On Friday evening I drove to Maidera Beach (near St Petersburg) to meet up with members of the Tampa Bay Adventures to watch an open air movie right on the beach.

The Maidera Beach community does this complimentary movie event on the beach once a month.

The TBA members of the group arrived about 1 1/2 hours early to socialize and to share light snacks. The evening was just perfect with a great sunset over the beach and a full moon to light up the sky afterwards.

Including a few photos below that I took during the event.

Had an interesting conversation that evening with the girl in the photo above. Her name is Martina and she moved to the United States from Hamburg Germany about 1 and 1/2 years ago. She currently resides in Clearwater. Since I had previously lived in Germany for about 5 years back in the mid to late 80’s, I enjoyed speakimg with her and discussing my previous experiences in Germany. Martina was originally from Dresdin, Germany and defected across the Iron Curtain about 2 years before the wall actually came down. Interestingly, back in the mid 80’s I got special visas to drove my car across the Iron Curtain. I had the unique experience to witness first hand what communist life was like on the other side. One of the cities I visited back then was Dresdin, Germany while I was enroute to visit Poland and the former country of Checkoslovakia. I even remembered some of the key areas and special places in and around Dresdin. Martina was amazed that I knew and that I remembered places of where she grew up at. What a small world we live in ! Nice to be able to relate to someone else’s surroundings.

Hey All,

Here at the Veteran’s Hospital this morning awaiting a CT Scan to be done followed by several other medical appointments.

While sitting in the waiting room with an IV prep in my left arm, along came by this patriotic dog to great me and wish me well and to let me know he is proud to be “An American Doggie!”

Have A Great Day!

Gary

Went to the base library on Tuesday afternoon on the way back from finishing my procedure at the Veteran’s Hospital. I usually stop by there weekly to turn in the DVD movies I signed out the week prior and to pick out 10 new ones to hopefully watch throughout the week. When I picked up the new set of moves today, I did this rather quickly and without much thought.

On Tuesday evening, I decided to watch one of these movies. Again without really looking at what I picked out, the one I ended up watching was called “The Fault In Our Stars” and it was about 2 young teenagers who fell in love, each confronted with terminal cancer. The movie came out in 2014 and WoW it was was a great movie and needless to say it brought out alot of emotions in me. I will admit it made me teary- eyed thinking back about my life with Terry and the deep love we had for one another right to the very end.

If you have a chance to pick up this DVD somewhere, I highly encourage you to watch it. You won’t be disappointed.

Luv,

Gary

Hey All,

As I was sitting outside of my Rv relaxing on Monday evening after having just returned from my daily bike ride, I had a new friend come to visit me!

Meet “?” the Armadillo. He stopped by my yard for a little dinner and I offered him a nice large green salad to munch on! He was so pre-occupied while eating that he didn’t mind me getting up and close to him to be filmed.

Then as I looked to my left, there on that section of my grass was “Peter Cottontail”. That little bunny rabbit has been stopping by my place each day around this time of the day for the last week or so and I’ve been feeding him his daily carrots. Sorry, don’t have a video yet on “Peter” as he just moves too fast for me and it’s hard to focus in on him with my cell phone camera, as he hops all over the place.

Then, just to the rear of me is my little “Rocky” the Squirrel. He also stops by here each evening for his ritz cracker evening treat.

I think I can now officially designate my space as an “Animal Food Court”!

Now that “mama bird” is gone from the hitch crevice in the front of my RV and all her babies (of which there were many since Easter) have all flown the coop, having these new pets to stop by to visit me is a welcome treat.

Don’t know if this is Terry’s spirit sending me these new friends to keep me company or if it is Roxy (my former doggy’s) spirit or maybe it is a team effort by both of them? Who knows?

To end this blog here…..I need your help to pick a suitable name for my new friend the Armadillo. Send me your suggestions after your read this blog so that I can officially give him a good name as I officially welcome him to my neighborhood and yard. Thanks

Have a great day! Off to the VA this morning for my terrible Tuesday twice a week procedure. Oh what fun!

Luv, Gary

Hey All,

On Saturday afternoon when becomming a bit bored, I decided at the last moment to get into my truck and to drive to Tierra Verde (a suburb of St Pete) and to meet up with my Tampa Bay Adventure friends at The Beat The Heat Pool Party at the Island Grill. The drive from MacDill AFB to this place was almost 1 hour, but I have to keep motivating myself to get out with people and to not become content with just sitting around in the RV by myself and watching TV. The problem is when I do not get out (other than going daily to the gym and taking my long afternoon bike rides,) I tend to get a bit depressed and then get a bit restlesss and start binge eating everything (and not the healthy stuff) all night long, that I have in the fridge and in my kitchen cabinets. Then the next day, I usually feel misearable and pay the penalty by doing 2 hours of vigorous exercising in the gym in the morning and 2 hours of intense bike riding in the afternoon. It’s a vicious cycle for me! So…..better for me to just get out and about with people. It’s good for me to do this. So off I went!

This event on early Saturday evening was fun. We had about 100 members from the group that showed up. Even though the establishment was originally having this special event to celebrate their new pool just built adjacent to the bay and the marina, the pool opening ran into some snags having to do with getting the final inspections and permits from the city. So although the pool looked nice and was full with water, people couldn’t swim in it yet, until the inspections happen and permits are completete. Despite all this…the party went on and we all had a good time socializing with one another.

Including just a few still Pics below. The first one you might find interesting, as I met my identical twin brother at this meetup while I was having a convesatiom with a siamese twin girl from the group.

Enjoy!

Have a great week.

Gary

The host had a best lipstick contest going on while at the meetup where the women in the group pasted an imprint of their lips on this blow up corona plane. The designated judges then picked the best one for a prize.

Cool restroom sign above.

It’s that time of the year again when all the turtles come out to breed. I love watching them every day over the small waking bridge which makes up my entrance into the MacDill Air Force Fitness Center. The body of water below that bridge is so interesting and there is always so many exotic fish and tropical birds (besides the turtles) that like to hang out down there in this marshy body of water and vegetation. It’s like I have my own aquatic nature museum to enjoy everyday. What’s better than that!

Sorry, the video is not as clear as it could be, the glaring sun was making it hard to see what I was trying to film.

Never did figure out which turtle was Terry but then I thought…his spirit is probably within all of them, especially when I stood there on the bridge and all the turles immediately started swimming towatds me. It was really neat!

Have a great rest of your weekend and a priductive but unstressful week ahead.

Luv, Gary

This video shows the whole group swing dancing. So much fun!

This video discusses where I am driving to and what I will be doing tonight.

The videos and pictures should tell it all. Just trying to keep active by trying to do new and interesting fun activities with a wide variety of groups within the Tampa/ St Pete area. Enjoy!

How do you like this guy’s pick summer suit? I guess appropriate here in the weltering summer heat of Tampa, Fl! The guy was actually from the Florida State Lottery and they were having some promotional giveaways in Tampa on this past Saturday morning. Of course I was not the winner, but it was fun anyways.

I meetup with one of my meetup groups on Saturday morning at a new and upscale food court “Armature Works” in an old refurbished cigar factory in Tampa. The plan was to walk about 2 miles along the beautiful riverwalk to the Amalie Arena. The members in the group planned to purchase group tickets for a huge 80’s concert to be held in mid September. Unfortunately I won’t be able to attend this concert as I plan to be out of town the entire month of September visiting my Mom and younger brother in Fort Walton Beach, Fl leaving my RV in storage. (Note: Air Force base rules say that you can only stay in the RV park for 6 consecutive months, but then must leave for 30 days before returning for another 6 months). So, as much as I hate to do this, I must follow the rules. I just went along with the group on Saturday to enjoy the walk and then to eventually make it back to the upscale food court at the other end of the riverwalk for lunch with the group.

After the tickets were purchased and we were enroute back to our starting point, we unexpectantly came upon this event being sponsored by the Florida State Lottery. The largest prize on the wheel was a $ 500 Amex card. Winning tickets were picked each 5 minutes from the jar with a chance then to spin the wheel. You would think that someone within our small group would have gotten one of the winning tickets to take a spin on that wheel, but none of us ended up being lucky. However, as I said earlier a nice diversion along our walk just the same.

Have a great rest of your week!

Gary