On Sep 28, 6:58 pm, Wayne.B wrote:
On Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:26:15 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Around
here, you either tough out the heat or you stay home. Staying home
isnt fun and when I am too old to get out, I will not look back and
say "I wish I'd stayed home".

That's one advantage to living on the water. When I'm working on the
boat in the heat it is never far to jump in the pool and cool down or
go back inside the house for a little while. If need to work in the
engine room I'll turn on all 4 zones of boat A/C plus the engine room
exhaust vent and it actualy gets half way bearable down there.
Working outside there is no escape however.

Thinking about all of this makes me thankful. My parents had 9 kids
so had little money. Instead of going somewhere fancy, they'd take us
all to some lake or body of water to camp in the summer. With no AC
at home, having access to water to swim in was heaven. We'd go to
Silver Lake close to Tallahassee if we were lucky or to extremely
isolated Camel pond or to White Oak Landing on the River Styx in Tates
Hell Swamp and we had a blast. The best thing they ever did was to
buy an 18' Grumman canoe in 1964 when I was 8. That canoe gave us
independence and confidence and us kids could take it anywhere. We'd
be gone all day and my parents knew could make it back.
One time, we were camped at White Oak Landing sliding down the muddy
bank into the water for fun but we had to throw sticks in the water to
scare away the water moccasins first and I complained to my mom about
that. She replied "Just think of all those poor kids who have to
spend their vacations going to hotels and swim in boring pools", and I
knew she was right, we were lucky and never complained again. MY
parents had us brainwashed into thinking we were better off than
people who had to go on expensive vacations.