The Everglades, We made it

Yesterday we drove from the casino in Miami to the Everglades.  On the way, we needed to lay in a supply of food so that we didn't have to leave.  Seems pretty simple.   However, after we pulled into the most convenient Walmart, the little man with a flashing light on top was there before we had turned the engine off.   With lots of arm waving and words, it was apparent he didn't want us parked there.  also, he didn't speak any English!

Sandy got out and tried to convince him that we just wanted to shop for a little bit.  He motioned for us to move to what I thought was another area.  Afterwords, I think his intent was for us to scoot!   Sandy went in and I tried to relax and shortly security came by and it was obvious that he wanted to see if we were in the coach yet.  Finally he left.

When Sandy returned a short while later with hardly any groceries, I asked her, "Is this All?"   She quickly informed me that it was not a Super-Walmart and that no one spoke English in the store!   So we left and headed south to Homestead and the Everglades.   Thanks to our GPS, we located another Walmart just south of Homestead and Ms. Karen  (Garmin) took us right to the store.  It was also a very busy store, with a parking lot that was very unfriendly to RVers.  But we found an open corner and again Sandy did her shopping.   When she returned, she immediately commented "They spoke English here!".   Isn't it nice that we can drive 25 miles, not go through immigration control and be back in our native English  speaking land!"

We had no trouble finding the Everglades entry, thanks to Karen (Garmin).   We showed our Golden Age entry pass and sailed in to find a camp site.  All went well and as Gene was walking to the entry station to register our site, he met some friends that we had left 2 days ago.  So they found a  spot near us and we had a evening fire after dinner to sit around and share life's experiences.

Finally it was time to quench the coals and head in (and then the fun began).  Gene finally muttered and mumbled and asked Sandy where her Spare Windows 7 computer was.  He was taking possession of it.  His old machine caught a virus 3 weeks ago and while Avast, AVG, Ad-aware and something else say it is clean, simply put "It ain't!"   The virus was <      > point and the symptoms are that it causes erraidic
 operations sometimes.  I guess last night I blew my cork and said ENOUGH!    I could reformat the drive, but that is a lot  of just plain hard work that I'm not happy about..

Sandy acquired this spare machine a year ago so that she would know what Windows 7 was.   So it has had about 10 hours of use in 10 months.  And as much as I detest Windows 7, I'll face the music, mutter, mumble  and use it.  (I've already been told I need a better attitude before I start.)

Of course when Sandy set it up, she only opened one user, called  SANDY.  Of course, I want a few things different and the very first thing was to install Google Chrome.   The second item was to set up another user account called GENE.   (Of course, I did it in that order.)   So this morning, I turn it on, and log into Gene.  Yep, no Chrome or Open Office.  I tried to find it and W7 says it is not on the machine. So I log into Sandy's account and there it is.   I decided that we'll let Sandy fix it since she is a lover of W7.   (Maybe I can just rename both accounts and switch them since she has nothing in her account yet.  I went back to my old machine finally this morning it seems to be pretty responsive.   Maybe it senses that it is about to be fired!

I should mention that getting into the Everglades has been a real improvement to our budget.  It was so warm in the motorhome this morning (at 6 AM) that we didn't need any heat. I can take that!. The predicted low for last night was 61.   It was marvelous sleeping with hardly any blankets on.

Today is touring Everglades time.   It has taken us 72 years to get here, so we'd better get a good look.  But in weather like this, perhaps we'll be back more often.

Gene