A 90 Degree Difference in Temperature

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida (high 85, low 60)

 

We called Al’s Aunt Arline the other day to wish her a happy birthday.  She lives in Jamestown, North Dakota, which is where Al was born.   The temperature there was 90 degrees colder than it was here!   Wow, that’s hard to believe.   I am so glad  we’re not there.  I remember how those below zero temperatures felt and I hope never to have to be in those extreme temperatures again.

When Al and I first got married, we were living in Omaha, Nebraska.    We had met on the tropical Island of Guam (Air Force brats)  and after Guam,  both of our fathers got stationed back at Offutt AFB in Nebraska. Al and I didn’t start dating for a few years after that, but we were friends and kept in touch.  That first winter back from Guam was quite a difficult winter for both of us.   Although I had grown up in the Midwest, after 2 years on Guam I realized that people didn’t have to live like that and I made it my goal to get out of Nebraska.  When Al and I started dating a few years later and he asked he asked me to marry him, I said yes if he would get me out of Nebraska.  He agreed, so we started making some plans to move south after we married.   We hadn’t exactly decided where to move, but were thinking of Springfield Missouri.  I don’t know what we were thinking, because it gets pretty cold there as well, but to our young and dumb minds, that seemed like a warmer climate.

Our plans were not firmed up (the beginning of our jello plans, I guess), and I happened to have a dream about an old friend of mine.   That night it was 14 below zero in Omaha.   My dream got me to thinking about my friend, so I called her to see how she was doing.  She had moved to Orlando, Florida, where it was 86 degrees when we spoke.  A 100 degree temperature difference!   By the time Al came home from work, I had made up my mind that I wanted to move to Florida.   All it took was for me to tell him the temperature in Orlando that day, and he was convinced.   So, a few weeks later, off we went to Florida.  It will be 40 years ago next March.  We never regretted our move.  Of course we  are now finding that the summers are too hot for us, but now that we have a home on wheels, we try to go north in the hotter months.

So, while some of the country is suffering form a horrible ice storm and extremely cold temperatures, we’re enjoying summer like weather.  Our time will come for cooler weather, but for now we’re enjoying what we have.

 

This morning, we went next door to Pat and Ron’s for waffles.  We bought some fresh picked oranges, and squeezed some juice to contribute to the meal.

 

Pat and Ron had bought some lights that attach by zip ties to the frame of their coach.  It’s a waterproof LED light, that you can change colors.  It looked pretty cool.  They paid over $200 for them a few years ago.  I wondered if they would be cheaper now (as most electronics are) and so I checked on Amazon.   I found the exact same lights for $31.99.

Here is what the kit looks like.

 

You can set the lights to change colors, flash (annoying), fade, dim or stay one color.  There is a remote control included.  The LED strip is waterproof  from a rubber cover over the thin led strip.   I meant to order the water proof ones, but ended up ordering the wrong ones with no rubber housing, which wouldn’t work well for outside.  We decided to keep them anyway, and install them inside.  The led strip has a glue strip you peel off and stick them wherever you want them.  I attached them on top of the slide.  It’s 16’ 4” long.  You can cut off what you don’t need at every 3” segment.  We just plugged them into an outlet, but I suppose if you were handy, you could wire them directly into your rv lights.

They look pretty cool and give you a nice soft light inside at night.  They are more energy efficient than our other lights, so I even have left them on dim at night.  We find the white light is nice for the morning when we’re reading and computing.  The colors are nice at night when we’re watching Tv.   They look real pretty.  When we sit outside, I put on the bright red or green (after all it’s Christmas). 

Here is the link on Amazon.  You can’t beat the price. We like them so much, that I re-ordered the waterproof ones, and this time I made sure to select the correct ones! We’ll put them underneath the coach. We think they’ll be nice to add a little extra light when you sit outside in the evenings. 

 

I’ll have to try and take some pictures of the lights on the slide out at night.  We really like them.