Dirt Dwellers

One of our Texas friends, John Allison,  gave up a long term liveaboard life for a for a mortgaged house on the bay a few years ago.  He refers to anyone, including himself, not living on a boat as a dirt dweller.  

Any exceptions?  How about someone who lived on an airplane or a blimp?  Could suxh a person be  an air head rarther than a dirt dweller? 

Anyway, ownership of a lawn mower certainly confirms true dirt dweller status. Here I am with my new mower, a dam dirt dweller if there ever was one.

Dirt Dweller's Dictionary

September Update - Out of Money!

September 19 - Boxes are unpacked, contents sorted, stored, trashed or given away. We can get both cars in the garage!  Pictures hung.  Punch list complete. Fifty amp dock power supplied.  Lights backordered have been installed including a dock light.  All of our new funiture has arrived.  All that's left is a carpet for the office and blinds for the office windows on order.  Any more additions will have to wait becuase we are offically out of money!  The credit card needs to be fed and it is very hungry.  Property taxes await.  On the other-hand we now have accumulated a massive amount of air miles.

I have added a few more photos of  our house more or less at the completed staged to our web album. Check them out. I will try to add pictures of all the rooms over the next week or so.

Although I found and fixed an antifreeze leak, our boat remains out of commisson due to a overheating problem that I am still working on. 

Guess who now has a Droid X?   

Moving In

August 30 - Moving Day - 2   We met Mat, our construction superintendent for a no surprises "walk through" of the house and reviewed the short punch list of items still to be completed.  Joanne & I were more than ready to move-in! We now have the keys!!!

August 31 - Moving Day -1  I used a free Remax truck to move half a garage of boxes from our storage locker to the house. 

We also closed with builder and transferred the electricity and city utilities to our name.

September 1 - Moving Day.  The Moving truck showed up right on time, 8 AM.  By noon , our funiture was in our new house.  We picked up Michele at the airport about 11 PM. First night to sleep in our new house.

September 2 - Moving Day +1  New bedroom funiture arrived.  Of course, we are still unpacking and sorting things out.

September 3 - Moviing Day +2 Constance stopped by to provide much appreciated assistance.  

September 6 - Still moving in but making progress! Can get one car in the garage!

Caspersen Beach

It's been a sultry summer and when our Floridian friends Marilyn & John wanted to go to the beach, we jumped at the chance to experience one of their favorite spots - Caspersen Beach in south Venice.  They eagerly prepared for our maiden trip by purchasing a "wheelie" beach cart and a special beach tent to shade us from those August Florida rays.  The cart has balloon-type tires perfect for negotiating the sand loaded with tons of necessary "stuff" like coolers, chairs, kites, water frizbees, etc .  The tent was perfect with its 70-proof sunscreen fabric and screens to let the cooling breezes flow through! 

We frolicked in the water like kids and seached for ancient sharks' teeth to add to Marilyn's collection.  After a few hours, we packed up and headed over to Sharkey's for a great lunch.  Wow, retirement never looked so good and we agreed to do it again soon!

Click for more photos.

Caspersen Beach 
Sharky's
Venice Beaches

Peace River Cruise

Sunday, August 15 - Chuck & Trudy invited Joanne & I along with Sue and Rob to accompany them for a powerboat trip up the scenic Peace river to the Nav-A-Gator.  Jim Morris played; we had a great time. See the photos at Nav-A-Gator Cruise Photos.  Link to PG Islander's cruise report and photos coming someday.

Our Boat Name - Eagle's Wings

Windward Passage, Wind Dancer, Morning Light and Dream Catcher evoke feelings of romance, beauty and adventure. That's the kind of name we wanted for our boat - a meaningful name that transmits succinctly and clearly over the VHF. What Don't You Understand, What Don't You Understand, What Don't You Understand, this is Dazed & Confused – I don't think so. Fish N Chicks, Fish N Chicks, Fish N Chicks, this is Full Blown Insanity – not for us. One can find thousands of clever and not so clever boat names on the Internet. We didn't. We borrowed our boat's name from one of our favorite songs, On Eagle's Wings:

                          And He will raise you up on eagle's wings,
                          Bear you on the breath of dawn,
                          Make you to shine like the sun,
                          And hold you in the palm of His Hand.
 

On Eagle's Wings Lyrics,  On Eagle's Wings History , Name That Boat
 
Listen to On Eagle's Wings on YouTube:  francislimsj's ,  AmayaLinura

August Update

Last weekend we cruised to Palm Island Marina on the ICW.  We waited out a thunderstorm that passed south of Punta Gorda but we couldn't wait out the heat.  Check out the cruise report and pictures on the PG Islanders website by clicking their link on the left.  

While we were on the water, grass was added to our backyard along with the sprinkler system.  Also, the ground anchors were screwed in.  

This week saw installation of the pool liner, all the plumbing (I think), and some of the lights and switches and painting of the foyer.   Tentative completion date is August 20!!!