Rain, rain, go away...

We are having the wettest weather we have ever seen in Florida. We've had three straight days of heavy rain. The rainfall broke records in Melbourne all three days. This is the balcony these days:

The parking lot has a river running through it!

There are a couple on ponds at the condo site, usually just a little water with ducks and other birds. This one looks like a river!

Here is Gary with a boat painting he is working on. Perhaps the wet weather has encouraged him to paint boats!
The good news is that after the fog cleared this morning the sun came out. We are hoping it will last, but we saw a weather report last night that had rain in the forecast for almost all of next week.

Winter in Florida

This month has not been as friendly to snowbirds as normal. By Maine standards, it is warm, but by Florida standards it has been cold. We have had to turn on the heat as the nights fall into the 30s and the days linger in the 50s. The weather forecast is for another week of it to come. We have adjusted into wearing our winter clothes and doing mostly inside activities.

The cold nights have caused the manatees to seek refuge in warmer places. This little area has warm water from the power company raising the temperature. On Tuesday we stopped by and saw dozens of the manatees hunkered down in this little canal.
We also saw an Atlas rocket launch this week. We were not able to get a picture of it, but we had a great view from the nearby beach. However, that evening was mighty chilly with the wind coming on over the water.

To bring a bit of cheer we stopped at Lowe's and bought a petunia plant yesterday to put on the balcony. We may have to bring it in at night, but it is wonderful to see live flowers!

Gary has not done much painting yet, but here he is working on the balcony yesterday. He has two paintings underway and is working at the Brigantine Gallery twice a week.

This is one of the ships he is working on. He really doesn't have a place to lay out his stuff and paint here, so we are trying to solve that problem.

Florida Winter Moves Along

Friday was Gary's birthday. Louise finished knitting a sweater for him that was started in 2006. That's a long time in the needles, but a great finished product. The weather here will probably not give him an opportunity to wear it, but it will make a good spring sweater at home. This is sweater #1 of a new challenge to knit 14 in 2014.

Here is Gary in his new sweater.

Today we visited the beach again, but it was a bit chilly and windy today. Louise got a walk on the beach, but we didn't stay very long.

The gulls were plentiful today. Here you see a man feeding them.

The water was not as rough today and there were no surfers in it, or anyone else for that matter!

The temperatures and humidity vary greatly from day to day, but life is good here.

Sebastian Inlet

Today we drove south to Sebastian Inlet State Park to enjoy a perfect afternoon in the sun. The weathermen predict a cold week ahead, but today was beautiful.

Here you see there were lots of people at the beach, and even some kids playing in the waves.

The surf was pretty active today. There were a lot of surfers out in the water. Most of the surfers had on wet suits, so we expect it wasn't very warm.

Here we see Gary getting a few rays of sunshine.

What a beautiful day in Florida. This is what it's all about and why so many people  come here in the winter.

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.