Three Hours Is Not Enough

In yesterday’s blog I told you that our friends Stu and Donna McNicol were going to be passing through after getting off a Carnival cruise ship in Port Canaveral. We agreed to meet at Dustin’s BBQ in Edgewater, and Donna thought they would be there about 11 AM. I also told you in the blog that we had strong storms predicted for the area.

I got a message from Donna in the morning saying that they were getting off the ship but had to take a shuttle to the car and stop for coffee. At that time, it was pouring rain here with high winds, so I checked the distance on my phone and it looked like it would be noon before they actually got here. No problem, our schedule is always flexible.

As it turned out, about 11:20 I got a text from Donna saying that they had arrived, and Terry and I got there a few minutes behind them. What fun it was to see our friends after so long!

We all got a chuckle out of the fact that our server was a young man named Dustin, working his very first day at Dustin’s BBQ. We told him he must be doing a pretty good job if they had already named the place after him!

We had lunch and talked, and then they cleared our plates away, and we talked some more since the place wasn’t busy and we had a lot of catching up to do. We talked about our mutual travels as fulltime RVers back in the day, Stu and Donna told us about their house in Tennessee and how much they enjoy living there, Terry and I told them the pros and cons of living here on Florida’s Central Coast, we talked about books and publishing, people we knew in common, and a whole lot more.

By the time we knew it, three hours had gone by and they had to get back on the road. Three hours? That’s not nearly enough time with friends like Stu and Donna. But then again, there could never be enough time. Thanks for working us into your schedule, guys. We really appreciated it and look forward to the next time we can get together.

Fortunately, the worst of the storms had moved on past, and when we got to Dustin’s, there was just a light rain falling. By the time we left, there was no rain at all, but the temperature had dropped quite a bit and it was windy. Today is supposed to be down in the 60s with more wind.

Back at home, Terry did some laundry and proofed the last chapters I wrote while I did some research and goofed around on the Internet a bit. I help moderate John Huggins’ Living the RV Dream Facebook group, and I had to remove and block two members for posting scams about Camping World giving away free RVs. Nobody gives something worth thousands of dollars away for free, and when people repost a scam like that or click the link to “enter the drawing,” they are being foolish and playing right into the scammers’ hands, who only want to get their personal information. I see scams like this all the time, whether it’s Walmart or Amazon giving away gift cards, Circle K giving away cards for free tanks of gas, or whatever somebody dreams up. I’m sorry, folks, it’s been true forever, and it’s still true. There just isn’t any free lunch!

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for an audiobook of The Scribe’s Daughter, the first book in Stephanie Churchill’s Crowns of Destiny historical fantasy series about a young heroine who escapes a brutal prison to journey through imperial cities, dark swamps, and across stormy seas to unravel clues to the mysteries of her family’s past. In doing so, her discoveries make her the target of a man who would use her for his own dark ends. But first he has to catch her.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

Thought For The Day – If my ceiling fan could hold my weight I would never be bored again.