MARCH 28 - WED. & MARCH 29 - THURS. 2012

WED. - We went to St. Augustine, about 1-1/2 hr. away from Silver Springs. There is another lighthouse there which Richard of course climbed the 219 steps to the look-out on top. This time he received a certificate to prove his climb! He is very proud of that. Florida does take pride in their lighthouses. They are very well maintained & have museums and gift shops also. Richard is fascinated by them. From there we went to St.Augustine Beach, which is like Daytona beach where you can drive your car right onto the beach. The difference is that this beach has a sign posted "soft sand, drive at your own risk". We saw the sign after we already turned onto the beach. We noticed that most of the vehicles were 4-wheel drive, our car has front wheel drive, so we didn't go any farther. Daytona beach has packed sand, easy to drive on. We parked & took our chairs & things by the water. It was already later in the afternoon so the beach wasn't crowded, mostly seniors. Then we started seeing younger people with surf boards coming. We guessed they were coming after school. the waves were pretty high, & they were riding them good. Oh, to be young again!! Richard did his metal detecting & his treasure today was a dime! We noticed that the sun was starting to set, so we packed up because we had the drive back to Silver Springs and the road we took was around Ocala forest, which is not lighted at night, so we didn't want to be on it in the dark. We got back to our RV just as dusk was coming.

THURS. - Well we had a very interesting day today! We woke to find that our toilet had a leak. We were told that there is a maintenance man who does repairs to RV's here in Silver Springs, but that he charges $100 an hour and he works slow. So, Richard decided to give it a try himself. Boy was it a job! He had to drain the water & completely remove the toilet outside to to see what the problem was. He thought that it could be a seal. So he had to go to a hardware several times for parts. Because the toilet leaked, the carpeting in the bathroom got wet, so he had to pull it all up! Again what a messy job! I helped as much as I could. So we cleaned the toilet real good, outside on our picnic table !(we probably have the cleanest toilet here at the campsite!), & I had to sit on it while he was lying on the floor to bolt it in place, we turned the water back on and it started squirting water! He had to unscrew it & take the whole thing out again. He realized there should be an "0" ring, so again he had to go back to the hardware store for it. Well again we got it in place (after poor Richard cut his hand twice & whacked his head - it is very close quarters in that small bathroom) I sat on it again while he had to lay on the floor to reach the bolts. This time it worked - so far no leak! (we are keeping our fingers crossed that it will hold until we get home)

People here at the campsite could not believe that Richard did it by himself. They said that would have been about an $800. job if we had someone do it. Leave it to Richard, there is not much that he can't fix, & he had all the tools he needed with us. We had a fan going all day to dry the wood that was under the carpeting. We will have to make do with a small carpet in there until we get home, then we are going to put new tile in, instead of carpeting. Well after we got everything all cleaned up, we went to the pool here at the campsite to relax. It was already late afternoon, too late to go anywhere. What a day!!