Winding Down....And the Nose That Knows

Sarasota, FL      High:  90     Low:  68

The park has really emptied out.....

Activities are slowing down and some are ending...

It's getting harder and harder to find people to play pickleball with...But Sparky got in five games this morning...The rest of the day was spent moving a little bit more slowly and fitting in a nap in the afternoon!

We've still got a week and a half to go, and we hope keep fairly busy. Sparky wants to visit Tree Umph! An Adventure Course in Bradenton..."The ground is overrated..." "Climb, swing, zip, jump all while 15-60 feet in the air"...Hanging nets, wobbly bridges, tarzan ropes--YEAH! Sparky's idea of fun, Eldo's not so much...  :-)  Fun doesn't come cheap, but it sure sounds like fun. An adult ticket is 49.95. Whewee! If you go early at 8:30 on a Saturday morning, the ticket drops to 34.95. Sparky may not be doing that after all. She really likes different stuff like that...

Remember Sparky wanted to do the water balls at Sun 'n' Fun? Well, it's too late...too close to the end of the season, Sun 'n Fun is not having those any more...darn! So that's why Sparky wanted to try the Tree Umph place...But it's pretty expensive!

Sparky wants to go see the Robinson Preserve...We'll be doing that soon, on a day that's not so hot. The weather guys are saying this is Florida's summer weather a little early...Whew! The next few days are supposed to cool down, so that will be a good time to go.....

Later Sparky worked on her breast cancer people pins for Relay for Life in Elkhart, IN. Then part of the day was spent investigating smells....Uh, when you live full time in an RV, you become more acutely aware of smells..."Do you smell something like a burning smell, hon?" "Um-m-m-m, no, do you?" "Well, I think I do, I think it's coming from the back." A couple of months ago, that's how Sparky discovered the ceiling fan capacitor had gone bad,  had overheated and caused the smell. Sparky used her nose to locate it and smell problem solved! Today there were a couple of weird smells...

"Gosh! What is that SMELL???" Sparky exclaimed, coming inside the door this morning. "

"I dunno, but you can sure smell it! Geez, that's really bad!"  said E. It was a strong rotten eggs, sulphur smell. We looked everywhere, and finally, we decided it was the black tank needing to be emptied. In this hot weather, the contents were really cookin'. Ewwwwwww!  No bathroom jokes here, thank you very much! We're on a two week cycle usually for dumping, after our gauges quit working a couple of months ago. They lasted two years before conking out, which is better than a lot of people's gauges on their RVs. Guess we  just got lucky with them. At any rate, it was time to do the dumping thing again. This time we used a sprayer to thoroughly clean the black tank. That's Eldy's specialty, although Sparky knows how to do it, too. After dumping the tanks, the smell went away...WHEW! How do we know when it's time to dump? Two weeks is usually when the sound of the water in the toilet changes as it is getting more full. About three days before the two weeks is up, Eldy closes the gray water tank to fill it for flushing the black tank, and we're good to go.

Later today...another smell...a burning smell...Eldy said it was an electrical smell, Sparky said it smelled like burning paper. Immediately, we started checking. We checked all around the rig, inside and out in the compartments, then Sparky decided it was coming from a source other than our place. She hopped on her bike, noticed that two sets of neighbors had grills going, and figured the wind was wafting some questionable smells our way. Not sure whether they were burning their dinner, or burning some papers in the grill, but that smell went away very quickly as well. You never know, with an RV, where and what is going on with regards to smells, but Sparky's nose is pretty reliable! (Sparky has fine tuned her nasal expertise from years of fine dining, laughs E.) Sparky is always on high alert when a new smell occurs in the rig....You never know what it might be and it's important to check it out, even if it is usually nothing! Which is a reminder to regularly check your monitor systems in your rigs. We test our smoke alarm detector on a regular basis. All Eldy has to do is make popcorn, or Sparky gets the frying pan going on high heat, or a lot of cooking steam goes into the air, and the alarm goes off!

And that's it for today.....We'll see you later....

Relay for Life Pins and Exploring Venice

Sarasota, FL       High:   86    Low:   70

Off to North Port this morning to get some breast cancer ribbon charms. Sparky is on a roll making little people pins for Relay for Life back in Elkhart, IN, Eldy's hometown. Eldy's daughter, Kristi, has been spreading the word about Sparky's breast cancer people pins, so she and Sparky are going to have a joint fund raising effort to raise money for Relay for Life. Kristi will do the advertising, and spreading the word back home in Indiana, and Sparky will make them. Relay for Life is going to put a photo of them on their Facebook page and website. Sparky's sister has had breast cancer three times and is a survivor, so Sparky wanted to do a little something special for that cause. Three dollars of every sale of the pins will go to Relay for Life, Elkhart chapter. The pins cost 10.00 each and are about two inches long. Sparky enjoys making them even if they are a little fiddly with the wire and tiny beads and take some time! They are posable, so Sparky makes each one look like it's a little dancing spirit....Fun!

We looked at some model homes in Venice today...St. Andrews East.  One thing you learn about looking at builder homes and models in Florida, some builders don't tell you what the extras in the models cost.  You go into one, you really like it, THEN you find out the actual setup of the home and how it sits consists of thousands and thousands of dollars of extra upgrades which are NOT a part of the quoted costs. It's a real hunt to get at those costs. Other builders post lists of upgrades and their costs so what you are looking at you can pick and choose which extras you like and which ones you can do without, and you'll know exactly how much it will cost you. And a third class of builders outfit their homes with everything in place, upgrades included in certain models, and the price you see listed is the price you'll pay for the home. Unfortunately, those builders are a ways out of Sarasota....in other communities....Too far away to still call Sarasota home.


We did see some cool stuff today, like these dual ceiling fans in the main living area of a model house. They were tilted sideways at an angle and both hung from a central beam in the living room.

In the kitchen, was a really cool breakfast nook table, definitely Florida style. Sparky liked it!

And round rugs seem to be everywhere. Because so many Florida communities' houses are based on long, narrow, rectangular houses on narrow lots to make the most of Florida real estate in master planned communities, Sparky figures the designer in this home was looking to soften the angles in the living areas. The round rugs are in many of the builders' models and were in several different rooms in this house alone.....

We're having fun just looking around, learning about how the whole real estate system works around here. It's amazing how fast the extra fees, HOA fees and other costs add to the price of your monthly costs. We've mentioned them before, so we won't mention them again...We're still planning on heading out of Sarasota at the end of the month, heading towards Texas, so no worries mate! Sparky and Eldo will be hitting the road in less than three weeks. With a real estate building boom going on, prices are climbing frequently in new homes, and previously owned homes are heading on an upward tick as far as values here in Sarasota. That's good for the local economy, that's for sure! We've seen houses that were purchased in 2008 at crazy high prices selling for half the purchase price now....

There's a shark's tooth festival coming up this weekend in Venice...Hang around, Sparky and Eldo still have some exploring to do in Sarasota!