CAPTAINS LOG 1.15.09

I never expected much, I still don’t. I only thought that spending the winter in Florida would be easier than trying to stay warm in Minnesota. It is. But it's not all easy.

Let me put a few things in perspective. Wendy and I live in a house on wheels. We live basically “on the road” not much different than the thousands of other RV “full timers” and “part timers” that become our neighbors for a month, a week or a few hours at a time. Everything is pretty temporary out here.

While most people, not living in an RV, basically get to enjoy their daily routines in the comfort of their familiar surroundings, we are adrift in a sea of interstate highways, gas stations, coin laundries, and Walmart parking lots.

As we drive along we sometimes comment “Oh they have a CVS” or “they have a TJ Max” or “Look…a Home Depot” We relish in the familiarity of it almost as though we just spotted someone that we know. Most of the time we cruise along wondering who Winn Dixie is or Dillard’s or Beal’s as though those stores are someone we haven’t met yet and maybe we should think about expanding our circle of friends.

Who could guess how this living arrangement would affect us? Right now we live in a park with three or four hundred strangers from varied backgrounds each living in separate mobile compartments that range from nylon tents to full scale motorized RVs. These units are parked ten or twenty feet from each other and each has a name printed on it. Names like; Bounder, Traveler, Tour Master, Canterbury, and Jet Aire just to name the ones I can see through my windshield. Many of them also have cute wooden signs with the owner’s names; “Barney and Silva Johnston, Big Lak,e Colorado,” or one of my favorites: “Here lies the last dog who peed in this garden”. The park offers clean showers, a laundry, heated pool, mail delivery, free WIFI and activities like pot-luck dinners, bean bag baseball, shuffleboard, and horse-shoes. If you are good enough you could even get on the shoes team and travel to other RV parks for tournaments.

98% of the men down here have beards. About 10% of the women have facial hair. Everybody dresses casual…baseball caps, t-shirts, shorts, no socks, sneakers or flip-flops. Almost everybody has a bike of some kind. Some of the guys drive small scooters or even motorcycles that they haul in special trailers. Oversized, 3-wheel trikes are common with the older folks…especially the ladies.

Over 80% have dogs. Some have two or three. The small dogs like to hang out on the dashboard looking out the front windshield. Most are quite well behaved. Sometimes I hear their owners repeating in loud whispers the words over and over “No barky…no barky…” or “Stay…stay…staaaay… staaaaay…stay!

One of our neighbors has a parrot. When we first arrived and Wendy was bending over to get something out of the car, the parrot gave her a loud wolf whistle. Now that’s a well trained parrot!

This week we are experiencing a cold snap along with the rest of the country…but our cold snap is only bringing our daytime temps down to the 60’s and dipping to the 40’s at night and the Floridian’s are running for their fleece. The cold weather up north is on the news every night. Because it’s so cold in Minnesota right now, we get to see video coverage from Mpls/St. Paul and have even gotten the low temps from Thief River Falls --- right here on our local channel in Fort Meyers. Guess we picked a good winter to be in Florida.

The Captain