Florida!

We made it! last night about 7 we reached the condo. It was a very long day of driving from North Carolina.

We did little unpacking until today, but we are all settled in at this point. We are very happy with our place. There are a few pictures to show what it looks like.

This is the view from the balcony to the parking lot.

The kitchen is small, but very nice in appliances.

The living room has comfortable furniture and a very large TV set, not shown in the picture.

The condo is nicely decorated and in tip top condition.

The bed is incredibly comfortable and the closet was large enough to hold all of the suitcases and boxes, plus our clothes.

We shopped for groceries and had lunch at a familar Friendly's.

Louise found a place to knit in the 70 degree weather. Everyone we met today talked about how cold it was. If only they could see what cold really is! We had a busy day, and finished it with dinner out at Appleby's, a Christmas gift.
Our first day in Florida has been great and it is a good start to a new year. We are very comfortable here and happy to start a new adventure. Having relocated to a different community we have to learn our way around, but we know it was a good choice.
Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

On the Road Again

Yesterday we began our yearly adventure of leaving behind the ice and snow and driving to Florida. We have had a great amount of snow and very cold weather over the past few weeks, the whole month of December in fact.

This is what Route 164 from Washburn to Presque Isle looked like yesterday morning. There were cars off the road and it was not a pleasant ride. Route 1 from Presque Isle to Houlton was about the same. Not expecting a lot on Interstate 95, we were not disappointed to see that the speed limit was 45, and that was too fast to drive on much of it. It took a long time to get to Bangor and things did improve on the road after that.

We had a near miss just below Bangor. A pick up truck came on to the highway in the right lane, while we were in the left. He went by us and suddenly something that looked like clear sheets of whatever went flying up in the air and one large one came down on the hood of the car. It sounded like a gun going off. It was a sheet of ice. As it hit the windshield we were sure it would break, but fortunately for us it didn't. We didn't stop since things looked fine once the ice had blown off and we could see again. We did not know until we stopped for the day that it dented the hood in a couple of places.

We stopped in Portland to visit with Jon, Erin, and Emily and then we continued on to Bob's house, arriving a little after dark, and spent a great evening opening gifts and visiting.

We got off to a good start this morning after a car wash so we could see out of the windows. The first couple of hours were uneventful, and even Hartford wasn't hard to get through.

Then we hit the traffic jam. We traveled two miles in over an hour. The traffic was backed up from Danbury, CT to the New York border.

We finally made it to Scranton, PA where we found the same kind of traffic jam. In all the years we have traveled I 84 and I 81 we have never encountered anything like this. There was another area near Harrisburg that was about the same.
Finally we called our travel for the day to an end and found a Quality Inn in Enola, PA, just north of Harrisburg. The room is great - king bed, sofa, refrigerator, microwave, coffee maker, flat screen TV. What more could you ask for? To make our evening complete there was a fantastic diner next door to the hotel that had a huge menu and reasonable prices. We even walked to and from dinner. It is a great ending to a trying day. Tomorrow we hit the south. We had the car windows open today, and it was 50 degrees when we went to dinner. We love the change in climate! No more snow!!

Christmas and Knitting 2013

Christmas has come and gone. A major part of Louise's activity over the past several months has been knitting gifts for the holiday.

This is a picture of all the knit gifts that were wrapped this week!
We celebrated Christmas three times - once at home on Christmas day with the Aroostook County family. With Chelsea we have a new addition to the family this year. Here are a few pictures of Christmas in Washburn.

As you can see, there were many laughs, great gifts, and a good meal.
Two days after Christmas we headed out to see the rest of the family. First to Portland,where we visited with Emily,

and then to Massachusetts.

Our youngest grandchild is growing fast.

And here is Bridget with her Grampy. Her excitement at seeing us made it a time of fun! We made some good memories at Christmas and are thankful for the great family we have.