV Park.  Nice one night stop over.  Tomorrow, we will make our way to Indy to visit with my family.  I'm especially looking forward to hugging my youngest sister, Karen.  She was diagnosed with breast cancer in May, had a lumpectomy in July and then began chemo.  While I've seen her a couple of time this summer, I haven't seen her since she started chemo.  She's a tough broad (and I mean that in the nicest way) having survived lots of things in her short 55 years.  Can't wait for that seester hug.  By the way, Karen, one of those pennies was for you!

We have 2 pieces of mango key lime pie left.  Time to finish it off with a cup of coffee.

You Can't Keep a Good Gull Down

On Sunday, lots of folks left the RV park leaving wide open spaces for us.  The spots here are wide but we've had someone on both sides of us ever since we got here.  It's really nice not having anyone beside us or across the road from us.

Last Thursday, we spent the best $23.99 we have spent this whole trip.  Although honestly, other than paying for fuel, RV sites, groceries and one dinner out,  we really haven't spent anything else.  Okay, back to the best $23.99.  After listening to our awning flap in the wind for a week, we bought some tie downs.

When we were in Camping World we couldn't find any so we asked for some help.  The lady at the cash register says "sure, I know where they are" and took us to their location.  Doug picks up this set and she asked "what kind of awning do you have?  Is it an electric one?".  We told her yes.  She says "oh no, you can't use this kind with an electric awning".  Okay, we'll bite.  "Why not?"  She says "oh gee, I can't remember why, but Bill told me you can't.  Let me go get him".  So she brings Bill back and we ask "why can't you use these with an electric awning?".  Bill says "well, if you forget to take them off, it will put a strain on the motor and fry your motor".  Okay, Bill, seriously.  Who would forget to take these off before hitting the button to retract the awning?  But being the polite people that we are, we didn't say that him, we just said "We don't think that will be a problem".  They work great and were easy to put on.  No more awning flapping in the breeze.  I don't know why we waited so long to buy some.  

The weather forecast for yesterday was mostly cloudy, but the skies said different.  Those weather forecasters don't always get it right.  When Jean, Corey and I went to Italy, one morning one of the people on the tour asked why they didn't have the Weather Channel on cable TV.  The guide says "why are Americans so obsessed with someone telling them what the weather will be?  Open the window and look outside and see for yourself".  And she was right.  When you want to know, stick your head out the window!

We headed to the beach and it was beautiful!  There were some clouds, but tons of sun, too.

Some cirrus, altocumulus and the ever present cumulonimbus.

 

I noticed a seagull who seemed to be limping along.  After looking at him closer, it appeared that he had a broken leg.  He still went in and out of the water getting food and eventually flew off.  He did just fine.  I guess you can't keep a good gull down.

My dear Peg Leg

We had a great sunset last night.  Best one yet.

The forecast for today is a high of 84 degrees, winds east at 9 mph and scattered thunderstorms.  But who cares about the forecast.  When I look outside my window right now, it's clearing in the west and the sun is coming out.  Like I said, you can't keep a good gull down.

It's our last day here, and if we're going to say "so long until next time" to the beach, I better get the coffee brewing.

Good Neighbors

Yesterday was stormy off and on.  I took these photos around 2:00.

This is a sign that was in front of a store on the beach called Sandy Bottoms.  Simply stated and right on point.

Today we learned that around 10:00 a.m. yesterday, there was a waterspout over the Gulf.  It was storming so bad here then, that I couldn't even step outside to take any pictures.  It was only about 3 miles from us, as the crow flies.  Here's a photo that a beach resident took of it.

We didn't know it was happening and in fact, it never crossed my mind that this could be in the area.  We were watching The Weather Channel and there were no tornado alerts.  Like our friend, Heidi, said "ignorance is bliss".  Got that right.

Our neighbors to the one side were with a group of three RV'ers.  They were from Mississippi and the other two were from Georgia.  They were next to us for a week so we got to know them a bit.  The one right next to us was the cook in the group and we watched him cook up several things over the week.  Yesterday it was ribs.  Around 8:00 last night, he knocked on our door and gave us some of the ribs.  We had already eaten so we are having them tonight.  Good neighbor to share their food with us.

While the rain was pretty much gone today (although it lightly rained a few times), it was not beach weather.  We headed out for some lunch.  We had driven past a Whataburger a few times and never having been to one, decided to try it.  Whataburger originated in Texas.  I had the patty melt.

The burger was REALLY good with a great sauce and diced, sauteed onions.  The fries, not so good.  No fast food restaurant has good fries anymore.  They're all so concerned about making fast food healthy and use soy-corn oil now, less trans fats.  If people realized that fast food should only be eaten once in awhile, then maybe we could have good fries again.  I think I've ordered my last of fast food fries.  They taste like cardboard.

Our neighbors on the other side of us, Johnny and Elaine, are from Georgia and were here when we got here.  They are probably the nicest RV neighbors we've ever had.  Johnny took some photos for us tonight and we are so grateful.

Johnny and Doug

Johnny and Mary Ann

Doug, Jackie, Mary Ann and Jesse

You meet a lot of good folks when you RV, but some are really special.  Johnny and Elaine are the special variety.

Two more days until we leave to head north to Indy.  Tomorrow looks like some sun so I hope we can head to the beach for one last afternoon with the sun on my nose and sand on my toes.  For now, it's time to fill the coffee cup.

Rain, Rain and More Rain

What can I say except:

“The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.” - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.” - G.K. Chesterton

“I've seen fire and I've seen rain, I've seen sunny days I thought would never end, I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, but I always thought I'd see you again” - James Taylor

"You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too. That's a part of it." - Denzel Washington

And that's all I've got.

Full Moon Rising or is that Bad Moon Rising?

Yesterday was a blue-ribbon day at the beach.  Sunny, warm and breezy.

It was a good thing we enjoyed it yesterday because today we've already had 2 downpours and high winds.  The sun comes out in between, but the weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow is thunderstorms.  A day, a night and another day of relaxing!

Last night we went to the Navarre Pier Restaurant. Very casual place, live music, outdoor seating and GREAT burgers.  We really enjoyed ourselves.

While we were there the full moon started rising.  It was so orange.  The photo doesn't show it, but it is what it is.

Bad Moon Rising - CCR

When we left, we found this 3 wheeled motorcycle in the parking lot.  The colors rotated from red to blue to purple to yellow.  It was very cool.

The mobile RV repair guy left us a voice mail while we were at dinner.  He was supposed to call me as soon as FedEx delivered the part (it was supposed to be shipped overnight on Wednesday and to arrive on Thursday) so that he could tell me what time they would be here today (Friday) to install it.  The part didn't arrive, but he fully expects it to here today.  He said he would call as soon as FedEx gets there (where have I heard this before?) and that he would install it either late Friday afternoon or first thing Saturday morning.  It's now 2:37 p.m. here and no phone call.  I guess I will call him soon and get the story.  The saga continues.

It's mid-afternoon and I'm still sipping coffee.  It's that kind of weather day.

If You Don't Like the Weather, Hang Around and It Will Change

We hung around here yesterday waiting on the RV repair service to come look at the AC again.  The day before they said they would call us "first thing" to let us know when they would be here to look at the AC for the second time.  No phone call, but they showed up around noon.  Now it turns out that the fan motor is burned out.  They don't have one in stock, so they ordered it from a supplier in Atlanta who is shipping it overnight.  It should be here today and they plan on installing it on Friday.

We had some lunch and decided to hang around here the rest of the day.  It was warm with a high of 88 degrees.  It was mostly cloudy but a nice breeze was blowing.  I read, took the dogs for walks and hit the grocery store.  The dogs love sitting outside in the breeze.

Miss Jackie

Jesse

Around 6:00 I notice those cumulonimbus clouds again, but because they were east of us, I thought we were safe as weather normally moves west to east.  For whatever reason, this system was moving east to west and around 7:00 here came the big winds again.  While scrambling to get the awning closed, Miss Jackie escaped.  Bad dog.  Bad, bad dog.  She didn't go far and a shake of the treat bag got her running back to the MH.  Doug hung onto one of the awning arms while I got her back inside.  Next time I see those clouds regardless of where they are, we will batten the hatches.

Sunrise this morning was glorious.

It's great to be alive!

Reading Time

Monday morning, we realized that maybe we had stayed at the beach a bit too long on Sunday, so we decided to hang at camp.  A day of R & R (well, at least for me because one of us can't hardly sit still for 10 minutes...guess who?).

In June, I picked up a paperback book at Meijer's by John Sandford.  The title of the book was Stolen Prey.  It's part of a series of books that Sandford wrote about a main character called Lucas Davenport.  Davenport is a cop and the story was very suspenseful.  When I finished it, I turned back to the first page and realized that there were 22 books in this series before Stolen Prey.  I loved the character so much, I decided to find them all and read them all.

Now the question was, what was the best way to do this?  I looked on Amazon at the Kindle versions and realized it would cost me a small fortune to buy and download them.  I searched Amazon and then found a used book seller who had all 22 of the books for sale as a set and for less than buying each of them as Kindle versions.  They arrived in late June and I started reading them.

As of yesterday, I was on book 16, Broken Prey.

These books have strong, likable characters and have some very scary bad guys.  I always admire the great imaginations of fiction writers.  How do they think of this stuff?  It's like Stephen King, one of my all time favorite writers.  Their talent for creating characters and circumstances just amazes me.  I have this blog to keep folks up to date when we travel but also to practice my writing skills.  My skills plain old stink compared to fiction writers.  Over the years, I've had a few ideas for books.  My friend, Wayne, has written a book which will be published soon.  It's not fiction, it's about some real life events that happened to him.  Seems like real life stuff would be easier to write than fiction, but he's been working on his book a long time.  Maybe some day I will give it a try.

Late in the afternoon, a mobile RV repair man showed up at the park to fix an air conditioning unit for a guy two spots down.  One of our AC's isn't working right, so Doug went and talked to him.  We made an appointment for today.  He said he would call first thing in the morning to let us know when he could be here.

By about 10:00 (which for me is not first thing in the morning) we hadn't heard anything, so I called him.  He said he would be here around 3:00.  Okay, perfect.  That gives us time to go to the beach for 2 hours to eat lunch and charge up the batteries in the sun.  It was a perfect day at the beach although the red flags were up.  Heavy undertow because of the storm way down in southwestern Texas.  We got our feet wet and kept cool, but didn't venture far into the water.

We headed back to the RV park so that we would be on-time for the repair guy.  3:00 came and went.  4:00 came and went.  5:00 came and went.  Florida sometimes is on what they call "island time".  3:00 means maybe 3:00 but likely within a couple of hours of 3:00.  The problem is that if you happen to get a person who is timely, you better be there or they'll be gone.  Just as I was about to call him, he pulled in the park. It was 5:20.  No explanation, just "here I am".

He went up on the roof and Doug followed him up to watch so that perhaps the next time it happens, Doug can fix it instead of calling a repair service. 30 minutes later he was done and out of here.  But guess what?  The AC is not really fixed.  It runs for like 10 minutes or so and then shuts off.  I called him back and got his boss.  Says he'll call "first thing in the morning".  I said, "hey, we're early risers so call as soon as you can".  We'll see.  Who wants to bet that we will need a new AC unit?  The AC unit in the back is working fine and it keeps the main area cool enough, but it's noisy and keeps me awake.

After he leaves, Doug says "Hey look at that!"  I turn and see an ultra light kind of thing with pontoons on it.  It was crazy.  We watched him in the air, we watched him land on the water, watched him scoot across the water pretty fast and then watched him take off again.  I couldn't get a very good shot because I only had my phone nearby but this is it.

You can just barely see him.  I have to look this up.  What in the world is this called?

A little while later, I see this cloud forming to the east.

I posted this on Facebook asking what kind of cloud it was.  I looked it up myself and decided that it was cumulonimbus.  I didn't read about them until a short time ago.  About 30 minutes after I shot this photo,  I took the dogs for a walk all the way to the end of the RV park.  While walking back, all of sudden the wind really picked up and the sky got dark.  Turns out that cumulonimbus clouds are associated with powerful thunderstorms known as...what else...SUPERCELLS.  Had I known this, I would never have headed that far from the RV.  When I got back we picked up everything quickly.  The awning was almost blowing over the roof.  It was very weird in that while we could hear thunder and see lightning, it hardly rained a drop.  But it was blowing very hard.  Next time I see this cloud, I will know what's coming next.

It's been a good day.  I finished Broken Prey and started on Invisible Prey.  Now before it gets too late, it's time for that last cup of coffee.

Gulf Islands National Seashore

After having had enough of the black flies on Saturday, we decided to try a different beach.  We headed west on SR 399 and into the Gulf Islands National Seashore.  It's a beautiful stretch of beach and a lot less people.

After dealing with the flies the previous day, my friend Marge had suggested that we try putting pennies in a baggie filled with water.  I had them ready but there were no flies yesterday!  Our neighbor at the RV park, Johnny, thinks that it matters which way the wind is blowing.  I think that might be true.  I also think that because at this stretch of beach, there is very little vegetation (only some sea oats near the parking area), that there are less flies.  I also think that because we were "fly ready" with the bagged pennies there were no flies.  Regardless of the reason, it was great day at the beach.

We saw some shore birds.

We got sun on the nose and sand on the toes.

We came back to the RV park, and I chatted with some ladies at the pool while doing the laundry.  What a great way spend 90 minutes.  Put the clothes in the washer, go in the pool, put the clothes in the dryer, go in the pool.

I got up at 5:30 this morning to watch sunrise.  It was great as usual.

It's going to be another beautiful day here.  High of 87, mostly sunny and winds ESE at around 8 mph.  Time for a fresh cup of coffee.