Lake Wales, FL – Jan 2024

Well, to say that the weather here in Florida has been great would be a huge misstatement.  The fact is, the weather has been miserable for the past couple of months.  Cold with lots of rain has been the norm, with just a few teasing days of sunny warm temperatures.  Oh well, I guess it’s still better than being up north.  Despite the bad weather, it’s been a very busy month here at the home base, so let’s dive in with the details.

Friends & Family & Visitors

It was a nice surprise to see a former co-worker mention on FaceBook that she was in Florida on vacation.  I reached out to see if she had any spare time to get together, and as luck would have it, she found a spare lunch.  I travelled to Fort Pierce to connect with her, and we met up at a family favorite place called Archie’s for lunch.  Cindy, her husband Greg, and daughter Mikhaila were down here in FL enjoying some much warmer weather as compared with their hometown back in snowy Rhode Island.  I worked with Cindy back in my General Dynamics days and fortunately, we are now both retired (me fully retired, and Cindy partially retired but still on the work list for occasional part time gigs).  It was great seeing and catching up with her and the family.  Thanks for taking the time for a visit.

Soon thereafter, I caught these other visitors hanging around in my yard.  A group of four Sandhill Cranes were poking around the yard, digging in the ground looking for snacks, and sounding off with their screeching calls.  If you’ve ever wondered what they sound like, you can get a taste of it via this YouTube video HERE.

Later in the month, my brother came down for a long weekend visit.  I really enjoy going to see plays at the local Lake Wales Little Theater, and my brother Gerry, who also enjoys these shows, has joined me for several of them over the years.  So we planned to check out the show Bed, Breakfast and Broadway together on Sunday, and also to celebrate my birthday which happened to be the next day on Monday.  The title of the show suggested it might be a musical, but in fact it was not – other than the musical numbers they did as a fill-in during intermission.  It was rather a comedy about a B&B which also has a show venue, and tells the story of the madcap mischief that ensues when a famed movie director is scheduled to stay at the B&B, while another common guest is mistaken for that director.  It was a fun show with good local actors having a great time.  We also got to check out several restaurants while he was here, including Thai and Steakhouse places neither of us had yet explored.  Both turned out to be really great places offering excellent food.  The weather was a bit rainy or chilly at night, so we only got to enjoy a fire on a cool sunny afternoon.  But it was warming and relaxing non the less.  Thanks Gerry for the visit and the birthday dinner!

Once again I thoroughly enjoyed spending a virtual Christmas with my kids and grands.  There was lots of present openings and party games to watch and enjoy.  I especially enjoyed the game of Deal or no Deal which would eventually lead to a present for Ashley’s friend Lang.  Of particular note was the role of sexy assistant played by my grandson AJ.  Too funny!  Another fun present was a game that included packs filled with balls that you strap to your back, where you then jiggle, stretch, twerk, and otherwise shake yourself about in order to be the first one to remove all the balls from the pack.  That proved to be quite the funny thing to watch!  I certainly do miss not being there to share in these events, but the Portal video conferencing is no doubt the next best thing to being there.  I loved all the time spent sharing and enjoying the Christmas events.

The other thing I enjoy spending virtual time with is seeing my grandkids enjoy the winter splendor that is snow.  For me, this is definitely something better enjoyed from afar in a warmer climate.  But I do like seeing the kids making snowman or snow angels, or simply enjoying the feel and taste of the white fluffy stuff, but for me doing so from the comfort and snow-free climate of the south.  You guys enjoy yourselves playing in the snow, and I’ll continue to enjoy it virtually from here in Florida!  😁🌴

Project Updates

Well, I’ve not made any progress on finishing the fridge install, but I did happen to get some new toys that Santa brought me installed and running.  You may recall that back last May, just after I had left Florida for my 2023 RV trek, a storm came through the home base and knocked out my Internet, and along with it, access to my security camera.  It turned out that I got hit with some sort of electrical surge which ended up frying my Spectrum cable modem and my router.  When I returned to FL in Nov, I replaced the cable modem and got the Internet back up and running.  Also, Santa brought me a collection of new network equipment, two new security cameras, and a battery backed up Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS).  The single security camera that I had did not offer good field of view to cover my entire RV lot, especially when I was here and the RV was parked.  So with the two new cameras, I hung them extended on either side of my shed, which provides a full coverage view of the entire lot on either side of the RV (as pictured at left, bottom right).  Also, I added a new wire rack to the shed and moved all the Internet and network gear to the front so that in the event I have any issues while I’m gone, I might be able to talk someone through checking and fixing it by having it much more accessible.  Also, instead of just having snippets of video for when there is motion or person detection, this new setup locally records all video 24×7.  And with the extended hard drive, I am able to store upwards of 30 days of footage and have it available at any time.  Definately a wonderful upgrade from what I had prior.  Thanks Santa!

Another gift from Santa was something I’ve been wanting to get for some time.  I have a minimal weather device in my RV that is paired with an outside piece that gives temp, humidity, and other basic stats for both inside and outside.  But, I’ve always wanted a more advanced weather station that would tell more.  It’s not practical to install such a station on a moving object (my RV), so I opted instead to give it a permanent mount here at the home base.  Mounted high above the center peak of my shed on a pole is the new weather station.  Every 60 seconds, it reports on a number of weather conditions including inside/outside actual and feels like temperature, rainfall rate and amount, wind speed and direction, humidity, barometric pressure, and even solar radiation.  Out of the box, this station reports this data back to Ecowitt (the manufacturer) who in turn provides a terrific web view including trends of each of these categories.  Sadly, you have to be the owner of the device in order to see this data.  However, I also had the option to share my weather data with other third party data collection sites including WeatherUnderground, WeatherCloud, and others.  So, I created a WUnderground account and added a link to my device to share the data.  If you are interested, you can view the current and trending weather conditions here at my place in Lake Wales, FL by visiting my weather station HERE.

Last up on the home base upgrades were a few new additions to the fire pit area.  I’ve always liked the looks and simplicity of the little terracotta chimenea fire things, and have often thought about getting one.  While thinking about them one day, I did a FaceBook marketplace search on them, and found a person in Plant City (about 50 miles west of me) who imported them from Mexico and sold them out of his home.  He had a wonderful collection of various sizes, shapes, and designs, and sold them at very competitive prices.  So I reached out and arranged to drive out there soon after he had replenished his supply, and picked out this little gem.  I really liked the earth tone colors, and the lizard is very representative of those little dinosaurs (that’s for you Theresa) buggers that roam around all over my yard.  I was told to put something at the bottom to raise the fire up to prevent overheating and cracking of the base, so I added a bag of lava rocks and even a small fire grate that I found on Amazon.  So, it’s ready and primed for use and will get its maiden fire as soon as the weather cooperates.  Along those same lines, I got a firewood kindling device that is designed to keep you from chopping off your finger.  You simply put the wood through the top ring, then strike it down using a mallet to force it through the wedge at the bottom in order to split it.  Much easier (and safer) than swinging a hatchet at the wood trying to split it.  This thing is made of cast iron and is very robust.  To make it more accessible and easier to use, I designed and built this little table from treated wood upon which the splitter is bolted to.   Again, a very nice addition to the fire area.

Final Thoughts

Well, I’ve been back to FL for two and a half months now, roughly the half way point of my winter stay. I sure do hope the weather improves for the final two and half months.  In addition to the many other projects on my to-do list, I’ll be starting in earnest the route planning and reservation making for this years trip.  I hope to have more details of that in next month’s blog edition.  In Feb I’ll also be joining my brothers at brother Don’s house for a Super Bowl get together (really don’t care who wins), in addition to catching up with Canadian’s Corey and Krista who I’ve become friends with after having rescued them from the side of the road a few years ago.  Looking forward to seeing them again.  No doubt I’ll be getting into other things as well in the month of Feb.  Until next time, be well and safe travels.

I only show a sampling of my adventure pictures here in the blog, and do so mostly in collage format for brevity and ease of reading. If you want to view an album containing individual full fidelity and hi-res images of all my travel pictures related to this specific blog, click the image below. Enjoy!