LoveBugs and Thunderstorms

Home in Holiday / Tarpon Springs area, FL

Until I got to Arkansas I really did not understand the term “LoveBugs” very well.  I knew, growing up in the 50’s through 70’s, that the VW Beetle was referred to as a “lovebug”, and as a former owner of one, I KNOW it is not from what one can do in the back seat…way too small. (Mom, don’t ask me how I know)

Meet the true Florida LoveBugs (Plecia nearctica) .  These bugs love to, umm, how do you put it…’connect’, and then they stay ‘connected’ for days, flying around, getting into one’s hair, on clothing, covering outside doors and windows, and, of course….

 

…they LOVE motorhomes…and cars…and anything moving.  YES, this is really a motorhome (not ours) covered in lovebugs and other flying things.  Marcia and I saw a motorhome a few years ago up near Tallahassee, a white motorhome, just COVERED in squished lovebugs.  They came up Interstate 75…we came up US-19, and we hardly had any of them.  They LOVE the middle section of Florida, and are very active (if you know what I mean) during Spring and Summer, and I would assume, early Fall (since today is the first day of Fall).  Now I tried to get a picture of them flying…but when I tried I just could not focus.  Anyway, lovebugs are best photographed SQUISHED.

So far, home for seven straight days, and seven days of afternoon thunderstorms.  Now it doesn’t rain at the condo each day…but we hear the thunder and see the lightning, and it has rained half of the days…twice very, very hard.  Yesterday was one of those heavy days.  Around 4 pm, the storms moved in.  It was in the low 90’s, and quickly dropped down to the upper 70’s.  By 5:30, it was gone…and the temps moved back up to the mid-80’s, with puddles of water everywhere.  Talk about a humid evening!  But at least it was a bit cooler.

This is a look to the east along the Anclote River in Tarpon Springs, near the Sponge Docks.  The Anclote is less than 30 miles long, formed from springs and creeks, and runs down into the Gulf of Mexico.  The Sponge Docks are right on the river.

The Sponge Docks are on Dodecanese Boulevard, which means "twelve islands" (even though it represents 15 larger and 150 smaller Islands in the southeastern Aegean Sea, off the coast of Asia Minor (Turkey), of which 26 are inhabited.)  Just ahead of me is one of the many Jolley Trolley cars which run from the city of Clearwater, through Dunedin, Palm Harbor and to the Tarpon Springs sponge docks.  Another route goes from Clearwater Beach, down to St. Petersburg and also over to the city of Clearwater (where you can pick up the northern route to Tarpon Springs).  For $5, you can ride it all day long, and the Trolleys are fairly heavily used.

Along the docks you can typically see some of the Greek spongers and fishermen sitting or working on their boats.  Don’t get too close to any of the sponge boats as they are cleaning the sponges…the smell is a bit difficult to handle.

Near the end of the docks is a popular restaurant called “Rusty Bellies”, and you can see the storm clouds to the west over the restaurant.

Here is Spring Bayou, where each Greek New Year the Archbishop tosses a white cross into the water in celebration of Holy Epiphany, and the young men of the Greek Church (16-18 years of age) jump in to retrieve it.  The crowd is HUGE, this is one celebration which I doubt I will ever witness in person…seeing it on the news is good enough for me.

I finally made it over to the Crystal Beach area in northern Palm Harbor.  This is one of my favorite places to take pictures of the gulf in this area.

Although it was still 45 minutes before sunset, I got the pictures I wanted…and besides, I told Marcia I would only be gone an hour…make that 70 minutes since I decided to go down through the Sponge Dock area.  (During winter it would have taken an extra 20 minutes due to the crowds!)   And NO, it did not rain in our area today.  It is 8:30 pm and it is 84 degrees, 65% humidity…lovely…

Grants New Mexico, A Hail of a Drive

So after our exciting night last night at Santa Rosa Lake State Park, I was hoping for a nice, easy drive to western New Mexico…so much for that.  As we left the park at 9:30, there was a light rain, no big deal.  The front right tire was down 9 psi this morning.  I have determined the spare (old) extender that I had them put on in Little Rock because they accidently broke the one on there, is the cause of a slow leak.  But I cannot have the tire pressure sensor on without an extender…  At Cline’s Corner I was able to boost the tire back up to 68 psi.  The front tires, according to the driver’s door label, are suppose to be at 60, while the back are at 80.  But I find it drives better if the front are at 65.  Of course, tire pressure changes as you drive, and also with overnight temps and elevation when you park at night.  So starting out at 58 was not a huge thing, but I wanted to correct it as soon as I could.

But our precipitation was not over in New Mexico.  In fact, it was going to change to hail shortly after we left Cline’s Corner.  In fact, as we were driving in a light rain and you see a good inch of hail along the sides of the highway…you realize that had you not stopped at Cline’s Corner, that is what you would have been driving through!  Yes, we did have some hail a bit later, but nothing like the poor folks in front of us faced.  We even came upon a small wreck, no injuries, of a truck and two cars which had passed us earlier.  We finally made it to Albuquerque, and the weather cleared up for a bit. 

As we get close to Grants New Mexico, I see a sign similar to this one, which provides the name of the RV Park (Blue Spruce) and the exit number.  Already expecting to stop at Love’s just a few miles beyond exit 81 where the RV Park is, I wonder if we should consider stopping here because we would have TV for weather problems should the pop up again.  So I decide that we will stop short of Bluewater State Park, which is around 20 miles beyond this point, and we forked out $19 instead of $14 and called the day’s travel done before 1:30.

    

It is now after 7 pm, and no one else has pulled in.  The park has a number of people who live her long term.  But the area near where we are parked is for the traveler…and most are pull through, some have 50 amp, and “full hookup” does not mean sewer, but a dump station is available.  Cable has over 50 channels, but like many parks, it is a bit snowy, but we have had worse.  This part of the park is far enough off I-40 that we see nor hear any I-40 traffic, but New Mexico Highway 53 also goes along the park, but not much traffic.  So far the storms have missed us here…we will have to see how our luck holds up on that.

Note:  I took the tire pressure and extender off the tire, and the extender has a bad seal for sure.  I have another older extender, but I am hoping Love’s might have one that I can purchase.  If not, I will just have to take off the tire pressure after each drive, or drive without it.  Already driving without one on the car…drat!

Santa Rosa Lake State Park–Could You Believe Another Tornadic Storm?

So we have slowed way down with our miles now…352 miles in two days of traveling with one day of having a day trip to the canyon.  Today we drove over to Santa Rosa, New Mexico, turned northeast for 10 miles and ended up at Santa Rosa Lake State Park.  $14 for electric and water and fairly good view.  If one wants a super view of the lake, then just dry camp down at the shoreline.  But it was in the mid-80’s, and we wanted electric over view.

No TV, but 2-3 bars of 4G with our booster on our Verizon Aircard, and loads of music on the Kendal and movies if we choose to watch any.  And for a few hours, peace and quiet…how nice that was.

   

Around 4:30 the storm started to descend upon the area…and more and more RVs entered the park to hunker down for the night. 

Around 6:40 a State Park worker came by to let everyone know that a tornado was spotted about 10-15 miles to our east.  “If you see a bad cloud coming over that lake, just head for the bathrooms,” he said.  Well, I had been following the radar very close…the storm was headed north to northeast…the lake is to our east, the storm was not coming our way.  In fact, other then a few sprinkles, all we had was some wind and some mighty views.  I was happy that we did not “spend the night in Tucumcari” as we have a few times in the past at a Passport America park…Tucumcari looked to be getting it hard at this point.

The view to the west was amazing as the sun started to go down over the horizon.  Made me wish we were on the other side of the lake so we would have an unobstructed view.

Not too much later the clouds to the west had moved out, and sun was setting.

But the skies to our east never did get pink.

Even as I write this, 8:45 mountain time, severe storms are passing to our east by about 5 miles.   Tomorrow, assuming we don’t get blown away, we will be at another New Mexico State Park, this time over by Grants…hoping we can get one of the 14 electric sites in that park too.

   

Of course, before the storm I did get a chance to take the dogs for a walk or two. Don’t know what is up with Bubba’s tongue, this is the second time he stuck his tongue out at me when I took his picture on this trip.

     

   

Also had a chance to get some pictures of the desert flowers which were still blooming.  The first one is called by either the Indian Blanketflower or the Firewheel, both names are common.  Not sure about the other ones.

PS:  The last storm blew through just before posting this at 9:25...some light hail, some wind, not too bad, only 5 minutes long.

The Storm Descends Upon Us

The weatherman on one of the channels, don’t remember which one since I was sorting through all the local channels faster than a poker dealer sorts out the cards, but one of them said that this is the first time since they started to rate Severe T-Storm Risk that the area which covers Tampa was put under a “High Risk”.  Of course, this does not include Hurricane watches and warnings…but just the risks for severe T-Storms, which typically spawn Tornados. 

Well, here it comes…about 6:45 it is just north of where we live.  Around 5:30, I got up from a short Sunday nap and looked on the computer and saw the storm line coming…and it hit me:  “I LEFT THE ANTENA UP ON THE MOTORHOME!”  You see, every Monday when Marcia goes to her Bible Study with the older ladies from church, Skruffy and I go over to the motorhome, just a few miles from the Church, and I run the generator of the engine for about an hour to charge up the batteries.  Typically the batteries are down to 12.3-12.5 amps.  Lower when the weather is real cold, so normally it is 12.4 or 12.5.  While I am there, I turn on the TV, which means I have the antenna up.  With possible winds of 60-70 mph, I did not like having that antenna up…so I hopped into the car and drove the 5.6 miles to the RV Storage lot.  I put the antenna down, got back in the car and drove back the 6.5 miles home.  Why the .9 extra mile?  Well, as I drove through Tarpon Springs along what they call “Alt-19”, four Tarpon police cars are headed north, lights and sirens going, and although I did not see anything as I passed through there, something was going on.  So I headed over to Highway 19 and then north to home, and although the winds were high, there were no other problems. 

It is now 7:30, and the wind is blowing, there are four or five thunder blasts, our lights flickered once which knocked out the Internet until the Router re-boots, and…well, that is that.  Skruffy, who HATES this type of weather, was in a frenzy for about 30 minutes.  Essentially, and thankfully, it was a non-storm for us.  Others did not fare as well…especially up in Mississippi and Georgia…all from the same massive storm over the past 24 hours.  This seems to be the same storm that hit California four or five days ago.  Yep, winter is here, even if the temps are hitting 80+ here in Florida…down to the low 60’s now that the storm has blown through.

It has been a few weeks since I last posted a blog.  Don’t know why I needed a break from…basically just did not find anything to say.  We kept a close eye on the news the past few weeks, that’s for sure.  Mom had a nasty fall in her hallway one night a few weeks ago, but she is fine.  That has been two falls in about as many months, and both times she had taken Ambien to help her sleep.  I sent dad and my sisters this article I found on older people and Ambien:  Dr. Bill Elliott: Ambien's risks mount for older adults.  Well, dad shared that with mom, and she noted things in the article that she had experienced…and Ambien is no longer going to be used to help her sleep.  Mom has always had trouble sleeping…and especially when her “children” were away from home.  Don’t know how she ever got through Bob being in Viet Nam for 16-18 months…but even just having kids get married and move away would keep her up…even now when almost all her kids are over 60 years old!.

We had Bubba over for another night so that I could give him his monthly flea and heartworm meds, and shave under his chin where he will get a infection if it isn’t kept clean and closely shaven.  He was quickly kicked off the chair that Skruffy is in (two pictures up), but she had to show him that “she” had a her own blanket now!  Above I get him to lift his head and look at me…and when I ask him to do it a second time, well that is too much for Skruffy who…

…jumps in the way of the camera and heads over closer to me.

Yes Skruffy, Bubba will be going home soon and you will have “us” all to yourself again!

Now that the storm has passed, initial reports say there was some damage, like this home in Citrus County north of us, but they don’t know of any deaths as or 11 pm eastern time.  The weather tomorrow is suppose to be a bit rainy, but the dangerous part of the storm has passed.  I will check out the motorhome tomorrow, but I think it will be fine too…and with the antenna down, I think I will sleep soundly tonight…otherwise, I would worry all night long about if the wind knocked that antenna down.

On to Utah – Change of Scenery, not a change of heart

Made it to Lake Jordanelle State Park today, which is where we like to stay when we visit my daughter who lives in the Salt Lake City area.  This is a huge change of scenery since our month long stay in the Sacramento area…but as the dogs say…

       

These two above are having “heart-ache” over being gone…especially Bubba who simply adores his Uncle Arny.  This scene, which was Monday Morning of this past week, took place many times…except they typically did not have to wait for Arny to open the drapes which are typically open when I let them out around 7 am.  But on Sunday Arny and Sandy were at the Reno Air Races, in fact, sister Patti and I talked them into going for the entire weekend as we took over the watch and care of Arny’s mom…so on Monday morning they slept in just a bit, and it was 7:15 when the drapes open, Skruffy noses her way through the door leading her and Bubba to the back door, and Arny starts their morning off with a dog treat for Bubba, and pork which I have cooked up for Skruffy.  Then Skruffy comes back into the motorhome, after doing her business, to eat her diabetic breakfast, while Bubba takes his breakfast outside before spending the rest of the day with Arny (and Sandy on this day since she took a day off to recoup from the Air Races.)

     

A bit about our trip to Utah…  We left Tuesday evening around 5:30 pm.  WHY so late?  Our destination was not too far away…just 47 miles (53 the route we took since I wanted to fill up at Sams Club first), to a rest area above the 3,000 foot elevation.  Gold Run Rest Area, on the West Bound side, is just the ideal place for this.  Cooler weather, and there is separate RV parking away from the big trucks.  As you can see by the sign above, you have 8 hours of parking time…we were there for more like 10 hours, and the ONLY RV around.  90% of the truck noise and highway noise is muffled out by the isolated location.  This is the first, but probably not the last, stay at this rest area.  When we left, you don’t even get on the west bound I-80, the access road leads to an overpass, and you hop onto the eastbound lanes and off you go, no traffic, no headaches.

I told Marcia as we were driving near Emigrant Gap that the Sierra’s were my first “Nature” love, and that all of our travels have never taken that spark out of my eyes…that is, until the trip to Alaska.  Yes, I still love the Sierra’s…home to Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, the “Big Trees” (Calaveras, Kings Canyon, Sequoia), Mount Whitney and many other areas.  Colorado nearly took the spark out…but Alaska certainly did. 

    

But I sure like this ride up and over Donner Summit, that’s for sure!

    

Saw a couple of interesting older vehicles on our way through California and Nevada.  I am sure Arny would love this old GM Truck, and the MG hatchback reminds me of the 1965 Austin Healy sports car, my first car, that I had way back when.

    

Traveling through Nevada was not as boring as I usually find it with interesting clouds, a few fall colors, and the rainbow which Marcia caught while I was fighting wind and the start of rain.

    

In Elko we stopped to catch our Wednesday night church from back in Florida over the Internet.  Our Pastor, Brett Robinson, is interesting in person and over the Internet…except to Skruffy who was sitting on my lap looking out the window the entire time.  At least she did not bark at anyone, which for her is amazing.  As we left, the rain storm we had already driven through was catching up to us…but the wind, as shown by the flag, had died down a bit…it would be nightfall before we found our stop in Wendover for the night in a large parking lot near Pilot Truck Stop and the Peppermill Casino.  We stayed here in May as we traveled to Utah before turning north to Alaska…and this time I found a much quieter area of this huge lot, but not as quiet as the previous night at the rest area in California.

We got an early start again after getting gas at Pilot along with some coffee, and this, of course, after we fed the critters.  Skruffy eats twice per day, 12 hours apart.  She is a very good eater, and she is very good about allowing me to prick her with a needle twice a day and give her the insulin.  She currently is getting 2.5 units in the morning, and 2 units at night, and her blood sugar level is between 150 and 200 mid-day, which has been a good level during her extremely active lifestyle in Sandy and Arny’s backyard.  Now that we are gone, I am cutting back her food a bit, and keeping her insulin the same.  She was at 165 today, so all is going well.    

Speaking of “going well”, the drive along the Salt Flats was more like a drive along the water reflections…between the clouds, and the reflections…wow….what else could we ask for?

Well, how about that!  Reminds me of Genesis:

And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light....God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

We finally made it to Lake Jordanelle State Park.  $30 per night, but we got the last sewer connection, so we have full service except for no TV…back to the Amazon movies.  Big OPPs on that one…I forgot to load up with new movies…so we just watch a few movies again, no big deal.  First thing, line up a moving van so I can help move my daughter into a new place Saturday.  Second thing…find a Cracker Barrel which we have not had for some six or seven months now.  So off to West Valley we go…

We come out of Cracker Barrel, and I see DARK DARK skies to the west.  We QUICKLY head east and back up and over the mountain.  Got this image above off of one of the weather sites showing where the storm was when we left the restaurant. 

Got this from a video posted by KSL news, of the tornado that went through southern Ogden…just 30 miles north of where we were.  We literally got through Salt Lake and up the mountain just in the nick of time.  Just five minutes later and we would have had to sit on the freeway which got instantly clogged due to the storm.  Even as we headed up the canyon, the winds were blowing debris across the roadway.  Thank goodness things were much quieter up by the lake when we got back to the motorhome.

 

Nice exciting first day of fall in Utah…