Sunday, December 04, 2005

Both Karyle and I were plenty tired when we went to bed last night. I didn’t finish the daily report until close to 1AM EST. We both slept in this morning and didn’t get going until around 9:30AM. We had breakfast in our unit and then headed out to run some errands.

We headed to a nearbt Walgreen’s Drug store to pick up some needed supplies. Then we headed towards Sam’s Club, but decided to catch a few stations on the way. Our first stop was Pinellas Suncoast Station 28, home of Truck 28. They were returning from a run just as I got out of the car and I got photos of their Truck and reserve engine. Then we headed to Seminole Station 31 and got photos of Engine 31 and an interesting reserve engine.

We almost got lost trying to find Seminole Station 29. We had just seen the engine take a run as we were pulling up. I met some very nice firefighters there that pulled out Squad 29 and Truck 29 and then took an indoor photo of Pinellas County HM29. I waited and waited for the engine to return and finally said let’s go to Karyle. Sure enough, as I got about two blocks away, the engine returned. Oh well!

We had lunch at a nearby Wendy’s and then made our way to Sam’s Club and did some shopping and got gas ($1.969) before starting back to the timeshare. While we were eating, Jack Mersereau called about getting together. Then, just as we were finishing lunch, my pager went off notifying me of a 3rd Alarm fire in Sarasota County. I called Jack, but it sounded like his wife had the car.

We stopped at Pinellas Park Station 34 on the way home. The Battalion Chief was just returning from a run and told us where the engine was at and would probably be there for another half hour. We headed over to the location he told us and sure enough, Engine 34 pulled out from the trailer court just in front of us. We followed them back to Station 34 and I got photos of it, Squad 35 and Rescue 34.

We drove by Seminole Station 30 and I got photos of Engine 30 (poor lighting) and spare Truck 30 indoors. Our last stop was at Seminole Station 32 where I couldn’t get anybody to come to the door. It looked like the engine was in.

Then we finally made it back to out unit just before 4PM and I sat down to do this report while Karyle read the a paper and took a little rest. She still has a little of that upper respiratory virus going around- after six miserable weeks of it. I’ve got to wake her up when the sun sets or I’ll be in trouble.

Tonight we are going up to Pier 60 in Clearwater where they have some entertainment going on after dusk. When I woke up this morning, all I heard were EMS runs and lots of em. I heard a number of “person down and can’t get back ups” along with the normal chest pains, trouble breathing etc, etc, etc. The Rescue units (medics) are very, very nusy in and around the Pinellas County area.

I saw on the news last night that the2-alarm fire we were at yesterday at the hospital in Clearwater was caused by a workman cutting through a high-voltage line, shocking the workman and causing an electrical fire which sent smoke throughout upper floors of the hospital. It was 76 degrees here yesterday and 79 here today. Both days here, we haven’t seen a cloud in the sky.

The unit is really nice, very comfortable with a good view of the sunset from our deck. Last night we missed the sunset because we were on the way to the X-mas boat parade.

That’s all for today’s report,

Your Roving Reporter