Change of Plans

Wesley Chapel, Florida

Nothing much happening around here, but we did see this guy who found a great way to spend an afternoon.  I’ll bet it was a bit cooler up there.

This is called a Powered Para-motor.   If you look carefully you can see the person has something similar to  a fan with a motor strapped to his back.

The motor is not very powerful and is quiet.   The motor is used to push them once they are airborne.

When you are taking off, you have to run to get the parachute filled with air.  Once the parachute is filled with air, the pilot starts to ascend.  The motor doesn’t help with the take-off, but once airborne, the motor pushes you around in the sky.  You have handles for steering.

Their motto is “low and slow”.   They like to go slow and low so that they can enjoy the sites.  If the motor dies they won’t come crashing down.  The main thing that causes them to crash are wind gusts, but for the most part they are pretty safe.

Al and I nearly bought two of these para-motors a few years ago.  They were about $7000 back then.   We would have needed two and it just wasn’t in the budget at that point.  We’ve always thought we’d love to do it.   Maybe someday we will.

We’ve been hanging out around here trying to stay out of the heat.  Sherry and David came over the other night and we had a nice visit with them.  Baxter really liked Sherry.

Here is a cute picture of Bax sleeping on the dash in his bed.  Do you think he may have outgrown it a little bit?

I woke him up when I got the camera out and he was yawning here.

He’s a big old boy.

 

We’re still doing well with our new vegan diet.  I’ve lost 7 pounds now.   I’m not sure where Al is. …8 or 9 I think.  I have never lost weight this painlessly before.  We eat as often as we like, and as much as we want.  We try to get in plenty of fruits and vegetables.

The easiest way for us is with smoothies.

This one just had fruit in it, but usually we throw in a big batch of spinach to make it a bit healthier.  It changes the pretty pink color to green, but the taste isn’t much different.  They are surprisingly good.

Sherry told us about Tofu Crumbles the other night.  Al found these at a local Publix grocery store for $3.69. 

I had seem them before but was a little leery of them, until Sherry and David gave us their seal of approval.

Here is what they look like.  They seemed to grow once I took them out of the box.

I mixed up some dry taco seasoning, heated it up in the microwave and we had instant tacos.  No messy cooking of the ground beef.   I substituted the cheese with hummus, spinach for the lettuce (because it’s healthier) and we had wonderful healthy tacos.  We only ate 4 tacos so we probably have enough left for 6-7 more. 

 

The new driveshaft disconnect part arrived yesterday.  We’re taking the truck back Saturday to get that put in, and then the new truck will be ready to tow.

So, with that in mind, we’re going to tow it!  Yeah…we have plans to get out of dodge.  Mom has been doing better (knock on wood), so we are hoping we can get away for a while.

I think we’re going to head over to Vero Beach (east coast of Florida).   We can stay for $3 a night on our Thousand Trails membership and it’s close enough that we can get there quickly.  We’re ready for some beach time.  We may even stop in at Kissimmee Prairie on the way back.