It has been a while since I have sat down to focus on collecting my thoughts. Maybe because my thoughts have been so scattered lately. But damn, when you start receiving messages wondering if we are Ok, or where are we, just because I haven’t sent a blog posting lately, sheesh, the pressure, and the stress. Well we have been busy.
Our short-term temporary stay in The Villages, Florida came to an end. This was mainly meant as a transition back into the USA from Panama. We were able to visit, get a car, re-establish things like licenses and insurances (Obamacare$$$ is enough to make us leave the country again – what crap!) as well as go through a few items we had in storage. We really hoped to go through more storage stuff but it ended up being impractical at the time.
After a lot of research and searching we ended up finding a longer-term residence at the beach in Jupiter, Florida. Jupiter is a great area. We looked further south in areas such as Boca Raton and Delray Beach but could not find anything at the beach to our liking. Also those areas were quite busy and crowded. They were like cities that, oh by the way had a beach whereas Jupiter feels very much like a beach town. I lived here for most of a year back in 2011 and really enjoyed the miles of beaches and the wonderful Tiki bars i.e. Square Grouper
A new adventure started for us as we prepared to leave The Villages. We rented a big old honkin 26′ truck and loaded up our storage unit. We were in a race. A Race, you ask? Yes a race with Mother Nature. Hurricane Matthew was about to hit right in the Jupiter area. We needed to drive 4 hours south, attend a condo orientation in order to get our keys, and then scramble to empty our truck before the storm hit in 48 hours. We were frickin exhausted but made it. We live on the 3rd floor so it was a bit of an effort making all those trips up and down the small elevator. On day two in Jupiter we were able to return the truck and get a few provisions as we followed the storm track. We were still inside the ‘cone of uncertainty’ for landfall/direct-hit but indications were trending that it would push a little north, and it did.
Hurricane night was pretty fascinating. The rain wasn’t all that bad but the wind was impressive. We felt pretty safe. We were just outside of the mandatory evacuation zone. Our building is 30 years old, 5 floors and pretty solid. It was interesting to watch the wind incrementally increase as the hours went by. Around 10pm, when we lost power, the wind started topping 70+ mph and that was not gusts but continuous. Around 1-2am we were having 100-115mph winds. I expected doors and windows to rattle. They didn’t but the howling was impressive. By the next morning we were back to 40-70mph wind with rain and power came back on. We did not see much damage other than tree branches. Another adventure for the travel logs!
During the weeks that we have been in our new place we have been trying to get set up. We had lots of boxes to empty, things to arrange, and efforts to make us feel at home. Denise had the bulk of the work unfortunately. As any empty unfurnished place, it needed a really good DEEP cleaning before we would feel comfortable. As many guys know that usually falls to the spouse. I am not being sexist, it just usually does. I emptied a lot of boxes and have been assisting Denise in her decorating and arranging tasks. Things like hang drapes, wall hangings, bed skirts (what’s a bed skirt for?), etc…
During my down time, I of course ended up sitting with the Mac for hours until I was ‘needed’. On the positive side, my twitter account, @rbillock, reached over 10K followers and continues to grow. You are invited to follow. On the negative side, I ended up getting caught up on politics on Facebook. I was most likely ‘unfollowed’ by everyone due to the incessant political bullshit shoved in my face and of course my responses. If I were you I would have ‘unfollowed’ me also. Now that that crap is over and we are all possibly socialist commies feel free to re-follow and I will try to be good.
We are starting to enjoy our new home. We really like the location and setup. We have had numerous wonderful beach walks and many nice days/evenings at waterside beach bars. We even found a real nice Irish Pub as well as a very local coffee shop within walking distance. Our tennis game has started back up. We still play AT tennis meaning just back and forth, not keeping score, exercise. Maybe soon we will start to actually play. Even though we have not been keeping track I am sure when we start to keep score Denise, having already tracked our progress, will claim to have won 7 of the last 10 sets!
One of the great things over the last two months besides the weather and beach is that we have gotten to visit with Lisa twice. We met her at Disney Orlando for a few days when she was there for a conference. We was also staying at the Breakers Palm Beach last month so we picked her up and she was the first visitor to stay at our new place. We had a great time at the beach and Tiki Bars. It was so great to see her.
Our new place has a wonderful large balcony that overlooks a swimming pool, pond, and large protected marina. The yachts coming and going are amazing. Panama was a beautiful paradise but Jupiter and our new place is also a wonder of its own. The ‘table with a view’, well it is our patio table I am sitting at right now, drinking my mimosas, and looking out at our new beautiful view.
Here are some new pictures you might enjoy and as always comments, questions, or suggestions are welcome.
BTW…I re-did my blog site. Did you notice? Better? Worse? Do you care?
RB
