New Desk is in!

Here's our new desk in place and ready to go!

Basic features include :

1. Large sliding drawer on left for printer which has wiring run within the desk for power and hookup to the computer.
2. Wide stow all 3-1/2" deep drawer above printer.
3. Center pencil drawer.
4. Center cabinet with adjustable shelf in foot area for storage of paper, notebooks, various manuals. There is also a false floor for electrical and heat vent. The cabinet doors are perforated to allow for venting and excess heat.
5. Two large file cabinets for our records are located on the right to keep everything in order.
6. Large desk top with access hole for wiring.
   

As mentioned previously, we were very unhappy with the so called J-Lounge that is standard equipment on the coach...it was uncomfortable to sit on and not long enough to sleep on unless you were a small child. We had seen elsewhere on the web, desks that have been retrofitted into coaches but nothing specifically fit our requirements. So we started working with a cabinet shop to develop what we wanted for ourselves. Joe Salet of Greenfield Cabinetry, Inc in Warren Michigan (586-759-3300) and his staff put together exactly what we were looking for. We would now have a workspace that did not have to be moved everytime we ate dinner and allowed us the use of the J-Lounge space for something we would appreciate.
Notice that the counter top matches perfectly the other tops throughout the coach and provides not only a large working surface but could be used for setting out food when entertaining.

The filing drawers are oversized with intent so that I can keep pricebooks and catalogs withing reach.
The slide out drawer for the printer easily accommodates most HP printers.
The lower drawer on the right had to be modified somewhat to allow for the heat vent that was fed through to the center of the desk.
We are very pleased and if anyone out there is interested in doing the same sort of thing, I would highly recommend Greenfield Cabinetry. They were great to work with and we thought their pricing appropriate for task.

Updates

Been kind of sedentary for awhile but have a few projects going. One particular thing of interest is that the campground (River View RV and Resort) we stayed at in Vidalia, Louisiana across the river from Natchez did indeed flood with spring rains and thaws shortly after we left. You may recall we weren't really concerned while we were there but our friends, Ken and Vera, stayed there a week or so ago and half the campground was underwater! (See April 5th post)

We have also been planning and have now arranged to have a desk installed rather than have the "J Lounge" in our "living room" of the motorhome. Not sure what others think about the J Lounge, but to me its sort of useless piece of furniture. Its uncomfortable to sit and while its supposed to fold out to be used as a bed, you would have to be 3 or 4 feet tall to be comfortable. Although, it was great when the grandchildren stayed with us. At any rate we are having a desk built that will hide printers and files away and give some semblance of order in the coach. I have attached a picture below of the J Lounge that is to be replaced and will post pictures of the desk once it's installed.

Another thing that I have done over the years is to tie the flys for flyfishing that I never seem to find time for anymore. The plan is however to go north in the near future to one of our favorite spots and do a little trout fishing. In check my stocks of flys however, it is time to tie some more. Marge has allowed me to take over the dining room table for awhile to allow me room to work. Molly, my grandaughter thinks all the feathers and furs "icky" and wanted nothing to do with it.Below is just one of the nymph flys tied over the last week. I have enjoyed this hobby for quite some time and its always rewarding when you catch something on a lure that you have made.

Tow Boats on the Mississippi River

We were really surprised at how many towboats or pushboats were operating on the river considering that the water was continuing to rise. Years ago we were fortunate enough to take a Rhine River cruise from Amsterdam to Basil Switzerland and there were hundreds of smaller "freighters" actually family liveaboard type barges. These on Mississippi and other major rivers here in the states push as many as 20 barges at one time.

In Vicksburg down on the river there is a display being put together showing these pushboats up close. It appears they draw very little draft and seeing the props you can see how they are able to power the barges around even in shallow water. I don't know how big the engines are but to drive the as many barges as they do they would have to quite powerfull
In viewing this ship its really much bigger than they appear on the water and from the looks of the cabin structure they must have a fair size crew. Passengers maybe?
Another thing I found kind of interesting was how little freeboard (distance from water to deck) there was. If you were ever to go where there was any major wake from another boat it could be quite interesting.!
This boat has obviously been fixed up as it looked like it really should not have been on display but being used on the river. Maybe this is an outdated model of a type not being used anymore. Anyway, this is all on the waterfront in Vicksburg, Mississippi any worth seeing.

Rocky Springs on the Natchez Trace

This year we decided to take the Natchez Trace home rather than one of the interstates and we had heard good things about the "Trace". It is a highway that was started in the 1930's that follows what was originally and old Indian and hunters trail from Natchez to Nashville and later a pathway that flatboatmen would follow home after drifting down the rivers to Natchez to sell their goods and even their boat for lumber before walking back on the Trace to home. Along the way there were various inns that they stayed at and Rocky Springs was the location of one of those stops along the way. The Trace today has three campgrounds along the way, one being at Rocky Springs. These campgrounds are free and really quite nice and with a short hike not too far from the Rocky Springs settlement or what is left of it today.... a brick church (still in use today) and abandoned house sites with a few old safes that must have been to heavy to haul away.


The picture above is one of the three safes we saw just left lying and now small monuments to times past. It sort of surprised us that this sort of thing has survived with little left of any buildings that may have been in the area. There were some cisterns from previous buildings but nothing else.
The church which has been well kept is still standing and having been in the brick business at one time it was fascinating to see how well some of the old hand made brick have survived after 250 years plus.
This detail at the grave yard I thought was really neat. It was part of a larger gate that has fallen in the typical disarray but unique to the rest of the stones and memorials in the cemetery behind the church.

The trees in the area were really kind of neat and almost something out of a Stephen King novel with all the creepy moss hanging from the limbs.
We both thought the picture above was strange too with the roots of tree reminding us of a spider. We thought the whole cemetery would be a good set for some ghoulish movie.
Between the moss and the trees and of course being in a cemetery we thought the place as unique particularly coupled with the history.

We stayed over night at the campground located there and moved on the next day. The highway is great in that they have a 50 MPH limit and there is little traffic for 450 miles. It is certainly a far cry from the interstates and a pleasure to drive. We probably averaged 45 miles an hour or less and saw beautiful country all along. There is (probably every 10 miles) a marked historical item with parking to stop and see from civil war sites to Indian burial grounds. A great trip if you not in a hurry! And Mississippi is a beautiful in the spring time!

Side visit to Vicksburg, Misssissippi

In the continuing saga of trying to post pictures I thought I would try to show you some pictures taken in Vicksburg of TRAINS!!!!

The city of Vicksburg is on quite a bluff with a lower level and maybe a former ferry site at the base near the water ...... lots to see.

Old Train yards

An old turntable without any roundhouse but neat and old

There was a new shed where the old roundhouse may have been

It still seems to be used though difficult to figure how or to do what?

Natchez, Mississippi

Wow.....where to begin....This beautiful, quaint little town of about 16,000 people on a ridge above the Mississippi River is a wonder. First, its the oldest established community on the Mississippi River. Formerly one of the richest communities in the US thanks to the cotton grown in this area and now a great place to visit and probably live any time of the year. Lots of good resturants, great architecture and plantation homes that are unbelievable.

Marge and I arrived Friday morning and set up camp in Vidalia, Louisana accross the river from Natchez. Natchez is built on a high ridge above the water and its apparent that Vidalia has had and is susceptable to flooding. In fact the river is cresting a record highs right now and our campground is between the river and the levy with the water still rising. According to the news, its a few feet off a record but if there is any more rain it could be very interesting!!! A note of interest is that the river barge traffic has been slowed and halted in some areas as the current is exceptionaly fast and movement of the large barge "trains" causes some stress to the low lying areas and levy's.

Between us we have taken almost 200 pictures of this area and I will try to post some of the more interesting below

Lousy picture but shows flooding on Vidalia, Lousiana side of river.

Under the bridges between Natchez and Vidalia

Casino flooding at the riverfront in Natchez

150 year old plus home (?) office (?)

Covered walks in dowtown Natchez

Rosalie Mansion at the edge of the ridge above the river.

Typical downtown street

Pictures posted but not without problems will try to do more in the next few days . We leave Natchez in the morning heading north along the Natchez Trace

Marge is getting quit artistic with her photography as shown below. Sunshine Key has a mile marker post with distances from various cities around the country although I think some of the distances were put up there to make you feel closer than you are. But it is kind of neat and with the huge Flag that is flown here the picture turned out kind of nice.

In case you haven't noticed the pictures are posting now. I have to think it was the connection we had in the Keys as once we moved (today) things seem to be working fine.

We left the keys today with a tinge at regret as it seems clear we may not be back next year. Policies and cost increases have certainly gotten out of hand and while we may visit for a short time, we have decided to go elsewhere next year. At this point in time we are still planning on Florida but have made reservations near Fort Myers at Up River RV Resort which we have stayed at before. We even left our coach there a year ago Christmas when we flew home. The resort has access to the Caloosahatchee River with a boat ramp and the Gulf is just a short distance (16 miles) for Salt Water Fishing. We're already looking forward to it although we will miss the keys.

Tonight we are at the Ortona Locks on the Caloosahatchee River just outside of LaBelle Florida. We have a place in Labelle that we store the boat for the season and we will prep it and wrap it tomorrow then drop it off. We really like this campgroun...its a Corps of Engineer campground right on the river as you can see from our past posts....small spacious and really quiet. Lots of wildlife...manatees, otters all kinds of birds including the bald eagle in a tree accross the way.

I close out this post with a few classic pictures of sunsets etc. We will try and make up for our lack of post and pictures on our trip home now that that the system seems to be working.

We've been here now almost three months and neither of us knows where the time goes. Obviously the blog has been sort of forgotten at times as it has been a bit of pain to try to get anything to post properly. Google documents works very well for posting but unless the connection is good it never posts completely. Editing after the fact is so frustrating that I have given up to some extent so I apologize for the lack of posts this year while in the keys.

Lots of things have happened this year..
....Ben, our son came for as short visit
....Marge's cousin, Sandy was in Key West and visited with us briefly
....our friends the Ritchies have come down and stayed for the month of March although David has discovered he really does not care for fishing all that much. He does like eating those fish that we have caught though. Deanna on her first trip enjoyed herself thoroughly was the best student in learning to fish in salt water. She caught some nice fish too! Mark her son and his friend Jesse came down and also enjoyed a day fishing and they checked out Key West on St Patricks Day
....Dave Jag and his family were down and his son and his wife also were quite the fisherman catching enough for dinner and I think enjoying being on the water too!

....The Thompsons were here for their longest time ever
....A really strange happening was the Eagle Ray that jumped into a passing boat and unfortunately killed a woman from the blow. We have seen rays jumping often but never close to a boat. We even saw a 6ft shark come out of the water, which we had never seen before.
....we continue to eat and imbibe and enjoy with the many folks we have met over the years here at Sunshine key. Fishing and boating has been great and lots of fun.

All of us have had difficulty with the changing rules and costs and along with that the management of Sunshine Keys attitude. Basically, the costs being less than half in most other places has had a great deal to do with our decision not to return next year for the usual 3 months we spend here. We aren't sure, but we may still come down for a short time but management seems to have done its best to drive its loyal customer base away We have made reservations near Fort Myers for next year and a lot of the group is going elsewhere for some of the same reasons we are.

We plan on leaving tomorrow and will drop off the boat for storage... then we hope to head West to Natchez, Ms. From there we hope to work our way north along the Natchez Trace and get home mid April.

I tried one more time to post a few pictures but signal strength or ? has once again prevented the posting of pictures. Once we move it may be different.

Posting using Google's Documents

Well, by changing internet access and trying something new that really seems easy to use, things are beginning to work. Google documents will allow me to post text and pictures by just typing and placing the pictures, which makes it very much easier than previously. Anyway here goes with pictures again. Will try just one the first time.

Bat Tower at Sugarloaf Key

Pictures Finally!

Tried once again using Picasso and it seems to have worked this time. Rather than try to insert pictures into the old post, I have inserted the three concerning the bat house on Sugarloaf Key below. The first is of the tower by itself

The louvered access for the bats.

A view from the bottom looking up at all the "cubicles"?

Hopefully this will all post properly.

Picture Problems

Still having problems posting pictures. Have tried a couple of different methods but nothing has worked to this point. Internet connection has been one source of the problem sometimes but we're stuck with this connection until we move.

Bat House

Many years ago, when development started in the lower keys the mosquito population was a terrible problem and someone got the idea that maybe they could be controlled with bats imported from central Florida. (A single bat can eat as many as 1000 mosquito's a day.) At any rate, in 1929 a gentleman by the name of Perky decided to build this tower to entice bats to survive and multiply and resolve at least some of the problems with the mosquito population.
Perky Bat Tower

This tower is about 40 or 50 feet tall and quite intricate with roosts for the bats behind louvers that allow them to come and go with the roosts inside protected by the shake shingles on the exterior of the tower.
Entrance Louvers

This last view is from the bottom of the tower which shows the strange spacing of the interior boards that allows roosting areas through out the structure. The problem was that either the bats all died or moved on to better climates and the structure is still obviously standing to this day. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Hows that for an interesting tidbit about the Florida Keys?

Special Weekend

Valentines day our son Ben joined us for a long weekend in what we think is a bit of paradise. The first picture below is a view from the bridge looking to the beach our little island where we have spent the last seven weeks or so. The picture was taken the day that he came down so you can see we had beautiful weather and althought windy but ok seas.We did do a little exploring to see some of the sights with Ben. Its been some time since he was down here and last time it was more of a diving adventure and not too much fishing. Of course we have the boat now and that allows to do a lot more exploring and fishing. Below we visited whats called the "Blue Hole" which is a carved out piece of Big Pine Key that is part of the National Key Deer Refuge. We did see an alligator and a very colorful Iguana but no deer. Usually the deer come out of the bushes to be fed (definitely a no no) but not this day
Thought I would post a few traditional family pictures....father and son....mother and son....and last but not least the airport picture when he left.

We had an excellent time with him here and we were pleased to introduce him to our friends that we have made over the years down here in the Keys. We did keep him quite busy though ....out in the sun all day fishing then partying with appetizers (even got him to try fresh oysters) and of course a good helping of beer. He was in bed before us one of the nights! He, of course, got totally sunburned, but we did have fun catching quite a variety of fish... even a small 3' shark.

We are, needless to say are very proud of him.

Thursday Nights at Sunshine Key

Over the years of coming to this campground there have been a lot of people that have shared their individual talents to entertain everyone. The last few years Jack and Kathy with their friend Jim (occasionaly even their grown children) have put on mini concerts on thursday nights. Each week at 7:00 pm everyone gathers in front of their motorhome which they have set up as sort of a stage from which they sing and play music for a few hours. As you can see below it draws quite a crowd.

Jack and Kathy

The Crowd (as many as 100)

View from behind Jim, Kathy and Jack as they entertain

All ages come out to enjoy!

"Doin some fishin"

While Marge and I have been doing some regular fishing and of course bragging about how wonderful the fishing was, my good friend Dave Harris from home decided to take me up on an offer to see for himself. Dave has a place in the "Villages" where he plays a lot of golf!! Dave and his family live and breathe golfing. His three sons are all good with very low handicaps and Mike his middle son plays on the Canadian Tour. They all play as much as they can and enjoy the game very much. Below is a picture of us having lunch with Dave at the Cafe by the pool here at Sunshine Key.
We had been waiting for a couple of good days without too much wind and reasonably calm seas to go fishing. Dave drove down and last week we went out bright and early in calm seas no wind and lots of fog and heavy mist. Actually it was reasonably warm and the fog and mist really didn't cause too much of a problem. We even caught a fair number of fish! That evening Dave and I went out to eat and he left the next day. A good time!

Our son Ben is coming down for a long weekend in two weeks to do some of the same and get a little sunshine to boot! Will keep you posted.

Internet service

For some reason the last two months have not been the most satisfying relative to dealing with the internet and all the various connections to it. We have "suffered" through old fashion land lines to private service and even tried Comcast again which was the final straw! WE MISS OUR DATASTORM!!!! As you may recall, that was the one item that was not covered under the insurance...... we needed a rider to cover that type of item. I finally broke down and signed up for the private service that Sunshine Key offers. For the time being we will have better connections and hopefully, I will keep up a little better now.

We have been here now a little over two weeks and have been busy since we got here seeing old friends and settling in. All of us have had some real problems with management this past fall as they seemed to change the rules and particularly the costs with regard to having a boat down here. Bottom line is that the cost of having a boat went sky high by virtue of the fact that we can no longer keep the boat on site for free, but are now required to keep it either in the dry racks they were to have built or in a marina slip. All this at an increase of about $500.00 a month or more minimum. Needless to say there were a lot of upset people. The racks, however (seen below) still are not finished and management had to back pedal. Next year will be interesting as we are aware of many who are not returning or at least for not for the length of time we usually do. all a due to these new costs. Unfortunately, the Florida Keys as beautiful as they are and the cost of being here ... has started to force people to look elsewhere. Times change! An interesting side note is that there are many vacancies where there never were in previous years. Perhaps due to the cost of fuel but the change in policies at this campground have certainly had some effect.


New animal alert.....Iguana's. They have invaded this small Key. Not easily seen but fascinating to watch. The ones we have seen seem young or smaller than we have seen in other areas of the keys but they are neat!
Look close .....he's there in the tree by our motorhome.

We have been doing a little fishing with great success and eating our catch regularly.....There is nothing like fishing during the day and then having fresh fish for dinner in the evening. Our friend Dave Harris is down to fish for a day or two ....will let you know how that turns out.

Back in Florida Keys

The funeral for big Al went well with respects being paid by old friends and relatives. As I had said previously he was very well thought of and a fine man.

We were able to fly back to our coach which we had left at Collier Seminole State Park in the overflow area. The park people were absolutely fantastic about taking care of us and allowing us to leave the coach there and they even kept an eye on it for us. They even helped us pack everything in so we could leave it and catch a plane home. Nice People!!!! Thank you again Joe and Karen.

We arrived back to find everything in order and packed up and headed out for our favorite Florida Keys spot. Some changes at the resort but we are settled in and we will try tokeep you up to speed on everything we do and see.