Gone for 8+ Months Starting Today, Sewer Problems

No pictures in this brief post, just a quick recap.

Trip back to the condo from Lake Mary went real well.  Had a great visit with Dean and Caryl (and Hattie).  It included a great meal at a real good Greek Restaurant in neighboring DeLand, Florida called Santorini Greek Cuisine.  I had the Pastitsio / Moussaka Combo dinner with a cup of Avgolemono Soup.  This soup was the second best Avgolemono that I have had, only slightly behind Mama Maria's in Tarpon Springs.  The Pastitsio and Moussaka were very good. The only thing about this restaurant is the size....very small.  We did not have to wait, but we sat at a table for four which touched a table for four on each side.  Overall, it probably seats around 45 people total inside, and another dozen or so outside on the sidewalk.  But the Yelp and Trip Advisor ratings are exellent, and the food lived up to the ratings in our opinions.  (links to Pastitsio, Moussaka and Avgolemono Soup are to Wikipedia sites to explain/show what it is.)

Tuesday after we got home I loaded a few more things into the motorhome and squeezed it back out of the condo area onto the street where they had shut down the main entrance again because, and some of you will die when you hear this, the new sewer lines were leaking!!!!!  Yep, maybe they will have it all done by the time we get back in December!  I then gave Bubba an overdue clipping job, and he once again looks good.  I hope to give them both another clipping when we get to Sacramento area, and again right before we leave to head north.

Wednesday I took Bubba and went and got the motorhome and parked it in a neighboring Grocery Store lot.  I then made a few trips back and forth to get the few things we still needed into it, and also did a grocery run.  By 2 pm we were ready for our showers, and by 3:15 we officially locked up the condo, after turning off the water, covering the toilets, up-plugging many items, turning the A/C up to 80, and turning the Hot Water Heater off.  After a quick run to the eyeglasses place where Marcia is still trying to get a pair of eyeglasses to work right that she bought in January, which we hope are fixed for good now, we went and sat in the church parking lot until an hour before the service started, went and got dinner and enjoyed our last service “in person” until December.  Of course, we will watch services online, which to us is a huge blessing because it is like being home away from home.

Tonight we are sitting in another wonderful Florida Rest Area, secured by a guard, and with how tired we are (Marcia is already asleep) I am sure it will be a wonderful nights rest regardless of the noise of traffic going by.  Our first scheduled items is breakfast with my oldest brother Jim and his wife Carol in San Antonio on Saturday morning.

Madness, Nearly Sadness, Surely Insaneness

Yes, it is “that time” again….March Madness.  This year, as we have for many of the past ten years, my kids and I fill out our “brackets” at cbssports.com, and then we follow, the best our busy lives can, the results of the games.  However, there is one thing we all try to do….and that is to watch Arkansas Razorbacks “if” they make it to the big dance….and this year they were second in the SEC, and they played last night.

Although it was not a “good game”, in fact it was a pretty ugly game which included a shoe being tossed out on the court, it is ALWAYS GREAT when Arkansas wins…and they did pull out the big “W”….but it could have gone the other way, which would have made this a much sadder blog.  Above is on of their players, Michael Qualls, who had a few good dunks.  (Picture was cropped from a “gettyimages” and is shown here purely for educational purposes.)  I am hoping that they have one more good game left in them….one or two of the kids hope they have a few more good games in them.  The way they looked last night, I think we will all be wrong unless they get a fire lite under their feet.

Above is the current “score card” as of 4 pm eastern time Friday.  I am highlighted in orange.  We have a complicated scoring system which rewards one for picking a underdog team.  As is typical at this stage of the game, I have the lead….but by Sunday I expect the lead will have changed hands….because my picks tend to be fairly conservative.  One thing three of us have is Kentucky as the overall winner, while my youngest son Ryan thinks it will be Wisconsin.  Always a good time.

On Monday while Marcia was at Bible Study, I got a few more pictures down at Crystal Beach.  This White Heron was just walking along looking for a good place to rest.

   

I saw these folks come out from the other side of the small wharf (shown in previous blogs), and wondered if they were headed o the other side…about twenty minutes later I took the second shot and they were getting close to the beach on Honeymoon Island. 

This time of year the Osprey are watching over their nests, and if you look, you can see these nest scattered all over the place.  Seen some Bald Eagles too, but not while the camera was handy…

Next week the “packing up” will be in full force mode.  So far this week I have finished up a few small items with the motorhome, including getting the oil changed, and the back of the HHR is ready to go with the GoGO, hand cleaning gel (orange bottle), ladder (under the checkered blanket to keep the rattles down) the HHR – RV lights (box just beyond the GoGo seat) and the air compressor for emergency tire refilling (you can just see the blue hose beyond the checkered blanket).  That’s a lot to take in the HHR, and no mention about the storage area under the platform that the GoGo and everything is sitting on….under there we have our two Safety Lighted Collapsible Traffic Cones, an atlas, and a few other odds and ends.  Amazingly insane how much you can get into such a small space.

Speaking of “insane”, I have not given an update to the sewer project along the street in front of our Condo Community lately…..this is the project which has caused, un-officially of course, around four sink holes in the area, but none in our Condo Community.  Above is what it looks like just outside the driveway entrance to the Condo Community.  When we first got here in October, the work was to the right of the entrance….they have progressed to the entrance and to the left of the entrance.

Here is the road to the right, our main road to the rest of “humanity”….it is bumpy, dirty, dusty, but finally open.  When we were forced to turn left, that added a good 5-10 minutes to anywhere we were going.

This is the main sewer pump station, the one which, when they were digging the hole to place the pump station down into, they found lots of water, and in pumping out that water with a four inch (perhaps five) hose, it pumped a bunch of water out, leaving underground holes which caved in…hence, sink holes.  They seem to have most of the pump station ready, and are putting up the brick wall to “hide” from everyone’s eyes…. also covering up a portion of the Condo’s pretty wall.
The insanity of this “might” be done when we get back in December…..Marcia thinks not….I just don’t know.  Perhaps the entire road will get swallowed up by another giant sink hole…..