#250 Moved to Hudson, Florida, stayed until April

We arrived and I wanted to maximize the size of the lot. I need to have a nice view of the canal and it took a little bit of finagling because it wasn't a huge lot and I wanted to be in there diagonally to maximize the view. There were some obstacles from a previous trailer setup. I wanted to be careful not to run over anything. They looked like sharp metal that would go right through your tires. Soon I realized they were remnants of hurricane tie downs. I only know it was a chore not to run over one. There was also a bunch of old bricks and junk that have been there from a previous deck or something.

There was also some old boats and and stuff from people using the lot for Canal access.

I had pulled backwards and forwards and wiggled about trying to get my rig the way I wanted it.

As I went about going forwards and backwards and trying to find just the right spot a lady came over wanting to be helpful. It turned out this was Connie. In my judgy way I decided she's probably some kind of a welfare queen but she was nice as can be.

She gave me some directions and assistance getting the rig planted and I thanked her. She welcomed me to the neighborhood and so first impression of her was great. She mentioned her dog. She said it was a rescue. He is a pit bull but just a sweetheart so don't be concerned. I figured whatever, I mean I'm the one visiting your world. We got settled in and really felt good about how things ended up.

I started checking on infrastructure the next day the septic tank connection was too far away. I had to go to Walmart and get a sewer extension for my hose. Initially the guy said he had no sewer connection. I'm was glad that I found an old septic tank we could use.

For the first good little bit and I can't think of anything negative except that because there are boats in the corner of yard that the kids next door are using. I thought to myself does this mean they're going to be walking across Randall's property to put in and using my backyard at their leisure? I want to figure out a way to say maybe that wouldn't be my cup of tea.

I mentioned something to the landlord he said that he had told him to move those things off the property but they hadn't yet.

There was a teen there maybe just 13 or something and he's was a nice enough kid.

I said it would probably be ideal if we could get those things moved off my property because I'm going to be here for a few months. He said he didn't know how or what or when or where. I said that I would give him a hand with my truck dragging it over there and I did.

There was a paddle board and some other junky stuff but I helped them get it off my property. They kind of made seem like how are we going to get to the canal? I said I don't mean to be difficult but that's kind of not my concern. Maybe canal front costs more and you’ll just have to figure something else out okay. I pointed out that the lot two doors up was vacant and had water access. The land lords brother lived next door and worked in construction. He was not much on conversation but plenty friendly.

The first week I was there I spent most of my time paddling because that was the biggest attraction of the place. One time me and India went up to the canal to go way back into the source of the springs behind the bowling alley. All these miles of canals were spring fed.

There was an amazing amount of water pouring into the this area from the springs and the manatees like it here. I saw one or two manatees surfacing for air and that was cool. It was just a really nice experience out on the water.

I Mentioned to the landlord that I was an electrician and he said he might have a job I would be if I was interested.

When we took this rental, he had another one up the way that he wanted us to look at if we were interested.

He might rent it or sell it but it was attractive in that it had a nice water view and much shorter distance to the gulf. It had an old boat shed and a piece of land that might have been 100 ft long by 20 to 30 ft wide .

It had no electricity no water no sewer he said he would let it go for 75,000.

That seemed a little pricey to me. I asked some of the neighbors if I rented did they know of any rules against it. they said to their knowlege it was okay.

There was a dormant water meter there and so that would solve one part and then he wanted to know if I could help get electricity installed there. It was 5 feet from the water so I could see no scenerio where sewer would ever be possible. I worked up an estimate to install a new electrical service and did that for him for a song.

I have a weakness that when I get an idea, I tend to obsess about it. I began to see Hudson sort of like a hidden gem of Florida. Since we're going to come down and stay warm each year why not just buy a place and I got kind of jazzed up about that.

Tim lot for 75,000 was not worth it. I thought I would just start looking around for other opportunities because we really needed it, now, on a piece of land right now

I started begging India to think about letting us buy a piece of land down here. She didn't say no but she said why are you obsessing so much.

I should have thanked her for being the smart person in the room but instead I insulted her by said something like you just aren't any fun. Why don't you let me have my toys. Why are you making me stop playing with my toys, I don't want to take a nap.

I looked and looked and contacted realtors and all that. I would see a vacant acre for sale under the most perfect conditions. Each time I would get the answer you cannot park an RV on here ever for any reason. The only rental you are allowed to ever have his at an official RV or trailer park, the end.I wondered why I saw so many RVs on private land. Why is it ok to rent from Tim right now? The answer is because the land he owned used to be a trailer park and it was grandfathered in as a existing.

I called Pasco County and they said If you buy a lot in Pasco County you may not Park your RV on it and live in it. So then I asked the county one day what would be the criteria for having an RV there? They said I believe you can store it there but you can't live in it. Even if you wanted to do this you would have to build a habitable structure on the land and store the RV beside it but not live in it. I figured I could trick them and build me a tiny house on pilings and it would be just a big enough to be called habitable. We would really live in the RV and come and go as we wanted. Just couldn't let it go huh.

I found a gorgeous place less than a mile away. It was for sale and I just imagined how wonderful that would be. There was a little cover on the left and right from the woods. It was overgrown so one couldn't see it from the road too clearly. I asked the county what would be required to build here.

She said it would have to be on pilings eight feet high because of the flood plain. I don't know exactly what day it hit me but at some point I realized, what's wrong with you? India was right, she's not being Debbie Downer, she's just right and the only adult in the room. Of course we did nothing and I end up dropping the subject.

I can't imagine what came over me and now looking back I'm thrilled that we don't own swamp land in Florida. I'm thrilled that we just roam around and do the full time RV thing. I can't even believe for a second I was thinking this would be a good idea.

The other part of a Hudson that I will talk about in this case was Connie's Dog.

One day I heard kind of a yelp sound and it was more like a spoiled dog wanting something, but it just went on for a while. I mean it kind of interrupted the serenity of sitting out the screen porch or anything like that. It was a sound like let me back inside where the air conditioning is. I get that he was just spoiled but it went on for the longest time. I mean like every 20 seconds for 8 hours straight that's what I mean by a lot.

I looked over to see what the situation was and the dog was kind of just yelping because he was not on much of a leash at all.

He was tied off with a rope with about maybe three feet of rope. Any dog would be angry about that but that was their solution because they are, in the nicest way possible, trailer trash.

I don't mean to be a dog racist but I don't care for pit bulls. I feel like they've got the genetic element they didn't ask for it but they were bred to kill for 400 years. Now occasionally it just jumps out of them when they don't even expect it. I don't like being around stuff like that. I like cute little dogs like that love you to death like the one that we inherited from my Mom.

And so, I knew the dog was fairly miserable and I had kind of waited it out forever and so one day I just went over and asked if there was any way they might could do something about the dog because it was kind of like getting on my nerves. I also said the dog was pretty miserable and could they maybe do something about it. Get a dog fence in the yard or something.

They said well what makes you think the dog is miserable. I mean we take care of it and he just can't let him run wild you know. We have the tie him off. The mindset that those are the only two options blows my mind. It really got on my nerves at some point I called animal control and told him that I wasn't too happy about what was going on next door. They said well you know it's illegal to tie a dog off in Pasco County. If you want to make a complaint we’ll come out and take a look. I said,let me ask him one more time before I file the complaint. I spoke to the landlord and he said he would talk to them and even provided a small dog lot because I guess he wanted to make peace or something.

A week later he brought over a small chain link dog lot and it seemed as if they had agreed that that would be the solution.

Now he's in about a 10 by 10 dog lot and yelps every 20 seconds forever. I know it's a problem as nothing much I can do about it. I had already called animal control and they were going to come out Monday then suddenly the dog lot arrived. I sort of decided the landlord had done about as much as you could ask him to do legally. It was not illegal anymore because he wasn't tied up. I just had to kind of put up with it or no oh I don't know and so I put up with it or leave This is what made me decide I didn't want to stay a day past March 31st.

On February 14th the Parkland shooting happened and we were so upset. We heard about the march in Washington and thought maybe we'll just fly up there. We did and Ben joined us and that was a kind of a part of our Hudson Adventure.

Every Sunday we went to the United Methodist Church for Sunday school and enjoyed the discussions.They were a little on the conservative side but it was always a nice little conversation. We would then skip the main service and we would bolt out of there and go down to Tarpon Springs to the Unitarian service and have lunch. We really became really good friends with the Tarpon Springs people.

I would love to live in Tarpon Springs in the RV but we just couldn't find anything that would be good for us. It was all just elderly RV parks sardined in with lots of rules and stuff.

I think I've kind of hit best of what we did at Hudson. We did go to New Port Richey every Tuesday to go to the movies. One thing we did that was kind of fun was they had a deal where you can go see 8 movies for $30. It was like an Oscar buzz type thing. We went to all the Oscar nominees for about a week 1 per day sometimes twice a day film festival for us.

Well, I am definitely a Beatles fan and I remember the day that my big sisters brought home the Sergeant Pepper's album and we just listened to it a million times. We saw this ad on TV and decided to go it's only about 45 minutes south. Being upfront would be very tempting but that's about a hundred and fifty. We're like $35 for the back row.

It was at Ruth Eckerd Coliseum and the show was called rain. It was a look alike tribute to the Beatles. I had spoke to my sister Darylene about it and she said it was seeing the Sergeant Pepper's Album live.

It was so cool we loved the show.

We went to dinner one evening and the Mariachi guys at the Mexican place wanted to serenade us and wanted to take pictures and we thought that was fun.

One afternoon in New Port Richey I was trying to find a place to turn around. I found myself on the backside delivery area of a shopping mall. There was a large water retention pond feature behind the shopping mall in.

I looked over and saw a large number of Egret type birds roosting in the trees all around the lake.

It was right in the middle of an urban area but it is Florida. There's a lot of water and a lot of estuary. I think it's interesting how no matter how many people move here and how no matter how much is developed is still kind of Florida. There's a lot of wildlife that needs a place to go hang out.

I didn't count but I did take pictures and I would guess there were 300 wading birds perched there. I thought it was so cool how they had found a safe place in a very urban area.

The whole time we were in Hudson I never really got any sense of people being racist but they probably are.

Having said that I don't think I even saw a person of color the whole time we were there. It may be that y'all kind ain't welcome here but later I found out an unpleasant fact.

Later I was at Hillsborough River State Park and we were having a nice visit with a lady at the coffee hour after church service at the UU.

We had mentioned our Hudson Adventures the year prior and she said for a very long time Hudson was considered the headquarters of the KKK in Florida. I said wow that sucks I didn't even know we lived in such a place.

It's no fun when you realized that you were living in a place that bragged about that.

Soon after we arrived we noticed we were living on a road that was the boundary for an elementary school. India and I hoped maybe there is an opportunity for her to volunteer There.

She looked into it and asked a few questions. She filled out a few forms, applied and was approved in a matter of a day or so.

Naturally I was very proud of her and I drove her over on the first day just to be sure that she was on time.

She started walking every day for at least a month maybe a month-and-a-half and it was good for her and I like seeing her in her element.

She typically would be a teacher's helper and would help tutoring with the reading skills.

There was one kid she worked with who had special needs with brain damage and she worked with him and again I was very proud of her.

While she was away I would be doing things like I put a new roof on the RV with liquid rubber. I ended up putting about 6 gallons up there to make a new roof and it worked out perfectly. I put on a new ladder on and I replaced the water heater. I was busy during the day doing this and that and sometimes I just kayaked and pretended to fish. I didn't catch anything but a another guy said the fish were there but I just couldn't catch them.

After the Parkland shooting, things became very tense but the school system.

They were in a lockdown mode because it was just a very scary time with people shooting up schools right and left. I can only imagine if they began to wonder can we really afford to have volunteers coming and going willy-nilly. In the weirdest way it seemed they required her less and less.

At first, she was needed for 4 hours and just busy as a beaver and then at some point they would say what we only need you for 2 hours. If you want to hang around in the break room is fine with us. I think towards the end she was hanging out of the break room for 3 hours and they needed her for 30 minutes. She began to wonder do you guys even want me here.

At some point it seemed like oh the grandmother of the boy with the special needs wanted to be the one to help so I don't think we need you today.

She called back on Monday and said do you need me today? Not really honey but we’ll stay in touch.

It seemed as if she had been snubbed her, they were just kind of getting rid of her. She just decided it was because of the Parkland, I said who knows.

Yesterday I paddled out into the Gulf and went left towards Hudson Beach and went to a little Grill and had some onion rings and a Dr Pepper. It felt a little weird with my baggage to be sitting at a bar listening to Jimmy Buffett looking at the Gulf of Mexico.

I guess it's finejust as long as I know who I am and what I am then I guess I can sit at a bar. Mostly it's not a great idea for me as it could be a slippery slope for anyone in recovery, The textbook says we can reach a point of neutrality where we're not cocky nor afraid. I think that's where I'm at.

I also talked to a guy in a Jon Boat out on the water and he said he's catching drum and trout real regular and so that's so cool also. I see lots of cormorants and lots of Ibis and egrets and pretty much everything. The next time I go out I think I'll take a right on the canal and it goes more towards the fresh water spring source. I talked to some people out on the water yesterday and they said if you go towards where its dead ends there's about 20 Manatee up there.

I'm going to find out if it's okay to feed them cabbages or something. I know it's illegal to touch them or even pressure them. A lot of people don't get it but if you're snorkeling and you're hovering over them or getting really close to them or stroking their little noses it freaks them out. It causes them a great deal of stress and turns out it’s also illegal so one has to be careful. I think that's where I'll go next. It's less than a mile away. We've been on the road for so long there seems like there's just a million things that are broken. I think I'll spend the first couple of weeks and February fixing everything and then I'll think I'll look for part time job doing electrical.

I doubt it's out there but my ideal job would be doing service calls 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. no lunch.

This is the view from my TV chair inside the RV. At our new Post in Hudson Florida

That's our cat he thinks he needs to kill something once a day.

I went out kayaking yesterday for the first time from our new place. It was blowing pretty hard and the current was trying to drag me out into the Gulf of Mexico. I decided to stop at about where the inlet is and turn back towards the canal. I saw lots of Wildlife, a great blue heron, lots of pelicans and a manatee. Also saw mullet jumping out of the water like 5 feet in the air. I haven't figured that out yet. I asked a guy up on the hill and he said they just like a breath of fresh air now and then.

I have a picture here of the muddy mass that was going to be my home for 3 months. I thought what can I do? It had rain torrentially and so I called a guy and he said he could bring in a little rock for like $150. In my tiny little brain I thought the landlord appreciate it so much that he would just gladly take it from my rent.

I also spread it using my truck and I got stuck. Someone rode by and they were willing to pull me out.

I also thought it was going to rain and rain and rain for 3 months.

I spread all the rock and it was great and after that it never rained again for the next 3 months. It really wouldn't have been that big of a problem but I didn't know that at the time.

When I mentioned it to the landlord I thought he would offer to deduct it. I gave him receipt and he just said oh thank you.

I wanted to show you Canal world. So, if you look at where the blue dot is, that's our location and if you wiggle here and there you can see how we can be in the Gulf of Mexico in well it's .8 miles.

Look below where it says like I don't know, Hudson Beach estates, you can see just a maze of canals and canals and canals. I mean none of that natural so somebody cut it all out with a bulldozer.

The way it works is each person on the landmass has access to the water in by using the canal. I just call it Canal world.

I saw this story on the internet

Woman petting endangered manatee in Florida. A woman pets an endangered manatee while swimming in the Crystal River in Homosassa, Fla., on Feb. 9, 2005. Florida's animal population is part of what makes it so special.

Last year, a woman at a Florida beach spotted a manatee swimming past and jumped on its back like it was a horse. Other beachgoers shouted at her to stop, but she paid them no heed. She was riding a manatee! What a feeling! Woo-hoo!

Someone snapped photos of her and turned them in to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. The cops distributed the photo at a press conference, asking for help identifying the woman because she was breaking the law. The manatee-rider’s picture wound up appearing on computer screens around the globe thanks to aggregation sites that found it hilarious that Florida would have a law against riding manatees. Oh, those wacky folks in Florida! Never mind that manatees are an endangered species, and so federal law forbids harassing or molesting them too. (The manatee-rider was eventually arrested and wound up in a pretrial intervention program.)

Florida's animal population is part of what makes it so special. We've got animals found no place else. But a lot of people in Florida—tourists and residents alike—can’t just watch a wild animal being wild. They want to be more than passive observers. They have to put themselves into the picture, make themselves the star of this nature show. Hey, it's a baby manatee! Put the kids on its back and post the photos to Facebook! Yewei-haw!

Just in case anybody was reading my thing about manatees in, "wouldn't it be fun to feed them feed them some cabbages “, I thought I might post what I found out to keep everybody from having to do any research for themselves.

To avoid charges of harassment DO NOT:

give food to manatees use water to attract manatees to your boat, dock or marina (etc.) where manatees may be harmed separate a cow and her calf disturb manatee mating herds pursue manatees or chase them from warm water sites disturb resting manatees hit, injure or harm manatees jump on, stand on, hold on to or ride manatees grab or kick manatees block a manatee's path if one or more moves toward you hunt or kill manatees use your vessel to pursue or harass manatees "fish" for or attempt to hook or catch manatees

Manatees and the law

Manatees are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 and the Florida Manatee Sanctuary Act of 1978. It is illegal to feed, harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, annoy or molest manatees.

The state of Florida has also established regulatory speed zones to protect the manatee and its habitat. The zones are located where manatees live or travel regularly or seasonally.

Anyone convicted of violating state law faces maximum fines of $500 and/or imprisonment of up to 60 days. Conviction for violating federal protection laws is punishable by fines up to $100,000 and/or one year in prison.

We lived in Hudson on Valentine's Day. Obviously had India and I not met I would have probably not turned out so good.

So, thank you India and Happy Valentine's Day.

Valentines day made me want to put something out there to address the aphrodisiac issue.

Although it sounds racist or stereotypical an awful lot of men in Asian countries believe that if you cut the fins off sharks or slaughter all the rhinoceros for their horns you can brew up a tea or soup and slip it to your girlfriend or wife and she would happily have sex with you as a result.

I would propose you can save the sharks which do have a vital purpose and save the Rhinoceros which should not be slaughtered by taking this simple advice.

If you want more sex and you think you need an aphrodisiac to get that to happen try not to be a such a horrible partner to her.

Maybe do the dishes without being asked or make up the bed or do laundry and not even expect a thank you and I think the aphrodisiac will happen.

I'm just saying

The next part of our story is the trip to Washington for the March for our lives. Afterwards that about wraps it up for Hudson.