Tag Archives: Blue Highway Pizzeria

2014/03/31 (M) T Minus 7

The last day of March marked the beginning of the final week countdown to our departure from Williston Crossings RV Resort. On a drive into the Gainesville Publix supermarket we wondered which was stranger, leaving here after being in one place for just over three months, or returning home after being away for more than four months? Linda was back home for three weeks in late February and early March, so it does not feel quite as strange to her.

I got a callback from AALL*Brite letting me know that would be back at Williston Crossings on Friday to wash our rig and polish our wheels. Having that appointment confirmed allowed us to plan the rest of our week, which will include a visit to Weeki Wachi SP, and getting into the WCRVR swimming pool (finally). We have seen AALL*Brite in the past at rallies in Michigan. They do a nice job on aluminum wheels for a very reasonable price. Their price to wash and spotless rinse the rig is also very reasonable. We are not going to have them wax it, which is much more expensive, as we have never had wax or other such products on the coach since we had it repainted and don’t feel we need them.

We finally have a string of days this week with forecasted highs in the mid-80s; lovely days to be outside reading and crafting on the patio of our well-shaded site. We have also been spending time with our RV resort friends with whom we will shortly no longer be able to visit. While some of them live here year-round, others are winter seasonal residents like us and are also preparing to leave.

Monday is pizza double-punch day and half-price drink day at the Micanopy Blue Highway Pizzeria, so going there for dinner is a routine part of John and Ali’s week. We have gone with them the last few weeks as it is a good opportunity to just sit and talk. This time we were joined by John and Ann who we have seen at the fire pit and said “hello” to while walking, but not really talked with at length.

When we got back to WCRVR we gathered at John and Ali’s rig with our glasses of wine to continue the conversation. We were joined by Charles and Sandy who we have also seen and chatted with at the fire pit. They are currently living at WCRVR while they look for a business to purchase in the area. They had a business in Texas (Houston area) that they sold and have been traveling around the central and eastern U. S. looking for one to buy. They are in their late 40’s and are not ready to be retired. In spite of a high temperature in the 80s, it got very cool after the sun went down and we retreated to the comfort of our coach.

2014/03/24 (M) Count Down

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As of today we are down to our final two weeks here at Williston Crossings RV Resort. We were very busy going places and doing things in January and February. We have continued to be busy in March, but limited our travels away from the RV resort. That is due to a combination of factors. For one, we have used our Florida State Parks annual pass enough to have gotten our monies worth out of it, so we are not feeling as pressed to get out there and see things. For another, we have gotten busy with the new RVillage social networking website and other projects that are most easily accomplished in or near our coach. A third factor is that the weather has gotten just enough warmer and drier (most of the time) that people are finally out and about here at the RV Resort. That means more opportunity to socialize with our neighbors, who have invited use to happy hour gatherings and pot luck meals.

Bitter sweet. As I have described in blog posts and articles it is always hard to leave friends, even after a 5-day rally or a 2-week HFH build. We have been here for almost three months. Folks are asking if we are coming back next year and we have had to tell them “no.” That deserves an explanation. It’s our first snowbird season and there is a lot of North America that we still need to see. We simply cannot decide to return to the first place we have spent the winter away from Michigan.

We finally met Allen, one of the RV Resort owners, the other day and arranged to demonstrate RVillage for him this morning. I set up an account for him and walked him through the main functions to highlight the purpose behind the website. He seemed excited about it, and tasked someone in the office to arrange a day/time/place for me to demonstrate it to anyone in the park who might be interested. He wanted it publicized on the resort cable system. So far that has not happened, and time is running out, so it may not.

John and Ali like to go to The Blue Highway Pizzeria in Micanopy on Mondays; half-price drinks and double-punch on their free pizza card. Linda and I went with them, split a nice salad, and then split a medium pizza; vegan sauce, no cheese, mushrooms, onions, and sun-dried tomatoes. Lots of sun-dried tomatoes. It was good, although I prefer the pizza at Satchel’s in Gainesville. The restaurant gave them our “punches” since we don’t have a card.

2014/03/10 (M) And All Of That

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Overnight from Saturday into Sunday we switched to Daylight Savings Time, so my personal biological clock is off by an hour but slowly resetting. One of the nice things about retirement, however, is that it really doesn’t matter what time is on the clock when the sun rises and sets. The sun rose this morning through clear skies and flooded our passenger side bedroom window with lovely warm light. That’s how I knew it was time to get up.

There is comfort in my morning routine: feed the cats, refresh their water, and clean their litter tray. (They insist that these things be taken care of before I do anything else.) Grind the coffee beans and start the brewing process. Some orange/grapefruit juice to wash down an allergy pill and a multi-vitamin, and then a decision about what to have for breakfast. It is usually granola, but not always. Turn on the Verizon MiFi, start the computer, get connected and check my e-mail accounts. No one from the African sub-continent wants to give me millions of dollars for helping them launder billions in stolen U.S. Foreign aid, and we have not won a free cruise, so it looks like I will have a fairly normal day and get to do whatever it was I planned to do, if I feel like it.

I had not yet written blog posts for Saturday and Sunday, so I did that first. I find the Notepad app on my iPad2 particularly convenient for this purpose. I can sit anywhere and work, including outside or away from the bus. This morning our female cat, Juniper, was feeling a bit needy (she is more bonded to Linda than me and really misses her) so I sat on the couch writing blog posts with her on my lap. A pair of cardinals was busy in the trees around our rig gathering pieces of Spanish moss for what I could only presume was the building of a nest somewhere nearby. Juniper has a very strong hunting instinct, so this really got her attention, and provided here with kitty entertainment for quite some time.

A group had planned to go to Satchel’s in Gainesville for pizza around 3 PM. It turned out that they were not open on Mondays, so we went to the Micanopy Blue Highway instead. We went early because some of the group had to be back before 6 PM to work or play bingo. I knew it would be an early dinner and just had a piece of fruit for lunch. The first time Linda and I went to the Blue Highway we had them veganize one of their standard roasted vegetable pizzas. It was OK. I have been back twice while Linda has been away and had salad both times. Most pizzas are not very good without the cheese.

Linda called while we were driving to the restaurant to update me on the leak. Our son (Brendan) had come over to lend a hand. When he inspected the area under the dishwasher he found the fresh water supply line dripping at the connector and shut off the water to the dishwasher. Assuming that was the only source of the leak it was actually relatively good news. An ice dam on roof would have meant water running down the inside of the wall. Linda is flying back to Florida late Thursday, so she will have a few days to make sure this was the only problem. The fact that I will have to repair this leak when we get home just added insult to injury. I installed the new dishwasher last year and had trouble getting that very connection to not leak. Instead of Teflon thread tape I will be using PTFE pipe thread compound next time.

John and Ali decided to have another campfire at their site this evening. I made some popcorn to take over, the first time I’ve made any since Linda flew back to Michigan. Meg joined us for a while. It was another quiet evening at the RV resort. As the sun set the air temperature dropped back into the low 60’s, just cool enough to make the fire an enjoyable necessity without feeling chilled.

2014/02/25 (T) Bus Project

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Photos for today’s post follow the text in a photo gallery. Maximum dimension is ~300 pixels.

I don’t think I’m obsessive or compulsive, but I can only sit and relax so much before I have to do something. Linda likes to walk, and I like to walk with her, but I am less inclined to do that on my own just for the doing of it. Still, I walked to the local ACE Hardware store today for some parts for a “project” and stopped at the Grocery Depot for some supplies on the way back. It was probably a mile round trip; not enough to really promote cardiovascular fitness, but better than taking the car.

Yesterday I put some water in the garbage disposal opening. (Yes, our bus has a residential garbage disposal.) The disposal has never worked since we bought the bus and it occurred to me that the trap in the drain might not have any water in it, which would permit orders from the gray tank to come up into the house portion of the coach. Not to worry as it turns out; the water did not drain from the In-Sink-Erator. I left it for a few hours and it eventually drained out. Examination with a flashlight revealed that the inside was complete rusted, so badly that I could not even see the two pieces that are free to rotate when the disposal is spinning. I tried scraping the inside, but to free it up, but it was beyond hope.

I also finally understood why the switch which we assumed was for the disposal did not do anything. At some point in the past someone turned it “on” and the breaker on the bottom of the unit immediately tripped and never got reset. There would not have been any purpose in resetting it anyway.The only reasonably solution (from my point of view) was to replace the disposer, even though we did not intend to use it very much. I am not aware of a product that is sold for sealing up the hole where the disposer goes. (I could have plumbed it into the drain for the main sink basin, but given how small that section of the sink is, that would also serve no practical purpose.) I did not remove the old unit, but I had a good look at it as I needed to find one of similar size and shape given the space where it had to fit.

Late morning I was getting ready to head to Lowe’s in Gainesville when John (next door neighbor) invited me to join he and Ali and group of folks from the fire pit to go out to the Blue Highway Pizzeria for dinner, so I deferred my shopping trip until later. (Linda and I had a pizza at the Blue Highway in Micanopy a week or so ago and it was OK. The staff was great and was very helpful in getting us a vegan pizza, but most pizzas just don’t veganize very well. They did say that they would put our non-dairy cheese on a pizza for us if we brought it in a sealed package as it comes from the store. That may be worth a try).

I left early enough to do my shopping at meet up with the group at 3:30 PM. Luck was on my side. Lowe’s had a garbage disposer that looked exactly like the one installed in our coach. It was a Badger Model 1, 1/3 HP. Badger is In-Sink-Erator’s budget grinder line.

Today I opened the unit, read the instructions (yeah, I’m one of those guys), gathered my tools, and went to work. As shown by some of the photos that follow, the discharge port of the old disposer was completely clogged with—well, I’m not sure what—some combination of rust and food scraps. Kind of nasty, although that stuff doesn’t bother me. I removed the unit and discovered that it was a … In-Sink-Erator Badger Model 1. Sometimes you just get lucky. At least it was guaranteed to fit! Everything went back together fairly easily. I added water to check for leaks. Water tight. Plugged it in and voila, we have a functioning garbage disposer. And yes, the switch we thought was for the disposer is in fact for the disposer.

The other project I have been contemplating had to do with toilet paper. Our female cat, Juniper, likes to unroll it, shred it, and eat it. As shown in the pictures the doors on the bathroom sink cabinet are easily reached when “seated.” The right door opens into your right knee, but the left door swings clear. Oh look, I could mount a toilet paper roll holder right there. Open the door to use, close to hide it from the cat.

So, off to the ACE Hardware store in search of an appropriately sized TP holder. They had just what I needed; end mounts in (fake) polished brass, and inexpensive too. I like it when that happens. I assembled the tools I needed for this project but was not able to find my drill bits. Back to ACE Hardware for a drill bit. The project was done quickly as projects go and it works great! We’ve talked about mounting a paper towel holder somewhere in the kitchen. That may be tomorrow’s project.

Here are the photos: