Sunny Florida

Happy New Year to each and everyone one of you. May the year bring good health, wealth, happiness, wealth, love, wealth and peace. Oh, did I mention wealth??

On the road again with a very heavily loaded car!!! Ed, I managed to get everything in despite Gary's lack of confidence. I might be no good at "Tetris" but I can sure pack a car and a suitcase. 

After a lovely Christmas with our son in Manassas, Virginia we left for sunny Florida. We visited with friends we had not seen for 20 plus years in North Carolina (David and Kerina) and Georgia (Jim and Trudy). We did not give them very much notice of our visit but they were so wonderfully hospitable giving us a bed for the night(s) and breakfast. I definitely want to return to Black Mountain in North Carolina as it was a quaint town with lots of antique and gift shops. My dear husband made sure we left before the shops opened on Sunday so I only got to window shop through the car window. Cairo in Georgia was small and quaint, too.  We had a lovely lunch in town and then went to see some equipment kept by a friend of Jim's. Gary, who had always been interested in steam equipment was quite taken back by the amount of "stuff" this person had. What I liked was the ponds on his property which gave off some lovely reflections. I took quite a few photos and some of them turned out quite nice. 

We stopped at a rest stop in North Carolina to stretch our legs and I noticed that it was more hospitable for dogs than cats due to fire hydrants being strategically placed around the visitor's centre.  Mia was quite miffed!!!! We also took a detour to visit Stone Mountain and the wall sculpture of Stonewall Jackson, Robert E Lee and Jefferson Davis. I had expected the sculpture to be as memorable as Mount Rushmore but because the area had been made into a State Park with snow tubing with people screaming as they came down the snowy slopes it was more of an amusement park.

We spent New Year's Eve at Jim and Trudy's watching "Celtic Thunder", a group of 5 men ranging in approx age from 15 to middle 30s each with a different type of voice. Four of the men were from Ireland/N Ireland and one was from Scotland. They were fabulous, singing songs ranging from modern hits to classical. I especially like "My Ireland" which seemed to be a protest song with a wonderful beat. I was born in N. Ireland so maybe that's why I liked the song so much. In fact, I went to bed singing it to myself.

We arrived in Florida to temps in the 70s although today it is in the 50s and drizzly. Gary is trying to fix the generator before we leave the marina as we will need to use it when no electricity is available. My job is to clean the decks as they have got quite dirty from staying in the marina. Before we leave the St. John's river on the boat I am hoping to visit Blue Springs that are home this time of year to many manatees. We have heard several hundred spend winter in the spring area.

Well, this ends the first of my blogs. I will do one once per week instead of daily otherwise you will lose interest in what we are doing because of my waffling on about nothing. I shall enjoy having you along for our adventure.

January 4th, 2013