V-Day, Anniversary, New Washer, Gators, Birds and THE DESTROYER

 

It has been since before the Hurricanes that I had seen the Gator at the pond at the Library.  Well...it is still there, and a little bigger than the last time I saw it.

Saw this guy who had fish bits to feed them...reminded me of the fishermen in Alaska who tossed fish bits out of their boats and the Eagles would catch them mid-flight and soar off.  Here (above) about a dozen pelicans gather around this lone fisherman.

 Of course, our little girl is always looking out to see what is going on.

One day I see this crane on a barge with two non-survivors of the hurricane.  

    

A few days later THE DESTROYER, ummm, barge had moved over to the other side of the boat ramp, and chewed up and removed boat rubbish to this garbage/rubbish for disposal. On its way over it must have swung by and got that boat that was run aground that I showed in my last blog and got it back into the water, or loaded onto a boat trailer...either way, it is gone.

Although I only got a picture of one Juvenile Eagle, there are two, and boy do they grow fast.  Google AI (artificial intelligence) says, "A young eagle, or eaglet, typically takes around 10-12 weeks after hatching before it can fly, a process called fledging, where a bird leaves the nest and takes its first flight; this involves a period of practicing on branches near the nest before fully taking to the air."  Well, I have seen other photos and clips of these two Fledging Eagles sitting on the nest flapping their wings, but nothing yet of actual flight...but that is coming real soon.

  

Of course, we always have a healthy population of Osprey around.  This nest has at least two, if not three, birds in it, as I can here them chirping when mom and dad are out looking for food.  I thought in the one picture had captured them bringing a fish to the nest, but it was nest repair material, or perhaps bugs in the Spanish Moss it has in its claws.

This is our Fisher & Paykel washer, with the dryer sitting to the left.  On Friday (10 days ago or so) Marcia was doing a load of rags/towels and the washer would not empty the water out.  Called a repair company that had fixed it before, and they said they would be out first thing Monday morning...which they did.  Bad news, the pump is no longer available as a OEM (original equipment manufacturer) and although cheap (his words) pumps are available on Amazon and other places, his company will not allow the repairmen put any parts in that are not OEM.  The washer has been good to us, it is around 20 years old, so we decided to replace it.  I had asked the repair man, a real nice man who even Indy liked, what type of washer he would get and without hesitation he said, "Speed Queen...they just don't breakdown."

 DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH A WASHER IS NOW DAYS????  Well, the low end, on sale, are about $500-$600.  The Speed Queen's are running $1,000-$1,600, depending on model.  GULP.  Bit the bullet, went to Famous Tate's, and got the middle level Speed Queen for just over $1,300 including taxes, delivery, and taking old one away, and a 5 year guarantee.  Saturday (4 days ago, 8 days after the breakdown) it was delivered.  Glad I didn't have my ICE t-shirt on or it never would have made it through the front door.  Because we did not need inlet hoses, they would not hook up washer with the old hose, but they did allow me, reluctantly, to attach the hose before he pushed it in.  I offered him $10 to screw on the two hose lines...no go...go figure...forget that tip!  Yes, that is how rude he/they were, AND, the dryer exhaust hose came loose and blew warm damp air into the condo as Marcia washed clothes yesterday.  Good news, our neighbor Mary had her two boys coming out, and today John was nice enough (and young and thin enough) to get it hooked up for us.  Now, as long as that dryer does not break, we are in good shape for years.  If the dryer needs to be replaced, we are in deep crap because finding a top loading dryer (easier for Marcia to use) will be a hard thing to do.

Yesterday we celebrated our 14th Anniversary!  Around 150,000 miles in a RV.  About 1,400 loads of laundry.  Over 5,000 dinners, same for breakfast, 50% less for lunches which we don't eat each day.  Oh, the list goes on and on...but we made it through the big unlucky "13" years, and headed for number 15!  For V-Day (valentines) we had a leg of lamb, and still have some left overs in the freezer of that...so we decided to have something we don't have very often...PIZZA!  My guess is that of those 5,000 dinners, maybe 100 of them included Pizza!

 

Weather Delay, Oh Darn, Stuck in Yellowstone! :)

I have been watching the weather for the past few days, and I knew this spring storm was going to be upon us.  This morning we awoke to slight rain, but snow and rain up in the areas we want to travel to.  We thought about heading over to the north entrance and camp for $10 in the park (senior rate), and we even looked at the Fishing Bridge RV Park on our trip yesterday, but it is the same price as what we are paying now, would add extra miles, and we would not have any TV or WiFi Internet which would require us to use our aircard.  So we are staying put for two more nights.  Oh Darn!    And since the weather is not over Yellowstone today, we still get to go out and enjoy the park some more!  Double Darn!     

The map above shows the open and closed roads currently in Yellowstone.  By the 13th nearly all the red will be green (which means open), with only the area from Tower Fall to Canyon Junction being closed until the 27th.  So far we have found the roads to be in good condition which just a few spots here and there that have pot holes or frost heaves.  We are at West Yellowstone, which is the middle far left of the map.  We traveled to Old Faithful (marked as Day One) on Saturday.  Yesterday we traveled to Yellowstone Lake (marked as Day Two).  Today we are traveling to the Lamar Valley (marked as Day Three).  We have seen Grizzly Bears each day, and hope to see more today.

Yesterday’s bear was near Canyon Junction, and there was a line of cars lined up along side the road, with many people outside of their cars with those cameras that a lens that is a mile long.  We pulled over and got a few pictures, but this bear was camera shy…always had its back to us.

This picture here gives you a better idea of how far away we were from it, and even his picture was zoomed in to at least 2-3 times normal…so the bear was “way out there”.  A park ranger arrived, and did not seem concerned at all with people being out of their cars, but I am sure she would stopped anyone trying to go out into the field toward the bear.  And don’t think people wouldn’t try it…we have seen some pretty stupid things around here, back in April there were viral Internet clips of a lady who petted a bison  (See Clip One and Clip Two).

Here are some pictures we got yesterday.