Cheaper Than Moving to Arizona

Sunset on the beach, Palmetto Dunes Oceanside Resort, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

Here in the southeast US, winter takes two forms.  The first is “the leaves are gone and it’s cold,” and the second is “OH !@#$%.” This coming weekend appears to be “OH !@#$%” and it isn’t even officially winter yet!  The forecast is calling for 8-12″ of snow and low temperatures in the 20s.  We’ll see, but it looks like the confidence is pretty high.  Yikes.

One of the things that Kathy & I have been talking about for this winter is what temperature to set the thermostat at.  Now that we’re home every day we don’t want to leave it set at 65 degrees like we did when we worked.  But we don’t want to keep it set too high, as we’d like to keep from blowing the gas bill out of the proverbial water.  So ‘what to do’ has been the question.

Perhaps not coincidentally, I have found myself somewhat more sensitive to the cold this year (yes, I know that it hasn’t gotten cold yet!).  While my philosophy has always been to make sure I am wearing adequate clothing before turning up the heat, I’ve been finding it necessary to resist turning it too high this year.

At one point I told Kathy – jokingly – that maybe we should think about moving to Arizona.  But at some point yesterday we decided that even if the gas bill doubled – which it won’t – it would still be cheaper than moving to Arizona!  Although I will admit to looking at cruises leaving this weekend to see if we could escape to the Caribbean!  But we opted to tough it out here at home, and turn up the thermostat if we need to.

Birds, Birds, Birds!

Overflight of Geese, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

I don’t get bird photos like my buddy Don Brown, but once in a while I see birds.  This flock passed over us one evening at the beach – I’m pretty sure they are some kind of geese, but looked too dark to be Tundra Swans or Snow Geese.  Probably Canada Geese.  They were going the right way, though – South!  They were so high up that I couldn’t hear them squawking over the sound of the surf, but I’m sure they must have been noisy.

Overflight of Geese, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

There were so many of them in so long a line that I couldn’t get them all in one shot.  Who ever thought of shooting birds with a wide-angle lens?!?!

Overflight of Geese, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina
Overflight of Geese, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

At The Beach: 11/29/18

Sunset on the beach, Palmetto Dunes Oceanside Resort, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

Getting close to the end of this visit, probably the best sunset so far, other than the one with the boats.  Toss-up….

This one is for my buddy Monte – wishing nothing but the best for his upcoming adventure.  Hoping for no complications and a complete and speedy recovery! 🙂

One Lucky Turn Turned Out Well!

Sunset at Port Royal, South Carolina

I mentioned in a previous post about how I happened upon this scene and wanted to share a few more of the resulting photos.

Sunset at Port Royal, South Carolina
Sunset at Port Royal, South Carolina

Kathy & I had made a day trip to Beaufort, SC and stopped by Port Royal on the way back.  In Port Royal we had stopped at a little park with a boat ramp, boardwalk and an observation tower.  It was really buggy there so we didn’t stay long, but while we were at the top of the tower I noticed that there were some fishing boats farther along the river.

Sunset at Port Royal, South Carolina

We stopped in town and took a little walk, then when we were back in the car and getting ready to head back to Hilton Head, I decided to just go down one of the side streets to see where it lead.  As it turned out it lead directly to the dock where the fishing boats were!  And just in time to make some photos of a beautiful sky before heading back to our “home away from home.”

Sunset at Port Royal, South Carolina

At The Beach: 11/26/18

Deer outside our villa at Palmetto Dunes Oceanside Resort, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina

We’ve been seeing these guys around since we got here but I hadn’t gotten a good look at them while I had a camera and was in a good position for a photo.  Caught them this afternoon on our way back to the beach.  Some of the weekenders had been feeding them carrots, so I think they were looking for another handout from us.  But we know better!

Photographs and stuff!