May 1, 2002, Wednesday- work this morning, Susan on the domestic washing/ ironing, and me emptying out some of the basement bins and scrubbing away 3 year's of use. Hard to imagine that this month is the 36th in this coach. Still looks great and runs great.
Drove over to the Porsche dealer and the car was ready with the new oil sending unit. Mechanic Steve told us he thought that the new oil sending unit is getting a better signal and that we weren't getting the low oil pressure warning light going on. Good news after a test drive. Saving a $7 to $10,000 engine rebuild sounds good to me. Now we shall go ahead and replace a few other seals to stop a large oil drip on the left side.
May 2, 2002, Thursday- dropped off Hobbes at 8:30 for his tooth cleaning. Spent 2 hours on the coach roof in the sun while cleaning the 3 exhaust fans. Hobbes did well and by 3 was ready to come home after his general anesthesia.
Dinner at Carol and Dick's with Lois, Jerry and Ruth. Got to check out their fancy birds, a few parrots and cockatoos. After dinner a round of cards. Poor Dick and myself came in third out of three teams. Not too good!
 |
 |
|
|
|
May 3, 2002, Friday- finished cleaning the driver's side bins today, along with changing water filters, chlorinating the fresh water system and washing the screens. Dinner with Joe and Sue. The dock slips alongside their Pier 81 condo are taking shape. After drinks at their place we walked to a neat little Italian restaurant next door. Small place, maybe 50 seats. Good food and good company.
 |
|
|
Now down to about 30 coaches with people in them here at Pelican. It's getting very quiet. I did find out today that the pool is great to soak on a hot afternoon.
May 4, 2002, Saturday- first time we went to the farmers' market where dozens of vendors were set up with everything from fresh fish (we bought a few pounds of jumbo shrimp for dinner with Jerry, Lois and Ruth) to every type of fruit and vegetable. When we laid it out on coach counter, it filled it and then some! But, it was hot in the sun. Now in the mid 90's everyday, no rain, not even any clouds.
 |
|
|
Went with J & L to the movies….this time for a 4:30 showing of "Changing Lanes". Excellent action and moral flick.
Dinner with J, L, & Ruth. Susan made some gazpacho. Jerry did his famous shrimp and grits. Followed with cards. Women won the first, the guys the second hand.
May 5, 2002, Sunday- off to the other coast to see Mom. First, got the computer up and running and noticed that the printer was only doing black. So, went on line and downloaded the correct printer drivers and monitors. Now we're in living color.
Then, tutorials on adding to contact lists and favorites.
Since we hadn't gone to the cemetery to visit Dad's grave this year, we decided to head over that way today. This time we took the highways and did in 15 minutes what was 30 to 40 over local streets. Fortunately the horrors that have been on the TV and radio down here about certain cemetery operators doing terrible things, wasn't evident from our vantage point.
 |
|
|
Next, over to the hospital to visit Mom's friend Elaine who checked herself in after waking up with a hand that shook so much that she couldn't sign her name. she looked well and was hooked up to a few monitors. An overnight stay is in the cards.
Mom needed some new printer cartridges. We priced them out in Office Max and then at Costco. Two packs of each cartridge ran $75 in Costco. The same items would have been $120 at Office Max. A big difference.
May 6, 2002, Monday- I borrowed a punch rivet gun from Joe (I've been asking everyone since we arrived in October if they had one). In October, at the ACA rally, we had a roof air conditioner cover replaced, and the hail guard protection grate had to be removed from the old cover, and reinstalled using a pop rivet gun. I didn't think that we needed the hail protection in Florida, but now that we're returning to Colorado, who knows what can happen.
I attached the rear ladder, climbed on the roof (still slippery from the morning dew, but any later in the day and it would have been too hot up there), and removed the four screws. Lifting off the cover I noticed a hornet buzzing around the cover. As I turned it over, a hornet's came into view, attached to the inside top of the cove. Calmly I descended the ladder and got out the trusty bug spray that attaches to the garden hose. Up I cautiously went, turned on the spray, flooded the inverted a/c cover, and luckily the flying critters were doing the back stroke. It must be a powerful bug killer.
Attaching the screen with the pop rivet gun took a few minutes, and that project was done. The front a/c cover which still had the hail guard cover in place needed some rustolium paint, so up with tape and paper to form a mask. Another project checked off.
 |
|
|
Over to the Pelican office I headed and spent 2 hours with Pat working on the rental program accounting.
Next up to Costco for some salmon burgers, Boca burgers, and kosher hot dogs for our BBQ dinner. At 6:30 Lois, Jerry, Ruth, Dick and Carol came over. I had the key to the clubhouse, so off we went to BBQ, play cards and make noise. Again, too much food, but this time Dick and I redeemed ourselves with a smashing victory over the competition.
Bad news at 11 with a call from Mom that her computer locked up. Restarting and getting new scan disk screens didn't help her off of dead center. Friday shall be the day of hopefully getting her up and running, and then bringing her to Naples for the weekend.
May 7, 2002, Tuesday- Hobbes was getting a little ripe so wash time this morning. Now he smells so fresh! Picked up the Porsche this afternoon and it's running fine (read no warning lights), and hopefully no major oil leaks. Tomorrow morning will be the tell tale time.
 |
 |
|
|
|
May 8, 2002, Wednesday- working the project list down….bleach/washed the shed exterior to prevent mildew, finished the coach roof caulking, and spent some time at the office on accounting challenges.
Dinner at the clubhouse with Joe, Sue and Tom. Sue and Joe brought some crab claws which were dynamite. This was followed with shish-k-bob on the grill. Only downside was that the kitchen was locked. But, being the deviants that we were, we improvised the necessary tools, and bingo, we had the ice, sinks, etc. that we needed.
 |
 |
|
|
|
May 9, 2002, Thursday- worked on Pelican accounting all morning. At 10 I finally got a call from the RV DR that he would be here by 1 for an hour job of replacing the front leveling jack that was leaking. At 2 I called and found out that he should definitely be here before 3. We were planning to spend the afternoon with Bob and Elaine. Not going to happen. At 3:40 he shows up and starts his work removing the old jack and installing a new one.
 |
|
|
Glad that we had our extended insurance warrantee. At a cost of $1000 for the jack and labor, we would only pay a $50 deductible and a $40 trip charge. It could be worse.
Dan finally finished the install and I ran the jacks up and down a few times. They worked fine, but now the air system is not functioning correctly. I have 130 #'s of pressure in each system, but the coach isn't returning to ride height. The suspension airbags are flat. Not good. Dan swears that it's nothing that he touched. I have the power, my check to him and my signature on his reimbursement bill. So, I call Fleetwood. They are clueless. Next call is to Spartan, the company that makes the chassis. Customer service rep starts taking about this valve and that valve and tons of different systems. I say, stand back. Everything worked today before we put on the jack. Now the air isn't performing to refill the bags. Aren't they tied into the jack system so that when the jacks retract the bags fill? Oh yes, there's a wire from here to there. I give the phone to Dan who says he doesn't work on the chassis side of the coach. He now realizes that the coach can't be moved in this condition so he listens to the Spartan rep, crawls under the coach and finds a wire that has separated right next to the jack. As soon as he touches it, the air starts working as designed. Thank goodness.
 |
 |
|
|
|
He leaves at 5:30 and we run up to Bob and Elaine's neck of the woods. Reservations at the Chop's Steak house. Bob has $20 per person off coupons. The food and drinks are first class from their mouthwatering menu descriptions to the taste, texture and presentation.
 |
|
|
Sometimes you get lucky. Susan doesn't like when I do our budgets to actual expenses. Well doing the comparison this month I noticed that we weren't charged for our new hospitalization plan. It's supposed to be charged automatically to our checking account. Called the company and found out that it takes two months for the autopay policy to become effective. We are now in the grace period, or maybe over it. No, they don't send out notices. It was supposedly in the initial paperwork that we needed to send in checks. So, if I didn't do my thing, we would have been dropped like a hot potato. Susan got the check into an overnight mail envelope.
May 10, 2002, Friday- started across the state to get Mom, and halfway there she calls that her garage door won't stay closed. Each time it goes down, back up it comes. Should she call the repair man? No, I'll be there in an hour.
Fortunately it was an easy repair. The limit down switch came off, but Mom had found the clip. Bingo, It's all back in operation. Next project was to check out the locked up computer. Easy job number two. Mom had never seen a DOS screen that came up with a scan disk operation. The mouse is inoperable in that mode, and using the tab key wasn't in the lessons that we had covered. Lucky, lucky, lucky to get it all back in motion.
Returned to Naples and the car was reading 96 as we exited the Interstate. My, my, my, it's getting toasty.
It was time to stay inside the a/c coach and catch-up on things. Spent almost 2 hours on the phone with HP. Our new printer still doesn't print on the right side with smaller paper. After too long on our nickel, we finally got them to set in motion a replacement to arrive in a few days. Maybe now we shall get the full photo use of the photo quality printer.
Susan whipped up a great dinner, and we played a few hands of "hand and foot". Mom's a fast learner and did great.
Special day today as we got our wedding invitation. Cami did a wonderful job on creating something very special ( if I do say so myself).
May 11, 2002, Saturday- Susan and I did the farmers' market again this Saturday- and with a light cloud cover, it was as productive as last week but also much more enjoyable.
For lunch we joined Jerry, Lois, Ruth, Rachael and Dan at Tommy Bahama's, an upscale café on Naples famous 3rd Street. Afterwards we wound up back at Jerry and Lois's for an eight handed round of Hand and Foot cards. Four teams of two. Lot's of action and fun and then dinner of fresh shrimp and patai noodles. We're going to miss these great folks when we leave Florida in 8 days.
 |
 |
|
|
|
May 12, 2002, Sunday- Happy Mother's day to every mother out there! Back to Jerry and Lois's for a brunch. The main ingredients were fresh deli…nova lox and all the goodies, straight from Zabar's in the Big Apple. It was also Rachael's birthday so a cake was in order along with good wishes.
 |
 |
|
|
|
For the afternoon we headed to the movies to see the Woody Alan movie "Hollywood Ending". Some cute lines and as with most of his movies, some hilarious lines and some parts that you just wanted to get through.
May 13, 2002, Monday- got an early call from Irv that he was flying down from Philly and asked us to bring his car up to the Ft. Myers airport at 11:15 PM. Carol and Dick were nice enough to bring the car from Marco to our lot during the day, which would save us an hour in the evening.
Drove Mom back across the state and help her with some shopping items and after the third Judaica store, found a lovely glass and cover for Becky and Steve's wedding ceremony.
Returned to the coach at 9 and found out that Irv's flight was 2 hours delayed. Cell phones are wonderful. We found out that he did have an extra set of keys, so after his flight finally left, we dropped off his car at the airport and left the location on his voice mail. Modern wonders! It was much more civilized then waiting for his 1:30 AM touchdown.
|
CLICK HERE TO: |
|
|
|
|
