It is July 1st and a steamy 85 degrees at 9:54 PM....... my last entry was on New Year's Eve....... Where have the last seven months gone? When I started this blog it was my good intention to post every week, but it looks like I paved the road to Hell instead. Nevertheless, I am posting again and ready to catch you up on the past seven months.
January found us traveling to Florida and South Carolina. We left January 2nd believing that traffic would be a little lighter. Boy, did we get that wrong. Interstate 95 was bumper to bumper with a bumper crop of crazies. It took us until the second rest area to figure out what was happening. As we walked to the restrooms we looked around and Jill commented that we were the youngest people there. Yep.... we were caught smack dab in the middle of the Snowbird migration. Bald heads and blue hair in Winnebagos and Mercury Marquis. We stopped at Pedro's, because he told us to, and made it to Santee, SC the first night.
The next evening found us rolling into Boca Raton, Florida where our good friends Harry and Carol have a home. The next three days were good. Good times with good friends. A visit to Gumbo Limbo Nature Preserve is a must if you are ever in Boca.
Out next Port of Call was Fort Myers Beach and the condo of more good friends, Gary and Nancy. Nancy made a wonderful dinner the first night, and we stayed up way too late drinking wine and laughing, reminiscing over the last 40 years of our friendship. Walks along the canal and restaurants figured largely in this portion of our itinerary.
Third stop was Clearwater Beach and Jill's sister Judy's home. We only spent one night in Clearwater but we had a marvelous time with Judy and her husband Jack. Dinner at the Brown Boxer on the beach was memorable. Breakfast the next morning at the diner across the street was just as good. We left knowing that we don't see Judy and Jack enough.
The fourth Florida waypoint was the town of Wachula in the center of the state. My cousin and her husband spend the winter here. Our two days with them went by way to quickly. The highlight of our visit was a trip to the Jacaranda Hotel in nearby Avon Park. A relic from the Roaring Twenties this grand dame of hospitality seemed out of place in the tiny Florida town. Built by citrus magnets before the Stock Market Crash, it never really reached it's intended glory. The ensuing decades saw it used as military housing, a retirement home, and now it is owned by the University of Central Florida and used for dorms and a training ground for their Hotel and Hospitality majors. They offer a buffet for $10.00 per person and it was great! No wine or liquor can be served, but the meal was a bargain.
From Wachula we headed to Charleston, SC for my nephew's wedding and some extended sightseeing time. We hit Ft. Sumter, the USS Yorktown, a couple of plantations, the Confederate submarine the CSS Hunley, The Battery, The Calhoun Mansion and some great restaurant meals. A side trip to Savannah was just okay. I think if we had gone to Savannah first, we would have been more impressed by the city. As it was, Charleston far outshone its neighbor to the south. The wedding was as fun and crazy as a Farrell wedding could be, and Seth and his bride Ashley were both just beaming.
We returned to Kennett Square to 7 degrees and snow and longed to head back to the sunny south once again. I'll deal with February and our trip to Cape May in my next post. Until then, I will sit on the deck tonight and enjoy this summery weather for I all to well remember how brutal the past winter was. 85 degrees? I'll take it, and I am okay with that.
