Cedar Key - Day # 21 - "Gone With The Wind"

For most of the past 3 weeks the night time temperature in our bedroom at night has ranged from 78-80 degrees.  I know that may seem a little high to you, and we could probably get it lower by opening the windows at night, but we would also be increasing the relative humidity inside our coach.  We run a de-humidifier 24 hours a day inside the coach, it works wonderfully, and makes even 80 degrees inside feel cooler.  Anyway, my point is last night the bedroom temperature dropped to 58 degrees!  I knew we took that electric blanket off the bed too soon!

We were expecting a front to come through Thursday involving wind, low temps, and rain.....and that is exactly what we got.  Below is the view that greeted me around 7 am.....then the wind came up and blew steadily at 25-30 mph all day long, and into the evening.  Around mid day it got very cold, and is still very cold as I write....around 40 degrees at this writing.  Of course, that means it was probably in the high 30's last night.....BRRRR!!

As the wind speed increased we began pulling in the window awnings on the drivers side of the coach.....the side that faces the water.....and finally by late morning we had to stow the patio awning....always a really fun task when the wind is blowing hard.  Fortunately, as TLE and I were struggling to stow the large awning Forrest Clark (a NuRVer) walked by and immediately jumped in to give a hand, for which we are very thankful....when it's blowing that hard you need more than two sets of hands.  Thank you Forrest!  Forrest writes a blog about his retirement travels called Retired, RVing and Rambling, which presents another great perspective on this lifestyle, so give it a peek when you have time!

The only plan this weather interrupted was the "circuit training" with Brian and Maria, otherwise we had no real plans for yesterday, so we just hunkered down and stayed inside our rockin' and rollin' coach.  Fortunately the DVR memory had several TV shows recorded that we hadn't watched yet, so we passed some of the stormy day catching up on a few series we watch.

We knew that our friends Dan, Marlene and family (Mali Mish) would be pulling out around midday and eventually that time came.......time to say "adieu"....I'm getting more used to it, because I know we'll meet again, but it is sill bittersweet.  I was able to catch this brief video snippet of them disappearing around the corner.....:(  The background audio you hear is from the program "Top Chef", which TLE was watching at the time.

Around 5:30 I glanced out the window to see the beginning of the sunset, and ran over to Chris and Cherie's dock to capture it......I stayed just long enough for two shots and then retreated to the heated comfort of the Newell.  That water does not look inviting....not even a little bit!

Within minutes the sunset was obscured by the thick cloud bank off to the left, and Sunset Isle was quickly engulfed in the gathering darkness signaling the end of another Cedar Key day.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cedar Key - Day # 4 - aka: New Years Day

It occurred to me that I hadn't taken any pictures of our camp, other than one taken at night of the awning lights, so here are a couple of perspective shots.  The first is taken from the dock looking back at our coach....you can see Chris and Cherie's GM (aka: "Zephyr")  in the foreground.  The second is taken from our coach looking back toward the water.....the dock is hidden by "Zephyr".

New Year's Day......our first ever celebrated on the road, outside California, and here we are a coast away from our home celebrating in a place where the night time low was in the mid 50's, and the high was close to 70....and there was sunshine.....warm, delicious, soothing, healing sunshine.

TLE and I watched a little of the beginning of the Rose Parade, but it just didn't seem the same watching it on a 22" TV.  Eventually we walked over to site #58 to retrieve our love seat folding chair and fireplace (we ended up, at Sam's request, leaving the fireplace for him to clean and return later in the day).  We were the last ones to retrieve our belongings, and with the retrieval of our chair there was no evidence left of the celebration from the night/morning before.

I mentioned in yesterday's entry that TLE had lost one of her prized dangling earrings the day before on our walk back from town.  She had gone back to look for it, but had not found it.  Even though another day had expired, and the odds of finding it diminished, I suggested we walk back and double team it this time....two sets of eyes are much better.   As we strolled along I sensed that TLE was making peace with the loss, but I just had a feeling we would find it.  We had walked almost half way back to town when suddenly a feeling of expectation came over me that we were near the spot where it was lost, and would come upon it in seconds......the thought was still hanging in the air when TLE announced "I found it!"....there it was laying right on the sidewalk where it had fallen with one of it's feathers broken off.  

This is the second time she has lost one of these earrings, and miraculously found it again.  The first time was in a Dallas hotel a couple of years ago.  We were sharing a suite with our in-laws when TLE could not find one of her earrings......she looked everywhere in our room, but could not find it.  Patricia, married to my nephew Richard, upon hearing the news walked directly to the door of their suite, bent down and picked it up.  She said she had an immediate sense of where to find it.....hmmmmm.

Well, we walked home, retrieved my soldering tools from the trailer, got out one of TLE's cutting boards, and with with TLE holding a large magnifying glass over the earring I proceeded to successfully solder the "feather" back to the earring.  My soldering skills have improved a lot since we were in Mesa, AZ last February where my friend Tom McCloud showed me how to do a proper soldering job.....thank you again Tom!

We lazed around the rest of the day.....me watching Bowl games.....the Rose Bowl, which I always watch, was a defensive thriller right down to the last 60 seconds with Sanford making an interception, the only turnover of the game, to seal the win, 17 - 14, over Wisconsin.  An earlier Bowl game between South Carolina and Michigan came right down to the last 16 seconds.

Near the end of the Orange Bowl game (Northern Illinois vs. Florida State) TLE turns to me and says "I love our life".....well, what husband does not want to hear that from his wife after 41 years of marriage, and 11 months of living a nomadic life in a 200 sq ft motorcoach??

That was a perfect ending to the first day of 2013!

Thanks for stopping by!