Day Out

 Yesterday afternoon we went to the used book store out on route 41 so Nancy could trade her books. She likes to go to the old book stores because they have many of the type of books that are no longer published that she likes to read. She took in four bags of books and came out with two bags of books.

 After the book store we went to the Historic Masaryktown Cafe. This restaurant started out as a German restaurant and down through the years is now a Cuban restaurant. We took the daily special which was roast pork and two sides for $5.95. The food was very good and the portion of roast pork was so much that we both could only eat half of what we had so we brought the rest of it back home with us.

 From there it was a short distance to Crew's Lake Park,so we went and did our walking .

Only thing we saw was a Sandhill Crane.

Complete

I finally finished up with the solar panel installation yesterday morning. The two 80w panels to the left and a 55w panel on the right side.  All connect together in a combiner box,from there to the drain vent and down to the charge controller. I was going to run it down the refrigerator vent like most of these set-ups are but the drain vent was a shorter distance. I've got wire up the 750 amp inverter and I'm completely through with the project.  Went went Walmart for a couple of things,then late in the evening we did our walking.   

Pool Today

Yesterday was a little different for us. We had our breakfast,then did a few of our morning things that we do each day to get started. But next we got ready and went down to the pool for a couple of hours. This is the first time this season that we have gone to the pool.  With just about all the people having gone north we had the pool all to ourselves.  We shouldn't have stayed so long though we both got a little to much sun. Not bad just enough to turn a little red. 

Then in the evening we did our walking with the sun going down for a beautiful sunset in the west and a beautiful could with the sun shining on it in the east. We had a nice peaceful day.

Same Stuff

The last few days are really nothing to post about.  We are doing almost the same things each day and what else can you do when you are sitting still.  Of course the solar installation is finished with the exception of covering a couple of wires on top of the motorhome.  The solar panels are doing better than I had expected out of 215 watts.  I was checking it out around 2:00pm yesterday and saw an out put of 15.5 amps which is very good. I ran Nancy's hair dryer on the inverter to bring the batteries down to see what amps I could get out of the panels.
Then we've been doing our walking, in the mall and the park here.  It has been in the high 80's so thats a little hot for us to be out walking.

Cleaning

Duck and her little ones.  She had seven but a couple are gone,probably a gator got them. A few days ago some of the people saw a gator chasing them.

Yesterday I was back in the motorhome vacuuming and then using the Bissel deep cleaning machine.  It sure seems strange to be using all that electricity without being pluged in.  Even though 215 watts of solar panels and two 12 volt deep cycle marine batteries are not much I can see were it will help a small amount of not running the generator.  I still need to run the cleaning machine a couple of more times before we hit the road for the summer.

Motorhome Work

Yesterday was another day at the motorhome.  I replaced the water pump that was leaking with a new one from PPL Motor in Houston,Texas. I checked on a repair kit for the old pump at Camping World and the difference was $10.00 so for the price I just bought the new pump. The water pumps in motorhomes are always in a tight place to get to,but the exchange went very well. Taking the old one out and putting the new one in,bolting the four feet to the floor,connecting the wires and the plumbing only took 45 minutes it was good time for an old fella. I need to clean up the inside where I've been working on all the things then using the scrubber to clean the carpet. The remaining work on the solar system will be some more wiring on the top of the motorhome. 

Good Tomatoes

We did our walking around the park after coming home from church sunday. 
Yesterday I worked on top of the motorhome clamping down the last 80w solar panel I bought.  After putting 3 screws in each of the 4 feet I caulked the feet and also caulked around the combiner box that I screwed down.  It was so hot I almost stayed too long on the motorhome.  After getting to the house I drank a bottle of water and rested for and hour before we went to Walmart.  I bought 6 more tomatoes at the little market on rt. 19. They were the best tasting tomatoes I've eaten in a long while and they were just  99¢ a pound.

Walking in the Preserve

Yesterday I went down to the Government building and bought the annual parks pass.  I didn't want to but what can you do if you want to walk in the parks?

 We went to the James E Grey Preserve which didn't require the pass because it is city owned.  This is a nice place along the river with a lot of boardwalk. 

The spanish moss was hanging low off of the trees.

This is a nice place to relax with a bench on the river bank and the tree out over the river. The day was hot but cooler under the shade of the trees along the trail.

Just Walking

We did a little walking in the mall then we went to the Port Richey Water Front Park to do some more walking.

Its better to walk outdoors where you can see the flowers.

The Water Front Park also has a pier that you can walk out on and enjoy the breeze coming off the water.

We left the park and went to Sams Club to get a few things and finish up our walking.

Walking

We didn't leave the park yesterday,but we did get our walking in.  We just did our walking up and down all the streets in the park. 

All the blooms on the lily pads in the park were opened up and look so beautiful.

 Any where you happen to look each one looked better than the one before.

I think this one was the best of all.  Theres nothing like seeing flowers in bloom in the spring and summer time.

Walking and Shopping

Yesterday we went down to John Chesnut  Park in Pinellas county to do some walking.

I thought this little sprig sticking out on the trunk of this tree looked funny. It looked like someone just stuck it in there.

We saw this small turtle in the swamp.  Just the squirrels and a couple of small alligators is all we saw on this trip.  We are always in the hope of seeing some new animals or birds when we do our walks in the woods.  It was really to hot to be out walking yesterday and we didn't realize it was so hot until we where near the end of our walking.  So by the time we got back to the car we were ready for the cold bottle of water that we brought with us. On our way back we stopped and did some grocery shopping in Walmarts.  The rest of the evening was reading,computer and tv time.

Yesterday was a day of resting and just a very lazy day.  Vicki and the kids went back home to Lexington,ky saturday.  She called yesterday evening to say they made it back home safe.  She also said the traffic was very heavy on I-75.  We enjoyed having them down for the few days that they spent with us and everything around the place seems so quite now.  We have to go to Walmart today and the is the only plans for the day other than I will start to slowly put the other 80w solar panel on the motorhome and finish up on all the installation.  

Clearwater Beach

Clearwater Beach is where we went to yesterday.  Our daughter and grand-daughter had never been there and wanted to go so off we went. 

Vicki said she didn't expect it to be so crowded,even though she knew that it was a destination beach,it was really crowded. 

 The pelicans where out waiting for the fishing boats to come in.

 This one must have been the look out the way he was perched up on the post.

I guess the people that went out on the "Snoopy II" were as happy as the pelicans with their catch.   We had a good time and got a little sun on the skin.

Tarpon Springs

Yesterday we played tourist with Vicki and Rebekah.  

Went to Hellas for a Greek dinner which was good and being in a Greek atmosphere made it even better.

 After our dinner we walked through several of the shops and past the sponge docks where we saw some of the boats with the sponges that they had harvested for the day.  It looked as though they didn't find very many sponges this day.

Later on Vicki and Rebekah took a 1½ hour cruise out in the gulf which they enjoyed.

After getting back home I saw that UPS had delivered the 80w solar panel that I had ordered from Ebay.  This will give me a total of 215 watts of solar power for the motorhome and help quite a bit.

We spent the rest of the evening talking about what had transpired through the day. 

More and more rain

Another one of those rainy  morning days yesterday.  In fact it was thunder storms and wind with 60 mph gusts.  They say we are in a dry condition,but you sure can't tell it with all the lakes over flowing.  Of course what do I know,I can just go by what I see.
It did start to clear up by around 2pm and by 4pm the sun came out.  The temp stayed in the upper 60's.   I went to the tax office and renewed the license for the park model,which had gone up from $30.00 to $52.50.  New Port Richey is like all the other towns and cities in the USA that are having money problems. So they just raise the price on whatever they can and pass it on to the citizens. I can not understand why you have to have a license plate for a small house that just sits in the same place year after year with out moving even if it does have wheels.
We will be on the look-out today for the arrival of our daughter,grand-daughter and great grand-daughter.   

Well the fans of two teams were happy and the other two were sad.  I'm in the group with the sad fans.  It has been that kind of season in college basketball and it will come to an end monday night.  Now we have baseball and golfing to watch if you are in to any of those sports. Our daughter and grand daughter are coming down from Lexington,Kentucky for a couple of days to visit with us,they will be here wednesday.

Another Day

Yersterday was more or less another dull day.  I watched an old Abbot & Costello movie on the this channel. I like this channel because it does have some good old movies.  I checked on the solar system to see how it was doing after a couple of days being cloudy and rain.  The charge controller was in the float mode which surprised me. After I added the distilled water to the two house batteries it took a few days to come up to full charge. I'll have to check the sp in all the cells to see if they are up.
Then I went to Walmart pharmacy to get our monthly medicine refills.
This evening will be a busy time watching the"Final Four". 

Nancy's Surgery

We were up early yesterday morning because Nancy had her eye lid lift surgery.  Everything went well and we were out by 12:00 noon. When we got back home it was time for our late breakfast and taking our medicine.  As expected we  did almost nothing the rest of the day.  I had to watch the clock all day because Nancy had to keep an cold pack on her eyes every 20 minutes of the hour until it was time for her to get some sleep.
She only has to do that twice today,but she still has to take it easy and just sit around. 
It wasn't a day to be out yesterday with all the rain and stormy weather. We had high winds and a few tornadoes around the area.