Can you believe it’s the last day of the year already? I am amazed at how quickly 2017 went by. They say that time goes fast when you’re having fun, and we sure have had a lot of that. Of course, they also say that time speeds up as you get older, and there’s no question about that, either!
Yesterday started off busy and it stayed that way all day long. The first thing in the morning we got a telephone call from Jessup’s, a jewelry store in New Smyrna Beach, telling Terry that the opal ring she had dropped off to be repaired a couple of days ago was ready. That was quick, since they told her it could take a week or so to get the job done. Jessup’s is a friendly, small family-owned business that has been around for over 35 years, and when Terry needed a jeweler to repair her ring, they came very highly rated.
I think this ring is cursed, because Terry has lost the same stone from it three or four times, then found the stone and had it repaired at several different shops as we traveled around the country in our motorhome. Hopefully this time will be the last time.
After a quick stop at the bank to make a deposit and the jewelry store to pick up the ring, we stopped at C’s Waffles for brunch. C’s is one of those small restaurants where the locals go to eat and everybody seems to know everybody. The food is always good and the services is always friendly.
While we were eating, I got a call from Chris Hayward, one of our neighbors. Chris is semi-retired and did some welding work for me a while back, and I had called on him again to help build brackets to mount our Rad kayak hoists in the garage. He was calling to tell me he had them ready, so we agreed to meet at our place in an hour or so.
You would think that with a 1,100 square foot garage we would have plenty of space, but between my Key Largo Center console boat, our Ford pickup, Terry’s Chrysler Pacifica, a double door refrigerator freezer, and a bunch of other stuff, we have managed to fill it up. So we wanted to get our Old Town Predator kayaks up in the air and out of the way to save space.
Our friend Jim Lewis stopped by a few minutes before Chris got there, which gave us an extra pair of hands if needed. Chris did an excellent job of building the brackets we needed, and he installed them in the roof of the garage for us. When he was all done we hooked the boats to the slings and pulled them upright. Somebody described this as a quick and easy procedure, and it might be with lighter weight boats, but our Predators are over 13 feet long and weigh 86 pounds each, so it took a bit of effort to get them up in the air. But it was worth it.
Here’s a picture of the two boats suspended from the hoists and then each boat individually. Mine is the green one and Terry’s is the red. Thanks for all your help, Chris!
By the time Chris was done and we had the boats hanging where they needed to be, it was after 5 o’clock and we were hungry again. We’ve been wanting to try a place called the 30th Street Pub, which is in the Publix shopping center near us, so we went there. They have a wide selection of food, everything from burgers and chicken strip baskets to seafood, pasta, and steaks. And the portions are very generous. We may have been hungry when we walked in, but nobody was when we left!
We’ve got some other projects going on, but it’s getting late, so I’ll tell you more about them in another blog post.
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Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for an audiobook of Coast to Coast With a Cat and a Ghost, RVing author Judy Howard’s autobiographical story of her road trip across country after the death of her husband. To enter, all you have to do is click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening.
Thought For The Day – Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead.
