December 14, 2006 - Lovers Key
Good grief! Where has the time gone? Flies when you're having fun, eh? Sure true in our case. And even though there's been no recent updates, it doesn't mean we've not been taking pictures and having fun! Or is it "having fun and taking pictures"? If you'd like an e-mail letting you know when updates happen, drop us a note at daveandbarbj at etcetera4 dot net, and we'll be happy to include you on the list. Of course, I have no commercial interest in your e-mail address nor will I share it with anybody else.
Thought we'd give you a bit of a peek at our current "home." These shots were taken from the Black Island Nature Trail across the canal from where we're living. In the close-up, you can see the little cargo trailer, and our sunscreens fastened to our awning. That black thing leaning against the fender of the trailer is a couple of our favorite lounge chairs, all folded up and comfy in their covers that Barb built for them.
Elmer and Ann to the left, Ron and Rainie to the right, across the street from us. Ron Richie is our next door neighbor. Last year he had a little 5th wheel trailer, but it was water damaged over the summer, so he's borrowing his sister's Class C she doesn't use much (lives in MI) and thinking about buying it. We find these sites to be some of the best as far as distance between neighbors is concerned. Yeah, would be nice if the grass was a bit sturdier and more prevalent, and there was pavement to cut down on the dust, but hey, for what we have to "pay" for them, and their location, we're not about to fuss about anything.
Behind Elmer and Ann, and Ron and Rainie, are two more sites. These are a bit more private and don't have any traffic going back and forth to the shop. But they are further away from the water. Apparently not a problem as whenever there's a party it's at Ron Richie's place or ours because of the setting, and neither Raymond & Josie (French Canadians with the motorcycle) or Joe and Betty (first year here - for one month) seem to like to fish. At least they've never come over to fish with us.
Of the six rigs, half of us are fulltime RV'ers and the others have homes someplace "up north."
I've walked around the "volunteer village" and come into the shop area from the back gate. Our home is on the right a bit further down this road. The current configuration is that these small storage buildings house the gas powered tools, like chainsaws, string trimmers, hand mowers and blowers along with supplies for the park like brochures, maps of the park, paper towels, and toilet paper.
A peek at our "private stash" if you will, 2006 version. The green mower is the one the volunteers use around our spaces, the orange one is used by the staff for the rest of the park. Inside their respective frames by the door on the right is the pump we use to empty the big water tank that rides in the dump truck, then a new genset, and the old one that quit next to it, with the pressure washer sort of in front it by the red tool box.
This ancient cart was used to take visitors from the parking lot to the beach for a while is my understanding. Today it's used by whomever if all of the EZ-GOs are in use, and they're not going off the road. Barb likes that it's so quiet (electric powered), but fusses because it has no shock absorbers or springs. We have three new EZ-GO's this year. Powerful engines and a dump bed (hand, not electric) which makes emptying trimmings a lot easier, believe me.
A couple of broken EZ-GO's waiting for either Ranger Randy to fix or Roger & Dawn when they get here in January. Our workbench is pretty typical, but this year the organization is a lot better, and it's a lot easier to find whatever it is we're looking for.
Keeping track of tools is always a challenge, and Barb and I are impressed with this place. As you know, we've done a bit of volunteer work over these past eight years of "homelessness," and this is one of the many reasons Lovers Key is a favorite. The staff here seem to make it a part of their job to keep things easy for the volunteers. Not just the six of us "live-in" volunteers, but the large number of local and snowbird volunteers as well. As we understand it, the pole barn that Wilma unceremoniously dumped in our old parking place in October of 2005 will be replaced with a real four-sided roll-up door garage for parking all the rolling stock, which will give us much more room to work on things in the shop. That's supposed to happen sometime early next year. Hope it does. Change is always fun for us.
Rather than pile this page full of pictures, I've put together four different slide shows, so you can pick and choose which to spend time on. First, is the "work" show where we get to use some of these toys, then there's one of "birds" that we enjoy while we're working or playing around here, and then one of Barb's "shells", and finally, my "fishing" results.
Hard to tell if this is love or war. Such differences in sizes and coloration. We finally decided they were in the process of making more grasshoppers. These are called southeastern lubber grasshoppers and are big rascals, average about 2 1/2" long.
Those tiny wings can still propel this big body just fine. And then one of the "stick bugs" we have around home. This one is climbing up the bicycle cover for reasons known only to it. I found another one on the ground and picked it up to put it near this one to see what would happen, and it spit a kind of milky liquid on me. When I put it on the cover, it just slid back down to the ground, and I let well enough alone at that point. I don't much care for anything spitting on me you know.
A couple of our great RV'ing friends, Marc and Claudia, are currently on a construction job in MI and, having a new Gold Wing, were putting as many miles on as they could during the riding season up there. They'd seen Barb's mailbox collection and sent this to her. How nice it is to have people think about us as they're out having fun..... and even nicer that they take the time to let us know about it! Like Bill and Diane did recently with their return trip to Death Valley.