Living Our Dream

Tarpon Springs 2012

Bushnell, FL - Events of Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012

You will notice a new feature in this blog post - captions for the photographs. The ability to add photo captions was just introduced by Typepad, the host of our blog. It is still in the beta stage (meaning it may still have some bugs and inconsistencies), but we decided to try it out. We hope you like the new captions.

Tarpon Springs is one of our favorite places in Florida. It is located along the Anclote River a few miles upstream from the Gulf of Mexico, and it is only about an hour away from where we spend the winter in Bushnell. We always make a point of going to Tarpon Springs at least once while we're in Bushnell, because we love the quaint atmosphere, the interesting shops and the delicious Greek food.

This year, we went to Tarpon Springs with our friends from Pittsburgh, Pat and Mike. This is their first year of full-timing and their first winter in Florida, and they have never been to Tarpon Springs.

Tarpon Springs was originally a location for winter homes back in the 1870s, but when the sponges began to be harvested from the Gulf of Mexico in the 1880s, sponge divers from Greece were recruited to help bring in the bounty. The industry thrived into the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. The waterfront has several historic boats with sponges festooned around the decks just like it would have been back in the day.

Tarpon Springs Waterfront

In 1947, a red algae bloom all but wiped out the sponge beds in the area, and many of the sponge boats switched to fishing or shrimping. Today, commercial fishing boats dock across the river.

Commercial Fishing Boat in Tarpon Springs

The sponge beds have recovered, and there is still some commercial sponge diving going on, but man-made sponges and things like paper towels and micro fiber cloths have largely replaced natural sponges. Tourism is now the primary industry for Tarpon Springs. The quaint shops and Greek restaurants of Tarpon Springs draw visitors from all over.

Many of the shops specialize in sponges. We stopped to look at a few.

Margery Checks Out Sponges

The morning started out cloudy, but it cleared up by the time we got to Tarpon Springs. Since it turned out to be such a nice, sunny morning, there were quite a few shoppers on Docecanese Blvd., which is the main street along the waterfront.

A Few of the Shops Along Dodecanese Blvd.

We usually walk to the Sponge Factory at the eastern end of Dodecanese Blvd.

The Sponge Factory

The Sponge Factory has a good movie that gives a history of the sponge industry in Florida. This year, they have updated the movie and added some more recent footage.

The Sponge Factory also has nice displays of Greek-themed gift items that includes olive oil lotions and soaps and also nautical and marine items such as starfish and seashells.

Margery Checks Out a Sea Fan Inside the Sponge Factory

Since we planned to be gone most of the day, we took Freeway with us. He got to tour all over Tarpon Springs in his carrier mounted on the shopping cart we bought about a month ago at the RV show. Paul and Freeway took a little break to watch the world go by from a bench outside the Sponge Factory.

Paul and Freeway Take a Break

The Sponge Exchange is a collection of shops and restaurants located toward the western end of Dodecanese Blvd. where the sponge clearinghouse used to be. We stopped there after leaving the Sponge Factory.

Mike and Pat at the Sponge Exchange

By the time we walked to the Sponge Factory and back and then visited the Sponge Exchange, it was almost 1:00 PM. We were all hungry, so we headed down Athens St. to Costa's where we like to have lunch. Tarpon Springs is a pet-friendly community, and we were able to take Freeway into the restaurant in his canvas carrier. He was a good boy and just napped most of the time.

Costa's Restaurant

Like most of the restaurants in Tarpon Springs, Costa's specializes in Greek cuisine. We ordered a flaming cheese appetizer called saganaki. A slab of cheese is placed on a little iron skillet (like the kind they use for fajitas in Mexican restaurants) and put under the broiler. When the cheese is all bubbly, they bring it to your table, douse it with brandy, set it on fire and serve it to shouts of "Opa!" Opa is a Greek exclamation that seems to mean about the same thing as "hooray" or "yeehaw." The cheese is melted inside and has a toasted, crunchy crust outside. Yum!

Flaming Saganaki Appetizer - Opa!

We all ordered gyros (pronounced YEE-ros) and Greek salad. We also enjoyed baklava for dessert. As usual, the food was excellent as was the company.

Enjoying Our Gyros

After lunch, we let Freeway stretch his legs along the sidewalk near the restaurant before heading back to Bushnell.

Freeway Takes a Walk

Freeway is really doing well on walks as long as you keep moving briskly. As soon as you slow down, he thinks it's OK for him to stop altogether. Once he stops, he wants to pick up in his mouth anything that is lying around - cigarette butts, stones, sticks, chewing gum, leaves, you name it. As we mentioned in our last post, we are looking forward to having him learn the "leave it" command in our next puppy class.

Back at Blueberry Hill, we took a few days to relax. Look for our next post to see what we found to do next.

Good Boy, Freeway!

Bushnell, FL - Events of Saturday, Feb. 4 to Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2012

Now that we have finished the refrigerator project and have some time to relax, we figured it was time for an update on Freeway, our new Cavachon puppy. A Cavachon is a hybrid between a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel and a Bichon Frise.

We picked Freeway up on January 7th from Royal Puppy Palace in Odessa, FL when he was 8 weeks old. When we first got Freeway, he weighed just about 3¼ pounds. He is now 3 months old, and he has more than doubled his weight. His final weight will probably be 12 to 15 pounds, so he still has more growing to do.

We enrolled Freeway in a puppy class at PetSmart near The Villages. We still remembered some of the training we had done with Molly, our previous dog, although some of that trainer's ideas were a bit strange to say the least...don't motivate with food and a once-a-year bath is adequate...but we happened to meet one of the trainers when we had Freeway at the vet (Banfield, which is located inside PetSmart). The trainer, whose name is Terry, seemed to be very caring and very knowledgeable, so we decided a refresher course with Terry would be a good idea.

Dog training classes are really somewhat of a misnomer. Unless you pay big bucks for specialized, personalized dog training, most group classes are really intended to train the owners. Since the owners spend 24/7 with their pets, they are really the best ones to do the training in the first place; but knowledge is required to do that successfully.

Freeway's class is small. There is a total of only three puppies which makes for lots of individual attention and lots of opportunities to ask questions. The first class was mostly a "get acquainted" session where Terry outlined the basics of the training that would take place. We started working on getting the puppies to sit. Terry also allowed the pups to play together to get to know each other. That's Trixie on the left. she is a toy Fox Terrier. Abbie is on the lap of her owner in the red shirt. We're not sure of her breed, but we think she is a Shih Tzu.

Our homework consisted of continuing to work on the sit command. Even though sit is one of the most basic commands, it is not as easy as you might think to teach it to an active puppy who wants to explore everything in sight. Terry said for puppies this young, sitting for 5 seconds at a time is considered to be a success.

Freeway's potty training is coming right along. He can easily go all night, and he can frequently go several hours at a time. He even sometimes asks to go out; but not always, and he hasn't gotten the hang of ringing the bell to ask to go out either. Therefore, we need to be diligent and watch for the signs he needs to go. His successes always result in enthusiastic praise of "good boy, Freeway!"

We also sometimes watch Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, and we have a couple of his books. One of the things he emphasises is the importance of exercise for dogs. He usually begins his training sessions with walking the dog to burn off excess energy making the dog more receptive to the training. The benefits of exercise were really brought into focus following our first puppy class. During the class, the pups romped and played with each other for about 45 minutes. Freeway was so tuckered out after class, he had little energy left over to look for ways to get into trouble. He usually gets a little hyperactive after dinner, but the evening after the first class, all he wanted to do was nap.

According to Cesar Millan, walking is not only is good exercise for the dog and the humans, it is a natural pack activity. Wild dogs and wolves travel together under the alpha dog's leadership to look for food, and walking helps solidify the humans' role as pack leaders.

Because of the importance of exercise for dogs, we were happy the primary lesson for the second class was walking on a leash. We had been working with Freeway to try to get him used to a collar and leash, so he did fairly well in class. The dog's natural tendency is to pull back and resist the leash, so the important thing we learned was how to encourage him to keep walking by praising him and by stooping down to encourage him when he lagged behind. The instructor also said a little peanut butter on the end of a spoon also would help, but Freeway seems to be doing well without the peanut butter.

After walking the dogs around the PetSmart store, we had a little time for the puppies to play. Terry is great, and you can tell she really loves dogs. She gets right down on the floor with them to join in the play.

We are looking forward to the third class. It will cover the "leave it" command. We have been using that for several weeks already, but we have had only limited success.

Earlier, we mentioned how much Freeway has grown. His weight has more than doubled, and his size has also increased correspondingly. Since we see him every day, we don't notice his size increasing that much, but it was really demonstrated to us the other day when the temperatures took a dive into the low 30s and mid 20s for a couple of nights, and we got out the coat we bought Freeway about a month ago. It had been fairly warm, so we haven't had to use the coat we bought him for the past few weeks. The photo below shows how the coat fit when we tried it on in the store...

...and the next photo shows how it fits now. The coat only goes about half way down Freeway's back, and it looks more like a vest. The Velcro strap under his chest is barely long enough to get fastened.

As another comparison, look at the next photo of Freeway and his size compared to that of his toy the day we picked him up at 8 weeks of age...

...and contrast that to his size now at 3 months of age compared to the same toy.

Another example of his growth is this photo at 8 weeks on the steps of the motor home. We were thrilled he could make it up the first step.

The next photo of Freeway on the steps is at 3 months of age. He can now bound up and down all the steps. We had to work really hard to get him to sit still long enough for a photo.

We'll end this post with Valentine's Day. Since our daughter Lora was a young girl, Paul has given her a pink rose each Valentine's Day. It is a tradition he has continued even though she is now an adult and is married. Sending her flowers now that we are on the road has been a challenge because there aren't any florists near their home, and Paul had a lot of difficulty getting anyone to make the delivery. This year, J. Michael graciously offered to pick up Lora's rose for Paul at a florist near where he works. J. Michael dropped it off in Lora's car after lunch so she would find it after she was done teaching that day.

Margery has always been fond of cut flowers. Paul didn't send her flowers often, but when he did (usually on Valentine's Day), she was always thrilled. One solution to sending flowers while we are on the road is Pro Flowers. They are an online florist that sends flowers by UPS. In the early afternoon, Paul made up an excuse to go out so he could stop by the campground mail room on his way back to see if the flowers had arrived. Sure enough, they were there. Pro Flowers does a nice job of packaging the flowers. They are carefully wrapped to prevent damage, and the stems are in wet Oasis floral foam. Margery was delighted.

We didn't go out to dinner for Valentine's Day. We had plans for the following day to do some sightseeing that included eating out, and we didn't want to cheat on our diet two days in a row. Speaking of our diet, we are going well. Paul is nearing his goal with a weight loss of over 25 pounds, and Margery has lost about 14 pounds.

We did have a special dessert on Valentine's day. We picked up some delicious, no-sugar, double strawberry ice cream at Walmart. We're happy to report the freezer of the new Samsung kept the ice cream hard as a rock. Paul had difficulty scooping it out with a regular spoon, so we'll be looking for a sturdy ice cream scoop in the near future.

As we mentioned, we have plans to do some sightseeing. Stay tuned.

Motor Home Project: Install a New Residential Refrigerator

 Part 4 - In Goes the New

Bushnell, FL - Events of Friday, Feb. 3 to Sunday, Feb. 12, 2012

In our last post, Paul had finished cutting all the maple lumber for the new face frame for our refrigerator cabinet. After test fitting the parts, Paul began the assembly. The face frames of most RV cabinets are assembled with pocket screws. With this technique, holes are drilled at an angle in the back of one piece of wood to accept screws that fasten to the adjoining piece of wood. This joint is not as strong as some cabinet joints; but it is strong enough, and it is easy to do (especially with the dedicated pocket screw equipment the RV manufacturers use).

Since Paul doesn't have access to fancy, dedicated pocket screw machines, he bought a Kreg Jig Mini at Lowe's that is designed to be used with a hand drill. There are also more elaborate versions of pocket screw jigs available that simplify the setup and clamping to the workpiece; but at $20, this basic version is the least expensive. Since this is a tool Paul is not likely to use much in the future and there weren't that many joints to make, Paul was willing to take the extra time to set up the basic version of the jig for each joint to save a little money.

The jig is plastic so it will not mar the wood, and it has a metal insert to guide the drill bit. The jig is firmly clamped to the workpiece at the proper distance back from the edge according to the thickness of the wood being joined, then the pocket hole is drilled with the special drill bit provided in the kit. The position of the stop collar on the drill bit is also determined by the thickness of the wood.

Paul was impressed by the professional-looking results.

After assembly of the face frame, there was another test fitting. In spite of the fact the joints fastened together only with screws and have no glue, the joints stayed tight while Paul maneuvered the rather large, awkward frame into the motor home. Pocket screw joints are typically assembled without glue, but glue could be used along with the screws for maximum strength. However, Paul chose not to use glue in case modifications to the frame were required now or at a later date.

After Paul was sure the new frame fit properly, he sanded it and applied three coats of Minwax Wipe-On Poly finish.

With the new face frame for the refrigerator cabinet complete, Paul removed the false floor that he had temporarily installed so he could put in the modified support for the new drawer that is going under the false floor. This step had to wait for the new frame because the sides of the support attach to the frame.

Throughout the process there were a number of components that had to be installed in order for other parts to be fit, then the first components had to be removed in order to work on something else. Sometimes, the same components had to be installed and removed several times.

Paul devised a way to attach the face frame to the cabinet after the new fridge was set into place by using screwing blocks along the inside edges of the frame. Installing the frame after setting the new fridge into place would prevent any possible damage to the frame when lifting the tall, heavy refrigerator in the narrow hallway. Therefore, the face frame had to be removed again. Then Paul re-installed the false floor for what was to be the final time.

There were a few more details to tend to such as reducing the height of the water line and installing an in-line water filter for the ice maker.

Paul used a Shark Bite ball valve to connect to the existing PEX water pipe. The valve he bought has a Shark Bite connector on the inlet to connect to the existing PEX tubing and ½" female pipe thread on the outlet to connect a threaded adapter for ¼" tubing for the ice maker filter. Shark Bite is a brand name of push-on plumbing fittings. The same fitting will work copper, PVC and PEX tubing (or any combination thereof). The fittings are a little expensive, but they make plumbing a breeze. Just push them on and you're done. There is no soldering, no threads to tighten, no glue, or no crimping. And there were no leaks on the first try!

Then it was finally time to shut down the new Samsung and move it into position in the cabinet opening. We unloaded the food from the Samsung and put it into our own and into several borrowed coolers. After Paul removed the doors and the freezer drawer, Gary and Leroy came over to help with the lifting. Surprisingly, the Samsung with the doors removed seemed a good bit lighter than the old Norcold without its doors.

The next photo shows the Samsung in place. Notice the temporary support under the center of the false floor in front. This was to hold the false floor at the proper level until Paul could get the face frame into place. The frame has a piece of angle iron running across the front to support the floor.

After the new refrigerator was in place, Paul installed the maple frame on the cabinet. Then he re-installed the refrigerator doors. This was a little tricky because with the top of the fridge almost all the way up to the ceiling, it was impossible to get a screwdriver in to install the top screws. Paul tilted the top of the fridge forward while Margery steadied it so he could reach the screws.

We then plugged the fridge back in, started it up and loaded the food back in. In the following few days, Paul hooked up the ice maker, bolted the refrigerator to the floor and made some spacers for inside the cabinet to reduce any tendency of the refrigerator to want to tip as we are making a turn while driving.

With the new refrigerator securely fastened down and operational, Paul went to work finishing the new drawer underneath. During this entire project, Paul missed his table saw so much, he built a make-shift table saw by drilling some small holes in the base plate of his 7¼" circular saw and using some flat-head screws to mount the saw upside down with the blade sticking up through a piece of ½" plywood. He set the plywood on the saw horses he bought and clamped a straight piece of 1 x 4 to the plywood to use for a fence to guide the work piece. It doesn't have near the precision of a good quality table saw (or even an inexpensive table saw for that matter), and the setup for each cut was a bit tedious, but the cuts were more accurate and more repeatable than they would have been holding the circular saw by hand.

The home made table saw was invaluable for making the pieces for the drawer because for the drawer to fit together properly and to operate smoothly, the cuts had to be fairly accurate. The next photo shows Paul in action with his home made table saw getting ready to make a dado cut in one of the drawer side pieces where the drawer bottom will fit. That was something he couldn't even attempt to do with a hand-held saw.

In addition to finishing the drawer, Paul re-installed the furnace vent below the fridge and installed the plastic trim piece at the bottom of the fridge. The next photo shows the completed job.

The installation was a lot of work, but we are very pleased with our new residential refrigerator. One of the best things is the Samsung makes ice much faster than we can use it. We haven't tried ice cream yet, but the frozen food is hard as a rock. Another good thing about the Samsung is it only weighs about 20 pounds more than our old Norcold. Of course, the Samsung will hold a lot more food, so we'll have to be careful not to overload the fridge when we're on the move. Even when the Samsung is relatively full, everything is easy to find. Margery LOVES the deep vegetable fresheners since we always have plenty greens on hand for salads.

With the big job of installing the new refrigerator done, we're looking forward to some relaxation and recreation. We still have to devise a way to hold the refrigerator doors and freezer drawer closed while we're driving; but we have an idea for that, and it can be done later at a more leisurely pace. Enough work for now.