Many Visitors, and Work to be done

For the photo fans, I apologize in advance, I have no photos to share today. I hope after the storms tomorrow that we'll be able to get out on the Rainbow River and get some photos!

Sunday was a beautiful day here in Rainbow Springs, and we got prepared for an influx of visitors this afternoon. Mom and dad Bennett were the first arrivals, with Kathy, Rich and Aunt Rita following close behind. We had set up the screen room over the picnic table to give us some shade, because although the campground is beautiful, there's no shade around the sites and it was blazingly sunny and hot, not a cloud in the sky. My winter-white skin was afraid of taking a bruising under that sun!

Al was busy giving tours of the trailer, and I was busy putting out some food for lunch and entertaining :-). After we ate lunch, Al set up the laptop and Skyped home to Ma and Ginny, enabling them to join the party as well! Aunt Rita kept shaking her head, amazed at what you could do nowadays. Frankly, I am as well. I remember many times going through the attraction in Walt Disney World, "Carousel of Progress", and in the last scene from "the future", the grandkids are talking and viewing with grandma on the TV. I guess the future is now....I wonder what will be next??

Some dear old friends of ours who moved to Florida many years ago also came up to visit us in the late afternoon. It was so good to see them again! We've seen Sharon a couple times over the years when she came back to visit Sag Harbor, but we haven't seen Alan probably for about 10 years! Alan, you still look the same, except for the glasses...:-). We have many laughs, and some great stories told back and forth, and we are so happy to have seen them. It will be lovely to visit each winter now as we stay down here in the future.

It think one of the nicest things about ths lifestyle is the catching up with relatives and old friends, and making new friends. And to the folks at home, thankfully, technology is enabling us to be "right around the corner"; We've already Skyped with my sister twice, which is twice more than I would have seen her back home in person! It's great!

Monday was a work day for us; Al had some technology issues he's trying to resolve, and went to my parents house as he needed a land-based line to download some firmware updates. We had decided to go with the WiFI Ranger system for wireless, but being so new it needs some tweaking. It took him awhile, and we're still not sure if it's going to work as the Verizon aircard signal is not really strong here. I dragged out more paperwork, and did alot of banking, taxes, and finishing off some more business stuff. I wish I would stop dreaming about the shop; I'm hoping once it's finally completely done the dreams will stop!

I know I'll get no sympathy from folks up north, but it was blisteringly hot today! The air conditioner ran non-stop, and I took the dogs out briefly for a walk after lunch, but it was too hot for them. We're not at all acclimated to the heat. But I got all my laundry done that had piled up, and got some more cabinets organized better. I especially needed to do the pantry, and it's much easier to deal with now. Then a trip to the post office was in order, a few things from the supermarket, and back to the campground. We fixed some sausages and rigatoni for dinner, and by 7pm as the sun was going down, it was cool enough to go for walk down to the river. I'm really sorry, I forgot my camera, I'm not accustomed yet to make sure I always grab it before going out.

Tomorrow is going to be a very wet, stormy day. We had originally planned to go to Walt Disney World for the day, but really can't justify the cost of fuel, tickets and dog boarding just to walk around the park in the drenching rain. So we'll put that on hold, since it's not like we haven't been there before :-), and will continue to do things around here. More phone calls, I need to change the address on my checking account down here, and we need to find out about egistering our little boat here. The weather is suppose to improve after that, and on Wednesday we are going up to Trenton, to the west of Gainesville, to interview for a camphost position next winter. So wish us luck on that, and I will have pictures of the Suwanee River area up there to show you Wednesday night!