Back in Florida

Hello world! We got back in Florida on Thursday night. It was a great trip. Sometimes the family can get a little obnoxious but this time everything and everyone was great. We ate in 4 restaurants; only 1 was totally pretentious; service was lousy in that one and 2 others. Then we came home & went out with another couple and that place had lousy food and lousy service. Boy, I am getting to be a total grouch!

Fortunately the home made food was very good. Lots of seafood, of course, since we were visiting the Pacific Northwest. Weather was excellent as well. We got rain a couple of times but it wasn't bad at all. Went up the Hurricane Ridge in the sun then came down in as close to zero visibility as I've ever seen. I doubt we could see 30 feet at times. I was driving about 15 mph! At the end, when you finally get off the mountain, you are in Port Angeles. There is a place that was still marked with emergency tape where a motorhome went through a guardrail into a little gully and killed the driver. I've seen pictures of the wreck via some of our RVing connections. The furniture in the RV that is supposed to be fastened to the walls came off the wall and crushed the driver to death. Much as I dislike governmental rules, something needs to be done. That just shouldn't happen and the RV industry had better firm up their self-regulation or Uncle Sam is going to be doing it for them.

One set of relatives have a house on "high bank" waterfront on the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It is a very nice view but it's a climb of like 130 feet down to the beach. Our Florida flatland bodies didn't care for that much! Another set is building a new house on some Puget Sound waterfront. The lot cost $500K! They are still working and need to at that rate. I think I'll stick to cheaper houses and retirement. The third set live in a trailer. They were full-time RVers for many years but finally came to a stop on the Olympic Peninsula. They do still have a van conversion that they take various places for fishing, etc.

The animals came through their stay with their "aunt and uncle" just fine. The dog was really worried that we'd leave her again though. The cat was quiet all the way home (an hour & a half's drive). I took that to mean that he was glad to be coming home even though, being a cat, he would die before admitting he missed us. Saw the daughter yesterday, she lived through our absence as well. (She's 37, you'd kind of hope she'd make it!)

So now it's back to sorting through our stuff, selling some, giving some away, wishing we could sell the house for a reasonable sum. The four or five houses on our street that were for sale are still for sale so I'm in no hurry to get on the market. Why join a crowd of losers?

Have a good one!