January: Our Florida Adventure, Part 1

 The Trip Here:

    We had been watching the weather reports and road conditions for days.  As it got closer to leave, Wyoming didn't look good.  On Friday morning, most of I-80 was closed across WY which meant our only option was to drop south and head across Colorado.  This kinda put a damper on our spirits, but we decided we needed to make some progress.  We cleaned up the house and loaded the car and were off.  It wasn't too bad until we crossed into CO.  As soon as we crossed over the state line, the roads turned crappy.  We stayed the first night in Grand Junction.  

      After we had started out the next morning, we got a call from Chad.  He wanted to know if we were going over Vail Pass, which is exactly where we were headed.  He then proceeded to tell us about his recent trip over the pass and it sounded scary.  Blizzard conditions, slipping and sliding and even going backward down the road, cars that were unable to make it up the mountain stopped everywhere, and just a slow treacherous journey.  It was not what we wanted to hear--but at least we were traveling in the daylight.  The road was definitely not good, but no major incidents on our part, and by the time we got to Vail Pass, the other side had been plowed and dirt had been spread.  It was just a slow, long trip, but we made it and counted 22 abandoned or wrecked vehicles along the route.  We spent the night in Goodland, CO.  Below is one of many wrecks we saw.

    

    After that, we had no issues with the roads.  The third night we stayed in Warrenton, Missouri.  On Monday, we traveled through five states and made it to Marietta, Georgia.  We stopped long enough in St. Louis to visit the Arch.  It was a cold brisk 21 degrees when we walked to the Arch.   

Inside the visitor's center.

State capitol building.

A cool looking old bridge on our walk.

Seeing the Arch from where we parked.

    On Tuesday, about halfway through Georgia, we finally reached temperatures above 36 degrees.  We arrived at our apartment in the afternoon and moved our stuff in.  We met our next door neighbors, Dave and Judy Cooper from Oregon, and went to Walmart and Publix to buy supplies.  We have now settled in to our Florida routine.

Impressions:

    *Lush and varied plant growth.  Plants that are house plants at home grow huge and healthy off to the side of the road.  Step 20 feet off the road and you are surrounded by forest.  Flowers are everywhere and the trees are unique.  

*Standing water everywhere.  If the water is a little larger, they stick a shooting fountain in it.  We love the miles and miles of walking paths.  Every road has an adjacent walking path.  We see people and bike riders everywhere we go. 

*Corvettes.  I don't think we have ever left the house when we haven't seen a Corvette.  Really makes us wish we had ours here to drive.  

*Traffic.  The speed limit only seems to be posted for appearances.  Quinn will be going 7 miles over the speed limit and people fly past him.  We've also seen a lot of lane weavers and some are shockingly close to colliding.  The roads here have curbs or shrubbery or even parks in between them and so you can never get to where you want to go easily.  You might see the place you want to go, but you can't get there from where you are.  The GPS on my phone is constantly telling us to do U-turns, because you usually have to drive by the place you are headed and then come back on the other side of the road to access it.  

    There is a road at our complex that has two 'Do Not Enter' signs and we see everyone enter--even the mailman.  We have encountered toll roads and we are NOT fans.  I bought a Sun-Pass to replace having lots of money in the car.  A trip to Orlando took $5.50 to get one way.  

*Semis.  I don't know if there are ports along the coast here where trucks haul cargo from barges, but I have never seen so many semis on the road.  There will be over a hundred semis going one way on I-95 in ten miles.  I know because I've counted (more than once).   

*Friendly people.  Everyone we've met, even for just a few seconds, has been so friendly.  Most of the time, when we part they will say, "Have a great day."   The people living in our complex must be honest too, because of the mail situation.  I ordered a book before we left home and had it sent to the address of this complex, not realizing until after we got here I wouldn't be given a key to the mailbox.  The mail here is delivered into a huge bank of boxes:

Packages are just piled on top of these metal boxes.  Our neighbors told us they were here through December and the pile of packages was huge.  Nobody takes a package unless it is addressed to them.  Even a resident told us everyone is on the honor system and he has never heard of anyone getting ripped off.  The window for my book arrival had passed, so I just figured it was a lost cause, but low and behold, one day I checked on top of our bank of boxes and the package was addressed to me!   

*The Apartment.  We like the apartment.  It is long and narrow with only one window--actually a French door at the end looking out over the courtyard.  Things are clean.  No stove except a counter-top oven that we've cooked pot pies in.  Luckily, we brought our Instant Pot.  The table and chairs are not comfortable because the chairs sit too high and we can't lower them, so your legs don't go under the table.  The roof of our building is being replaced.  This has been going on since we got here.  First they removed the old tiles--this was a very noisy process and the workers don't seem to be overly cautious.  Rarely are they in any safety harness and the dumpsters are on the ground and they are dropping the tiles into them from four floors up.  We found pieces of tile on our little balcony.  We met a guy on the elevator and he told us he and a friend were walking in the courtyard and found a hammer!  He picked it up and a guy from the roof yelled down that it was his.  The guy telling us this was shaking his head.  He said he was in construction for 30+ years and if he had been caught making that kind of error, he would have been shut down.  Now they are putting on the new tiles and we found a plastic zip band on our balcony from holding the bundle of tiles together.  Hopefully, they will finish up soon before I see a body falling past our French door. 

Notice the guy on the roof.  Usually there are several roofers and as far as I can tell, he wasn't tethered with any safety harness.

                           These are more shots of the roofers and their equipment.  

        We get to hear the constant 'beep, beep, beep' as they are moving the crane around.

On Sundays when it's not too cold, they set up a merchant fair in the plaza.

Our balcony is in the light green, third floor on the left.

*Birds.  We have seen a wide variety of unique birds--many we don't know their names.  What we do know: bald eagles, cranes, pelicans, egrets, hawks, buzzards, turkeys, and the usual crows etc.  There are many water fowl we don't know.  I love the little ones that run super fast on the beach when the water is coming up. 

I took this picture for the bird in the foreground, but then I noticed the beautiful sky.

We were told this is an 'anhinga'.  They dive under the water and when they are along the bank, they hold their wings out like this to let them dry.

*Buc-ees.  From the moment I stepped into my first Buc-ee's, I had a new favorite convenience store.  It is like Maverick on steroids.  The bathrooms are HUGE and clean and have hand sanitizer machines in every stall!  The one at Daytona has 108 pumps ($3.05 - $3.28 per gallon) and the place is crawling with people.  You can buy pork sandwiches and watch them chop it up and make them in front of you.  Best deli ever and homemade fudge.  It is the only place we get gas now.

*Misc.

Missing my grandkids (sorry kids) and who wouldn't--look at the adorable face 

on this cookie thief.

         You can buy an alligator head at a gas station or souvenir shop.  Kinda creeps me out.

I belong to the Nautilus Alumni & Family group on FB, and one day this picture with my dad in it appeared.  

This statue is a Florida cougar and is at the entrance to a walking path that is in the middle of the main road in Palm Coast.  At night it is lit up.

The above alligator was at a souvenir shop nearby.  It was in an aquarium with two others and they were 8 months old.  Below is a picture my cousin took who lives in Fort Myers, Florida.  It is of a frozen iguana that has fallen out of a tree.  I guess they do that in Florida when it gets below freezing.  They do come back to life once it warms up to 50 degrees.  

This is PINK tree we saw in Orlando.  Have no idea how it got that way.  Below is my first quilt top finished since we got here.  I am almost done with my second, but Quinn gets a little annoyed when my sewing takes up the entire table we have here.  

Just a cheerful message to end this post: