Finally, A Break in the Weather

I can finally report Florida is starting to get back to normal, warmth and sunshine!  And by all the people outside and in town, you can tell they all are rejoicing:-)

We received a gift certificate for Christmas to a very nice sushi place in Sarasota, Pacific Rim, so Jan and I went for an amazing lunch, to include something neither of us had ever had, uni, and perhaps won't have again:-)  Actually we might try it once more, the texture and taste were interesting and different.

A beautiful Chirashi bowl

Surf clam on the left, and the interesting uni in the center

Thanks Jax for the wonderful lunch!

We also made it to an old favorite Kacey's for some fried clam strips, shrimp, and fish, yummy.

We have a gopher tortoise preserve here in the park, I have shown various pictures over the years, but we have never seen a tortoise fight before, in fact one of them rolled the other on to his back, but after awhile, actually rolled him back up.  I have never had a lot of luck enclosing videos here, so this time I uploaded 3 stills from the video.

The start of the fight

Rolled him over, you can see his foot in the air

Still upside down

Then lunch at a different Thai place, Sand Trap for a nice seafood salad and Nam Sod.

So finally a project, we replaced our middle Air Conditioner.  I have been fighting a sore leg, and thought we would hire somebody to get the new AC on the roof and take the old one down, but decided finally to do it ourselves with a lot of help.  We borrowed a ladder from Harold, and BIL Tom pushed from below and our neighbor and friend Steve popped over and pulled it up on to the roof.  We really appreciated the help because with my leg I wasn't much help at all, I almost didn't make it on the roof:-(

First Jan and I had to drop the ceiling to get access to the wiring connections and the bolts that had to be removed that hold the AC on the roof.

The wires that need to be disconnected

Then up it went.

Jan and Steve on the roof to pull, and Tom ready to push it up

The old one off, into the box and down the side it went into Tom's hands.
Thanks so much guys!

Then I needed to add a cup kit and an extra gasket to the new unit.  The cups collect the condensate and send it down a tube underneath the coach so it doesn't run down the sides.

As it comes new

Mounting the cup kit

Cups and new gasket on, ready to install

Then you have to remove the cover and adjust the dip switches for your own application.

And at this point you head back down, bolt it down, connect the wires, throw the breaker and you're done, but not so fast, turned out we had to spend another 2-3 hours on it!  Grrrrr.

First off, for some unknown reason Dometic decided after all these years to change out the 4 bolts that fasten it to the roof.  I want you to know we have replaced at least a dozen AC's and talked several other people through the process, and the old bolts always went right in, so why o why did they change the bolts?  The first challenge is what did they change them to?  It's not like you can carry the AC to the hardware store and try several bolts to see which one fits, and would they tell you in the instructions, oh no.  So I sit down and scour the web to see if I can find out.  The first thing I see is that now Dometic sells a new installation bolt kit, and do they tell you what size they are, nope.  I guess they saw an opportunity to add some revenue to an already pricey item.  I keep looking and finally find a description of the bolt size, off we go to the hardware store.  Amazingly the new bolts fit, that is 3 of them fit.  When I first tried to put in the old bolts I must of stripped out an imbedded nut, so now we have the old bad bolt unable to come out and even if we get it out the nut just turns and turns.  Understand these four bolts compress the gasket material against the roof and that is all that keeps it watertight, we have to get a fourth bolt in.  We mess and mess and finally come up with a plan, I will drill a new hole up through the ceiling into the AC flange and put a nut on top where I can almost not get my hand and neither can Jan, but we figure there is no other way.  Also there is the duct running right through the middle that is definitely in our way to do all this, so we cut it out.

Halfway out in this picture, we ended up completely removing it

Once we got the duct out of the way I drilled the new hole, and then found out the heavy metal strap that distributes the pressure wouldn't fit, so 15 minutes of Dremel work fixed that.  And then the old bolt that was still stuck in there was in the way, so luckily I devised a way of getting it out.  I drilled a small hole right in between the flange and the nut that was spinning, the drill bit in the hole I made prevented the nut from spinning so we were able to get it out.  Now all we had to do was thread the new bolt up through the new hole and manage to put a nut on it in an almost inaccessible spot, but Jan got it done!

Then we had to rebuild the duct, connect the wires, see if it works, it did, replace the filters, raise the ceiling and we're done, only 5 hours later:-(

Meanwhile we are getting some more Doctor appts taken care of, various tests and now I am in physical therapy for my leg and I think it's getting better?  So what to do?  Go out to a nice lunch along with Tom to a new place, Deep Lagoon, a bit pricey, but very good.

Very tasty clam chowder

Tuna Tataki

Delicious shrimp tacos with extremely good onion rings

Until next time, only 6 weeks to go.

February Already! Not Much to Report

Wow, February already, not.  There is something about January that goes oh so slowly especially with the absolutely terrible weather we have been experiencing here in Florida.  We keep reading that most of the country has high temps unusual for the winter, but man o man it has been cold and windy here, only had shorts on twice the entire month.  Have only been able to have Happy Hour maybe 50% of the time, even with the fire pit it's just too cold.  It's almost the only thing people are talking about, very, very strange winter.  So what to do, well, go out to eat:-)  Been a few highlights though.

After our incredible time with Jason and Joanne, we have settled in to our normal routine as much as we can without going outside except to walk.  We had about 2-3 days when we turned on the AC, the rest of the time to include right now we have the heat on.  Well Murphy has been lurking just waiting for the moment to come where he could raise his head and smite us and he did.  We turned all 3 AC's on to cool it off inside and our middle AC popped its breaker.  I reset it, tried it on just fan, then both heat pump and AC popped it again.  From experience of having replaced all 3 AC's twice already in all these years, and finding out the front 2 AC's are over 10 years old, we learned it is just better to go ahead and replace it rather than trying to fix it.  They aren't really built to be repaired, so we ordered one.  More to come.

In the meantime we've been out for a lot of lunches.  Tried a new taco place in Sarasota, Rocco's Tacos, pretty good.

Then we had a real treat.  A friend of ours, Debbie that we hadn't seen in about 12-15 years contacted us to say that she and her husband, Dom were going to be coming through our area between cruises and could we meet?  Absolutely.  We had a wonderful visit over an early dinner, met Dom, found we had a lot in common, caught up and really enjoyed our time together!

On one of the few nice days, Jan tackled the project of washing and waxing the motorhome.  She is doing it in sections this year, so she got the front, rear, and one side done so far, oh yeah and also the truck.  Just so you don't think it wasn't ever nice, we did enjoy this sunset.

Enjoyed several lunches at one of our favorite Thai restaurants, Thai Seed.  We had a shrimp appetizer and split a Nam Sod, a spicy pork salad.

We also cooked a lot ourselves, fried corn and scallops over some mashed potatoes, yummy, and of course now that we are in Florida, lots of fish and Jan is still hitting it out of the park with her Asian dishes!

Jan has been playing Mah Jongg each week, and doing lots of Liberty puzzles.

Also taking advantage of all the shrimp we bought and froze in Alabama.

Our good and long time, over 30 years, friend Ray, a young 92, and provider of the puzzles that I go to lunch with every week, and companion Linda, that Jan plays Mah with came over for dinner last night.  We had a wonderful evening, laughs, memories, companionship with a little politics mixed in.  It's wonderful how comfortable and enjoyable old friends are:-)

I am hoping in the next few weeks to have a little more to report, a few projects attended to and completed, some nice weather to experience, and a completion to all of our doctor appointments, Jan is already done, 2 more to go for me.