Exploring The Area...

Yesterday we drove over to Old Town to check it out. It had been 10 years since I'd been there last. Best time to visit must be on a Saturday evening as it was really dead for mid-day on a Thursday. Thursday is bike night so probably later in the evening there would be a large number of bikes there to look at but none when we were there. A sign said the largest number of bikes they've had was 1275....not too bad.

This switchboard was in the General Store. My
great aunt was a switch board operator at one point.

When we left the Kissimmee area we decided to take rt 50 west back towards Bushnell. If you think that all of Florida is heavily populated, it isn't. We drove through some very barren areas of nothing but fields and very few houses. Not what I would typically think of for Florida. We drove to Weeki Wachee area, along the coast. They boast that they are the only town with real live mermaids...yep, sure. Drove out to a park area so we could catch a glimpse of the water and then headed home. It made for a very nice drive through the non-touristy areas of Florida. Boomer loved riding with his head out the window, breathing in all the smells and seeing the cows grazing in the fields as we drove by.

Today we wanted to check out the Florida National Cemetery that we keep seeing signs for. It's very close to our RV park and as soon as we drove in we could tell it was going to be a gigantic place. We picked up literature at the visitor center and found out that this particular one has been open since 1988 and is the second most active national cemetery of all of them. They do 7000 burials a year here. It is a cemetery for those who served in the military for at least 24 months and is completely free for the veteran and his spouse. The plot, marker, opening of the grave and perpetual care is completely free to the family. This facility is huge...there's 517 acres here.

Open areas for today's burials (by cremation)

They have services on the half hour but services can only be held at committal shelters throughout the cemetery. There are no graveside services. There were a number of groups gathering at various locations throughout the cemetery for these services to take place...it was very busy. I've always heard of Arlington as a National Cemetery but didn't realize there are so many others. There are seven of them in Florida, serving 1.9 million Florida veterans. It was a dignified and fitting burial place for those who have served our country.
On the way back to the RV park we went to the Wild Cow cemetery to see what that was all about. In the shadow of I-75's overpass, there is this little, old cemetery with only about a dozen plots in it.I was glad to see that it wasn't a final resting place for wild cows, as I thought that would be a rather extravagant gesture. The majority of the headstones are very old....most around a hundred years old....weather worn, with that ornateness that you see on ancient headstones. There was a recent plot, a woman who passed away in 2007 and would have been around 54 years old. She must have had a fondness for this place...tucked away at the end of a dirt road, under a canopy of oak trees.

It's now raining...a cold front is moving in from the coast. The area where we were yesterday in Weeki Wachee was an area of concern a short while ago when a tornado warning was posted...Our area is under the watch until 8 p.m. tonight. Linda went up to the club house around 2:00 to watch the last hour of the "Jam Session" - when musicians gather to play and sing together. She said the place was crowded and it was a good time. Now we're hanging out at the house while it pours outside. Gonna be a quiet night..

Auction...

Had our auction on Thursday at 1:30 p.m.Just a little before 10 a.m. that morning we got a call from the North Brunswick site that they needed help with their auction because their assistant manager didn't come in. I asked them how far away from us they were (cause we had no idea) and she said about 28 minutes. I asked her what time her auction was and she said 10:30....holy cow !Told them I'd jump in the car and be right there. I got there with 5 minutes to spare but the VP was still going through the files to see who should be sold and whose unit would be held out of the auction. North Brunswick's units are primarily drive up units which means they are outside. Well, Thursday morning it was cold, windy and rainy...not a great day to hold an outside auction. They had 30 some units and it took us about an hour to get through them. Once I finished up there, I headed back to our unit since our auction would be starting in about an hour. Grabbed a quick bite to eat and finished eating in time for the first bidders to start arriving and checking in. They have to give us a $100 deposit to participate, then they get a bidder's book. If they don't buy anything then they get their $100 back. If they do buy any units, we keep the deposit until they have cleaned out all of the units. That way we ensure that they don't leave any junk behind. The one exception is if the bidders have a resale permit, making them tax exempt, then they don't have to give us a deposit.

We wound up having 16 units go up for auction. Our company is really great at giving people ample time and opportunities to pay their bills before resorting to auctioning off their units. We started with 56 units on our list....some paid...and some were held to give them more time. Units went for anywhere from $1 to $400. I was talking to one of the bidders yesterday, while he was loading up items he had purchased. I asked him what he does with the items he buys. He said he sells at flea markets, e-bay, craig's list and auction houses. He said that you used to be able to make good money doing this but it has gotten harder. The stuff you think you'll get good money for doesn't and the items you think are junk sometimes bring in good money. Hard to predict, he said....I think so many more people are doing this nowadays too that maybe the market has been diluted by so much competition. He said he once paid $12,000 for a 10 x 10 unit...wow ! He took an incoming phone call before I could ask him what he bid on (or what he thought might have been in the unit) and whether it paid off for him or not. Didn't get the chance to ask him but it sure had my curiosity piqued.Most of the units have now been cleared out by the bidders. One guy has a washing machine to get yet and he'll do that Sunday. Tomorrow I will try to "trash out" several of the units that didn't receive any bids. There is a 10 x 10 unit that is packed with stuff, and (2) 5 x 10's that I will try to fill our dumpster with. There are 2 huge drive up units that are 10 x 20 or 25's that we'll need to wait for the 20 yard roll off. One unit has office furniture in it and the other has alot of twigs and bags of god knows what. I hope we are gone before that one needs to be trashed out. Might need a Hazmat suit for that one....

Tomorrow our new assistant starts his training. Hope that goes well and that he sticks with it. He will train for 5 days with us before going on his own. Tomorrow the couple that I have as my #1 pick to be the management team here goes for their second interview at another Mini U. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this other manager concurs with my selection so we can get started with their background checks and move them closer to getting hired.

In weather news, the remnants of storm Ida...now a nor'easter is moving up the coast and we are having very windy, rainy weather tonight. Supposed to have more of the same tomorrow. I feel bad for the Pop Warner football players out on the field behind our rig...they are getting blasted with wind and rain for their practice tonight. Not a night fit for man nor beast out there....

Last Day At Union...

Today was our last day of work at the Union, NJ site. We spent today and yesterday with the new manager;transitioning her to take over the property. We accomplished alot in the one month + one day that we were there. There are over 20 more units rented vs. vacancies and the collections rate has gone up significantly. We are proud of the work we put in and although it seems to the new manager that there is much left to do, much has been done or is in progress for her to finish up. She is off to a good start and we wish her luck.

Tomorrow we will load up and pull out of here. We have to go to another site...not too far away and take over the property on Monday. This is the first time we've had to do a termination so we'll find out how that goes.

We received alot of rain from the tropical storm that traveled up the east coast. This morning, as we drove into work, there were several places where there was water over the road. Thank goodness that Bertha sits so high and has great ground clearance. I could see where many cars might stall out trying to go through standing water. Intermittently, throughout the day it rained. Tomorrow it is supposed to clear up and be nice so it will be a good day to hook up and pull out. On to new adventures....

Junk in the Trunk....

Last week I had started a "to do" list, of projects around the rig, and one of those was to clean out and organize the tool boxes on the truck. Since Linda didn't need to go into work until six, we decided that today was the day to cross that item off our list. One by one Linda and I took everything out of each, threw away the junk and organized the remaining items. After coming to the last toolbox(there are 4 total) we thought about the way everything seems to bounce and move around more in the rear boxes than they do in the front ones. So, back we went and reversed the items that we had in the boxes. Put the heaviest items in the tool boxes closest to the cab to see if that jingling, we hear every time we go over a bump, would decrease.

I also decided to remount in the basement of the RV an under cupboard style AM/FM CD player that also has a weather radio. It had been hanging in there using a sling type of device I rigged up but every time I need to get in the basement to work, I seem to hit my head on it. Having found my roll of pipe strapping in one of the truck tool boxes I figured I would hang it up next to the ceiling, using the pipe strap. This is one of those DIY projects that goes well if you have 3 hands but since that isn't the case I needed Linda's assistance. Being bifocal impaired, for me it's impossible to look up at something like a screw head and have it in focus well enough to line up a screwdriver to it. I decided the best tool for the job was my cordless drill, with phillips bit, instead of a handheld screwdriver. Lying on my back in the basement of the rig, I had the screw in one hand and the drill in the other. I needed Linda to hold the radio up so I could fasten the pipe strap on each side of it. It was a rather space constricting predicament which was resolved by me putting my legs up over Linda's shoulders so she could get close enough, to the rig, to reach in and hold the radio. Looking like a set of circus performers, there I was trying to look up and get the screw aligned with the existing holes....Linda struggling to hold the weight of the radio out horizontally and then I kept dropping the screws. For those bi-focally challenged RV'ers out there, you can appreciate how challenging this small task was. After I dropped the screws about five times we both got to laughing so hard at the way the whole thing must have looked, that it was all I could do to get those screws anywhere close to where they needed to go. I told Linda that it looked like something from America's Funniest videos....Finally, after multiple attempts and Linda retrieving all the dropped screws, we got it installed. Now that's teamwork....

Linda was scheduled to go in at six tonight but got a call at four and they said they didn't need her. She is supposed to work there Wed and Thursday also so we'll see what happens. Great weather day....started out cool (50's) but then was in low 70's with a light breeze. Calling for a few more nice days before the threat of rain again over the weekend.