Freezing in Florida

We are parked on the property of fellow bus owners Jack and Paula in Arcadia. We're here as part of the "Bring Your Own Bus" workshop which started yesterday, where I agreed to be one of the instructors.

As it turns out, only one of the originally registered participants actually made it as far as coming to the workshop, and mechanical difficulties precluded him from bringing his bus. So we've been doing a round table discussion and Q&A format with him, and everyone agreed to let me cover my portion (systems) in the first part of the week, so that I can take Louise to the airport in Tampa tomorrow afternoon without having to worry about getting back here to wrap up. We had a good discussion after he arrived yesterday afternoon, and we spent about seven hours today; I think my part is more or less finished. We'll be rolling out tomorrow morning around 11 or so in order to make Louise's flight; that gives me a couple of hours to answer any more questions that come up.

Saturday we left the Turner Center and drove the bus down to Punta Gorda, where we spent the night in the driveway of our friends Pam and Di's fabulous house. They fixed us lunch and dinner, and we very much enjoyed attending service the next morning at the Port Charlotte Fellowship, where Pam is the minister. It was a great visit, and we were sorry to have to leave so soon on Sunday to make it here in the daylight -- we did not want to be jockeying into our parking slot in the dark.

Unfortunately, throughout all of this, I've been struggling with a lingering cold that has sapped all my energy. I caught this crud back on our holiday cruise, with the tingling in the back of my throat starting Christmas day sometime, and a full blown sore throat by the time we were back ashore in Fort Lauderdale. Things escalated from there, and I was pretty miserable for the whole bus rally. As luck would have it, the absolute worst day was Thursday, which, of course, was the day I had to teach a seminar for an hour and a half first thing in the morning, followed by two hours of open house at the bus in the afternoon. I spent the whole rally refusing to shake anyone's hand, and continued that practice throughout our visit to Punta Gorda as well as here at the workshop. Things are finally getting better, but I am still coughing and wheezing; if I still have this on Friday that will make it two full weeks. It has not helped that it has been unusually cold here for the last few days, with nighttime temperatures below freezing.

In the meantime, Louise has been concerned that she might get it at any moment, making flying to California a bad move. So far, she seems to be in the clear, even though she has been complaining of a scratchy throat for a couple of days. If she shows any further signs of it in the morning, we'll wave off the trip; her tickets are on Southwest and she can postpone them pretty much without penalty.

Assuming she gets on her plane tomorrow as planned, I will then be kicking around the Tampa area stag for a week until she returns. I have plenty of projects to occupy my time, but I have not planned ahead yet for where, exactly, I will park. Her original tickets were for a Palm Beach return, based on what was available when she booked and the fact that our next stop is Stuart; that would have given me a couple of casino options between here and there. Today, however, she rebooked the return portion on more favorable flights and will be returning instead to Tampa.