Jan 22, 2020 - Winter in Daytona Beach Shores

We hope everyone that reads this is having a Blessed Year. January seems to be winter here the ocean is down to 63 degrees. The week of the 12th we had a low of 43 degrees but during the day it would be in the 60's and 70's and sunny. That's not bad if you live on the south side of the building because it blocks the wind coming out of the north. Yesterday was windy 20-30 MPH winds,today we are having gale force winds getting gusts up to 45 MPH. The temp is 52 with a wind chill in the 40's now that's cold. We have heat so it's not a problem...

Jan 22, 2020 - Hobe Sound FL, update

During this past week, yep another one has gone by, we have been busy. Elaine and Tony came to the park to enjoy an evening chicken bbq with us and later in the week, they treated us to a superb Italian home cooked meal at their place in Juno Beach. It has been great to spend time and visit with them, and we have a couple more outings planned for the up coming week. They weather has been pretty nice. Perhaps a bit windy at times, but last night/this morning, temps dropped 25 degrees or so. That coupled with the wind, had this mornings wind...

Jan 21, 2020 - By the Beach

We had breakfast and returned to the room where Christine proof read the newsletter and I made the corrections. It was a cool morning, though quite pleasant for us, and even with the easing of the big chill in Edmonton, much warmer than at home. We set off for Fort Lauderdale Beach and, almost by accident, parked at what turned out to be a very convenient spot. We left the car and headed north on the promenade paralleling the beach, watching the ships on the horizon, the people on the beach and those, like ourselves, strolling the sidewalk....

Jan 21, 2020 - Mid-January

We're more than halfway through our month here in Bradenton. Time is flying by as usual. The weather has unusually warm even for Florida. Last week set new records with high temperatures in the upper 80's. We're making up for it this week with night time lows in the upper 30's. It has been windier than I recall Floria being. Not quite as bad as the winds in Texas and not every day, but it has seemed to be a lot of wind. We have toured around Sarasota and Bradenton Beach. We traveled up to Tampa for the big RV show and spent the day there....

Jan 21, 2020 - Sea Day - Sailing to Miami

Today is a sea day. It's going to take all day and all night to sail from Cozumel, Mexico around Cuba to Miami. And it's a good thing we're not stopping anywhere. It's cold (70's), rainy and windy. But being a sea day, we got our two enrichment lectures. One on the Cuban Missile Crisis, very appropriate. And the second one on Aliens. The geologist gave the lecture on Aliens. His point being that life as we know it, may or may not be sustainable on other planets and the time it would take to travel to other planets. How would we do it? How...

Jan 20, 2020 - A Shopping Day

We had breakfast and chatted to a couple from Ontario at the next table. They were happy to have left 0 temperatures which paled by comparison to ours! We got ready and set the GPS to take us to a shopping mall where a branch of Christine's favourite clothing store is located. We went through some heavy traffic and received the wrong end of a car horn when I tried to merge at one point. Otherwise the ride was uneventful. We got parked and found a mall entrance. The whole ground level is a series of parking "garages" as they call them here....

Jan 19, 2020 - abort the abort

When we are at home, we are often unaware of all the launches that are taking place here as Space Ex, NASA, and Blue Horizon prepare to make going into space reliable, commonplace, routine, and lucrative. Here the local media keep us much better informed and we came back early from the Tampa Super Show to see the last practice abort. One large goal is to become capable of safely sending astronauts into space from here rather than Russia. The Challenger accident made it clear that we need to prepare as much as possible to rescue astronauts...

Jan 19, 2020 - Back to Fort Lauderdale

A quiet day today. We finished packing and took our cases to the car to get through the breakfast room before it was too busy then came back and had breakfast. We spoke to the girl who tended the breakfast room and discovered she was from Jamaica. When she learned about our having lived there she changed from the quiet, almost sullen person we had known over the previous days to a happy, animated girl. Quite a revelation and a lesson that first impressions should not be lasting. We collected the smaller items from our room and finished...

Jan 18, 2020 - More of Key West

We woke today to dull skies and high winds, quite a contrast to the sun and blue skies of the past two days. We followed much the same pattern of yesterday. We rose and got ready, had breakfast, collected our things then we walked to the Southernmost Point accessible to the public of the continental USA. After being told repeatedly that this was the "Southernmost", we discovered that it was not quite. Another headland further round, but on Naval property was further south. The "southernmost house" no longer qualifies as a potential buyer,...

Jan 17, 2020 - Around Key West

We woke this morning and got ready then had breakfast. There was a bit more room to manoeuvre today, but Christine was disappointed that there were no boiled eggs. We collected our things and went round the corner to wait on the Hop on Hop off Trolley. We got out tickets and found some shade to wait in. It was not too long in coming, but there was a false alarm as a Trolley appeared in the distance and we waited in anticipation only to be disappointed as it drove past with a sign on window, "Private Charter". Ours was not far behind and we...

Jan 16, 2020 - Drive to Key West

We were up this morning and had breakfast in the hotel. It was rather crowded, but we managed to get seats and chatted to a few couples from California and Nebraska. I do not think the California couple really believed us when we said we had left -30F temperatures in Edmonton! We picked up our luggage, packed the car and set off for Key West. It was a good drive, leaving just after 9:30 am. The road was busy as we drove out of Fort Lauderdale and through Miami and on to the Over the Ocean Highway. We stopped at the Key Largo visitors centre...

Jan 16, 2020 - Tampa Super Show

Whenever we are in this area in January we go to the Tampa RV Show. Since I don't like to repeat myself, I'll link to what I wrote last year, which is more or less what I would write about our stay here this year. The Super Show has been here for 34 years and claims to be the largest RV show in the country. The one in Hershey PA claims that, too. The first day is very popular because senior citizens are given a big $1 discount. I met a lady in the bathroom (we were standing in line, of course) who said it took her over an hour to drive the...