HE IS RISEN!

We had a wonderful worship service with all the great old Easter hymns that people can really sing. (No bippety boppety boo or drums for this church.)   Then we met Barb and Doris for a buffet at a local hotel.  It was a small crowd this year because Richard is still in Georgia, and David and Catherine had their spring break a couple of weeks ago.  But we had a good time.  It happens that today is also Doris’ birthday so we went back to her house for cake and fruit with Dee and Bob and their driver Jean.  Good conversation, good company, and good food.

He is risen indeed!

WRAPPING IT UP

Here are a few pictures to finish up the trip.

The harbor at St. Augustine

A gator tail hoagie?  No thanks.

The window-side tables at a restaurant in St. Augustine had little doors you could open to throw bits of bread (provided by the restaurant) to the gulls.  We amused ourselves quite a while with this.  Gulls are MEAN to each other when food is involved.

I like this picture of Dee and Jerry fishing. 

We had to go to Florida to find a rock in the shape of Michigan.

Lunch at a golf club.

On the way home I always look for this water tower on I-75 in Florence, Kentucky.

AND THEN THERE WAS GOLF …

Those of you who know Sam know he’s not easily deterred when he decides he wants to play golf.   Neither snow nor rain nor howl of wind …  He was determined to play golf in Kentucky on our way to Florida.  Temps were in the 30s and the wind was fierce but behold the Sam -

There was no grass yet and there were pieces of Astroturf to tee off from.  He did have the course pretty much to himself though.

What the well-dressed golfer wears while golfing in arctic weather.  One day did prove too cold even for him and he bailed out before hitting a shot.  I was getting comfortable in the clubhouse with a book when he appeared and said he gave up before even the first shot.  That tells you how bad it was.

Conditions improved in Florida.  Here Dee shows her ability to draw turtles by pretending she has food for them.

One member of our party almost got a birdie.

On the way home Sam was sure things had warmed up enough in Kentucky.  Not so.  The temp was barely 40 and the wind was about 30. The course gave us a cart with curtains all around AND a heater. 

Lois being thrilled with the whole thing.

Ladies, tell your daughters not to marry golfers.

We went on a wildlife boat tour that Dee and Jerry pronounced the best they’ve ever been on.  They saw birds galore. The captain/narrator was excellent and easily spotted birds and animals along the way.

“This way!”  “No, this way!”

A bird perched on a rock in the background, and manatees and fish swimming along.

We also visited the Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine.  It’s a beautiful facility.

A panarama of the grounds.

One thing that bothered us was that when you enter, almost the whole first floor is devoted to Bob Hope.  On the other hand, there is almost nothing about Jack Nicklaus or Arnold Palmer.  Why so much about Bob Hope?  Did he give a boatload of money to build the place?  How old do you have to be to even remember Bob Hope in his prime?  We would like to have seen more about the greats of the game.

BOATING ON THE HIGH SEAS

There was a small lake behind the house we stayed at, and it came with this armada:

A pedal boat and two small Boston Whalers.  It was also a good lake for fishing, and Dee pulled in several.

Sam is a big believer in wearing a life jacket when in a very small boat on a very small lake.  He made me take mine along but I didn’t use it.

I’ve always enjoyed rowing, ever since teenage years in my 12-foot rowboat in Maine.

Dee’s no slouch in the rowing department either.

The guys keep an eye on the girls while they used the pedal boat.

Dee takes a picture of me taking a picture of her.  We are such madcaps.

The guys, plumb tuckered out after the spin on the lake, take five.  Or 30.

As it turned out, all the family except Ken were in the Orlando area at the same time. Stephen was swimming in a junior national meet, which brought his family there, and David and Catherine were on spring break.  Richard and Barb drove down from Georgia. 

We missed you, Ken, but had fun anyway. 

We didn’t see much of Stephen since he was at the swim meet most of the time, but we did get the four Chicagoland grandkids together for this.

Five grandkids, less Stephen who was napping in prep for the next round of swimming.

G. finds a way to conserve energy by hitching a ride with a cousin.

Imagine if you will Grandma and Grandpa at Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville.  Are we a happening couple OR WHAT?  (David is a huge Jimmy Buffett fan.)

Natalie and Catherine had bought the same dress while shoppping together some time ago and wore them that night.

This tall fellow was making balloon animals and stopped at our table for some fun.

We thought he captured David perfectly as a Viking maiden.

The kids with the creations.

We went into Augusta one day with Richard and Barb and took a boat ride on the canal.  It was cold, as witness …

The canal played a huge part in the development of Augusta.

I wondered what the balls of growth in the trees were, and the captain told us it was mistletoe.  I knew mistletoe was a parasite but I didn’t know it grew like this.  It can kill a tree if it gets out of control.

The canal museum had some signs from the days when the building was part of the cotton industry.  Spitting was a problem, it would seem.

This is an old church in Augusta, now used for something else.  Look at the detail work – what would it cost to build today?

I took this one just because I like trees, and because I hadn’t seen any with leaves for months.

We went to a Detroit Tigers exhibition game with four other couples (we do this every year), and fortunately Justin Verlander, the best pitcher in the universe, pitched four innings.

It’s a beautiful stadium to watch baseball in, and our seats were perfect.  It was cold though.  Those who showed up in t-shirts and flip flops were not happy.  It was cold a lot of the time the first week.

On the way to Florida we stopped in Georgia to visit Richard, who is working on a project down there for several months.  It also happened to be his birthday, and Barb was visiting too so it was a good time to be there.

He’s renting a house out in the country (the better to bike), and the owner has these critters.  They came to the fence to greet us but, alas, we had no carrots with us.

This is the plant Richard is working on.  He did some of the engineering work for it and is now helping with the start-up.  The towers are 300 feet high, to give you an idea of how tall the crane is.

The red clay of Georgia, which the new plant will utilize as a raw material.  Hence its location. 

This is a panarama of a clay quarry.  Clay is BIG in Georgia.

This is a begraggled cotton field that for some reason wasn’t harvested.

This doesn’t look much like a t-shirt – yet.

They even have gourd farms.

This gadget is used in some way to harvest cotton.

Our new winter place in Georgia.  Some assembly required.

Georgians have a sense of humor.  This is the church we attended.

HOME AGAIN!

We had a great time in Florida with Dee and Jerry.  We fled from home a day early to escape a snowstorm, and ran into rain instead.  The weather in Florida was quite cool the first week but warmed up nicely the second. 

Today we knew when we hit Michigan because the roads got bad and it was snowing.  But I’m glad to be home and able to get back into our daily routines.

Pictures and stories of wild escapades are forthcoming!  But you knew that.