This old rig isn't built for the cold.
And neither is my motorhome.
If it gets any colder, I am going to Florida.
Oh wait, my GPS thinks I am in Florida. I hope she is right. We call her Ethel because she sounds like Ethel from the "I Love Lucy" (the iconic TV show from the 1950's) when she talks, except she speaks slower sometimes and mispronounces numerous words, which makes me laugh. Ethel and Lucy make me laugh too, so Ethel seems like a fitting name all around. Which I do know a super nice lady named Ethel and I hope she takes this with pride and not with insult.
Anyhew...
Last September I managed to finally visit Jekyll Island (off the coast of Georgia) for the first time ever in my life. I fell in love with the place despite the 2.3 million mosquitoes. But since I had arrived armed with 8 cans of bug repellent and a big cheap box fan, not from a big box store, which confuses me, but a big square fan commonly called a box fan. I stick to the cheap ones because they take a beating with outdoor use, especially if one is occasionally forgetful and it takes a rain bath.
Not that I am ever forgetful.
Not me.
Now, um, what was I talking about?
Oh yeah, Jekyll Island.
Or was it that darn fan?
Which I like to call my fan "electric wind" because I lived in the Caribbean so long under cooling temperate trade winds (which blow the skeeters away) and if the wind dies like it does in August in the islands (and heaven help you then, it's why so many folks take month long vacations in August and leave the islands) but for us hearty souls (like me) who were left behind, then one needs "electric wind" to continue the flow. (I wish I were so hearty now but I'm not, I'm a limp wimp when it get hot and humid these days.) Besides my Caribbean career was topsy turvy, I worked nights, weekends, holidays and the oppressive August when others were chilling out somewhere else.
The cool thing was, middle of week, when most others were working, I might be grazing at the beach bar while lazing at the beach, pretending to be a tourist without a care in the world.
Hmm... I miss those days. But these days are pretty good too, so it all equals out... I guess.
Anyhow, the big fan is super useful outdoors to blow the little mozzies away and of course the repellent is useful for when one is not near a big fan or the natural wind has died or the little buggers are eating me alive for dinner.
Funny to be so large (compared to noseeums) yet realizing I am merely part of the food chain. Life is goof.
Jekyll rhymes with heckle... and so does Ethel... but Ethel would refuse this notion saying "g-COWL" with the emphasis on COWL.
Along for the drive, I had a friend with me and we would dissolve into hysterical laughter every time Ethel would heckle Jekyll.
This may or may not have been influenced by my pain pills. At the time I was recuperating from a shattered wrist, the pain made me a big old grumpy grouch and my darling sweet friend was doing the driving since I could not.
Speaking of being a grumpy grouch...
My friend *ahem* would occasionally implore me to take a pucking fain pill because I was a pucking fain in the derriere.
I did not realize I was such a gawd awful patient (I was! I was terrible!) but I was trying to protect my ailing failing kidneys by skipping the pain pills but it was making me appear to be angry like a hungry bear who came out of hibernation to discover all the honey within 500 miles was raided long ago.
Soooooooooo... sometimes I caved in and took my puckin fain pills for my pucking fain and then I could giggle and laugh like a sensible person.
I would say "Ethel don't heckle Jekyll!" and we would dissolve into more wild giggles. It became a contest to figure out more foolishness which kept us in stitches.
Ethel with the freckle don't heckle Jekyll.
Ethel would tone in "Take exit 19 towards gee-COWL Island." followed by our raucous laughter.
I sat behind the passenger seat in another seat because it was too uncomfortable for me to sit in the passenger seat what with Harley trying to pile into my lap, which required my good arm to hold him so he didn't slide off my short thighs into the floor and me trying to punch buttons on Ethel the GPS since my friend refuses to learn that or alternately trying to read from written directions, in case Ethel fails (she sometimes shuts down for no reason and refuses to come back on again). Oh the joys of old technology!
This left Harley with the passenger seat all to himself, something he loves anyhow. I became a back seat driver and a heckler...
Last year I wrote about Ethel breaking down in Richmond Hills, Georgia. For about 5 months, whenever I turned on Ethel, she would insist I was parked at Dollar Tree in Richmond Hills, Georgia. No amount of waiting (hours, days, weeks) could convince her otherwise. I read the manual, I tried to reset her, I tried to search online for help, I tried everything anyone suggested beyond the manual and turning her off and imploring her to striaghten up and fly right.
Every few days or weeks, I would play with Ethel, trying to coax her into working again. One day while driving my motorhome out shopping, Ethel was still fixated on being parked 600 miles away, so I was going to toss her in the garbage. I was entertaining ideas about jumping up and down on her and smashing her to pieces out of sheer frustration but knowing that I was far too lazy to actually do that, but still it was fun to fantasize about it.
Absent mindedly, I turned her off and back on again, something I had done probably ten thousand times in 5 months in an attempt to get her to work correctly again. Ethel suddenly decided to acquire signal and pinpoint my exact location correctly. No idea what THAT was about. Maybe Ethel is really a bear and was simply coming out of hibernation.
Ethel Baechle with the freckle don't heckle Jekyll.
"Turn right into gee-COWL Island Campground"
Ethel Baechle with the speckle freckle, please don't heckle Jekyll.
Ethel Baechle with the speckle freckle, here's a shekel, now don't heckle Jekyll.
Ethel Meckel Baechel with the cute speckle freckle, I give you a shekel if you don't heckle Jekyll.
Honest to goodness, we laughed so much, missing a turn (what's life without a detour?) it's a miracle we ever found the Jekyll Island campground at all.
For good measure, Ethel told us the "jee-COWL Island Campground was on the right, when in fact it was on the left.
I guess that's what we get for our Ethel heckle.
***Note... all the above pictures are some I took at Jekyll Island, 2015
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