Another week has past

Sunday was a quite day in the park even though all sites were occupied. Think everyone was worn down from the long weekend and the chill of Friday and Saturday nights.

Monday we headed for the shop area to work on the kiosk again. It was a beautiful sunny day and a bit warmer than the past few days. We started working on the base color and finished that in record time and decided to work on the balance of the trim. Worked straight through and finished it all. Already got several complements on how good it looks.

About noon the wind began to kick up so by 2 when we were ready to head home it was pretty strong out of the west/southwest. The 3 miles from the shop to the turn west towards the campground was rough, but that last 1.2 miles was a chore. It was the hardest ride we’ve ever made.

On Tuesday we just drifted around a bit. Judy worked on the drapes for Amy’s music room and Jon did go to the shop for a bit. It was really too cold and windy again to paint and it looks like Wednesday will be a repeat. Just after lunch and the swearing in of the new President, Judy saw a Caracara next to the trailer. The ‘Crested Caracara’ is a rare bird in this area. It’s mainly found in Mexico and some parts of Texas. I got a couple of shots through the window and then went outside to get a few more. Here is a picture of two cleaning a campsite.










The next is of a turkey vulture. Did you know that the turkey vulture is an endangered species? It is and for a very round-about reason. Here is one sitting on a dead cabbage palm across from our site.










On Wednesday we took it easy as it was too cold to paint so we surveyed a nature trail that Charlie (park manager) wants us to clean up. Need to repaint some markers, move a couple and put in some too. We will also have to trim the prairie grass growing up around some marker posts. Then we headed Fort Pierce for some shopping and late lunch. Didn’t get back home until nearly sunset.

Thursday - BRRRRRRRRRRRRR it has been very cold here for four days. We were to start painting on the maintenance shop (finishing the priming before painting the back and one side) but it was too cold to start in the morning. We did ride over about 10:30 and managed to complete the priming of the east end and then rode home about 3. We did have a treat for lunch today. With the fresh oranges we picked on Monday, Judy made a half batch of the Smithfield Inn orange cookies. Boy were they good more body and hunks of orange than the ‘mixed’ ones. She had to mix them with a fork as we don’t carry a mixer.

Couple of astronomers moved in for the weekend, even though there is still a crescent moon. We’ve had some beautiful sunrises but it has been too cold to go out and try to get a picture.

Friday we finished priming the maintenance shop with Kilz. Now we have to ‘paint’ the east and south sides and do the trim too. May not get it all done before time to head on.

This is Jon dong some prime work. A community service worker had started the job but his hours were completed before he finished. He left the hardest part, the trim priming and the indentations in the T-111 siding. The siding was very dry and really absorbed the paint.

On the way home we rode our bikes up to 7-mile slough to see if any ‘gators were out. This is a sign at the slough.

We found 14 of various lengths resting in the afternoon sun. Guess that they too were glad to see the sun and some heat.


Can you count them? Could not get all of them in one picture.

Next week will try to add comments a couple of times so the blog wont be so long. And oh yes, you can comment on the blog if you want and if the pictures are small, just double click on them to make them larger.