Vacation (02/06/17)
01/05/17
As if retirement isn’t enough, we have decided to head to Florida (with a stop in San Antonio later) for a vacation before we start our next workaway adventure near Big Bend Texas for the months of February and March.
We had a great time over the holidays with David and Tristen in NC. But you can only stay and drive your kids nuts for so long, so we have left NC and are currently on our way to Florida.
First stop (1/5/17)- Medieval Times Dinner Theater in Kissimmee. Why you may ask are 2 grown ups (sort of) going to this dinner show? There are 3 reasons… 1) we will be in the area 2) I found a voucher we didn’t use from 2004 and they are letting us use it now. 3) Our inner child is calling out to us.
Second stop (1/6/17)- Park Avenue, Winter Park FL. We are going to see my niece who I have not seen in several years. Can’t wait!
Then on to Miami, Key Largo, Islamorada, Marathon, Key West, up to Tampa to visit a dear friend (Terri), and then just for excitement we have purchased tickets to the Apollo Saturn V rocket launch at Cape Canaveral on Jan. 19th.
More to come later. Till then, please keep your fingers crossed that the weather will be good on the 19th so the launch takes place and I can post some really cool pictures.
Stay warm friends in New England!!!
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update 01/11/17
We had a great time at Medieval Times Dinner theater. Horses are beautiful and the knights aren’t too hard on the eyes either LOL
It was wonderful seeing my niece. So much so that we decided to see her again on the way back from Key West. We ate outside and even had a little friend join us.
Are you going to eat all your food ??? 
We spent 2 days in Hollywood, FL. We were lucky enough to drive past the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood airport minutes before they closed the expressway because of the terrible shooting that had just happened. So sad.
The hotel was great. It was the Margarita Ville and was only 1 year old. They really put some thought into all corners of this hotel. Notice how large the flip flop is and the pop top next to it…
The chandeliers have margarita glasses instead of crystals hanging from them…
Anyway, we really had a nice time and YES it was cold for Florida. We had to wear jackets on the boardwalk. I know you all feel bad for us because we couldn’t wear our summer clothes. But it’s ok, we tried to have a good time anyway. We ate at some nice restaurants, I visited the spa, and we listened to a great band at the stage on the boardwalk.
We left Hollywood and headed to the Florida Keys. Along the way we stopped to see and feed the tarpins. There were no tarpins at the dock because of the cold and windy conditions, but there were lots of pelicans.
After saying hello to these feathered friends, we visited a dive museum and a turtle hospital that works hard to returned injured/healed turtle back to the sea.
We continued South (looking for warmer weather) and ended up at the southern most point of the US where we spent 3 nights on Duval street in Key West. We enjoyed the music, visiting the Mel Fisher Museum (you should look up his story if you don’t know who he is – very cool story with the little guy beating the government), walked around downtown Key West, and of course, saw a drag queen show. This is a pictures of Chris, ahh, I mean Tina…
It was a great few days. We are now heading back north, but not too far north. We will leave the cold and snow to my friends up there in New England).
Our next adventure… Biscayne and Everglades National Parks on our way to Tampa.
Stay tuned for more pics of birds and some alligators. Till then, don’t judge a book by it’s cover – Chris had great legs, just like Tina.
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01/23/2017
So we made it to Biscayne National Park. It was very quite there. We walked out on a small peninsula and saw some very cute small birds in the water.
You could see Miami way off in the distance.
We requested to be a volunteer to go scuba diving and catch lion fish. If you haven’t heard, lion fish are an invasive fish that out-breeds and out-eats any native fish. The are killing the coral reefs all over North and Central America. They have divers all over, capturing them. Biscayne donates them to schools and has fish fries with them. They say they are delicious!!!
We will keep you posted if they need volunteers.
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After Biscayne we went to the Everglades National Park. There are 4 separate “visitor” centers and we saw them all.
So what did we see. The better question is what didn’t we see …
Alligators
Mommy alligators
Egrets
Herons
Anhinga
Cormorant eating a fish
Ibis
Osprey in his/her nest
Pelicans
Purple Gallinule
Turtles
Ravens
Roseate spoonbill
dolphins (one was playing between the boat’s engines)
Flowers
and some beautiful scenery
We spent over 2 days at the everglades and had a wonderful time, AND we didn’t get eaten or bitten by an alligator.
You can see more pictures in the gallery.
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On our way to see our friend in Tampa we stopped off at an orchid farm. In case you don’t know by now, I LOVE orchids. Poor Mike almost left me there. LOL (more pics in the gallery)
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After chasing after the car since Mike had seen enough orchids, we headed to Tampa. We stayed with our friend and her daughter for 3 nights. It was so good to see her again.
From there we stopped off at the Ritz Carlton in Orlando and spent the afternoon at the pool with my niece Stacy. It was a nice day and I was reminded on how much I miss her.
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Off we went to see the rocket launch at the Kennedy Space Center. Well, all I can say is we tried. The rocket launch was cancelled due to a plane entering the restricted air space just before the rocket was due to launch. But all was not lost, we got to wait in line for 1 1/2 hours to catch the bus back to the parking lot with a lot of disappointed people. AWESOME!
However, we really did enjoy the space center. If you ever get a chance you should go.
shuttle Atlantis 
On the space center’s land is a pair of bald eagles. I didn’t know that they mate for life. This eagle lives there in a nest that is 8 feet wide and has been there for 24 years.
More pictures in the gallery
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The next day we visited our friends at The Villages in Florida. We sat outside in a neighbor’s driveway that night and watched the rocket (a little red dot) that was launched from Kennedy Space Center. Well I can tell you that watching it from 93 miles away is nothing like watching it from 5 miles away (at least I don’t think so).
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We are now on our way to visit a friend in Texas, then heading to San Antonio.
It has been a great few weeks.
Remember, sometimes things don’t happen when you want, but it’s all good (even if you want’s to shoot the pilot flying in the restricted area). LOL
Till next time….
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02/06/17
We have had such a busy 2 weeks, I don’t know where to begin.
