Marcia and Gerry - Nearly 55 Years of Friendship

 Memories fade, but Friendship Lives on Forever...

Gerry was having a hard day, but we were able to have a half hour visit with her.  91 this year, her age is catching up to her.  Well, it is catching up with all us one way or another.

We had a good, but short visit.  Fought the Atlanta traffic until we were a dozen miles north along I-75 when it did thin out just a bit.  We stopped at another Cracker Barrel, this one in Cartersville, GA.  We have nearly 500 miles to get to my son's place outside Cincinnati, and two days of driving to get there by Wednesday morning...so we just shut her down and are staying here.

 

 

 

Old Friend at Amelia Island

Back in December of 2014, Marcia had a meet-up with her friend of 50 years Gerry at a Cracker Barrel near Ocala Florida…at that time they had not seen each other for 20 years, but had kept in contact.  Gerry was living in Chicago, but was down visiting her daughter Ruth, and we all agreed to drive the 100+ miles each to meet in the middle.   Last year Gerry moved into the same Condo complex that Ruth and her husband David live in, giving up the cold winters of Chicago.  We attempted to visit them back in February when we visited St. Augustine, but then I got sick and we cut that trip short.  So we decided to visit on our way out of the state.  Unfortunately, this time it was Ruth who came down ill…so we picked up Gerry and took her out to dinner…or should I say, we drove as she took us out to dinner.

Ruth had picked out the restaurant a few days ago…Sliders Seaside Grill right along the ocean.  Gerry has trouble hearing, Marcia has trouble walking, and the location was of concern…but it need not have been.  Probably couldn’t have been a nicer place for a 3 hour, yes, 3 hour dinner. 

    

At 4:45 when we arrive the restaurant was not very busy.  We got a corner table right by this aquarium, which when I sat down was at my back.  We got a parking place as close as you can get, right by the ADA ramp that enters into the bar area (upper right),  making short distance to our table.  As we looked out the windows (upper left) you can see the ocean…although they were not interested in anything else except catching up and telling old stories.  Even the 10 minutes from being sat to getting any attention from a server did not bother anyone (well, that bothers me just a bit because of my background in restaurant work).  However, from that point on, the service and food were just fine, the company was outstanding.

About 2 hours into it the ladies took a potty break…and I got a good picture of the fish behind me.  The tank was large and held about six or seven fish.  It did become a slight distraction at times when young kids, with mom or dad in tow, come over and look at the fish…their talking halted Marcia and Gerry’s conversation a couple of times.

By 7:30 we decided to call it a night.  Gerry had some food to take home, but Marcia finished her Redfish, and I finished my fried shrimp.  We dropped by a Publix Grocery store for a couple of items, and then I proceeded to head the wrong way going home, so Skruffy’s 8 pm feeding time turned into 8:30…but all was well.  Did not get any pictures of Amelia Island…will do that next time when we hope to stay an extra day or two.  The RV park we are in, Lofton Creek Campground, cost $30, is in Yulee about 9 miles west of the ocean.  It is not a large park, and you will have trouble getting in during the busy season, but we did not have any trouble in mid-April. 

I’m in Hot Water Now!

I know what you are thinking, “What did Dave do now?”   Well, it isn’t that type of “Hot Water”, which, honestly, would be a little cheaper than this….

   

Yep, that’s the type of “Hot Water”…we needed a new Hot Water Heater in the Condo.  As one of the storms passed the other day, our lights flickered, and then our Hot Water became Luke Warm water.  Now our water heater was “ONLY” 14 1/2 years old, so age couldn’t be the problem, right?   Well, if you look at the pictures above, taken with my cell phone so I could show them over at Home Depot what I was dealing with, you can see signs of leaking.  We could have waited until it totally stopped working, since when I reset the breaker it all started to work again, but we decided that it was worth $335 to buy another one…like the one below.

So I go over to Home Depot, and they ask if I was going to install it, or did I want an installer.  Well, I am not much with dealing with those copper pipes, the electricity part would not be that hard, and the new one was a bit higher, wider, and well…how much could it cost to have it installed anyway?  Another $200 perhaps???

Well, there it is…our $1,059.94 water heater!!!!  Yep, $700+ to deliver it, install it, and get rid of the old one…includes required County Permit, which means required certified plumber.  And after the 'plumber' arrived this morning at 11:05 am, he was gone by 12:30.  His first comment was, “This is a restrictive area, which cost more.”  My reply was, “I told them were it was located, they quoted me a price.”  Well, we only paid the price quoted.  He barely talked to us after that until I mentioned that Marcia was Greek, since earlier he mentioned he was from Bulgaria.  He then took a minute to say that his daughter attends a Greek school down in Clearwater.  Just a quiet guy doing his job I guess.  Price included the new plastic drain pan, the new copper water lines and connections.  I guess I should have been a plumber instead of a librarian….they have a warehouse they pull the hot water heater out of, along with needed parts.  Heck, $200+ per hour or so???  Ridiculous...but I searched the Internet and this is the low end of the going price right now.

Some of you might have seen this picture in Facebook of Marcia and her friend of fifty years, Gerry.  We met with Gerry and her daughter Ruth last year at Cracker Barrel, and since Gerry was down from Chicago area again this year, we drove over to Gainesville to meet with them again.  Ruth (not pictured) lives in the Amelia Island area, and this Cracker Barrel is about half way…135 miles for us, 110 miles for them.  This time we took the motorhome for “comfort” reasons, and since Gerry has a hard time hearing, I am glad we did because it gave these two a chance to catch up.

Ruth took the picture from Facebook, and this was my picture as I sat in the driver’s seat…they did not even know that I took it, but as you can see, Skruffy sure knew.  After a 3 1/2 hour visit, we headed back home, and got the motorhome tucked back into storage while there was still a bit of daylight still.  I figure it cost $45 in gas, since that is how much I put in on the way, and the needle was back where it was when we started, but well worth it for the comfort level, that’s for sure.  (In other words, no rest area toilets needed…and Skruffy felt more at home staying in the motorhome than she would have staying in a car for that long.)