Tag Archives: Ronnie & Diann Mewbourn (1968 Model 07 Eagle)

2016/03/01–02 (T–W) Politics and Nutpods

2016/03/01 (T) Super Tuesday Nutpods

Today was officially our fifth month away from home this winter; not full months, of course, but the fifth month by name nonetheless. I got up briefly at 6:45 AM to add food to the cats’ bowls and went back to bed. With less pestering from the cats we slept in longer than usual and did not get up until just before 8 AM.

The shelf-stable Nutpods non-dairy coffee creamer that we ordered online. We had high hopes for this product based on the reviews, but it disappointed us.

I made coffee and tried the new Nutpods non-dairy coffee creamer that arrived yesterday. To our mutual disappointment, it separated almost immediately. I was able to blend it back in by stirring, but it would just separate again if I let it sit. We were both disappointed. The reviews of this product sang its praises and made special note of it not separating like other non-dairy creamers. We bought four containers of it for $3.50 each, so I will use them up, but we won’t be buying any more of them. What we both find odd is that we do not recall having this problem at home where I have used unflavored soy-based creamers for a long time. The only obvious difference between the bus and the house is that we have a dishwasher (machine) at home, but neither of us think this is related to the mugs not being clean on the bus as they are washed in soapy hot water.

Breakfast was granola with fresh blueberries and a small glass of juice to wash down our vitamins. After breakfast Linda went to Mara’s motorhome to take care of the morning cat chores and I settled in to work at my computer. I dealt with BCM- and SLAARC-related e-mails and investigated why the ES|ET Smart Security 8 software on my ASUS notebook computer was apparently not synchronizing with the Windows 10 update function. I discovered in the process that there was a Smart Security 9 upgrade available so before requesting technical support I installed the upgrade.

While the upgrade was downloading and installing I called Ed and Betty Burns and arranged to meet them for linner at Sweet Tomatoes on University Parkway in Sarasota at 3 PM. We needed to drive to Petco for cat food anyway and the restaurant is just across the street. Since they now live in Florida, no longer work at the Middleton’s berry farm north of Detroit during the summer, and have given up RVing (at least for now), we probably will not see them again any time soon and wanted to visit with them one more time before we left south(west) Florida for the season.

When Linda got back I turned off the outside water and tested the fresh water pump. It appeared to be working normally, so I left the outside water off and we resumed using the pump.

I proofread yet another draft of the April issue of Bus Conversion Magazine and marked up a few final corrections to my featured bus article on Ronnie and Diann Mewbourn’s 1969 Model 07 Eagle conversion. Soon enough it was 1 PM and time to leave.

We stopped at the Shell station on FL-70 in Lakewood Ranch and filled up the tank. Regular gasoline (10% Ethanol) was $1.79 per gallon. A week ago I bought fuel at this same station for $1.56 per gallon. We arrived at the Petco, in the massive University Town Center shopping district, at 2:20 PM. They were out of the exact food we needed (Royal Canin Sensitive Digest Thin Slices) but had the loaf form of the same food so we bought all nine cans of that. That will be enough to get us past Mara and Michael’s return from the Holistic Holiday at Sea cruise.

We were at Sweet Tomatoes by 2:50 PM and had just started to go for a walk when Ed and Betty drove by, so we turned around and met them at the front door. We were at the restaurant for almost two hours and had a good meal and a nice chat. We talked about our upcoming travel plans and Ed and Betty, who have taken care of some important medical issues, indicated that they are thinking about getting a Class B or B+ motorhome or possibly a pull-behind RV. There is an outside possibility that we might cross paths with them in the Canadian Maritime provinces over the summer. Towards the end of our meal Ed and Janet Roelle showed up with Nathan. We chatted briefly with them, said “fair well for now” to everyone, and headed back to Arcadia.

We stopped at the Publix supermarket on FL-70 in Lakewood Ranch for a few grocery items we cannot get in Arcadia. (It should be noted, however, that Publix is building a supermarket in Arcadia.) We got back to our coach just before 6 PM and spent a few minutes with our cats, both of whom were very glad to see us and wanted our attention. At 6:20 Linda walked down to take care of Mara’s cats and I walked down about 30 minutes later. Linda had the TV on and “Super Tuesday,” with 11 states holding presidential primary elections, dominated the news cycle. We walked back to our rig at 7:45 PM under dark, clear skies and bright stars.

We watched NCIS and NCISNOLA but Limitless was preempted by Super Tuesday election coverage so we found a documentary on PBS about the Statue of Liberty and watched that. Linda fell asleep before it was over but it was followed by an equally interesting documentary on the public health hospital on Ellis Island that operated for nearly 30 years in the early 20th Century.

2016/03/02 (W) Windshield Caulk

Our day started, as it usually does, with coffee, breakfast, and iPads. While Linda tended to Mara’s cats I made a few changes to the ES|ET Smart Security 9 settings on my computer. I then selected and processed three possible post card photos from last week and e-mailed them to Linda’s iPad.

When Linda got back from tending to Mara’s cats and motorhome she worked on creating this week’s photo post card for Madeline and uploaded it to the PhotoCardApp service in San Diego, California. She then got to work on tax returns. I finalized the bonus photo captions for the BCM featured bus article on Dave Aungier’s 1977 MCI MC-5C bus conversion, uploaded everything to my Dropbox, and e-mailed the magazine staff to let them know it was there.

The motorhome that was next to us on the passenger side for most of the winter pulled out on Sunday. On Monday the resort put another rig in that site. It stayed for two nights and pulled out this morning. We never even met the people. Early this afternoon the resort brought in another rig, a 42 foot 5th-wheel being pulled by a suitably large pickup truck. Phil, from the resort office, was the escort and parking attendant. I popped out to see if I should move my car and Phil said it would help, so I backed deeper into our site and well out of the way. It took some doing but Phil managed to get the rig backed into the site.

As long as I was outside I had several chores to take care of before we pull out of here on Monday and today seemed like a good day to take care of a couple of them. I found some silicon spray lubricant and managed to pull the emergency breakaway key out of the lock on the front bumper of the car just far enough to spray some in. I let it sit a minute and then wrapped what was left of the tethered cable around my hands and pulled hard enough to finally get it to come out. With the key out I sprayed the inside of the lock and on the key and then inserted and removed the key several times. I sprayed a bit more, put the key back in, and let it sit.

Our new neighbor was outside setting up their rig so we got to meet him. His name was also Phil and his wife’s name was Marylou. Phil was retired from the U. S. Army and they recently became full-time RVers. We chatted briefly and met their two adorable Dachshunds. We let them get back to the task of setting up camp and moved on to my second chore, which required Linda’s assistance.

The other day I pulled the caulking out from between the new passenger side lower windshield and the new windshield gasket. I let it sit a couple days to see if the gasket would reform to the glass as a result of warm temperatures and hot sunshine. It didn’t, so I got the tube of black caulk I found the other day and got it ready to use. I used the small 3-step stool to get high enough to work and Linda prepared several wet paper shop towels. I applied the caulk, which is designed for window trimming and should work with glass, to the gap between the windshield and the gasket. Linda held the windshield wiper out of the way while I worked and handed me the wet paper towels as needed. I did not do a very good job but hopefully it was good enough to keep the windshield from leaking water and prevent wind noise. The caulk was water cleanup, so that made it easy to take care of putting everything away.

By 4 PM the outside air temperature was about 80 degrees F with a nice breeze, scattered clouds, and a hot sun. That made for very pleasant conditions outside in the shade, but inside it was 85 in spite of having the windows open and the exhaust fans running. Linda went outside to read and I was having a problem getting my laptop to connect to the NAS so I shut off my computer and the NAS and went outside to join her.

As we move towards spring we have the sun on our windshields for more of the day and are now getting the late afternoon sun on the passenger side of our motorcoach. Linda commented that if we ever buy an RV lot somewhere she wants it oriented and/or landscaped so the passenger side of the coach is always in shade. Duly noted and agreed.

I worked on this blog post for a while using the new MobiSystems OfficeSuites app. Now that I have figured out how to use it with Dropbox, and have learned how to create folders and move files, I am satisfied with how it works and might go ahead and spend the $19.99 for the full-featured “Premium” version. Not that I am using most of the features of the free version, but why limit myself.

We skipped lunch today and by 4:30 PM Linda was hungry so she went inside to prepare our dinner. I played a few games on my iPad and when the sun dropped below our patio awning and obscured my screen I went inside. Linda had just set our salads on the table so it was good timing. She made large salads with a kale and spinach base and lots of yummy toppings including sliced fresh apples. She put our monthly dose of four Brazil Nuts on the side and served still water with half of a Meyer lemon squeezed into each glass. I eat faster than Linda does so I packed up our computers and iPads and loaded them in the car while she finished her dinner.

When Linda was done eating we grabbed our smartphones and drove over to the activity building. Dominoes and pinochle are scheduled on Wednesdays at 6:30 PM in the main room, but the library was not scheduled for use so we set up our technology in there. We got both computers, both iPads, and both smartphones connected to the resort Wi-Fi system and then connected through to the Internet. I had ~300 MB of app updates for my iPad and Linda had ~425 MB of app updates for hers. I had six app updates on my phone and Linda had three. Those tend to be smaller than the iPad updates but probably totaled another 200 MB combined. We both had critical updates for Windows 10 and have no idea how many MB they were since Windows 10 does not think that is information the end user needs to know. People using limited data plans, however, probably differ with Microsoft on this point.

Folks started showing up for the games at 6 PM and they were underway by 6:30. Linda’s devices were all up-to-date by then so she walked over to Mara’s motorhome for her evening cat chores. I finished up with my updates by 6:45, packed up our tech toys (tools), and drove back to our rig.

Wednesday night is PBS nature and science night for us and the theme this evening was space exploration. But first we had to get tuned in to the results of yesterday’s Super Tuesday primary elections. After three hours of space exploration documentaries Linda went to bed while I watched Charlie Rose. He had four guests, two from each end of the political spectrum, and they provided their analysis of the current presidential candidate race, to the extent that anyone understands what is going on. Reassured that the world really is in chaos, and that the American electorate has crossed the boundary into collective insanity, I went to sleep.

2016/02/21 (N) Punta Gorda

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Our destination today was Punta Gorda. We arranged last night to pick up Mara and Michael at 9 AM and stop at Dunkin Donuts for coffee and something to eat. As a result we slept in a bit and did not make coffee or have breakfast. I stopped at the Shell Station to top off the fuel tank and then pulled into the DD next door. Coffee and food in hand we headed to downtown Arcadia on FL-70 and then headed south on US-17 to Punta Gorda.

Michael, Mara, and Linda at the historic 1928 train station in Punta Gorda, FL.

Mara had researched things to see and do and entered them into the “Map My Plans” app on her iPad. The app can arrange them in the best order (shortest driving distance) to visit. Our first stop was an historic train station from 1928 that is now a local history museum. It was closed on Sunday’s, but we got to see the outside. Our next stop was an open air arts and crafts market near the Convention Center. We saw this market last month, when we visited the Woodcarvers Expo at the Convention Center, and it was there again today so we stopped. Mara bought some earrings and Linda bought an apron. There was also a husband-wife guitar group playing some very interesting original music that seemed to be of derivative Spanish influence. They were selling CDs, and I am always tempted to buy one from groups like this as I would likely never find them anywhere else again. But I didn’t.

This is the front of the historic 1928 train station. Punta Gorda, FL.

From the arts and crafts market we drove to the farmers’ market. We also visited this market in January and really liked it. The same vendors were there so we were able to buy some more Miatake mushrooms and some Sweet Hot pickles. Linda also bought a selection of fruits and vegetables.

Linda looks over the fruits and vegetables at the Punta Gorda farmers market.

From the farmers market we drove to Ponce de Leon Park and visited the Peace River Wildlife Refuge. This was also our second visit to this facility, which has an interesting collection of injured birds who are at least living out their lives in comfort and safety.

The front end of a vintage Lincoln at the Muscle Car Museum in Punta Gorda, FL. Most of the cars were General Motors products.

After our visit to the refuge we drove to an alligator preserve but it was closed. We back-tracked a short distance to the Muscle Car Museum. Though not free, we paid the nominal admission charge and spent a couple hours examining a very large and very nice collection of Chevy cars and trucks. Among others they had a couple of 1957 Belairs and a couple of 1967 Cameros.

Bruce standing by a red 1957 Chevy Belair. He had one very similar to this when he was in high school. Muscle Car Museum, Punta Gorda, FL.

Neither of us are particularly nostalgic about our youth, or any other part of our past for that matter, but I had a 1957 Belair my last three years in high school (in the late 60s) that I customized. It was not a muscle car but it was candy apple red and it was mine. Linda’s first car after she graduated from high school and started working was a 1967 Camero. It was a white convertible with a red interior and a 327 cubic inch V8 under the hood. It had an automatic transmission, and was not a muscle car, but it was powerful and we took it to from St. Louis, Missouri to Colorado and back on our two-week camping honeymoon right after we got married.

Linda standing by a white 1967 Chevy Camero. It was similar to the one she owned except that hers was a convertible and had a red interior. Muscle Car Museum, Punta Gorda, FL.

We discussed finding a restaurant in Punta Gorda for linner but Mara and Linda did not turn up anything promising. I set the GPS and started back to our RV resort. In less than an hour we were back and dropped Mara and Michael at her rig before returning to ours.

Back at the coach we turned on our Verizon Mi-Fi and checked our e-mail. Gary had sent the first draft of the April 2016 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine for me to proofread. I went through my featured bus article on Ronnie and Diann Mewbourn’s 1969 Model 07 Eagle conversion and started annotating corrections. I will need to go through it again with the original open for comparison but I was too tired to do that today.

For dinner Linda sautéed the Miatake mushrooms in EVOO with garlic, onion, and Egri Merlot. She also cooked a spaghetti squash, set out some black grapes, and poured out the remainder of the Merlot, which was left over from last night’s dinner. This was only the second time we have had Miatake mushrooms and it is difficult to describe in words how exquisitely good they are in terms of taste, texture, sight, and smell. We agreed that they were the best mushrooms we have ever had.

After dinner I connected the Sony a99v-DSLT to my computer and off-loaded the 105 pictures I took today. I looked through them quickly but did not see anything that I thought would make a good postcard for Madeline. My computer seemed to be working again so I backed up photos, blog posts, BCM files, and other files to our NAS. I tried to access the Backup and Security components in Windows 10 and it appeared they had been restored to proper operation. I checked for updates and the system said it was up-to-date. ES|ET Smart Security is still telling me I have 17 updates and most of them appear to be drivers related to the computer hardware and low level system functions. I need to contact ES|ET and ask them about what this actually means and how to resolve it.

We were going to walk over after dinner and visit with Mara and Michael but all four of us were tired and took a pass. We watched Father Brown on PBS, the Simpsons and something else on FOX, and then Downton Abbey on PBS. Linda headed off to bed after Downton Abbey and I watched the end of CSI: Cyber.

2016/01/16 (S) – 2016/01/20 (W) A Capitol Experience

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2016/01/16 (S) Fort Myers Beach Marilyn

I got up at 8:15 AM, cleaned the cats’ food bowls, fed them, and then made coffee. I replied to an e-mail from BCM publisher Gary Hatt regarding which article he planned to run in March and which one in April. I then downloaded my photos from the last two days from my camera to my computer. Linda slept in and did not get up until 9:10. We both felt like we have had too much less-than-ideal food to eat the last few days and split a grapefruit for breakfast.

Our plans for the day revolved around meeting Linda’s sister, Sr. Marilyn, at noon at the Diamond Head Beach Resort and Spa in Fort Myers Beach where she is attending an educational conference and taking CPE courses to maintain her counseling license. The conference was being put on by her religious community, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Corondelet. Marilyn told us the resort parking was outside but the entrance had a relatively low bar over it so I took the ham radio antenna off of our car before we left at 10 AM for the drive to Fort Myers Beach.

Two hours should have been plenty of time to get there but we finally discovered the downstate traffic congestion that many fellow RV/snowbirds have mentioned to us. The trip down FL-31 south was an easy, pleasant drive through citrus groves and ranches. It ended at FL-80 where we headed west towards Ft. Myers. We had the GPS set for “shortest route” so it took us through town instead of putting us on I-75 but it was an interesting route and we got to see different parts of the city including downtown and McGreger Avenue, which is lined with large Royal Palms. It was also the location of the adjacent Henry Ford and Thomas Edison estates. In spite of the traffic we will probably venture back there at some point to see the estates.

Apparently everyone was headed to Ft. Myers Beach today as the last few miles to get onto the island took one hour. It was the worst traffic I seen in years. There is only one bridge connecting the north end of the island to the mainland and there are two lanes of traffic that funnel down into one. The lanes have a divider between them and are controlled by separate stop lights. We had never seen anything like it before. Linda texted Marilyn with a revised ETA.

Marilyn and Linda at the Diamond Head Beach Resort & Spa, Ft. Myers Beach, FL.

When we finally pulled into the parking lot of the hotel at 12:30 PM Marilyn was waiting for us. We paid for parking ($10), parked the car, and went directly to Cabana’s, the hotel’s beachfront bar/restaurant. Linda had a margarita and I had a frozen strawberry daiquiri. What can I say? I like fruit drinks.

For lunch Linda and I both had veggie burgers and Marilyn had the Portobello mushroom burger. The veggie burgers were mushy, as they often are, but the French fries were coated with something before being fried, probably flour, and were excellent. After we were done eating Linda and Marilyn walked out onto the beach where Linda took her shoes off and walked in the ocean. Our $10 parking fee got us a voucher for the same amount which we applied to the lunch bill.

We spent the next 90 minutes strolling a portion of Estero Boulevard, the main/only street that runs the length of the island. I took a few photographs and we wandered into a few shops but did not buy anything. We also walked out on the pier where we got a close up look at two Pelicans and a great view of the very crowded beach to the north and south. This place definitely had that upscale but slightly funky, seaside resort, winter getaway vibe that is one of the reasons people flock to such places.

The Beach at Ft. Myers Beach, FL.

We were back at the hotel at 3:30 PM. Marilyn had something to do at 4 PM so we took our leave and got back into the bumper-to-bumper traffic that was now moving slowly towards the bridge and off the island. But at least it was moving, and once we cleared the bridge traffic moved along much better. I changed the GPS to “fastest route” and it took us over different roads to I-75 and then north five miles to FL-80 where we retraced our earlier route (in reverse) to get back to Arcadia. At the intersection of FL-80 and FL-31 we stopped at a Publix supermarket and bought a couple of bottled drinks.

It had been a long day and I did not feel like working at my computer. We tuned in a program on PBS at 8 PM and doodled on our iPads. Linda was checking the weather and the forecast for overnight was starting to look ominous. When the program ended at 9:30 we went outside to retract our awnings and put our folding chairs and table away. We stowed the big patio awning last and it started to rain lightly as we completed that task. We left the TV on and watched the weather situation closely. I finally went to bed at midnight knowing that we would not got a full, restful night’s sleep.

2016/01/17 (N) Bad Weather

The cold front that swept across the Florida peninsula overnight was draped off of an intense low pressure system that moved from Texas along the Gulf coast shore into the Florida panhandle and eventually along the Florida/Georgia border and off into the Atlantic. The front, combined with a low level jetstream, raced across the area at 50 to 60 miles per hour triggering numerous thunderstorms and spawning a few tornados.

We had followed the development of the system closely before going to bed at midnight as both channel 11 and 20 had continuous storm team coverage. At 4:30 AM we received severe weather alerts on our phones. Linda’s phone has a loud klaxon warning sound associated with these alerts and we were instantly wide awake. We put on our sweats, so that we would at least be dressed in case we had to leave the rig, and turned on the TV.

Arcadia, including our Big Tree Carefree RV Resort, was in the northeast corner of a tornado warning box. It had started raining, off and on, well before midnight but as the storm front moved into our area thunderstorms came with it, one with Doppler radar indicated rotation. There was lightning and thunder, of course, and the rain became steady and very heavy. The wind really picked up but never became tornadic. We stayed up until 5:30 AM by which time the main storm front had passed. There were a few lingering cells behind it but the meteorologists gave the “all clear” for our area and we went back to bed.

The temperature was in the upper 60’s when we got up at 8:30 AM, rose slightly to about 70, and then dropped throughout the day as the front that triggered the storms raced off into the Atlantic opening the door for much colder air to flow in behind it, courtesy of the Polar Vortex that was plunging most of the Eastern U. S. and Canada into a deep freeze.

The rest of the day was uneventful with pleasant weather. My focus was selecting and processing photos from the recent Arcadia Rally 2016 for the bonus content section of the digital edition of the March 2016 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine. Linda worked on her counted cross-stitch project and went for several walks. I joined her for brief strolls after lunch and dinner. For dinner Linda made vegan chili from scratch. It was very good. We watched Downton Abbey on PBS after which Linda went to bed while I continued to work on photos.

2016/01/18 (M) The Capitol Steps

The air mass behind the cold front that swept out of the Gulf of Mexico, across Florida, and out into the Atlantic Ocean yesterday was noticeably colder and drier than normal for southwest Florida. The temperature overnight dropped to 47 degrees, so we slept well and woke to clear skies and crisp air.

Our day revolved around the 3 PM performance at the Venice Theater of the political comedy musical group The Capitol Steps. Venice is over an hour’s drive from Arcadia so we arranged with Steve and Karen Limkemann to make a day of it that would include lunch, photography at the Venice Rookery, the show, and dinner.

We skipped breakfast, showered, and dressed up enough to be presentable for the theater. We gathered up several layers of outerwear and I put the 100-300 mm zoom lens on the Sony a99v. We left at 10 AM and stopped at the Shell station in Arcadia to top up the fuel tank. Dunkin Donuts was right next door so we each got coffee and a blueberry bagel to split. I got a frozen coffee drink made with almond milk and mocha. I had never had one of these from DD and it was pretty good.

I had the GPS set for fastest route. It took us out FL-72 towards Myakka State Park, which I expected, but then took us south on County Road 769. Along the way we saw the usual assortment of citrus groves, ranches, and birds but also saw a Bald Eagle. CR-769 turned southwest and eventually intersected I-75 where we headed “north.” Although it was another 25 miles to the Nokomis exit, I-75 ran mostly east-west for this stretch so this route actually made a lot of sense. It was only a couple of miles from the exit to Steve and Karen’s place and there was a Publix supermarket along the way, so we stopped and bought them a bag of M&M’s to replace ones we had eaten on our last visit and were going to eat on this one. Not vegan, but a small indulgence.

We got to Steve and Karen’s place at Bay Lake Estates at 11:30 AM. At 11:45 we walked to Cafe Evergreen about 1.5 miles away, an easy walk on a sidewalk without having to cross any major streets. Cafe Evergreen is a small, all organic, restaurant with a good selection of vegetarian and vegan dishes. We both had salads for lunch and they were very good. Everything we have had to eat here has been excellent and the service has always been on a par with the quality of the food.

We walked back to Steve and Karen’s and visited until we left at 2:15 PM to drive to the Venice Theatre. Parking can be a problem in downtown Venice but Steve found a parking space on a side street near the theatre. We have enjoyed The Capitol Steps every time we have seen them and this show was as good as any. Laughter really is the best medicine.

Herons and Egrets at the Venice Rookery, Venice, FL.

The show was done around 5 PM. By the time we made our way to the restrooms and out of the theatre it was 5:15 PM. Steve drove us to the Venice Rookery where we bundled up against the chilly air and Steve and I got out our cameras. The sky was clear except for some thin clouds to the west and I took quite a few photos in the quickly changing light. Sunset was just before 6 PM and we stayed until 6:30 to watch bats emerge from their purpose-built houses atop tall, slender poles. We headed back to Cafe Evergreen where we had 7 PM dinner reservations.

Linda, Karen, and I drank lots of coffee, which was smooth and warm. Linda and I had stir-fried kelp noodles with vegetables served over a bed of couscous with an Asian style sauce. It was delicious and had a wonderful texture. We each had a vegan indulgence for dessert; cranberry pecan for me and chocolate peanut butter for Linda. It was a very satisfying meal.

We got back to Steve and Karen’s at 8:45 PM and decided to head for home. We reversed our earlier route and were back at our coach before 10 PM. We watched NCIS Los Angeles and went to bed, tired from a long, but very satisfying day.

2016/01/19 (T) VZW Data Usage

We left the windows open about inch yesterday, along with the kitchen ceiling vent (but no fan), so it would not get too warm inside from the sun while we were away. It was cool inside when we got home at 10 PM and we closed up the coach in anticipation of the outside temperature overnight dropping into the low 40’s. Last night was another cool one, literally.

Herons and Cranes at the Venice Rookery, Venice, FL.

There are only a few hot dishes that Linda makes for breakfast and most of them are a lot of work. The one dish that is relatively easy is oatmeal, and it is a great choice for a cool/cold morning. It stays warm long enough to eat it before it gets cold, is a hearty (and heart healthy) dish, and stays with you for quite a while.

Linda stopped at the resort office yesterday to see if they could cut the grass around our site while we were gone for the day. The awnings were up and our chairs/table were still put away from the weekend storms, so the site was clear. The office said they probably would not get to it on Monday as the ground and grass was too wet but when we finally left the coach today we saw that they had, in fact, mowed the area.

We have been on the go more than sitting still for the last week and needed some time at the coach to do things. I needed to wrap up work on two articles for BCM and settled in today to do that. Today (the 19th of the month) is also the end of our Verizon Wireless billing cycle. We do not have park Wi-Fi at our site in Big Tree Carefree RV Resort and have been leaving our Verizon Mi-Fi on continuously. We managed to use almost all of our 11 GB of data during the current billing cycle so I wanted to spend today working on photos for the articles and defer uploading them until tomorrow.

Before getting back into my BCM rally article I copied all of the photos that I took yesterday at the Venice Rookery from the camera to my computer. Linda tries to create a new postcard for Madeline every Tuesday and wanted a picture from the Rookery. My best photos were of individual birds or small groups but she wanted something that would give Madeline a better visual understanding of just what a rookery is.

I finally selected a photo with lots of different birds in lots of different positions, including some in flight. Linda logged into the PhotoCardApp on her iPad and determined that the post cards the company creates and mails out are 8.25″ by 5.5″, which is a 3:2 aspect ratio. That is also the native format of my Sony SLT-a99v. Using Faststone Image Viewer (FIV) I was able to resize the image to the exact size of the postcard. I then e-mailed it to Linda’s Gmail account which, in spite of our local area network in the bus, is the easy (only?) way to get it from my computer to her iPad.

While I was processing the image Linda looked up the term “rookery” and discovered that its meaning is more specific than we thought. While it is, indeed, a place where birds roost and build nests (typically in trees) it is actually specific to rooks, which are a crow-like bird. It has, however, become the generic term for a place where one or more species of bird roost, breed, nest, and raise their young.

Besides the main post card photo the PhotoCardApp allows you to create your own stamps. Creating a stamp costs two credits but once it’s created you can use it over and over for just the cost of the postage. (You get 30 credits for $25 and each card costs 2 credits to create, produce, and mail.) We do not have a lot of photos of the two of us together as one of us (usually me) is typically behind the camera. We have a nice head and shoulders photo that our son took that I use at the end of my BCM articles. I e-mailed that to Linda and she used it to create a personalized stamp. I found a second photo of us that someone took at the 2014 GLAMARAMA Rally so I processed it and e-mailed it to Linda to use for a second stamp if she wanted. We are both wearing our bright yellow GLCC dress shirts, so it is very RV specific.

We tried Facetiming with Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline Sunday evening but the connection was too slow so we talked on the phone. They were in Washington D. C. for a conference related to Shawna’s research and Madeline got to visit the Natural History Museum and see dinosaur skeletons. The PhotoCardApp also has a large collection of “stickers” that can be added to a post card, so Linda added an electronic dinosaur “sticker” to the one she was working on.

A Great Blue Heron at the Venice Rookery, Venice, FL.

The last couple of days there was some confusion between BCM owner/publisher Gary Hatt, the layout person (Jorge Escobar, in Columbia), and myself regarding which article they were running in the March 2016 issue. Gary cleared that up in favor of my article on the Arcadia Rally 2016. That, in turn, allowed me to move ahead with finishing that article today, which I finally did around dinner time. My only breaks were to eat lunch and go for short walks.

Linda worked on her counted cross-stitch project but took time out to go on several longer walks, including one to the local Winn-Dixie supermarket. She planned to make a bean soup for dinner and needed a few ingredients. The soup was based on a package of mixed beans and lentils she bought at a health food store in Frankenmuth, Michigan back in October. She added water, tomato sauce, garlic, onion, greens, chili powder, and turmeric. By the time we sat down to dinner the sun had set and the temperature was dropping so the hot soup was not only delicious but really hit the spot.

We walked over to the mail room after dinner. My new driver’s license had arrived. The registrations and tabs for the bus and car arrived a few days ago so as of now we are not expecting any more mail.

Back at the coach I turned on the electric toe-kick heaters and plugged in the Broan portable cube heater rather than run the Aqua-Hot. We put on our Tuesday evening TV programs but I was in a groove and turned my attention to selecting and processing photos to go with blog posts. I got through my images for November and December and the first few days of January by 11 PM when the last show ended and Linda headed off to bed.

We still had 1.5 GB of data left in our current billing cycle, which ended at midnight, although I was not sure in what time zone. I knew the data for my BCM Arcadia rally article was not more than 0.5 GB so I uploaded it before our data allocation reset. It’s expensive to exceed our allocation but there is also a “cost” associated with not using what we have paid for.

I turned the thermostats on the toe-kick heaters back and turned off the Broan cube heater. I turned on the electric heating pad on my side of the bed, set it to 4, and activated the pre-heat function. I finally got to bed around 12:30 AM and snuggled in under the blankets.

2016/01/20 (W) Cellular Options

I don’t know if the outside temperature got into the upper 30’s last night but even with the coach closed up the temperature inside dropped to 59 degrees F. Linda got up first this morning and turned up the thermostats on the electric toe-kick heaters. I got up a few minutes later and turned on the Aqua-Hot diesel burner and the three thermostats that control the zone pumps and fans on the heat exchangers in the house portion of the bus.

We had slept in a bit and were sitting around in our sweats while the coach warmed up when we realized at 7:55 that the Wednesday coffee was starting in five minutes. We did not feel like going over in our sweats or changing clothes so I made coffee in our coach like I do almost every morning. The problems (for us) with the Wednesday morning coffee, based on having been one time, is that there is no opportunity to socialize and it takes too long. It was well attended the one time we went so it apparently serves the needs of the resort management and most of the residents.

Linda used her iPad2 to check in on the world and I used mine to finish up my blog posts for the last few days. We eventually had granola with blueberries and bananas for breakfast, which is always a treat. Linda walked our kitchen trash over to the dumpster and then continued walking the park for her first walk of the day.

My original objective for today was to upload image and document files for my Arcadia Rally 2016 article to my BCM Dropbox folder, but I got that done before I went to bed last night. Although I have a lot work to do on several websites, including ours, I wanted to put the finishing touches on my featured bus article about Ronnie and Diann Mewbourn’s 1969 Model 07 Eagle bus conversion and move two technical articles from “proofreading” to “ready” status. Gary has not had Kathy proofread/edit any of them yet so that had to wait for another day. I also wanted to continue selecting/processing photos for my January blog posts but got distracted with system updates for my ASUS laptop computer.

I ran the CCleaner program and then ran the Windows 8.1 disk check utility. I ran it because MS Outlook keeps “encountering a problem and has to close” or stops responding. The check disk utility did not find any errors so I downloaded a new version of Defraggler and started it. I probably should have run it overnight as it ran all day and through the evening. I think I could have worked while it was running but I have always preferred to let disk defragmenters run without anything else tasking the system.

With my computer tied up and my blog post drafts up-to-date I had a little time on my hands. Linda is always up for another walk so we walked over to the CellularSales store, an Authorized Verizon Retailer located on an out lot of the Walmart shopping center. The shopping center is on the other side of Highway 70 so we used the crosswalk at the traffic signal for the shopping center entrance. This stoplight also serves the entrance to the 55+ community immediately to the east of our RV resort and is where we make our U-turn when headed east to head back west to the entrance to our resort.

The reason for our visit was that we became eligible for device upgrades back in April and wanted to check out what was available in smartphones and data plans. We were also looking for a new Mi-Fi device that Chris and Cherie (Technomadia) reported on in their Mobile Internet Aficionados (MIA) site. We usually work with Verizon corporate stores but there isn’t one in Arcadia. The store was large, spacious, very nice, and not busy so Toby was able to spend some relaxed time answering our questions.

The Mi-Fi device we wanted to see was the new Netgear AC791L but CellularSales did not have one and Toby was not familiar with it. They did not even have the Novatel 6620L and were still selling the Novatel 5510L which is what we have now and want to replace. We got our 5510L in June 2013 from a Verizon retailer in Gillette, Wyoming and our friends at the RV Mobile Internet Resource Center (MIA) consider it obsolete and no longer even report on it.

We also looked at new phones and learned that the Samsung Note 4 and Note 5, along with the Galaxy VI smartphone, do not have removable batteries. Toby viewed that as a negative and we agreed. The Galaxy V smartphone, which does have a removable battery, would still be an upgrade over our Galaxy III phones. It has a larger screen but not as large as the Note devices, which are almost too large to hold up to your ear. Toby also showed us the new LG phone which was very nice but again did not have a removable battery. It’s the newest competitor to the Samsung Galaxy S VI. We will do more research before deciding what, if anything, to do. The AC791L, in particular, appears to be available online without a contract and at a better price than in a retail outlet.

As long as we were on the other side of the highway we stopped at Walmart and bought a loaf of Italian bread to go with our soup for dinner. When we got back to our coach the disk defragmenter on my computer was still only part way through the disk and indicating the time remaining as “> 1 day.” The temperature outside was near perfect, not too warm or cool, so Linda got out one of our chairs and sat outside reading while I stayed inside and took a nap.

I got up a couple of hours later and wiled away what was left of the afternoon. We have been keeping an eye on our male cat, Jasper, who has lost little patches of fur from several spots on his back, and finally decided that we should get him in to see a vet. The closest one is on FL-31 less than a mile from our RV resort and is the one that folks in the resort recommended. Linda was looking for reviews online but could not find the clinic so she drove over in the car to get the name and phone number. It turned out that she had found the veterinarian’s name but he used to work out of his house at a different location. We plan to drive out towards Lake Okeechobee tomorrow but will call the veterinary clinic first and make an appointment for Friday.

The Venice Rookery at sunset, Venice, FL.

As the sun sank in the western sky the temperature cooled off quickly and we closed up the coach. Linda heated the rest of the soup she made yesterday and we sat down at 7 PM to a simple but delicious dinner of soup and bread. We turned on the TV after dinner, watched Jeopardy, and then switched to PBS to watch the Wednesday night nature/science programs.

The last 10 days have been very busy and somewhat intense for us. We had been to the woodcarvers expo in Punta Gorda, visited with Steve and Karen, met Ron and Mary at Myakka State Park, visited with them again at our RV resort, attended the Tampa RV Supershow in conjunction with strong weather, visited Marilyn in Fort Myers Beach, dealt with severe weather again, followed by a long day of working on photos for my BCM rally article, had a long day visiting Steve and Karen in Nokomis again and seeing The Capitol Steps at the Venice Theatre, eating at Cafe Evergreen twice and then visiting the Venice Rookery to take photographs before returning home, had finally had another really long day yesterday selecting/processing photos and placing them in my BCM article. Looking back at all of that we were probably due for an easy, low activity day, and one of the nice things about retirement is that we can usually have “do nothing” days whenever we want.

When I checked my computer it was still showing 17 hours to complete the defragmentation so I went to bed.

2016/01/06 (W) -10 (N) Websites, Woodwork, and Wildlife

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2016/01/06 (W) Filtered Article

The temperature dropped into the mid-50s last night and made for excellent sleeping conditions. Never-the-less, Linda was up at 6:30 AM and read quietly until I got up at 8 AM. I used the last of the current batch of coffee beans yesterday so I opened four fresh bags this morning, a half-pound each of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe (regular and decaffeinated), Seattle Blend (regular), and Sweet Dreams Blend (decaffeinated). Teeko’s Coffee and Teas back home roasted and vacuum packed the beans for us in 1/2 pound amounts so they would stay fresh through the winter. I made a full pot of the Ethiopian Yirgacheffe (half-caffe) and Linda prepared toast and grapefruit for breakfast. One of the things we bought yesterday at Joshua Citrus was orange marmalade so Linda opened it and we had some on our toast. It was not as bitter as most orange marmalades I have tried and I liked it.

Charlotte Harbor Event and Conference Center, Punta Gorda, FL.

Tonight was the weekly Powerball lottery drawing and the amount was approaching 400 million dollars so we agreed that we should buy a few tickets. Since there was a possibility of rain this afternoon Linda wanted to get her walk in early so she walked to the Winn-Dixie supermarket in search of lottery tickets. The Winn- Dixie is in a shopping plaza with other stores on the same (south) side of US-70 as the Carefree Big Tree RV Resort about 1/2 mile west towards downtown. There is a very wide sidewalk along the south side of US-70 that is used by walkers, bicyclists, and folks in golf carts, from our resort and the much larger adult community just to our east, to get to the shopping area just west of us. The Walmart is immediately across the street, with a stop light and crosswalk, but golf carts cannot go there as far as we know.

I’ve needed to change the water filter under the kitchen sink for a while so today I finally did. I installed the GX1S01R GE Drinking Water Filter housing in fall 2014 to replace the Everpure unit that gave me no end of difficulty whenever I tried to change the filter cartridge. It turned out that neither of our two filter wrenches fit the housing and I had to get my large slip pliers out to get it off. The inside of the housing was dirty so I boiled some water in the microwave, added a small amount of dish soap, cleaned it thoroughly, and rinsed it out.

The GE drinking water filter element is a Class I media (0.5 – 1.0 micron) that reduces or removes more things than most filters, including: MTBE, VOCs, Chlorine (taste and odor), Lead, Cysts, Mercury, Turbidity, and Asbestos. The capacity of the element is listed as 500 gallons* (*depending on water conditions) and the useful life is listed as 6 months. The filter feeds a special drinking water faucet in the kitchen sink that is only used for cleaning food and cooking so I doubt that we run anywhere near 500 gallons of water through it in 6 months, or even in a year. Given how we use our motorcoach, and the cost of the filter elements, I will probably change the filter once a year. To that end I wrote the date on a piece of Frog Tape and attached it to the housing.

I continued to focus on my article for BCM about Ronnie and Diann Mewbourns’ 1969 Model 07 Eagle bus conversion. I thought I might get it done by lunch but I did not get back to work on it until after 11 AM. I worked on it most of the rest of the day and into the evening and still did not get it finished. By 9 PM I had the photos selected and processed but deferred integrating them into the article until tomorrow. I will then upload it to our Dropbox and e-mail Diann that it is available for review.

Lunch was left over black-eyed peas, fresh fruit, and hummus with sourdough pretzels for dipping. Dinner was salad and pan-seared tofu with caramelized onions in BBQ sauce with fresh strawberries for dessert. We went for walks after both meals and Linda got in 10 miles today.

If we watch TV at all on Wednesday evening it is usually PBS and so it was tonight. Nature was on cross-species animal bonding, Nova was on an archeological investigation of WWI trenches and tunnels, followed by a two hour program on the CERN LHC (Large Hadron Collider) and the search for the Higgs bozon particle and other, possibly more elementary ones. It was after midnight by the time I got bed.

2016/01/07 (R) Jam Session

We were both awake around 7 AM. Linda read for a while and got up around 7:45. I drifted back to a light sleep and finally got up at 8:15. By the time the coffee was ready to drink it was 8:45 AM. Linda washed off some blueberries and poured our cups of Joe.

Linda bought 10 tickets yesterday for the Powerball lottery. Our $20 investment returned $4. The good news was that no one won and Saturday’s drawing will likely approach $700 million. I know the odds of winning are astronomically small, but any non-zero chance to win even a piece of that pot seems worth another $20. After all, you can’t win if you don’t play.

Linda by the signposts at the Charlotte Harbor Sheraton Four Points Hotel, Punta Gorda, FL.

We had granola with fresh berries for breakfast. I then e-mailed the Geeks on Tour to see if we could arrange a meetup. That’s the name of Jim and Chris Guld’s business and they are currently just up the road at the Thousand Trails Preserve (RV park) in Zolfo Springs. They are full-time RVers who do seminars and in-depth training classes on a wide range of technologies at RV rallies, parks, and other venues. You can find them here: http://www.geeksontour.com. They also do a weekly podcast and have an extensive catalog of video tutorials.

I spent the morning and early afternoon finishing my BCM article on Ronnie and Diann Mewbourn’s 1969 Model 07 Eagle bus conversion. I uploaded it to a folder in our Dropbox for them e-mailed them the link and some instructions. I also sent the link to BCM publisher Gary Hatt.

We had hummus with sourdough pretzel nibblers and fresh fruit for lunch around 1 PM. Our plan for the afternoon was to go watch a practice session of the Royal Lipizzan Stallions. The U.S.-based stallions’ facility is just up the road in Myakka City and they have practice sessions open to the public at 3 PM on Thursdays and Fridays, and 10 AM on Saturdays. They ask (charge) a $5 donation per person. The facility has bleachers but you can bring your own chair. We had planned to go today because the forecast for this afternoon was pleasant.

We want to order some fresh citrus fruit from Joshua Citrus here in Arcadia and have it shipped to our children in Michigan. It will be much more economical for us to have it shipped to one place and Meghan agreed to receive it and distribute it. We were going to stop there on our way to see the Lipizzaners but at 1:15 PM it was still overcast. I wanted to take photographs so we decided not to go and will visit the facility another time.

With the change in our plans we took a long walk around the resort. I then had to figure out something else to do. I was tired and decided to take a nap. The sofa was not available as Linda was working on her counted cross-stitch project so I curled up on the bed next to Jasper (the cat) and dozed for a couple of hours.

For dinner Linda fixed a side of mixed grains, steamed some broccoli, and sautéed a package of Gardein Orange “Chicken.” The orange chicken is a soy-based dish and it is very tasty.

After dinner we turned on the TV and I worked on the bonus content photographs for my article on the recent Arcadia converted bus rally. Perhaps because of the distraction from the boob tube, was trying to clean up a slightly complicated situation I had created for myself, was just not in the humor, or some combination of the three, I found the work a bit tedious. I stuck with it long enough to get it better organized and then stopped at a somewhat logical point and watched TV.

2016/01/08 (F) Touring Geeks

There was rain in the forecast for overnight and I heard the first few drops before I went to bed just before midnight. The rains came in earnest sometime between 4 and 5 AM and it rained hard around 7 AM. I was awake at that point and decided to get up and check for leaks. Fortunately there was no sign of the leaks we had during the last rain event. I fed the cats, plugged in the charger for our Verizon Mi-Fi, and made the coffee.

Bruce by the signposts at the Charlotte Harbor Sheraton Four Points Hotel, Punta Gorda, FL.

After checking the user manual we determined that it is OK for the Mi-Fi to be plugged in and charging while it is turned on and operating. The issue with the device is that it really wants to be unplugged from the charger once the battery is fully charged and can overheat if left connected. Since we do not have a usable RV park Wi-Fi signal at our site it simplifies our online life if we can just leave the Mi-Fi on with the Wi-Fi Ranger connected to it. The Mi-Fi battery is very slow to charge, especially when the device is turned on, but it eventually reaches full charge. The battery will not even operate the device for 12 hours but it will operate long enough to get through the night. What I am still trying to figure out is when to plug it in during the evening so that it is fully charged just before we go to bed. That is a trial and process. Once I have it figured out I need to make a habit of plugging it in when I get up in the morning and again at the right time during the evening.

After a little more discussion I e-mailed Jim Guld to confirm plans for a visit and dinner this afternoon. We settled in with our coffee and iPads for a while and finally had breakfast at 9 AM. Linda had two frozen toaster waffles she wanted to use up so we had those with peanut butter. I also add a little apricot preserves on mine. We split one of the Ruby Red grapefruits we bought at Joshua Citrus the other day. Yum.

With company coming later today we took showers. While Linda was getting her shower I copied recent photos from the Sony SLT- a99v to my ASUS laptop. An updated version of the Play Memories Home software was available, so I downloaded and installed it. After I showered, shaved, and got dressed Linda cut my hair. We then cleaned the coach, putting away things that did not need to be out and sweeping/mopping the floor.

With the cleaning of ourselves and the coach completed, we went on an errand run. After dropping off a small bag of trash our first stop was the Winn-Dixie supermarket. We then drove to the Turner Agri-Civic Center to drop off recyclable plastic. We swung by El Pirata Mexican restaurant to check out the menu and then drove to Joshua Citrus Company. While I picked out some Sugarbelle oranges and Ruby Red grapefruit Linda ordered a three tray box of mixed citrus fruit that included Honeybelle tangelos, Meyer lemons, Navel oranges, and Ruby Red grapefruit. The box will be shipped to our daughter and she will divide up the fruit with our son. That arrangement allowed us to send more fruit at a lower cost than shipping to two addresses. Our final stop was at Walmart for a few food items we did not find at Winn-Dixie.

Back at our coach I spent some time updating the Participants Database for our FMCA Freethinkers chapter (FTH) website. I also spent some more time trying to recall just how I set up the WP-Members plugin for the SLAARC website so I can recreate it for the FTH website. I was not able to do that in the time I had available and I think that might be due, in part, to changes that have been made in newer versions of the plugin. I set up a WordPress User for Linda using the WP-Members registration form and it did not work the way I remembered it in the SLAARC website. Apparently I am going to have study the user manual in detail.

Christine Guld called at 2:30 PM to let me know that she and Jim were on their way to our resort. They arrived around 3 PM and we quickly settled into an easy conversation covering a wide range of topics. Jim and Chris are the “Geeks on Tour” and do technology training (edutainment) at RV rallies and other venues. They have seen and done a lot of things and are interesting, fun folks with whom to share time.

At 4:30 PM Jim drove us to dinner at Magnolia Seafood and Grill in downtown Arcadia. The restaurant was almost empty when we arrived and we got a nice corner table by the front picture windows. Today was Jim’s birthday and we enjoyed sharing it with him and Chris. We lingered over dinner for almost two hours and by the time we left people were waiting in the lobby for a table. I don’t like to wait for tables, but it’s usually a good sign when a restaurant is that popular. Everyone said their meal was excellent. Jim drove us back to our coach and dropped us off. There was a music jam back at the Thousand Trails Peace River Preserve in Zolfo Springs starting at 7 PM. They wanted to cap off their evening there and we certainly understood.

We walked over to the resort office and picked up our mail. My driver license renewal paperwork was there but nothing else. Back at our coach we turned on the TV. PBS/Create was airing the Las Vegas BeeGees concert from 20 years ago (again). With that as background we doodled on our iPads and eventually went to bed.

2016/01/09 (S) FTH Website Work

Our plan for today was once again to go watch the Royal Lipizzan Stallions practice session at their facility in Myakka City. Fog moved in last night and was still thick by the time we finished breakfast at 9 AM. That was when we needed to leave in order to get there and set up our chairs in time for the start of the session at 10 AM. For the second time this week we decided to defer this event to a future date with better weather.

Black Crested Night Heron at the Peace River Wildlife Center, south of Punta Gorda, FL.

Linda resumed work on her counted cross-stitch project and I worked for a while on photos for the BCM article on the Arcadia Rally 2016. No one won the Powerball lottery on Wednesday and by this morning the top prize had exceeded 800 million dollars, an all-time record for any lottery in the U. S. Linda needed a few grocery items for our dinner and we wanted to buy a few more lottery tickets so we walked to the local Winn-Dixie supermarket to take care of those errands. It was approximately a one mile round trip and on the walk back the cloud cover broke up into partly sunny skies. Back at the coach we opened all three roof vents, turned on the exhaust fans, and opened the windows wider.

Linda settled back into her counted cross-stitch project and I turned my attention to our FMCA Freethinkers website. I checked the SLAARC website (WordPress) to see how I set up the quick registration page through the WP-Members plug-in and then set up a similar (hidden) page for the FTH website. I cleaned up a lot of other things on the website as well, including the member directory. This work occupied the rest of the afternoon except for a lunch break and a brief walk.

Lunch was grilled “cheese” (non-dairy) and tomato sandwiches–very messy but very good–with grapes and orange slices. The walk was brief because we stopped to visit with a couple from Ithaca, Michigan. While we were chatting we watched low, thick white clouds moving towards us from the southwest against a dense, dark gray sky. A couple of drops of rain was our early warning to return to the coach.

We got back before the rain started but once it did we closed the roof vents and reduced the window openings. The forecast a few hours earlier had a chance of a thunderstorm at 9:15 PM but by 2 PM it was raining hard and an old leak around the bedroom exhaust vent/fan reappeared. I also found a small leak at the lower outside corner of the new lower passenger side windshield. We were both pretty discouraged at these continued leaks having hired people to fix them. The heavy rain continued off and on for hours prompting Linda to track it in her iPad and eventually turn on the TV. Lee County, which includes Fort Meyers about 45 miles due south of us, was under a tornado warning. Arcadia is in Desoto County, which is the next one north, but the weather here was not severe, just wet.

While Linda was preparing dinner I e-mailed the members of our FMCA Freethinkers chapter to let them know that the public portions of the chapter website were now open for viewing and that I would be e-mailing each of them a unique username and password for the Members Only area in the near future.

For dinner Linda made a quinoa dish with julienned carrots, diced green onions, grated ginger, edamame, diced cucumber, and diced bell pepper. She served it at room temperature and it was another fabulous dish.

After dinner Linda put on the Bengals-Steelers NFL playoff game while I started generating the usernames and passwords for the Freethinkers website. I finished that work in about 90 minutes with the process of creating users automatically sending an e-mail to each member with their login information. With that done I settled on the sofa with my iPad to finish up blog posts while we continued to track the weather. The frontal system responsible for the wet/severe weather stretched from out in the Gulf of Mexico ENE across the Florida peninsula and was drifting to the east as storm cells raced along it. Fort Meyers got 3″ of rain and sustained some wind damage from a rare January tornado. The system was due to pass over Naples between 9 and 9:30 PM. Our friends, Barb and Chuck, are there so hopefully they will just get rain like we did.

We did not have any more rain after dinner so we opened the roof vents and turned the exhaust fans on. The forecast for Arcadia kept changing through the evening with the probability of rain around midnight bouncing up and down. By the time we went to bed it looked like we might be done with precipitation for the night.

2016/01/10 (N) Wood Art

We made it through the night without any further rain or threatening storms and got up around 7:30 AM this morning. We got dressed right away but I did not make coffee. Our main objective for today was a visit to the Florida Winter National Wood Art Expo and Competition (FWNWAEC) in Punta Gorda. We gathered up raincoats, camera gear, and a list of addresses for places we might visit, and headed out around 8:15 AM. We stopped at the Dunkin’ Donuts in Arcadia for coffee and bagels and then continued west into downtown where we picked up US-17 and headed south to Punta Gorda.

The island at the Venice Rookery, Venice, FL.

We had a pleasant drive down and arrived at the Charlotte Harbor Event and Conference Center in Punta Gorda just after 9 AM. The FWNWAEC opened at 9 AM so our timing was good. The parking lot was mostly empty so I got a spot near the building and we finished our coffee before going inside. Admission was $7 each and we got wristbands that allowed us to come and go all day if we wanted to.

We spent a couple of hours looking at all of the wood carvings on display and I photographed a few of them. There were also lots of vendors selling tools, materials, supplies, and finished products. At one of those tables we met John, who heads the woodcarving group at our RV resort, and learned that there will be woodcarving classes at the Turner Center February 8-11 and another exhibition there on February 20. He invited us to stop by when the woodcarving group meets at the resort on Thursday mornings.

By 11 AM we had seen everything we wanted to see. On our way out of the building the ladies at the entrance table were explaining to someone else some of the other things to do nearby and I heard mention of a Farmers Market. I asked about its location and got directions. Before leaving the event center area we walked the grounds around the Convention Center and Tiki Bar that is part of the Sheraton Four Points hotel next door. We then headed south on Retta Esplanade through a nice area of wonderful homes on our left and waterfront parklands on our right. There was a very large craft fair in progress but we passed it by in favor of finding the Farmers Market.

The market was inland a few blocks and was located in a smaller, but lovely, park where the vendor canopies were spread out along a winding pathway that led to a historic house which was open for visitors. There was also a group of about eight musicians with guitars, fiddles, and such. Linda bought a large Miatake mushroom after we sampled some and decided it was one of the best mushrooms we had ever tasted. We found another vendor selling turmeric in root form. She said it would keep for months so Linda bought a large piece. At another vendor she bought sesame seeds and flax seeds, so the market turned out to be a good stop.

From the market we continued south in search of the Peace River Wildlife Center. It was a small, private facility but had quite a collection of animals, mostly birds, that were being rehabilitated (if possible) for release back into the wild or living out their lives’ (if release was not possible). A small donation was requested on entrance and willingly paid. Most of the birds were in enclosures that made them difficult to photograph but the pelican area was open, and wild birds came and went, so I was able to get a few photos there.

From the Wildlife Center we drove back north into downtown Punta Gorda and the headed northwest on the Tamiami Trail across Charlotte Harbor towards Port Charlotte. Our destination was the Earth Origins market in Port Charlotte which was, conveniently, located on the east side of the Tamiami Trail. I say conveniently because the Trail was basically a 20 mile long strip mall. It was six lanes divided plus left and right turn lanes, and choked with cars, so having the store on the side of the road we were already on was definitely convenient.

We were done with our shopping by 2:30 PM and realized that we were only 36 miles from Steve and Karen Limkemanns’ place in Nokomis (near Venice). We called and got Karen on the phone. Steve was out riding his bike but was due back soon. They had no plans for the rest of the day so we headed their way. We had been to their mobile home park (Bay Lake Estates) two years ago but had not been there since they bought their own place this past March. It took about 45 minutes to get there, by which time Steve had returned from his bike ride. We got a tour of their new place, which was one of the newer units in the complex and very nice. We also walked up to see a unit that had caught fire and completely burned. It was stunning to see how little of it was left. The unit next door did not burn but the vinyl siding facing the fire melted and sagged. Most RVs are built much the same way as mobile homes and park model trailers and they do not do well in fire situations.

Before going to dinner we decided to drive to the Venice Rookery. We saw a sign for it driving up and wondered just what it was. It turned out to be a large pond with an island that was a favorite resting and nesting area for egrets, herons, Anhingas, and other birds. The island provide natural protection from land-based predators and locals told us that a large alligator protected them from any threat that might try to swim across. I took what photos I could but had not planned on doing wildlife photography and did not have the correct lens(es) with me.

The temperature had been moderate during the day and our shorts had been appropriate clothing. The best time to view the birds is apparently at sunset when large numbers of them return to the rookery. As the sun sank towards the tree tops it got decidedly chilly and we finally had to call it a day. We will be back on the 18th to see The Capitol Steps at the Venice Theater and made plans to return to the rookery with appropriate clothing and photo equipment.

From the Rookery we drove directly to Cafe Evergreen for dinner, an organic restaurant not far from Steve and Karen’s winter home. The Café is not specifically vegan but always has some nice vegan selections. Linda and I both had roasted beet Reuben sandwiches. She had an edamame salad as a side and I had baked sweet potato “fries.” We both had lots of decaffeinated coffee but no dessert as we were quite full by the time we finished our meals.

We went back to Steve and Karen’s place and visited a while longer before finally leaving a little before 8 PM. Linda wanted to see Downton Abbey at 9 PM and we figured we had an hour drive to get back to our RV park in Arcadia. The GPS wanted to take us south on I-75 but we went north 10 miles and took FL-70 due east through Myakka River State Park. About half way to Arcadia we encountered an accident scene and had to wait for 15 minutes before we could continue our trip. We got home a few minutes after 9 PM so we were still able to watch the show. The Abominable Bride episode of Sherlock was rebroadcast following Downton Abbey so we watched it again.

The weather had cleared out behind the strong cold front that pushed through the area yesterday and temperatures overnight were forecast to drop into the upper 40’s. We closed down all the windows before we went to bed. I turned on the electric heater pad on my side of the bed before climbing in. It had been a long day and neither of us felt like reading or writing so I turned off the lights and we went to sleep.

2016/01/01 (F) – 2016/01/05 (T)

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2016/01/01 (F) A Short Move

We got to back to our coach around 1 AM last night but I did not go to sleep until almost 2 AM so we slept in a bit longer than usual this morning. The rally ended at midnight so there was no breakfast or organized activities this morning. I wandered around the rally venue taking pictures of buses as they pulled out or were now easier to photograph because adjacent buses had moved out of the way. The departure of rigs from a rally is always interesting. It is an asynchronous, unmanaged event that is none-the-less generally very orderly. There is never a rush for the exit as RVs leave one-by-one except for occasional groups that are traveling together.

Linda strolls along one of the rows of converted buses at the Arcadia Rally 2016.

My wandering eventually took me to the north end of the venue where Dave Aungier’s 1977 MCI MC-5C bus conversion was parked. As I had expected the local NAPA store was not open today so David was unable to get the new oil pressure gauge he needed. He did not plan on sticking around until tomorrow to get the part and was basically ready to leave as soon as I photographed his coach. After a brief discussion we agreed that he would pull it out onto the main exit road facing south so I could photograph it in good light and without a lot of clutter around it. I went back to my coach to get my wide angle lens and additional batteries while he moved the bus. After shooting the exterior, bays, and interior we exchanged contact information and Dave was on his way back to his home RV park in Zephyrhills, Florida.

Departure day at the Arcadia Rally 2016.

After I was done with Dave’s bus I captured a few exterior images of Ronnie and Diann Mewbourn’s 1969 Model 07 Eagle that I was not able to get yesterday. I sat and chatted with them for a bit and gave them my contact information. Although they were not leaving until tomorrow they were getting ready to go explore the area and check out several options for where to camp next. At this point I had taken all of the rally photos I was going to take and went back to our coach to help Linda prepare it for our departure.

A late 1940’s GMC bus, with some of its original Greyhound markings, preparing to leave the Arcadia Rally 2016.

After having a light lunch we finished prepping our coach to travel and pulled out at 1 PM for the short trip to Big Tree Carefree RV Resort (BTCRVR) in Arcadia. Linda drove the car and followed me over. Once we were in the resort she went ahead of me to find the office and get us registered. While she was doing that two guys showed up in a golf cart. They made a phone call and then had me follow them to the office. From there they escorted me to site #K-2 and got me parked. It was a somewhat narrow back-in site but they got me positioned just right.

Linda went back to the office to finish our registration and extended our stay until March 7th. The Holistic Holiday at Sea cruise returns to the Port of Miami on March 5th and we have to pick up Michael and Mara and then get him back to the Tampa airport and get her back to the resort. We will have the 6th to visit with Mara and then be on the move.

While Linda was taking care of our registration I leveled the bus and shut it down. I got the shorepower connected but was surprised that the no load voltage on L1 was only 115 VAC and that L2 was even lower at 111 VAC. It was warm and humid but running our air-conditioners with those voltages might be a problem as our Progressive Industries EMS might cut off the shorepower if it dropped any lower.

When Linda got back we deployed all of the awnings. A frog dropped from the driver side forward awning onto the grass when we opened it. It was unharmed and hopped off somewhere. While we were setting up we met Ron and Vera, who have the site just south of ours, as they were out washing their trailer.

With the voltage at our site lower than I liked I decided not to run the air conditioners. We opened all the windows and roof vents and turned on all three exhaust fans plus an inside fan. We endured a rather warm/humid afternoon with just the natural ventilation, helped a little by a southwesterly breeze coming in the driver side windows. Our coach is parked facing southwest, so we are getting the afternoon sun.

Lots of residents walked or rode their bikes past our site. Most waved and/or said “hello” and a few stopped to chat. Conrad and Bonnie visited for quite a while and shared a lot of information with us about the resort and especially its activities, which are apparently numerous. Big Tree RV Resort is a Carefree Resorts property and promotes itself as an active adult community. Early evidence suggested that this might, indeed, be the case.

By late afternoon I was tired and uncomfortable so I took a nap. Once the sun dropped below the trees it cooled off enough that we took a leisurely stroll around the resort to get a sense of the layout and the people. We almost always do this when we arrive at any new campground, even if we are only going to be there for one night. Lots of folks were out walking or riding their bicycles. More than a few had strong French accents and we noticed quite a few license plates from Quebec Province in Canada.

Back at our rig Linda made vegan pancakes for dinner and served them with fresh blueberries and real maple syrup. We had pineapple later for dessert and a small glass of wine while we watched the first episode of the new season of Sherlock on PBS. Linda went to bed as soon as the program was over. Since I took a nap earlier I stayed up for a while, checked us into the resort on RVillage, and tried to fill in missing information for my blog posts from December 30th and 31st. Eventually I was unable to keep my eyes open and went to sleep.

2016/02/02 (S) Big Tree Carefree RV Resort

It was very foggy last night by the time I went to bed but had dissipated somewhat by dawn. We slept in and got up at 8:30 AM. Linda got a shower while I made coffee and then I got my shower and trimmed my beard shorter than usual. We had coffee, juice, and granola with blueberries for breakfast and split a banana.

After breakfast we drove to downtown Arcadia to visit the farmers market. Although rain was not forecast for today it was misting when we left so we took our rain coats. It was a good thing that we did as the mist got heavier as we got to downtown. There were only a few vendors in the square and none of them were selling fresh produce so we did not buy anything. There was a vendor with lots of pickled products that looked interesting so we may buy something from him at the next farmers market in two weeks. We walked around the block and back to our car and then drove back to the resort on the east edge of town about two miles from downtown.

We lost a decorative lug nut cover off of the passenger side of the coach yesterday just after I turned onto eastbound FL-70. Linda looked for it as we drove by but did not spot it.

Back at the coach Linda vacuumed the interior, wet mopped the floor, and then went for a walk. I decided to get a short article written about the Arcadia Rally 2016 for Bus Conversion Magazine while it was still fresh in my mind and before we got busy exploring this part of Florida. First, I transferred my photos from the last few days to my computer and organized them. Next, I set up the folder and sub-folders for the article, opened my article template (Word), and wrote a page of text. I then started selecting and processing photographs and, except for a few breaks, that is what I did for most of the day.

When Linda returned from her walk she made a grocery list and then took the car to Walmart. The Walmart is directly opposite the entrance to the resort on the south side of FL-70, which is the main east-west highway through Arcadia. FL-70 is a divided road at this point so to get to the Walmart we have turn right and go west on FL-70 and then make a U-turn, which is legal here, or make a left onto southbound US-31 and then go in the west entrance. To get back to the resort we can exit the Walmart at a traffic light and turn left onto westbound FL-70 and then immediately turn right into the resort entrance. If we are coming east from west of the resort entrance we must make a U-turn at the traffic light in front of the Walmart of a little farther to the east. The traffic signal also serves a much larger residential development just east of the resort and there is a crosswalk, so we can walk to Walmart if we do not expect to have a lot to carry back.

When Linda got back and had the groceries put away we had chickpea salad on greens for lunch. During the afternoon I took a break from working on my article to hook up the water softener. Back inside I wanted to back up my most recent photos but my computer could not “see” the NAS. I ended up shutting down everything and restarting it a particular order: WFR, A|W router, NAS, and lastly computer. That reset the connections (IP addresses) and I was able to get back to work.

I had been sitting most of the day so we went for an evening stroll before dinner. Back at the coach Linda made a zoodles “pasta” with mushrooms, onions, garlic, broccoli, turmeric, and flax seed. After dinner we decided to do our laundry so we gathered up clothes and bedding, loaded the laundry into the car, and drove it to the resort laundromat, which is located in the same building as the office, library, and activities/meeting room. We loaded four washers and then four dryers. We took our iPads with us and doodled while we waited. There was a good, free Wi-Fi signal at the building so we may take advantage of that while we are here.

After the laundry was done, folded, and hung up we watched America Reframed: A Will To The Woods on PBS/2. It was a program about the “green burial” movement and one man’s determination to have a green burial if/when he succumbed to non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. He did and got his wish. It was a well done documentary.

2016/01/03 (N) Another Article

A cold front drifted southeast through our location yesterday afternoon bringing with it cooler temperatures and an increased probability of rain. We left the windows open just an inch but I closed all three roof vents before we went to bed. We slept in this morning because we did not have any pressing reason to get up. When we did arise I made coffee and Linda eventually fixed toast and grapefruit for our breakfast.

Linda needed something that she forgot to buy at Walmart yesterday so she walked there to get it. When she got back she headed out to continue her walk in the resort but the rain finally came and she quickly returned to our coach. Once it started it was persistent and heavy at times. We eventually discovered that the skylight in the hallway was leaking which did not make either of us very happy.

I settled in early and spent the whole day working on projects related to the Arcadia Rally. I processed all of the photos of Dave Aungier’s 1977 MCI MC-5C bus conversion and inserted a few of them into a Word doc to serve as an example. I uploaded the photos and the Word document to a folder in my Dropbox and e-mailed Dave the read-only link. I selected and processed a few photos for rally organizers Bill and Brenda Phelan, uploaded those to another Dropbox folder, and e-mailed them the read-only link. I then focused on my article about the rally for Bus Conversion Magazine (BCM), finishing the draft of the print version around 9 PM. I uploaded it to the BCM folder in my Dropbox and e-mailed the publisher, editor, and layout technician. I still need to upload cover and centerfold photos and then select, process, and upload photos for the bonus content section of the digital edition.

During the course of the day I took breaks for lunch and dinner. Lunch was a really tasty cannelloni bean salad with capers, olives, lemon zest, raw garlic, and other tasty ingredients. Dinner was a salad of power greens with couscous, cooked beets, blueberries, and orange segments.

I also e-mailed Pat Lintner and texted Chuck Spera to see if they had arrived at the Florida destinations. Linda was playing online word games with her sister (Sr. Marilyn) and with Karen Limkemann, and thereby learned that Karen and Steve had arrived at their new place near Venice, Florida where they were busy assembling furniture they just purchased at IKEA. She also exchanged text messages with both of our children regarding our mailing address while we are at Big Tree Carefree RV Resort (BTCRVR) and a few items we needed them to forward on to us. When we checked out the mail room yesterday we discovered that every site at the resort has a cubby and management had already placed a tag on ours with our last name on it. That was a nice touch and made us feel just that much more welcome even though we will only be here for a little over two months.

After dinner we turned on the TV and tuned in Part 1 of Ken Burns’ film on Prohibition on PBS/World. We switched to PBS/main and watched the first episode of the sixth and final season of Downton Abby. At the conclusion of the episode we switched back to Prohibition. There was still a chance for rain through tonight, and overnight low temperatures were forecast to drop to around 50 degrees F for the next few nights, so we left the roof vents closed and the windows barely open and went to bed.

2016/01/04 (M) Unblocked

The overnight low dropped into the upper 40’s last night and made for nice sleeping conditions. As sometimes happens with me when I do not have a clock-regulated schedule to keep, my awake/sleep cycle slowly shifts as I stay up a little later each night and get up a little later each morning. I did not go to sleep last night until after 1 AM and we both got up this morning between 8:30 and 9 to pleasantly cool temperatures in the coach and bright, sunny skies outside.

As we were getting dressed we discovered that an old leak in the bedroom was still leaking. The wall just below the front corner of the passenger side window was wet. Linda’s house slippers were stored on top of the OTR HVAC duct cover and also got wet. That’s how we discovered that we still have a problem. Like the other leaks around windows I am convinced that the problem is the way the awnings were originally installed by Royale Coach. They were mounted to the hinged body panels that hold the windows and I think the gaskets for these panels were damaged in the process. Whatever the reason it is very discouraging that we still have leaks in the coach. The other possibility was that the water was getting in around the Fan-Tastic roof vent/fan and then running through the ceiling to the side wall and down.

I got our Verizon Mi-Fi/WiFi-Ranger combo online and then made coffee while Linda cooked oatmeal for our breakfast. We doodled on our iPads for a while and I renewed my subscription to the RFinder World Wide Repeater Directory. It was only $9.99/year and they had a holiday renewal special extending it to 18 months. I have this app on my Android-based Samsung Galaxy III Smartphone.

My focus for today was to work on the FMCA Freethinkers Chapter website and then unlock the public pages. I received an e-mail from chapter president Bob Pelc recently that prompted me to take care of this and it took most of the day except for beaks to eat and go for a couple of walks, one after lunch and one after dinner.

It was a beautiful, sunny day with lower humidity, a light breeze, and a high of 69 degrees F. While walking, we met Gary and Pat a few sites down from us. They came in yesterday and have a house back in Michigan about three miles from ours. It’s a small world.

We stopped in the office so I could see it and Pat greeted me by name. Since we had never met that caught me by surprise. She recognized/remembered Linda from when she registered us and made the assumption about who I was. She and her husband, Jim, manage the park. Jim was one of the two guys who led me to the site and got us parked. Pat said she wanted to see our bus and we invited her to stop by anytime. We have overheard a couple of comments and had a few conversations that suggest folks are curious about our bus and word of its presence has spread through the resort.

Lunch was hummus and dark leafy greens sandwiches with oranges and grapes. Dinner was pan-seared tofu slices on a bed of dark leafy greens with Asian peanut sauce and apple slices. Both meals were very tasty.

I got an unexpected call from Kathy Dewsbury-White, executive director of the Michigan Assessment Consortium. We had not spoken it quite some time so it was a pleasant surprise. After our evening walk we settled in to watch our usual Monday evening TV programs. Having worked all day at my computer I was not in the humor to even doodle on my iPad. We watched the 11 PM news long enough to known the world is falling apart, and switched to the local weather channel (same station) which forecast sunny days ahead. There wasn’t anything on any of the PBS channels we wanted to see so we were in bed and asleep by 11:30 PM.

2016/01/05 (T) 1969 Model 07 Eagle

We were up at 7:30 AM this morning. The temperature overnight fell into the upper 40’s and it was 64 degrees F in the coach so we put on our sweats. I made coffee and turned on the Aqua-Hot long enough to raise the temperature to 69 degrees and take the chill off of the interior. We had granola, blueberries, and a banana for breakfast, along with juice, and then doodled on our iPads while we finished our coffee. I renewed my subscription the RFinder World Wide Repeater Directory yesterday and reset my password this morning so I could use the website and Android app on my phone. I searched for repeaters within 20 miles of our location. There appeared to be two in Arcadia but many more west and south of us in Punta Gorda, Murdock, Venice, and Port Charlotte. At 10 AM we took showers, got dressed, and then got to work.

Our bus in its winter 2016 home on site K2 at Big Tree Carefree RV Resort in Arcadia, FL.

Linda was checking e-mail and noticed that the PayPal receipt for the RFinder annual subscription had been processed as a monthly payment. It’s only $9.99, but yikes! just the same. I e-mailed the folks at RFinder (Suffolk Systems) and also filed a complaint with PayPal. I knew the folks at RFinder would straighten it out but my complaint was really with PayPal. Their e-mail had instructions for dealing with this that did not correspond to their website. Not helpful.

The first order of business for me was dumping the holding tanks and filling the fresh water tank. Once that was done my main focus today was roughing out a featured bus article for Bus Conversions Magazine on Ronnie and Diann Mewbourn’s 1969 Model 07 Eagle bus conversion. They had their bus at the Arcadia Rally last week and I was able to interview them and photograph it. They were there two years ago but I was not able to do an article on their bus at that time.

“K” row at Big Tree Carefree RV Resort, Arcadia, FL.

Linda took her exercise walk in the morning. When she got back we had mock deli sandwiches for lunch and then went for a stroll around the resort. After our stroll we drove to the Joshua Citrus Company location a couple of miles south of the RV resort. We bought a few things for ourselves and picked up a brochure describing the assortments of fruit they package and ship. We want to ship some fresh citrus fruit to our family members back in Michigan while we are here.

While we were at Joshua Citrus I got a call from Bob Greenberg, W2CYK, at RFinder regarding my e-mail and PayPal complaint. He explained what I needed to do to correct the error. When we got back to our rig I canceled the PayPal complaint and then cancelled the subscription (recurring payment). RFinder will e-mail me in June 2017 to remind me that I need to renew. I can set up an annual subscription at that time if I want to.

Self-portrait in a wide angle traffic mirror. (Big Tree RV Resort, Arcadia, FL)

For dinner Linda made black-eyed peas with celery, bell pepper, onion, garlic, and hot pepper flakes. She served it with open-faced Boca “burgers” (vegan) and corn. We went for another stroll after dinner. The high temperature today only reached the lower 70’s, and cooled off quickly after the sun set, so we each bundled up a bit (me more than her) to avoid getting chilled. When we got back to our rig I was done with computer-based work for the day and settled in to watch our Tuesday evening TV programs. After catching a little bit of the local news and weather we both went to sleep.

2015/12/31 (R) Arcadia Rally Day 3

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Today was the third and final day of the converted bus rally in Arcadia, Florida. Like the last two mornings we walked over to the activities building at the Turner Agri-Civic Center for bagels and coffee. We went over at 7:30 AM so we would have time to eat and visit and still get back to our coach before 8:30 AM. We arranged yesterday for Hotties Detailing to wash our coach and polish the Alcoa aluminum wheels this morning. They expected to be on site around 8:30 AM and were actually a few minutes early.

Not a bus conversion, but certainly a very nice Airstream trailer (Arcadia Bus Rally, Arcadia, FL).

I stayed around the coach to get them started and then wandered off with my camera to take photos of all the rigs in the east row. Most of them were backed in facing east so I wanted to take advantage of the morning light. We had fog again overnight and into the morning but it dissipated by 9 AM. I returned to our coach before Hotties finished to check on the work. They did a nice job at a fair price.

I went to Ronnie and Diann Mewbourn’s coach to interview them for a featured bus article in Bus Conversion Magazine about their 1969 Model 07 Eagle conversion. By the time I was done with the interview it was time for their lunch so I returned to our coach. I went back in the afternoon and photographed the interior and bays of their bus.

The east-facing row looking north from the south end. (Arcadia Bus Rally, Arcadia, FL)

As it was last night, dinner was served at 5 PM. The food for everyone else was different from the night before but included bread and baked potatoes so we were able to have that in addition to our salads.

Starting at 7 PM Master of Ceremonies John Vickery handled the door prizes with help from rally organizers/hosts Bill and Brenda Phelan. The recipient of the third boxed set of Bus Conversion Magazines was Dan and Sandy Cerrato. I was getting their information after the door prizes concluded and they invited me back to see their converted bus, a 1953 GM PD4104 that they have had for 37 years. I got the grand tour and had a long chat with both of them.

The east-facing row looking south from the north end. (Arcadia Bus Rally, Arcadia, FL)

This was Dan and Sandy’s first rally of any kind ever and I got the feeling that they really enjoyed it. They are very proud of their bus, and obviously still very fond of it after all those years. They had started subscribing to BCM in early 2015 and Dan had read all of my 2015 articles. BCM was also where they found out about the Arcadia rally. They live near Ocala, Florida, so it was an easy trip for them. Dan was interested in writing an article for BCM about their bus and their experiences with it, so we talked about that at length and I offered to assist him if he wanted.

Buses in the infield, including some from the later 1940’s. (Arcadia Bus Rally, Arcadia, FL)

The entertainment for New Year’s Eve was Kenny Flint and the Rough Diamond Band. We sat with Paul/Claudine Elbisser and Dan/Kathy Rory and their son James. James is a young man with Down’s Syndrome but he had the time of his life dancing with the ladies. Kenny even let him sing/play with the band for a couple of songs. We had snacks and a little bit to drink, but not much, and stayed until midnight to welcome in the New Year. We did not have champagne this year, the first time I can remember that we skipped that part of the New Year’s celebration. With the playing/singing of Auld Lang Syne at midnight the band wrapped up the entertainment for the evening and the small crowd drifted out and headed back to their rigs.

The west-facing row looking north from the south end. The nose of our coach is just visible, 4th from the right. (Arcadia Bus Rally, Arcadia, FL)

On the way back to our coach we stopped at Dan and Sandy’s bus and sat around a small campfire for a while. Scott Crosby was there and David Evans joined us for a while. Although it was not cool enough to require, or even justify, a campfire everyone enjoyed it. It’s just not camping without a campfire. Both Scott and David have GM Silverside buses from the late 1940’s. Scott does video production and some still photography professionally and owns/operates the BusGreaseMonkey.com website/forum. He mounted his small camera on a tripod and made time exposure “light paintings” of several buses, including ours, which he e-mailed to me.

By 1 AM we were tired, thanked Dan and Sandy for the campfire, and headed home. Linda was to bed and asleep right away but it took me until 1:45 AM to finally turn out the lights and go to sleep.

2015/12/30 (W) Arcadia Rally (Day 2 of 3)

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Although I went to bed late last night I was awake at 7 AM this morning and got up at 7:30 to find the rally venue shrouded in dense fog. Linda was still sleeping at 8 AM so I put some of my non-dairy soy coffee creamer in one of our FMCA insulated flip top travel mugs and walked over to the activities building. There are 82 rigs at the rally with close to 160 people and I estimated that 50 of them were at breakfast when I arrived. Some folks had probably been there at 7 AM when breakfast started and left before I got there. Others, including Linda, showed up after me but before breakfast ended at 9 AM. Breakfast was a simple, self-serve, affair at this rally: donuts, bagels, cream cheese, orange juice, and coffee, both regular and decaf. Coffee and a toasted bagel, dry, works for us.

We chatted with Frank Noehl and Jim Seagraves, both members of our FMCA GLCC chapter, and were eventually joined by Jerry and Rose Mary Campbell. Jerry and his parents (Jack and ?) have MCI 102C3 motorcoaches that they converted to Detroit Diesel Series 50 engines from the 2-cycle engines that were original to them. There are two other MCI coaches here with the same engine conversion, and Jack was the driving force behind all four of these repowers. The four buses are parked together and I was interested in hearing more about this process.

The DD Series 50 is basically the same engine as the Series 60 but with four inline cylinders rather than six. I chatted with Jerry yesterday and had a look at his engine bay at that time. It’s a nice installation; a bit tight in spots but it fits. The 50 Series engine was used in transit buses and local delivery trucks but not in long-haul trucks or motorcoaches. Jerry’s engine is rated at 350 HP and 1200 lb-ft of torque. That’s essentially the same torque we get from our DD 8v92TA but 100 less horsepower. I seriously doubt that this would be an adequate engine for our Prevost H3-40 VIP conversion, but it is an intriguing idea should we ever need to replace our 8v92. The Series 50 and Series 60 engines are 4-cycle, inline configurations and develop their torque at lower RPMs than the 2-cycle 92 Series engines and cruise at highway speeds at lower RPMs. They are also designed to work with the newer Allison “World” transmissions.

We were back at our coach by 9:30 AM. The temperature was still in the 70s, if not by much, and there was a stiff breeze so it was actually pleasant sitting in the shade under our patio awning. We had PB&J sandwiches for lunch with Halo orange segments and Snyder Sourdough Pretzel Nibblers. The day eventually heated up, however, and I went inside to work at my computer while Linda went for a walk. I edited the blog posts for September 26 through 30, 2015, turned on our Verizon Mi-Fi, and uploaded them to our WordPress site. Linda got back and stayed inside to read while I took the camera and went out to photograph the buses and other RVs at the rally.

Even with partly cloudy skies the sun was very hot and many of the rigs were not in good light. And even though they were parked with a generous amount of space between them they were still close enough together to make good photos a challenge. Folks also tend to have their toads parked in front of their rigs, making good photo vantage points just that much more difficult to find.

As I was photographing I was approached by someone who introduced himself as Dave Aungier. He said he had read all of my BCM articles and enjoyed them and wanted to write one about his bus but needed help with the photos. That is a much easier situation for me than actually writing an article about someone else’s bus. His 1977 MCI MC-5C was parked between two open-sided buildings where I could not get good exterior photos. Like most of the attendees he plans to leave Friday but will not be in a hurry to do so and is willing to pull his bus out into the open grassy boondock area so I can photograph it. With any luck this will be an easy collaboration.

I got pictures of most of the rigs except the back/east row. On my way over there I stopped to chat with Jimmy Clay and his brother-in-law Ronnie Mewbourn and Ronnie’s wife Diann. They were here two years ago when I photographed Jimmy and Sadie’s Iron Horse Eagle conversion, which ran as the featured bus in the April 2014 issue. After chatting a while we agreed that I would come back tomorrow with a notepad to get Ronnie and Diann’s “story” and possibly some interior photos of their 1968 Model 07 Eagle conversion. They also plan to leave on Friday but will not be in a hurry to pull out and agreed to move their bus out into the grassy boondock area if needed so I can photograph it.

By the time I got to the eastern most row of buses, most of which are facing east, it was almost 4 PM and the sun was behind them and in my face eliminating the possibility of good photos. I will try to shot them early tomorrow morning, weather permitting.

Dinner was at 5 PM. Bill and Brenda included a mini salad bar as I had suggested so we were able to have a large plate of shredded lettuce with sliced cucumbers, shredded carrots, cherry tomatoes, and garbanzo beans. They also had a bottle of balsamic vinaigrette dressing just for us.

Master of Ceremonies John Vickery handed out the door prizes and the recipient of the second set of Bus Conversion Magazines was Ken Siems. The entertainment for the evening was the karaoke trio, Shake, Rattle, and Soul, doing oldies. They were OK and given the typical age of the rally attendees, which was older than us, those who stuck around knew the tunes and enjoyed hearing them again. They performed from 8 to 11 PM and I presume they were much less expensive than an actual live band.

As of this evening no one had stepped forward to take over the rally from Bill and Brenda. It occurred to me that not only is it a lot of work to organize a rally, there is financial risk involved. Live entertainment, or even a DJ, require non-refundable commitments far in advance, especially for dates like New Year’s Eve. You also have to book a venue and put a deposit on it, and you have to incur these expenses without knowing how many people, if any, will actually show up. Most bus nut are not in a position to incur that kind of financial risk, and the upside potential is small to non-existent. Nick and Terry Russell, of The Gypsy Journal, are very savvy business people but gave up doing The Gypsy Journal Rallies because they were losing money on them even with the assistance of a small army of dedicated volunteers. Sad, but true.

Although they are not the same kind of experience, one of the things that is emerging in place of these larger, organized, fee-based, rallies are “non-rally rallies.” RVillage calls them “Get-Togethers.” Someone picks a time and place and sends out word. Everyone is responsible for their own camping fees, if any, and there are no planned meals, entertainment, or seminars. Entertainment and seminars, if any, are strictly impromptu participant-driven events. There might be some “pot-luck” (carry-in) community meals, but not necessarily, and they are typically not prearranged. Basically, the event is not really hosted or sponsored by anyone, there’s no organizing that takes place, and there is no group, couple, or individual that has any liability for what happens.

The Phase Place

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Tag Archives: Ronnie & Diann Mewbourn (1968 Model 07 Eagle)

2016/03/01–02 (T–W) Politics and Nutpods

2016/02/21 (N) Punta Gorda

2016/01/16 (S) – 2016/01/20 (W) A Capitol Experience

2016/01/06 (W) -10 (N) Websites, Woodwork, and Wildlife

2016/01/01 (F) – 2016/01/05 (T)

2015/12/31 (R) Arcadia Rally Day 3

2015/12/30 (W) Arcadia Rally (Day 2 of 3)