Unexpected Repair, and Unexpected Road Trip

Jan went up on the roof to sweep off the live oak leaves and came back down with a couple of shots of our slide topper awnings.  Those are the awnings attached to our slide outs that extend with the slides to cover the top to keep rain, snow, leaves, etc off the top of the slides.  Three of the four had holes in them!  Of course our first reaction was how can that be?!?!  Turns out we put them on over 7 years ago, and with us full timing they are out in the sun and wind every single day of their life.  

Luckily we are in Florida when we discovered this, and a company we are very familiar with is StoneVos, an awning manufacturer, and its sister company TalinRV to install, up the road in Brooksville.  They are the same folks that made our Guardian Plates that we installed last year on the corners of our slides.  So we made the call, got a quote, and decided to try to fit it in on our way out of town in April.  We were sent a few color samples and Jan picked a slightly different color than we have now, a Charcoal Tweed vs Cadet Gray.  We think it won't have the tendency to stain like the Cadet Gray.  Then we decided that our window and door awnings couldn't be far behind and they were already quite stained, so we measured those and talked back and forth, got another quote, and decided it would make much more sense to schedule a stand alone appointment to have them installed rather than trying to tie it into our departure and another service appointment at Josam's in Orlando.  So we are going to have them installed near the end of this month.

We have been trying and trying to get a vaccine.  We have registered in 5 counties, stood by for numerous attempts at Publix's with our computers endlessly updating with no results.  We have participated on many count down type sign ups with no results. We are somewhat hopeful we will be able to get them before we leave Florida, which could be necessary as we are Florida residents and don't think our chances would be very good, even worse, in other states as we travel.  Keeping our fingers crossed and jumping at every chance that comes along.

We have been venturing out to dine outdoors, a nice change from all take out.

Chicago Dog

Chicago beef sandwich

The best Bang Bang shrimp we have ever had!

Awesome clam strips

And even with the outdoor dining, Jan has been busy canning.  She made some green tomato relish we discovered from friends when we lived in NH which has been one of our standards ever since.  Excellent!

The raw products

Getting chopped up

Being cooked

All done!!!

I serviced the generator, changed the oil, and the air, fuel and oil filters.  We also cleaned the 3 air conditioner filters.

The one in the bedroom

While I was working on the gen, Jan cleaned all our wood cabinets.  And we had some delicious dinners in.

Sausage and peppers on our new griddle for the grill

And Jan made this incredible stuffed eggplant with scallops and shrimp!

Then we had a great visit from our son, Jason and his fiancé, Joanne.  It was a great visit, we haven't seen them since last year since our trip to NY was cancelled for the virus.  We enjoyed catching up and dining out a couple times, and then we topped it off with some super lobsters thanks to Jason, including his enormous one which he almost couldn't get into:-)

Our son with his gargantuan lobster and the opener:-)

Joanne and Jason

The fam picture, Moi, Jan, and Jason

It was so nice to have them visit, during this virus it is much needed.

Icing on the cake, enough leftover lobster for Lobster BLT's!

So we were just about to sit down to dinner two nights ago when Jan goes, oh no!  What?  Seems the metal insert from the center of her new dental implant popped out?!?!  She had me try to put it back in, I did manage to get in the hole, but no way to tighten it, so...........  She called the oral surgery office and we are heading north with the motorhome to take care of it.  Seems if you don't get this insert in, the gum will grow over the hole making installing a crown very difficult.  And with our cranky, old, and needy cat, we need to take his and our house too.  It will be a quick trip, Jan will get her implant fixed, I will have a chipped/broken tooth evaluated, and if we are lucky Bert will get his rabies shot, so we will make the most of it on our short trip.  And the way this year is going it will be nice to move around even if we are coming right back.  Wow, you never know.