Can't Quit Thinking & Summer Vacation

I’m counting down.  I thought I had a realistic retirement date of November 1.  Now I’m not so sure.  Around the middle of July I called the Florida Retirement System for some information.  I wanted to find out exactly how much my pension would be each month if I retired on October 31.  They told me that they would send me that information in 4-6 weeks.  Can you believe that in this day of modern technology that it will take 4-6 weeks to get that information?  Of course I’ve already figured it myself based on a yearly statement I get, but I just wanted to get my figures confirmed.

Earlier in the summer we planned a vacation for the first week in August when we will celebrate our 47^th anniversary.  The first part of the week would be spent camping at St. George Island for three nights and then we planned to go down to Manatee Springs for three nights.  We invited Joe and Judy to join us, but they were only available for the time at St. George Island.  When we arrived, they were already there and we had lunch together.  Later that evening we went into East Point and had supper at The Hut Restaurant.

That evening Joe and Bubba planned to surf fish and Judy and I went along to watch.  The plan was to catch some minnows to fish with, but then Bubba began to catch some fish in his bait net including three mullet.  That gave Joe the fever so they both spent the rest of the time trying to catch mullet.

After calling about my state retirement, I decided to call the Social Security Administration to check on that as well as when would be my effective date for Medicare coverage.  That involved a phone system of pressing “1” for this and “3” for that, etc.  Finally I got a real person, but I’m pretty sure I got a dud.  Now I’m all confused about Medicare.  I’m reading that it will be effective on November 1 if my birthday is December 1.  I’m reading that, but he is not saying that.

On Saturday Bubba and Joe head out to do some fishing from their kayaks.  I sleep late and had just started getting dressed when I hear someone knocking on my door.  It is Judy.  Her hair dryer has caused a breaker to go out and when she went outside to check on it, she locked herself out.  Joe doesn’t have his phone with him and we all know that Bubba only turns his on when he wants to talk.  We sit and visit for a couple of hours waiting on the guys to return.  When they do, Bubba has caught a nice flounder so now our Alabama relatives have a good seafood supper in their future when they return home.

Early Sunday morning, Bubba and I head out for Manatee Springs.  We were supposed to stay at St. George Island another night, but apparently I got confused when making the reservations.  Luckily we were able to check into the spot we had already reserved at Manatee Springs a day early.  It was an uneventful trip.  Soon after getting everything set up at our site, Bubba headed for the springs for a dip.  He loves cold water.  I consider it painful, but I promise to go with him the next day.  

Our anniversary supper was at Bar-B-Q Bill’s in Chiefland.  I had googled restaurants before we left home and this one had many positive comments.  It was a good meal and we enjoyed it very much.

The following morning, I help Bubba launch the kayak and he paddles toward the Suwanee River.  It turns out that it is not that far so he returns and I take a turn with the kayak.  This was a good strategy because I got so hot paddling that I was even ready to get in the ice cold water of the spring.

After our morning at/in the spring, we returned to the camp site where Bubba grilled hot dogs for lunch and a ham steak for another meal.

Although my state retirement figures my service time right up to my last day, it appears that Social Security doesn’t work that way.  If I wait until December to draw my social security, I’ll get an extra $27 per month which doesn’t sound like much, but to me it sounds like a pedicure a month for the rest of my life.  (I believe I’ve mentioned before that I love my pedicures.)  Now what am I going to do?

On our earlier excursion into Chiefland, we saw a sign for Cedar Key.  Bubba said that he would be interested in going there.  We were expecting a little fishing town about like Apalachicola.  It was not.  It had some condos and some really old, old motels, but not the tourist type things we were expecting.  There was definitely a shortage of places to eat.  Bubba stopped at a convenience store for a recommendation on where we could find lunch.  We were directed to Annie’s Café.

It was a tin building without air conditioning.  I still can’t believe I ate there.  The lunch special was a Fried Pork Chop, Rice/Gravy, Cabbage, and a Roll.  Seafood was also on the menu, but it was expensive especially for a place without air conditioning.  Lunch was good and I was seated so I could keep an eye on the cook and she seemed to know her business.

I guess Bubba’s favorite thing about Manatee Springs is the cold water, but my favorite thing was the deer.  At one point, we had eight of them at our site.  You could walk around outside and they would just keep on standing there.  We were told upon checking into the park to not feed the deer so we didn’t, but I really wanted to so badly.  They are such beautiful animals.

Well, as usual, we got ready to come home before our time was up.  While we were eating breakfast Wednesday morning I asked Bubba if he was ready to go home.  I knew I was.  The heavy rain had pretty much messed up our camp site so it was no longer enjoyable to sit outside and we had spent as much time as we wanted swimming so we packed up and headed for home.  We camped five nights in a row which is our longest time ever.  It was a good time, but I’ve about decided that summer is just not the best time to camp.  It’s too hot outside to do much except swim and this year the mosquitoes are terrible.  I think the cooler months make the best camping trips.  We are already talking about some trips in the future.

I’ve got to quit worrying about a retirement date.  We’ll go to the Social Security office early in September and maybe I’ll get someone who can answer all the questions to my satisfaction.  I still enjoy my job so it’s not like I’m miserable.  I just have to be patient a little longer.

Question:  My little blog has over 2,000 page views.  There has to be more than just a few friends and relatives reading this.  I would love for you to comment and let me know how you came across my blog.  It is something that I started as a way of recording some of my experiences.  I enjoy writing it and I hope you enjoy it as well.