Dive Bars and Road Food Restaurants in Old Florida

archies03.jpgThere’s a lot of talk here about how “Old Florida” is disappearing. Kitschy roadside attractions are being paved over for gated homes along golf courses, and old timey family diners are being squeezed out by Chick Fil A and Olive Garden. It’s like this in a lot of the country, as Americans allow national chains to destroy the very things that make our hometowns unique.

mrsbs05.jpgWe get a kick out of finding new, divey places to check out. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve found two great places that are sadly, a dying breed: Archie’s Seabreeze on Hutchinson Island, and Mrs. B’s in Vero Beach, off I-95.

We didn’t find them on our own; our online friend Chelsea told us about Archies, and the locals we met at Earl’s told us about Mrs. Bs.

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Snowbirds: Prepare for a Florida Freeze!

HairPeace Real Acoustic Duo at Vero beach Library ConcertWhen we lived just blocks away from the boardwalk in Old Town Eureka, we would enjoy the summer concert series when we could stroll along the waterfront listening to live music in the cool evening breeze. If it wasn’t raining.

Here in Florida, these type of concerts go on year-round. We attended one the week before Christmas at the Vero Beach Library. I wore shorts.

A couple weeks later, on New Year’s Eve, we had the air conditioner blasting during dinner. We were getting pretty heated. Literally! Just a few nights later, we had to run the heater and get out the wool blanket.

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Live Work Dream 2007 Expense Summary

lettucepick03.jpgWhew, what a relief. I just crunched our trip expenses from June to December, and found that we actually came in under budget by almost $12,000! How did we do it? By over budgeting, being ultra careful about things we chose to see and do, and Workamping. Now, this nice little savings is going to allow us to continue our journey even longer than we originally planned, by at least 6 months or so.

Now, let’s talk money. Pay attention; here are some important lessons we learned:

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Calculate Satellite Settings with Dishpointer


Here is a nifty little widget that would have come in quite handy when our Datastorm F2 GPS unit went bad. Though using it would have required for us to be online already!

Regardless, the Dishpointer satellite alignment calculator is still pretty cool.

We’ve included the Dishpointer Lite widget here for your use. Just select your satellite from the drop down menu and enter your location – city or zip code – in the box. The map and details will automatically update with the required elevation, azimuth and LNB skew for your satellite dish. Drag the map or marker to pinpoint your location.

Pretty cool, eh? If you think so, wait until you check out the full version.

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How to Replace the Datastorm F2 UCB

Translation: Here’s a little video we made showing how I replaced the Upper Control Board on our Datastorm F2 mobile satellite internet dish after receiving a GPS failure from our D3 controller.

If a picture is worth a 1,000 words this video must be worth at least 1,024. But here’s a few more about the experience anyway. Just to make a short story long …

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New Year’s Eve at Earl’s


earls01.jpgIt’s that time of year when everyone asks, “What did you do for New Year’s Eve.” 🙄

I’ve never quite understood what the big deal is about this one night a year when everyone can get away with getting liquored up. In fact, you’re supposed to. But I just consider it amateur night. I don’t need a reason to get drunk.

If you ask me, every day is New Year’s. In fact it was Saturday, January 5th one year ago tonight, as I write this. But never mind me. I’ll tell you what we did anyway. We got liquored up.

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Deciding Not to Decide

cows_07.jpgIt’s a swampy night here in Vero, and we’ve spent the last few hours swatting away bugs while enjoying the last of the holiday season. This monumental year is coming to a close, and even after thousands of miles and too many towns to count, we are both nowhere closer to deciding where we want to live, or what we want to be when we grow up.

We have our favorite regions, but really, the only decision we’ve been able to make, is to decide not to decide. In essence, that is a decision of sorts, right?

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