A Beach Day

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida  (high 84, low 62)

 

It was another nice day yesterday, so we started our day outside for our coffee and computer time.

Baxter got to come  too.  

He is such a flea magnet, that we put his cage on top of the table, so that he’s further away from the ground and the fleas.

He likes it outside, but if we happen to walk away from the patio and leave him by himself for a minute two, he cries until he sees one of us again.

 

We  hadn’t seen any ocean water in months, so we decided to take a drive south over the Sunshine Skyway toward the gulf beaches.

 

There is a nice fishing pier where the old Skyway used to be. The old Sunshine Skyway was knocked down by a large freighter during a bad storm in May of 1980.  It was a terrible tragedy with 35 people  killed when their vehicles went over the bridge when the span collapsed into the water.  Imagine driving over a bridge in a bad storm, and the bridge is gone, and your vehicle falls down into the ocean waters.  

Six cars, one truck and a Greyhound bus went off the bridge after a freighter struck a support on the bridge causing one span to collapse. 

The next pictures was taken from the newspaper.  It was a sad day in the Tampa Bay area and one I will never forget.

This first picture is one view of this car.

  Check out the other view of the same car.  You can see here how high the bridge was and how horrifying it must have been for the people that drove over the edge.

The new bridge is much nicer than the old one, and not nearly as scary to drive over.  It’s a lovely drive on a sunny day like yesterday.

 

They saved some of the old bridge span to make a fishing pier.  It’s very popular and people seem to catch a lot of fish.

We just puttered around yesterday, with no particular plans on where to go.

We just needed to see the Gulf of Mexico.  Neither Al or I like to go to the beach and just sit, so we just took a walk on the beach.   If we’re sitting in a boat right offshore, we’re happy,  and can sit there for hours.  For some reason, neither of us can sit in a beach chair for very long.

The air was warm, the water was clear, but a tad chilly for us Floridians.    

Of course people like David and Sherry would have been swimming!

We ended up near where Jeannie and Eldy live, but we didn’t see them since we hadn’t planned ahead on being in their neck of the woods, and didn’t want to spring our visit on them. Next time we get that way, we’ll make plans to get together.  They know all the best places in the area. 

It looks like we have a couple more sunny days then it’s supposed to be a little cooler.  I won’t mind, after all it’s December.

Photos of New LED’s

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida  (high 84, low 60)

 

It looks like our run of warm/hot weather is going to continue a few more days.  I’m not complaining, but I wouldn’t mind a few degrees cooler either.  We had turned off our AC in Georgia quite a while before we left, and it was really hard for me to have to turn it back on. 

 

We have been wanting to find a patio umbrella, but I want a really nice one, that is on sale for next to nothing.  You’d think this would be the time of year to find them on sale, but I guess since it’s Florida, they are still in demand.

I checked on Craig’s List and found a few, but not quite what we wanted, so we headed to Lowe’s and Home Depot.   We have a really nice one up at the lot in Georgia, but unfortunately, it’s still up there.

I wanted one as nice, but didn’t want to spend much.  Good luck, huh?

We also wanted one where we can adjust the angle.   After a few stops, we found one at Home Depot that was on sale for $35.  We opened the box to make sure it was what we wanted. When we went to pay for it, the guy gave us an additional 10% off the price since the box was “ratty.”  The umbrella is black, brown and tan stripe, which would not have been my first choice for color, but it actually matches the coach pretty well, so it will do.  

The way our site is laid out, it appears we are going to have a sunnier site in the winter than it was in the summer.  We have some trees and shed that give us some shade, but the umbrella will allow us to have the shade where we want it.  

 

A few people seemed interested in the LED light strip that we put inside on top of the slide.

Here are a few pictures I took this morning.  The colors look much prettier in person, but this will give you an idea.  The white gives off pretty good light and is energy efficient, so we like that.

There is a remote control and you can change the colors at will .

I put the flash on in the next photo.  It doesn’t quite look like it does in person, but somewhere between the dark photos and the one with the flash is the actual look. It looks very nice though.

As I mentioned on the blog yesterday, when I ordered the lights from Amazon, I intended on buying the coated waterproof ones for underneath the coach.   I chose the wrong ones, and that’s how we ended up with interior lighting.  It turned out well though, because we really like them.

Here is the link for the INTERIOR lights.

and here is the link for the waterproof, exterior lights.  Don’t make the same mistake I did.

If you want to put these underneath the coach,  first take a look underneath and see how you can mount them to the frame.  The lights are a thin (about an inch wide) rubber coated strip.  Our neighbors used zip ties to attach them to the frame underneath.   The way our frame is, I’m not sure we’ll be able to attach them that way. We may have to use Eternabond.   Once they are mounted, they can be left in place, even while traveling.   Just something to think about. 

The interior non waterproof lights are only about 1/4  inch wide and have a glue strip, which seems to holding well..

 

The next pictures are of Pat and Ron’s coach.  They usually make their under coach lights blue (Air Force Blue) to match the star.

They have two sets of lights, one attached to each side of the frame.  I just ordered one set for underneath our coach, and I think it will look fine.   These outdoor lights could be put in various places, not just underneath an RV.  They are pretty cool..

 

Today is football day for Al, so I’m not sure what we will be doing.   It’s lovely outside right now, so I think we’ll head out for our morning coffee and juice.