Adventures in Charlottesville

Today was a wonderful day on our way back home. We stayed over a second night in Charlottesville, VA to see some of the sights. Actually we have found so many things here that we want to see that I am developing a list of places to go as we pass through over the next few years! Today we did our #1 choice - Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. It was a beautiful day here, in the 50s this morning and warming up into the sixties later in the day. The sun was shining and the trees are starting to bud, as well as daffodils and tulips are in blossom. We toured the inside of the house and found many changes since we were here once many years ago with the Boy Scouts. What a great piece of history and they are doing such a great job of promoting it.

Here is a side view of the house. They will not allow picture taking inside the house, so we did not get many photos. We did do the grounds, ate lunch at the cafeteria, and visited the gravesite.

After lunch we went on another adventure. You know how much Louise loves the Waltons. Well, we found out there is a Walton's Mountain Museum in Schuyler. With the address and the GPS we traveled over hills and hollows on back roads to find this place.

This building was the school that Earl Hamner, the author of the book that started The Waltons and of many of the TV shows, attended. The Walton house was his home as a child. They have filled this building with pictures and memoribilia as well as the actual contents of several rooms of the house. You can see John Boy's room, the kitchen, the living room, Godsey's store and even the recipe machine.

The house itself is down a hill from the museum. We did not tour it because the stuff in it is not original. This is truly in a far out middle-of-nowhere destination. There was only  one other couple there. The community seems to have set up this museum and it is not well advertised. No one would ever come across it unless they had a GPS and really searched for it. It was fun to see all the things they have collected there.

Here's a good picture of the Walton kitchen.

Here's the living room with the door and the stairs to the bedroom for the grandparents.

Here is a good view of Godsey's Store, and another one.

Finally we have John Boy's Room:

We had a great day. It is lovely here as spring is blooming all over the place. This is an area we will come back to visit again. Retired history teachers tend to go back to history - we still have the homes of James Madison and James Monroe to see, plus Woodrow Wilson's presidential library, the caverns, and an historical village on our list!

We did get our pictures taken with the statue of Thomas Jefferson today:

Tomorrow we head on to Pennsylvania. We dug out a jacket and sweat shirt today, and long pants for the first time in many weeks. Hopefully we will get through or past the next snow storm!

A Day with the Animals

Friday was spent visiting the Brevard Zoo.  It was a cool day, cold by Florida standards, so it seemed to be the ideal time to go there and enjoy all the walking in cool temperatures. We discovered that was not a good idea because many of the birds and animals were under cover or using heat lamps to stay warm. On top of that there was no school in Brevard County on Friday, so at least half of the kids who were out of school decided to go to the zoo! Even Disney brought in a couple of tour busses. So our quiet, leisurely tour of the zoo did not happen. However, it was a lovely day and we enjoyed being in the outdoors enjoying nature.

By far the most fun was the Meerkats. They are in a sandy area where they did huge holes, stand guard to watch out for anything threatening, and run and cavort like crazy. There were two babies there, and lots of fun watching them all act out.

Here's one of the babies with its mother.

Here is one of them acting as a lookout.

There were lots of large animals, like these zebras. They didn't seem to mind the cold.

The rhinos were out and about and rooting in the dirt and mud.

I don't know what the name of this bird is, but it was the ugliest thing we saw all day!

The most beautiful birds were the flamingos. They have just added a new flock of flamingos to the ones they had. Gorgeous birds!

Even the alligators seemed a bit sluggish in the cold. Once the sun came out in the afternoon things were a little livelier.

The aviary is always fun as birds fly around you and land on people. The birds seemed a little overfed as the huge crowd all wanted to feed them.

Here's Gary feeding a cockatoo with seeds on a stick.

This is the best picture of the day as this huge cat finds a bit of sunshine to rest in.

By far the most popular spot in the zoo is the feeding platform for the giraffes. There was a mother giraffe and two young that we caught a picture of feeding.

The biggest thrill in the zoo for a child is to feed the giraffes. They walk right up to the food and take it out of people's hands.
It was a good day at the zoo and we hope you enjoy the pictures of some of our adventures!

Why we love Florida in the winter

Here we are in our last month in Florida this winter. The time has passed so quickly. We thought we would reflect briefly on the reasons we love it here so much.

First of all on the list is the weather. It is truly warm. We have not had a cold day this winter. To wake up every morning to sunshine and warm breezes is in itself priceless.

The second item on our list is the beauty of it. We are living in an area of beautiful homes. Landscaping is beautiful. The homes are such cheerful colors - gold, beige, light blue, peach.

Here is an example of one of the homes along the road. And another:

These are just the ordinary homes along South Tropical Trail. Some of them are vast estates with incredible homes. One near here even has a service entrance! Most of them are gated.
The skies are so blue and everything is so green. The lawns are beautiful. We watched a load of sod being placed across the road.

One of the favorite trees are the old live oaks. They have annoying little leaves, but the live oaks spread out with crossing branches, spreading in every direction. They sometimes form a canopy across the roads. Some of them are hanging with Spanish moss. They are now dressed out in new green leaves.

The third reason for loving Florida is the ease of life here. There is no rush. There is a peace about the place. There are many places to go and things to do. Here we have the farmer's market that we visit every week.

The beach is always a source of peace and beauty.

The flowering bushes are blooming to add vibrant color to the atmosphere.

It is so beautiful to just go for a ride down good roads with beautiful sights to see. The color is incredible. The sound of the wind blowing through the swishing palm trees is relaxing. When the spirit moves us there are literally dozens of places to go out and eat.

Here we had lunch at Molly's Seafood Shack, outside on the deck with the breeze blowing through.

Right now we are both sick with a nasty cold and sinus infection, so it will be a few days before we get back to the beach and dip our feet in the sand, but we hope this has explained a bit why we head south in the winter. We know there are many people who love winter, snowsleds, snowballs, and the white world that lasts for months. We did that in December. Each day is a joy in Florida when a person prefers a world that is warm and colorful!

Sunshine and Sand

What great weather we are having. We have never seen a January when the beaches were full, but they are this year. Yesterday we went to the beach with Sherry and David. We chose Canova Beach in Indian Harbor because of the facilities and ease of parking. We spent about six hours on the beach enjoying the sun, the breeze, and the sound of the waves.

David and Sherry bought a new canopy and we bought a new umbrella. Both of them blew down several times in the sea breeze!

Sherry and Louise did go visit the water a couple of times.

It was a perfect day for the beach!

As the tide came in the breeze increased, and we decided to go out to an early dinner at Texas Roadhouse.

After we returned home we watched a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral. We were able to see it clearly from our yard.

This launch was scheduled for Thursday night and we spent an hour standing around waiting for it, but it was scrubbed at the last minute.
Today we went to Cocoa Beach. Louise knit at Juice n Java for a couple of hours, visited the library, and then we went to the park on Ramp Road to watch the kayakers and boaters, and eat a lunch.

This is located on the Banana River, and we often see birds or manatees, but not today. It was 84 degrees here in full sun, so it was a warm day!
Finally we stopped at a produce store and bought some fresh fruit!

Here we have oranges, grapefruit, a mango, bananas, a pineapple and an orange tomato.
We are enjoying ourselves here and absolutely love the weather.

Busy Days

What have we done in the almost two weeks we have been in Florida? We have settled into the life we live here. Gary has been to his painting group twice and Louise has been to her two knitting groups three times. We have shopped for food and things we needed and did not have. Mostly we have enjoyed the warm days, warm nights, and beautiful surroundings.

Yesterday was Gary's birthday. Louise made a cake, which we shared with David and Sherry.

They took us out to dinner last night at Olive Garden, for a really great meal.

Today we went back to the gym for the first time this year. We spent over an hour in the pool.

There is an ease of life here, no deadlines, no rush, just doing what we like when we choose to do it. No snowblowing! We are in beautiful surroundings and enjoying it!

2017 - A New Year

It has been so long since we have worked on the blog that we had to go through a whole process to get into it! This is a new year and we will do better with the blog.

As you can see, we are back to our January destination in Florida. We arrived yesterday and have settled in our apartment. It was a long journey from the snowy roads of Maine. We got to see every member of the family before we left. We had Christmas at home, then visited Jon and exchanged gifts, then left for Bob's where we spent two days. The kids are at an age where they are a lot of fun and we enjoyed our time there.

We left Massachusetts on Wednesday morning and made it through Connecticut with no problem. The traffic was a little slow in New York, but we made it to Scranton for lunch. We reserved a room in Chambersburg, PA and expected to be there by 3. We knew there was a big storm coming through on Thursday and we wanted to be south of it. We hit traffic around Harrisburg that was literally tied up for hours. We did not get to Chambersburg until 6:30. We ended up with a suite in a Clarion hotel.

When we got up Thursday morning there was a coating of snow and ice on everything. We started out again and had a wonderful day driving through Virginia. We got off I-81 and took I-64 across the state. It goes through the Blue Ridge Mountains and the day was just beautiful.

We had an uneventful day Thursday, and decided to stop for the night at Smithfield, North Carolina.
To our surprise, Sherry and David Cole had caught up to us with their RV. We went to visit them before we left for the trip south. Friday was South Carolina day. If we could eliminate one state from our trip this would be the one. The traffic barely moved all day. Apparently the roads in SC aren't able to handle the amount of traffic they get. It was a slow and frustrating day. We were most happy to see the Georgia border. Traffic flowed nicely in Georgia. We spent the night in Pooler, just outside Savannah.

Saturday morning we headed to Florida. Our landlords told us to come a day early if we wanted to, and we did. The sight of palm trees, blue skies, sunshine, and warm air was welcome. We arrived Saturday afternoon and are all unpacked and moved in. Gary put on one of his Christmas gifts, and we checked out the beach at Patrick AFB today. The feel of that sand under your feet, and the sound of the waves breaking create a feeling of happiness.

We are glad we had the time with family before we left. We are very proud of the family we have.
However, the cold and the snow are getting harder to take as we get older. We are happy to be here! Stay tuned and we will share our adventures!