WOW! 2019 already

We've gotten the doctor's appointments almost out of the way, seen lots of friends, enjoyed many meals with and without friends, and settled into our Florida digs.  Jan's back at Mah Jong, my weekly lunches with Ray have resumed, our once a week dinners at the "Dog" have begun, BIL Tom shares happy hours with us when he can tear himself away from all his social activities, etc.  In other words we are back in Florida mode.  The weather has cooperated and we've enjoyed warm pleasant days and evenings.

We worked hard to get our site all fixed up and it's about done.  But one of the first things we wanted to do was head over to the jetty.

A beautiful day at the North Jetty

Looks like home for a few months

We had a very nice quiet Christmas dinner.

Toasted in with a stellar bottle of wine thanks to Jason and Joanne!

A delicious dinner

All capped off by a nice fire

Our first "Dog" night.

Of course you know I had to include some food pics:-)  One of our favorite restaurants moved to a new, and better location for us so we gave it a try.  Yummy House.

Pork and shrimp dumplings

The most delicious steam buns filled with BBQ pork

Awesome shrimp and pea pods

And a spicy scallop dish

Delish!

Then we started in on some projects.  We are installing Guardian Plates on our front two slides this winter.  I mentioned this previously, but on our vintage Monaco built coaches, the slide corners are prone to pulling apart slightly and allowing water to enter, eventually causing rot.  So the very clever owner of TalinRV, Chris Throgmartin invented Guardian Plates.  They are stainless steel plates the totally encapsulate the corner, both strengthening it and preventing water from ever entering.  It does take a bit of accurate measuring to order them correctly, so Jan and I made very careful measurements and drawings so Chris had the correct data.

Example of our raised floor slide

Example of our flush slide

And a marked picture of the front of our flush slide

Also we experienced earlier this year a spot on our front passenger side slide topper awning where the fabric was pulling away from the extrusion.  Actually the extrusion was damaged by a tech who was trying to center the fabric, who used vice grips which either cracked or weakened the extrusion which finally came apart.

This gives you an idea where the fabric pulled out

The broken extrusion

Now the bad news.  The extrusion is over 15' long, and even though a replacement part is only about $50, the shipping is over $400!!!!  Now we haven't thrown in the towel yet, Chris who I referenced above is going to meet me at the Tampa Supershow and introduce me to the president of Girard awnings to see if we can't work out some kind of solution.  And even if that doesn't work out I have another idea up my sleeve to fix it.  That's still a week away, so I'll let you know.  

That's all for now, several other things in the works which I will fill you in on later.  The posts will be much more spread out now that we're not moving, so bear with me.