Enjoying the Weather and Life

The weather has been spectacular. And if there were no alligators in the water around here, we would be boating every day. But every body of fresh water will contain an alligator. We don’t do alligators – we have an inflatable kayak, number one. Can you picture it? One bite from one of those creatures, and we’d be splashing around in the water. Might as well write “GONER” on our foreheads. Cruising the Mayakka River last year was enough to strike terror in my brain forever. Even with promises from other kayakers that ‘they won’t hurt you’, well, they were 10 feet away from me and 10 feet long with a LOT of teeth – that SHOW. And, they sleep with their eyes open. Or they pretend to. Gave me the willies, and we had to exit.

Now, kayaking on the ICW is another thing altogether. On a day like this it would be wonderful. Low breeze, scudding clouds, no humidity. Probably lots of manatees, too. However, we have that l-o-n-g drive to get to the coast and Gary is worried about our old tires. But, yesterday, we ordered new ones which will be in next week. YAY – maybe we can go somewhere soon. For now, we’ll wash and wax her – which will definitely make it rain.

Gary cooked pancakes for breakfast – good lookin’, huh?

And then he worked on his patriotic trellis. What? He ordered the NJ, NC and FL state flags on the internet, drilled holes in the top of the trellis and added them next to the American flag. He’s so creative.

Last night I was messing around on the computer and found HP games. Hmmm. There was a trial for ‘Jewel Quest’ offered. I clicked on that. It is a card game similar to solitaire with jewels involved. On the face up pile, you can go up or down (e.g. eight on a nine or ten on a nine). If you can use one from the displayed cards, you try to use the same suit, which earns you jewels. In the background there is haunting music as it is in an Indiana Jones-like setting: spears, old books, shrunken heads, gold and jewels. Well, I got hooked and played until 11:30. Poor Gary was ignored for the evening, but was asleep when I got to bed. I’m afraid if I start it again, nothing will ever get done.

Sunday was the Oscars. Did your favorites win?? Since we had not seen one of those films, we could only guess which ones we thought were going to be a great film by the previews on TV. Now we can see them (when they come on TV). All in all, they were not too boring. One thing I can’t understand: these people are actors. They memorize lines all day long for months. If they know they are nominated and they have a small amount of thank-you speech time, why can’t they make up a small thank-you speech (and memorize it) before they get up on stage and say Ummm, uggghhh, duh for 3 minutes? Some of the winners were interesting, even if they went over their time (like Colin) but some we couldn’t wait to see leave the stage. Are you with me on this?

Today we ran around doing piddly stuff and worked on our taxes again. We never did any outdoor fun stuff (booooo), but it sure is pretty sitting on our patio reading the Sunday paper.

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We don’t have much time left before we get ready to head up north. Gary can hardly wait! We will be going to Sevierville, TN for the RV-Dreams Rally and then a little down the road to Dollywood to work for the summer. It’s funny that we still make plans far in advance with this lifestyle. I didn’t expect to do that at all. Next spring will be different. Maybe. Who knows???