Welcome Home

After recovering a bit from the long ride home, Monday came and it was back to work.  Got through the piles of stuff on our desks, finished up payroll and then it was off to Bingo!

I think we both were having a little trouble working up any steam for it, but once we were there, it felt like old times again.  Several people welcomed us back and the crowd was definitely happy to see Brian!  They gave him quite a work out too....  $225.00 in 50/50 raffle tickets and I don't even know how many of the pull tabs he sold.  It was also Ron's birthday and Fran worked the crowd up and got them to sing "Happy Birthday" to him.  Not sure if he liked that or not....?!

Then, as is our typical Monday night routine, we headed up to the Pinecone for some supper.  Again, a welcome back from several of the employees.  (We spend too much time in restaurants!)  And so it goes.....

Hell of a way to start a trip....

We were up early and packing the car...... then things went wrong.  Not terribly wrong it turned out, but not the way we wanted to start our trip back to Wisconsin.

Before I get into the gory details, a small disclaimer.  If you hear this story from Brian, it may sound a bit different.  He likes to "color" his stories to, as he says, make them more interesting! 


Back to the story.  We were packing the car and Brian asked me to start it to let it cool down.  It was still hot in Florida, no surprise there.  So, in a hurry and not thinking I jumped in the car, started it up and started to back out of the garage.  Problem was, the rear hatch on the car was still open.  Luckily, I had thought to open the garage door though.  That didn't really make me feel better when after moving the car less than a foot, I heard a terrible sound - metal on metal.  Hit the brakes and I immediately knew what had happened.  Before I could even shut the car off and get out, Brian had heard the noise and came running from the house.

So, what did happen?  Well, first you have to know that garage doors in Florida have to be hurricane proof, able to withstand 155 MPH winds by code.  That means they are made of metal with large, pronounced "ribs" on the back of them.  When I backed the car up with the hatch open, the edge of the hatch caught on one of those ribs.  Since the noise scared the crap out of me, I stopped very quickly, but not before the car pushed the garage door down about a foot.  Now that I think of it, the garage door opener is probably what saved me, the car and the door from a lot more damage.  When the door was pushed by the car, the emergency release popped, unhooking the door from the opener.  If it hadn't, the door wouldn't have moved and more than likely damaged the hatch on the car, not to mention the door itself.

After a few choice curse words, we calmed down and saw that there was really no damage to the car or the door and I figured we could just reset the opener and miraculously every thing would be fine.  But no....  we weren't, or I should say, I wasn't that lucky.  The little bump must have been enough to pop something in the opener, or just enough to to twist the track, because when I tried to run the opener again (after getting the car safely out of the garage), it would only run a few inches before the opener would stop and just "click".  More choice curse words.  So, I unplugged it and we made a safe, if quiet exit from the house.

Brian of course found all of this extremely funny.  He had an evil little grin on his face for quite a while after we left.  To his credit, he knew how upset  I was about it and kept quiet.  But before we had even gotten  50 miles from the house, he was on his iPad, telling everyone about my little adventure!  It was nice that at least someone was enjoying the day!  But he made it up to me by arranging to have a new opener installed, all with the help of his iPad and cell phone.

Hell of a way to start the trip home!  But we made it.  Got home at about 10:30 PM on Thursday night.  Max took it all in stride too as you can see by the picture below.

Eating while going 70 miles an hour down the highway.  That's Max.

Packed and Ready to Go

Well, maybe ready to go, but with mixed feelings.  It's always nice to get home, but the getting there is a bitch.  The drive seems to be getting longer every time we do it!

We've had a lot of fun this trip, got a lot done at the house, and sweat a lot!  July is not usually a month we plan on visiting Florida, but since getting the house in April and wanting to spend time here this winter without having a lot of work to do, we made an exception.  Still plenty of little projects to do, but the big one - all the painting - is done.  No more glow in the dark orange, Pepto pink, and faded peach!

So, tomorrow we will be on the road.  Should be home late Friday.  Hope it will be a bit cooler in Wisconsin than it has been in Florida!

Out for a Golf Cart ride

Sunday was nice (but HOT as usual) and so after having brunch with Frank and Jim and Frank's cousin and his partner, we took a little tour of The Villages on good old Blanche, the golf cart.  Acting like tourists we know, but what the heck.

We've taken a lot of pictures of the inside of the house, so here is one of the outside.  We have gotten the landscaping spruced up a bit, but we still need to do something with the entrance.  Would like to get some shutters for the window and maybe a new front door.  Something a bit more welcoming.  House is a bit "too" white!

This is one of the many, many golf cart trails throughout The Villages.  Sort of hard to tell, but to the right of the path, in the "dip", is the entrance to one of the many tunnels that allow the carts to go under the streets where the car traffic is.  This one is very close to the town center, Lake Sumter Landing, so we use this one a lot.

 

One of the many golf courses throughout The Villages.  This one - haven't the slightest idea what the name of it is - is on the way to Colony Plaza, the closest shopping center to where we live, so again, we travel this path a lot too!

Max

Florida seems to be agreeing with Max.  He has had far more good days since we have been here than bad and as you can see, is taking life pretty easy!  He is not thrilled with the heat down here, or the strange texture of the grass (or what Florida calls grass - if it were growing in Wisconsin, we'd kill it!) but all in all has been a real trouper.  We have a bit of a hard time getting him to get out of bed in the morning though!

Shop at your own risk....

Once again, we were out stimulating the economy.  Frank and Jim told us about a place called "Dockside Imports" in Leesburg.  Leesburg again.  That was the site of our little adventure trying to find the Comcast cable TV store.  But we worked up our courage and headed out.  It was actually pretty easy to find and was an interesting store.  We found some things that we really liked, but at the same time, there was some serious ugly in that place!

The best buy of the day was the bamboo plant we got for that empty corner of the living room.  Getting it out of the store and into the car was a bit tricky though......

Missing Wisconsin

Raining here today - nothing like what we heard WI, especially Milwaukee got last night - and so we are sticking close to home.  Did take Blanche out for a ride to Wal Mart and luckily got back to the house before the rain hit.  But I find myself craving a good cup of coffee.....  The Pinecone might not be a classy place, but damn they got the best coffee!