I took this photo of the leaves changing colors on the Cumberland Plateau, fall is here and we’re packing for our trip back to Florida. What a summer it has been! It’s been over 30 years since I have gotten the chance to see the seasons change! I realize this means the snow will soon fall, but, that would be ok with me since I haven’t seen that in 30 years either. But, it is time to return home. Maybe next year I’ll get a pic of the snow, and just maybe I’ll build my first snowman after all these years. We’ll see!

Ooops! Did I say it would be next year before I saw snow? Here’s a pic of my first snow fall I’ve seen in 30 years. Couldn’t build a snow man but it sure was fun watching the snow fall!

I’m sitting here in our 30′ TT basking in the glory of safe, silent 76F while frost is predicted outside,  and thinking about the past.

The past being my 31′ boat, solid FG hull and plywood-cored deck without a hint of insulation;  at one time I had an electric heater, a kerosene heater and the kerosone stove with a flowerpot on top all going at the same time, complete with dirty socks stuffed up one ventilator and dirty underwear stuffed up the other ventilator. And I was still cold.

But us Florida boys can learn from experience. I’ve applied Reflectix bubblewrap on the outside and on the inside and around the bottom. Insulation R Us.  And I have about 40 more feet to put somewhere.

But these Tennessee city-slickers confound me. They don’t do anything at all to insulate or block the wind and they all say “you’ll freeze to death!”

You’d think they’d know better, being natives and all, but I can only conclude they must be city-slickers not knowing anything about keeping warm.

This Florida cracker’s gonna be as snug as a bug in a rug.

Since it was rather cold tonight and Mom had a bathroom injury (it helps if you sit on the potty rather than in the general vicinity; missing make your back hurt) we’d decided to stay in tonight.

We were finishing up dinner and there came a knock on the door…followed by another…followed by another.  At some point we ended up with nine people crammed in this little trailer, all popping off from the Florida-style heat (80F+), so it was decided that we were all going down to the bar/dance. And we did, hand-in-hand, serpentine.

You can’t get better friends than this.