Life's a Beach

Neither of us has been sleeping well lately, Rick because he is always worried about finances, and me because when Rick does fall asleep, his snoring could wake the dead.  After another restless night, we both must have finally gotten into a deep sleep because we slept until almost 8:00 this morning.  I guess that is one of the perks of retirement: we have no schedules to keep and can sleep as late as we wish.

After breakfast, we were back in the garage to try to get the water lines completed for the washer and dryer.  I have a "box" in the wall in Wisconsin for the faucets and drain line, and since that seems to work well, we wanted to try to duplicate it here.  Actually,  I really I wanted to get the house vacuumed and mopped today since "true grit" was a good definition of the floors, so each time that Rick made yet another trip to Lowe's to pick up more plumbing supplies, I stayed home to get some cleaning finished. I lost count of how many times he actually went to the store, but I can say that it equated to being able to sweep and to mop a 1300+ square foot home!

The pipes look so simple when they are completed,
but this took a lot of planning to get it right.

A lot of planning, a lot of dry fitting, and a few blue words later, we had successfully figured out how to get the waterlines properly hooked up the the wall box.  This was no small task since both lines had to be soldered into the fixtures in the box itself, and those joints were very close to the plastic box itself. How Rick got them both secure without melting the plastic box is beyond me, but everything seems to be intact.  We even made provisions for the water lines to run to my as-yet non-existent laundry tub.

When he was at the store, Rick also picked up a load of 2 x 4 lumber for the framing of the other walls, and we have several feet of dryer vent pipe that also has to be assembled and reinstalled.  For all of you with intact laundry rooms, say a prayer of thanks.  So far we make progress on this each day, but I am thankful for my two-week supply of clean underwear just in case we hit a snag in the plans in the next couple of days.

Sand Key Beach

We worked until a little after noon (with a break for lunch), and when we finished, Rick said, "Let's go to the beach."  A trip to the beach is something we had been planning for a while, but since this is January, most days were too cool, and we really were too busy anyway.  Today dawned sunny and warm, so the beach was a perfect escape.  We drove over to Clearwater Beach, but since this is a weekend, their beaches were crowded with tourists.  We ventured further south and came to Sand Key Beach.  This beach is in a county park, out on a peninsula, with miles of coastline.  The only drawback to the beach is that one must pay $5.00 for parking.  I suppose that is one of the ways that the county pays for park maintenance, but the price does become a deterrent to beach-going.

As we were driving through the parking lot, a woman waved at us and yelled (add a strong Southern accent), "Are you leaving?"

I rolled down the window and Rick said, "No we are just coming to the beach."

"Well, then, you might as well use this," she said as she handed us her parking receipt that must be displayed in each parked vehicle's window. "I've only been here for an hour, and this is good until sunset today."

We thanked her and gladly took the ticket.  Now I will say that I would be willing to pay my share to use the beaches, but since I already pay county property tax, I would think that the country could sell the good taxpayers of Pinellas a season-long pass for the beach parking.  In Wisconsin we paid for a pass to use the state parks, and I would love to be able to do that down here to use the beaches.  I will have to investigate this further since I cannot believe that I am the first person to come up with this idea.

Check out those white Wisconsin legs!

As the above pictures show, we had a great time sitting on the beach, reading our Kindles, and enjoying the sights and sounds of nature. Thanks for the lemon beach bag, Lindsay! Sand Key Beach was not crowded, so we were able to relax after a hard morning's work.

My idea of a good time.. a book and a beach.

On the way home, we detoured a little further south to Belleair Beach because last year we saw a house that was being built on the beach.  Rick loves to watch houses being built which is why, I think, he does not even mind our remodeling.  We found that the builders had made progress on the first house, and we came upon another lot where the owners must have torn down the original structure.  The picture shows the humongous house they are raising in its place.  All I have to say is that some people have way too much money, and I am glad that I do not have to pay the taxes on that house.

A single-family "beach house" in Belleair Beach.

Life's going to be an expensive stay on the beach for whomever is building that house.  Ha!  And I was fretting about paying $5.00 for parking!