Heavy Thundershowers - Late Afternoon Walk

April 5th - Tuesday - Thundershowers early this AM and clearing around 6:00 pm High 70 degrees

Lou and I were up early this morning, he dressed quickly and was off on a jog to the office to pick up the weekly mail that Kris forwards on to us. He hadn't been gone by a few minutes and a huge clap of thunder was heard, followed by a down pour, soon my cell phone rang and it was DH asking if I would come and get him, so I grabbed the car keys and the umbrella and went to the car to find that he had left the sun roof partly open along with both windows, so I grabbed the afghan from the back seat to put in his seat, so he would have a dry spot to sit upon and was off to the office. Once back home we put the long slide back in and changed into dry clothes and had breakfast and caught up on our mail while the storm hit in its entirety.

After the storm passed on we put our slide back our and it was time to fix some lunch and clean up from that. I rearranged the kitchen cupboards while Lou finished another of his Johnstone books, then we decided to take Estee and go for a long walk. We needed to put our jackets on, as the temperature had dropped down to 68 degrees, but thankfully the mosquitoes were not bad. We walked over to Lewis Lake and were gone about an hour, the above as pictures that I took. These are things that we normally see while on our walk. This is such a wonderful place to walk and Lou gets a little upset with me, as he likes to walk as fast as he can and I just enjoy walking to take in the sights. It is a place where we can walk and take Estee off the leash and just let her go and explore and she also enjoys her time outside.

Tomorrow is going to be laundry day again, and Thursday, I have an appointment to get my hair cut, and Estee has a return appointment with the Vet. I will post more about her appointment later, as I want to go into detail about this encounter.

Air Show -Sun and Fun - Lakeland, FL

April 3rd - Sunday - Beautiful Day - High 86 degrees

Yesterday Lou and I were up early and on the road to Lakeland at the crack of dawn, it took us about an hour to drive up and on the drive up, it was very obvious that a tornado had visited the area on Thursday. Upon our arrival at the airport, we were amazed at the amount of recovery work the staff and volunteers had accomplished to have the grounds in the condition they were in. It was a bit muddy getting out of the fields into the airport proper, but everyone worked with the problem and it all worked out.

Lou and I toured the museum while we were waiting for the grass to dry and it was amazing. I even found a display of quilts along with many of Howard Hughes accomplishments. I am a sucker for museums and so enjoy spending time in them and going with Lou is like having my own personal guide and one of the best; however, he soon heard planes overhead, so we had to go outside to see the real thing.

We were off to the flight line to see the many displays of homebuilts, seaplanes, vintage aircrafts, warbird aircrafts, and the light planes. I was tickled to finally get to board a KC-135, that is the huge refueler that flies overhead here at MacDill day and night as they train the pilots for overseas. I have a picture of it posted along with the interior cockpit. The young Air Force Officer was more than willing to answer all of my questions and I was elated to be able to talk to him about it. He told me they practice their approaches right over our heads, and do up to seven per pilot per night.

You can also see in one of the pictures, a view of some of the planes that were damaged in the two tornadoes that struck the airport on Thursday. Some had already been taken away. Some can not be repaired. Very sad. One we saw would have been a two million dollar plane.

We also got to see the F-22 which is a fighter jet and had a crew of one person and comes at the cost of $143 million dollars. When it took off, I couldn't believe how fast it was gone out of sight.

If I remember correctly, the take off weight was 83,500 lbs.

There were several fellows that did tricks with their planes and that is always fun for everyone to watch and turn on the "smoke" for everyone to enjoy, but personally, I enjoy the big guys and the ones that make the noise.

There was another group from Lancaster, PA and they had the black and white planes, but I do not know their names and I thought they were nearly as good at the Blue Angels. I think they stated their planes came from the Czech Republic.

Of course, the main attraction, was the Blue Angels and they were on the docket for 4:00 and it was nearly 4:30 by the time they were ready and Lou and I had decided we could see them better from the parking area, we had been there since 8:00 am and the temperature was 86 degrees and that is a long time to stand and walk, so we started back to the car and he was right, the view there was great and we enjoyed the breeze and the comfort of a place to sit!!!

All in all it was a memorable day and we came home tired and ready for a cool shower, dinner and our bed last evening.

Today, we found that a couple that we spent last winter in Key West with, has come to MacDill, to stay until we leave here. We have both gotten out our calendars and have planned things for our remaining time here. Our time is going to go quickly now. Next weekend we are going to my niece's for a picnic, we have a luncheon planned with one of Lou's grandson's that is visiting from Syracuse on the 13th. We want to get to Scott's to see the great- granddaughter. Want to see Jean on our way to Patrick AF Base. Supposed to have this one jack replaced when they call from the Winnebago place also.

Kids, keep that snow melting!!!!

Laundry Day

April 1st - Friday - 75 Degrees Low Humidity

After the excitement of yesterday's storm, Lou and I set out with our laundry and while our laundry was washing, we took our walk around the park to see what damage was done and surprising enough, we really did not see much damage. Several people must not have put their awnings in and they lost their awnings, but other than the dead branches coming off of the palm trees no other damage was done.

The pictures that I have posted are of the the Laundry/Shower House. I thought perhaps you folks would like to see how nice these areas are. The staff keep the areas very clean for us, they are cleaned every day and we all try to do our part by cleaning up after our selves.

Each year, new improvements are made. The huge improvement that was made this year, are the clothes lines, and I love them. as do many of the other folks. I hang out must of our clothes. There is always a nice breeze coming from the bay, so clothes dry quickly and are always fluffy.

Tomorrow morning, we are leaving very early to go to Lakeland to attend Sun and Fun Air Show, two tornadoes did hit there yesterday, so know many of the planes were damaged, but we still want to attend. Will try to get pictures to post on the weekend.

Severe Weather

March 31st - Thursday - Severe Weather

I don’t know about where you are, but here at MacDill March is leaving like a LION.

Lou and I woke up this morning to severe weather warnings and kept our eyes glued to the television for most of the morning and into the early afternoon. We had over five inches of rain in an hour with heavy winds. There were tornadoes that touched down in different locations near us with damage being done. The wind that gusted up to 80 miles per hour blew tractor trailers over on route 75 near Tampa.

The sirens sounded here at MacDill and Lou and I took the warnings very seriously, we put our slides in and secured everything we had outside and hunkered down to wait out the storm. I was fascinated with the weather stations here, they could track the storm right down to the street with the time of arrival and the severity of the storm.

I am going to post pictures that I took from the television that show how they tracked the storm. My family knew that we planned on attending the air show at Lakeland and heard there was a collapsed hanger there and were concerned we might be there. Due to Lou catching cold, we had decided not to go until the end of the week and we also knew that the weather wasn’t going to be good, so had decided to go on Friday, as it was going to be cooler and have lower humidity, thankfully, today was not the day we went. We haven’t seen the damage that was done there yet, but sounded like it might be serious, hopefully, no serious injuries.

Still no internet coverage here, so will have to post this later…..