Winter potpourri

This has not been a winter season of great events. Jett has rarely gotten out of the RV for any reason other than to get to medical appointments. We haven’t had any visitors, with the exception of my softball buddies (see previous post) and a quick visit from son Josh, to return Rusty.

Yes, Rusty is back with us. If you recall, Josh drove all the way from VA to FL to pick up Rusty in advance of our cruise. I felt that it would be unfair to ask him to also make the trip to return Rusty, so my plan was to drive up to get him. The post-cruise cold killed that plan, however. Rather than delay the return, Josh and Cristina made the trip to get the boy back where he belongs. We are truly grateful. Thank you, Josh and Cristina!

When we returned from the cruise we met our new neighbors, Joshua (yes, another Joshua) and Gary, from Georgia. If you recall, they were in Ft Myers while we were still in MA and saved our bacon by starting the truck when the battery ran low. I was thrilled to meet them and thank them in person for that. I think we will get along great. We are blessed with two wonderful neighbors. While we like many of the residents of the park, we don’t like them all. We could easily have gotten neighbors that we would have a hard time being civil to. Not a problem we have to deal with, thankfully.

We lost both of our small trees at the front of our site – the purple bush that blew over in the wind before we arrived and the beautiful red hibiscus. Apparently the hibiscus was diseased. The purple bush has been replaced by a similar red bush and the red hibiscus has been replaced by a yellow hibiscus. The new hibiscus is small now, but I am assured that it will become fairly large – maybe 5′ tall and 5′ wide.

The park had a Mardi Gras parade this year. It was larger than I would have expected but consisted mostly of decorated golf carts. No lawn chair brigade, ala Rockport. Unbeknownst to us, it was associated with a pet shelter fundraiser so I felt a little bad when the truck with food donations rolled by at the end of the parade and I had nothing to give.

I tried to start a genealogy group at the park. It has sputtered and has probably died. Only 3 people came in the first 3 weeks, then I had the cruise and the cold, so it has been a month with no meetings (unless those 3 met without me). A nice try, but I will count it as a failure.

Much of my spare time, both before the cruise and post-cold, has been spent taking photographs in the Lee Memorial Park, a large cemetery for over 10,000 souls. I noticed that it had over 1,800 unphotographed graves and I took it as a challenge to cut into that number this winter. Walking this large cemetery is both good – and free – exercise and attaching photographs to the memorials in findagrave.com gives me a feeling of accomplishment. I believe I have photographed over 800 so far. Thankfully, digital photography is basically zero cost. I never could have done this with film.

Softball started in January and, with the exception of the 2 weeks on the cruise, I have roamed the outfield in every game. The team has not done well and my performance has been spotty, at best. But, again, good exercise.

Add in the medical appointments and that covers much of what has kept me busy since we arrived in Nov. Not exciting, but better than shoveling snow, right?