January 9, 2002, Wednesday- time to get back into the swing of Florida life. Mail drops, running to the car dealer where our lost license plates suddenly appeared, picking up Hobbes from the kennel, and a few basic food supplies.
Our park, Pelican Lake was about 1/3 full when we left. Now it's closer to 2/3's full. Neighbors on both sides. The one on the left seems to have at least 6 motorcylces, scooters and motorized bikes, along with a 2002 yellow Porsche and a big Prevost bus. Tons of landscaping being delivered to their site. Now we have a natural screen between the two lots.
January 10, 2002, Thursday- spent a few hours and got the web page up and running for December and the Colorado portion of January. Dinner at Jerry and Lois's house followed by some Euchre cards..
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Susan spoke to one of our neighbors and found out that the woman's flew down from the north at the ages of 95 and 92. When the husband sat down in row 5 and the wife walked to row 25, the husband was asking everyone if they had seen his wife. After being rejoined, they found that their seatmate was headed to Mexico. The husband began crying that they were on the wrong flight since they wanted to go to Florida. To calm things down the flight attendants moved them up to first class. Since it was the wife's birthday, some cake and a bottle of wine kept them quite for the rest of the flight.
January 11, 2002, Friday- with our first golf since August scheduled for tomorrow, we had to hit some golf balls today. The range across the street fit the bill, but I had to think of which end of the club to hold, its been so long.
Back to work this afternoon…..help the office manager/bookkeeper here at Pelican Lake work towards closing out 2001. Each time I start to work with Peachtree Accounting Software, I remember why we hated it so much. Quickbooks has much more flexibility. But, working with Pat, we knocked off several problems that arose, and I left her with a project list before we regroup next Tuesday.
Full house at the Marco Island Jewish Center….over 200 for services.
January 12, 2002, Saturday- time to collect on our anniversary gift from Bob and Elaine. We met them at their clubhouse for a buffet lunch then a fabulous round of golf on the bay course. They warned us to bring a dozen balls each. Boy, were they correct. A challenging course if you don't hit the fairway or landing zone. Need I say more? With water and scrub palm trees everywhere, a ball beyond the rough was a lost ball. Dinner following at Backwater Jack's topped off a wonderful day.
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January 13, 2002- Sunday- more functions today then clothes in the closet. First, a walk around the park. Many new faces and of course, four legged friends for Hobbes to meet. Then, onto the bikes for a 10 miles ride around Fiddlers Creek. Cleanup and head to the mall to find the radio shack for a few fuse parts needed to repair our macerator pump. Rush over to the JCMI film festival to see the "Life Story of Hank Greenberg". Not a big seller in the movies but a good Jewish documentary on a true sports hero.
Dinner with Jerry, Lois, Beth, Irv, Ellen and Danielle at the great Yabba Grill in Naples, followed by a regrouping at Jerry and Lois's. Two funny stories by Danielle and his living in NYC. First, a few year's ago, early in Guillani's mayoral term, many street panhandlers were common. Seeing a women panhandling on the right side of the sidewalk, he walked over to the left side. Seeing his diversionary tactics, she walked past him, turned, and shouted for a dollar. He played dumb and in French answered that he only spoke French and didn't know what she was saying. The next thing, in perfect French, she repeated her request. He was forced to part with a buck.
On the east side of town, not far from his apartment, he was walking with a new backpack slung over his shoulder, when he realized is was being torn away. A man was running down the street with the pack. Danielle ran after him shouting "thief". Nobody helped, and no police were around, but many applauded his chasing the bandit and cheered him on. Suddenly the thief turns and runs towards Danielle, reaching into his back pocket and pulling a knife. Wow, did this change things. Danielle now does the automatic back stroke and lets the guy go…but only to a point. He follows him with a block between them, thinking that the robber would pull the money out of the pack, and discard the rest. Danielle wanted his keys and other "stuff" back. The man runs into a dead end alley and Danielle follows him. He looks left, right and straight a head, and no robber. Finally he looks up, and on a fire escape stands the man. With a little brass, Danielle shouts to him to take the money and throw the rest of the pack down. The keys and credit cards, which would be stopped, wouldn't help him. So, the guys does as requested. Now for the bigger brass….Danielle tells him that since he only had two $10 bills in his wallet, they should split the money because Danielle needs some also. Wow…..a crisp bill comes floating down from the fire escape.
Back at 10 PM to wire the macerator so we could dump our holding tank.
January 14, 2002, Monday- out at 8:30 and over to pick up Mom. We hit the road and drive to the Racal House Deli for lunch with Lenore and her dad Morris. Good to see her and catch up on a few months worth of stories.
Next to Nordstrom's and Bloomingdale's looking for wedding dresses. No luck.
Back to the coach at 10. Long day but great to see Mom with as much energy as she had and without any foot problems.
January 15, 2002, Tuesday- from 8 till 12 I worked with the bookkeeper and rental agents trying to make sense of the rental program. More challenges lie ahead. From 1 until 4 was a finance committee meeting. From 7:30 until 8:30 was a ballroom dancing lesson at the clubhouse. Four other couples showed. Lots of fun. Exhaustion!
January 16, 2002, Wednesday- out by 7:30 to drop off the Jeep for the first recall…only an inspection required, but we left the car. Back to the park for two hours of board meeting and financial committee presentation. Then back to unshop at a few stores, pick up the Jeep, Costco, Linen and Things….well you get the pictures.
5:30 to the clubhouse for a potluck dinner and dancing. Lots fun and calories burned on the dance floor.
January 17, 2002, Thursday- time to get up and go. Left the park at 10 and arrived in Tampa shortly after 1. Fueled up at the Flying J (first fuel since October…pretty good). Rally park has 150 spaces reserved for our Southeast Chapter of the American Coach Association. We're surrounded by friends….Dick and Judy on one side and Jeanette and Ray on the other. Like a mini Pelican Lake Rally. Eats and drinks from 4 till 9 with dancing and entertainment.
January 18, 2002, Friday- after a catered breakfast we walked over to the wood shop at Lazy Days RV. It's a full service custom shop but with an hourly shop rate to match their expertise. Next, over to the RV Supershow at the Tampa Fairgrounds. This RV show, the biggest in the world, was as crowed as can be. Where are the recession, job loss and stock market decline reflected? Not here. It was like the Saturday before Christmas in the big malls. We did some damage at the vendor section with odds and ends that can't be found elsewhere….cleaners, brushes, towel racks and the like.
The cabinet shop man came to the coach, checked out what we wanted, and will give us some quotes tomorrow.
A steak dinner, happy hour and two hours of nightclub type entertainment completed a picture perfect day.
January 19, 2002, Saturday- after our morning meetings at the rally we headed to the Hyde Park shopping area outside of Tampa, about 35 minutes away. Many cute little shops and one anchor, Jacobson's, a department store that was having this location closed shortly. Susan found a great potential wedding dress for Becky and Steve's wedding at a really great price, plus some cashmere also tremendously reduced. The best part is that we have 90 days to return it at the Naples store if we find something else.
Back to Lazy Days where we toured some of the new high line coaches. Some nice features and some you wonder why they bother….
Back to the clubhouse for cocktails, dinner and entertainment.
January 20, 2002, Sunday- after another breakfast with too many choices Fleetwood came to our coach and started their tweaking. As always, the techs are a delight to deal with, personality, professionalism, knowledge and parts. They tweaked our outside refrigerator grill and our gray water tank probes.
On Friday we all pitched in $5 for a bunch of lotto tickets…..$85 million prize to be drawn on Saturday night. Plan was for all 150 coaches to drive in a convoy to Tallahassee on Monday to get our cash. Luckily for the State Troopers, our parade was called off when we only won $60 on our $455 worth of purchases.
Before we knew it, we were on the road back to Pelican Lake. 160 miles, 2.5 hours. Not bad at all. Back at the ranch, many new coaches had arrived since we left on Thursday, including friends Bill and Becky that we hadn't seen in 2 years. Their new 45' Signature Series Monaco coach is a dream beyond description, built to their tastes and exquisite inside and out.
January 21, 2002, Monday- audit committee meeting for me while Susan washed Hobbes, did water aerobics, and a few loads of wash.
Caught up on phone calls, one of which was for new Porsche tires. The rears are shot and the fronts not far behind. 25000 miles on a Z rated tire is considered excellent. Since they are now 5 years old, and a tire's life is about 5 years before side wall weathering appears, it's time for a new set. Let our fingers off do the walking…and found a wide range of prices…from $97 to $225 per tire plus mounting. All were Z rated (sustained speeds of over 150 miles per hour….just what we needed for cruising through Pelican Lake), and A/A traction and heat. Calls to several of our local experts….get the least expensive they are all the same….just some are private label from the same companies.
Then, off to the movies, A Beautiful Mind….great picture.
January 22, 2002, Tuesday- lots of running…ordered tires…..but will wait for a Sunday installation…10% off for Sunday…not bad. Then Costco to replace the portable (landline) phone that died, and Lowe's for materials to put some exterior lights and 110 outlets on our shed. Also, two bags totaling 120 pounds filled with concrete for our driveway posts. When we returned home I started to unload the cement. First bag, no problem. Moved the second bag in the car and the left side of my lower back seemed to move an inch. Wow, the pain was so much fun. Shot tonight's dance lessons out of the range of possibility.
Got some emails today….the hotel is now open….Art and Anna are coming, as is Phil and then Jack and Ricky. Will keep the sheets washing for February and March.
January 23, 2002, Wednesday- what a difference a day makes….my back was 40% better in the morning and 80% better at night, only using aspirin. Weather has been boring….still in the low 80's every day and the 60's at night. Not bad at all.
Watched as they started bringing in the 30 coaches into our clubhouse parking lot for the weekend's sales show. One demonstrated how large their basement storage was by having a ramp to pull in a Harley motorcycle.
January 24, 2002, Thursday- Each morning one of our neighbors drops some dog treats at our front door and places our newspaper in our door handle. John, who does this, has been getting up earlier and earlier, as he started last night at 2:30 AM. Too early for me, but we told him how retrained Hobbes is now. He can't wait to poke his head out of the coach to get his treats.
During our morning walk we met Steve, a neighbor around the other side of the park. Learned that he was a barber for 44 years in Indiana and still cuts hair in his "coach house", aka shed. So I got the gray hair trimmed without having to wait in line at a chop shop place.
As we walked Hobbes an 8 week old 1.5 pound toy poodle couldn't stop playing with Hobbes. Definitely a Mutt and Jeff sight.
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Dinner with Jerry and Lois with Judy and Joe at the Bavarian restaurant that we had visited last year. Great food and company.
January 25, 2002, Friday- a big "Yellow Freight" truck came to the coach today with our stash of "Moose Drool" beer….2 cases for me and 4 cases for our neighbor Bob. Susan did her water aerobics with 12 other women this morning then we pitched in and helped cook and sell hot dogs and brats for the social committee. With some 150 or so meals sold, we pushed some product out the door during our 2 hour stint.
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Toured a few of the 30 coaches in the parking lot at Pelican but didn't find any that were the perfect match…..not that we have anything to match in the million dollar plus range. But they were big and finished to the nines.
Evening activity was dinner and dancing provided by the show coaches dealers. With a free price tag, it didn't take long for 200 plus people to fill the joint.
January 26, 2002, Saturday- we toured some more of the coaches---each an incredible piece of work. Although all were 40 to 45 feet long, the range of different layouts and materials were incredible. Even Jerry and Lois, who joined us this afternoon, couldn't believe the differences. Several were sold. Good luck to the new owners. One of the coach exec's wanted us to buy their prototype. Asking price was probably in the $900,000 range, but they would put in $50,000 in changes and still let it got for about $600,000. Wow, what a deal! Somehow my hand couldn't get near my wallet.
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This evening was a dinner and Elvis impersonator show. Tickets were sold out days ago. The dinner and entertainment were great and Susan won the hula hoop dance contest. Swivel hips came through. Danced until 10 PM
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January 27, 2002, Sunday- went to the tire store this morning for our 9 AM appointment. New Porsche Z rated tires were installed. It took them almost 2 hours for the install. We needed careful positioning before being lifted, and special torque wrenched for install and removal to prevent stripping from being over-torqued. Then special wheel weights could only be installed after cleaning the inside of the rim. Finally….out the door with rubber.
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Joined Jerry and Lois for some Euchre at the pool, and then dinner at their house with their friend "Susan" and Beth and Irv. Jerry had been working all week on his "world famous" pizza. Hand made and hand tossed crust, uncooked tomato based sauce, and fresh mozzarella, basil, garlic and salad. What could be bad? When they leave on Thursday, we won't get to see them until their return to Naples in April.
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January 28, 2002, Monday- we waited until after the morning fog to lift since on the last several days there have been several multi-car accidents, some totaling 27 cars, and some included fatalities. Arrived across the state at Mom's at 10, with the primary goal of helping her select a wedding dress for Steve and Becky's June wedding. Lucky as lucky can be. The first dress shop we visited, in the mall near her home, had many dresses that would fit the bill. By the third one she hit pay dirt….definitely her with looks and charm and personality. Susan, also hit pay dirt on search for some needed additions to her "classier" wardrobe section.
Back to Mom's and did a few repair projects. Dinner at Grady's American Grill….and back home by 8:30, in time to see Robert on "The Learning Channel"….during the "Life in the ER" show filmed at his Fresno hospital. Although they cut his speaking parts, he still looked great.
The only problem was that we forgot about a dinner engagement with big band entertainment that was to follow. Hope the other couples had a good time.
January 29, 2002, Tuesday- worked with the bookkeeping staff of both the homeowners and the lot rental people. Seemed like two steps forward and two steps backwards.
Dance lessons this evening with 9 couples. More tango and swing tonight.
January 30, Wednesday- more finance committee work….reviewed rental program and lot sales, as well as more condo financial reviews. Susan got some good workouts at the water aerobics. For dinner we were invited to our friends from the Super Bus group for a fish fry. They went fishing and did great. With fried grouper and grilled shark….what could be bad.
January 31, 2002, Thursday- more financial committee things filled the day. At 5 we went to Don's for a birthday party for Gary. About 20 folks were there for drinks and dinner. Perfect evening with temps in the 70's. with a brand new karaoke machine, the fun continued until after 11.
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