Welcome to Florida

 A typical Florida day.  The skies have opened!  

Poured rain, but an hour later the sun came out and it hit 27C.  A beautiful day.

And Barry, I did make it to Miller's today..........with most of the ladies in my life.

Kathryn and Jo-Ann are in the rental house for the month.  When they leave, Maureen and Matt take over and then Mardi and I join them for the month of March.

Nurse Sarah-Jean will leave her aunts and head to Ottawa next week to begin her first assignment in the Neurological Department.  Fortunately, she's been studying Grandpa for several years so she knows how brains can screw up.....but so far she hasn't figured out how to fix mine.  Time will tell!

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Did our shopping today for food and drink.  A bottle of rye and a dozen beer came to about half the price of what the rye alone would cost back home.

We talked to a guy in a store yesterday and he said he'd like to visit Canada, but the cost of drinks scared him!  

Scares us too buddy, but we manage to put our fears behind us 😉.

Stay well.

We're Home!

 We reached Kissimmee's Old Town at about 1 p.m.  This is the temperature we've been waiting for....yeeha!

Mardi's first step was to install a Florida sim card.  Her phone number for the next three months is 321-437-7619.  My phone is now just a camera.

Then it was lunch and a beer..........

....that neither of us could finish.

Next, we stopped in at Orange Lake to see if we could get a unit for the extra night.  Not only that, but they managed to find us a unit that will be ours for all 57 days we are here.  And the cost for the extra night in our two bedroom condo is the same as a cheap hotel.  What a resort!

And what a view.

If you're jealous give us a call.  We may have space.

Stay well.

Florida

 We left New Orleans on a cool, but sunny, day.  A great visit, but we didn't make two of our list of things to do.  Mardi didn't get to the Acme Oyster House, and we didn't get to ride on the St. Charles streetcar.  Have to go back again in the future I guess.

We managed to make it to Monticello, Florida tonight.  Had a great Mexican dinner at Rancho Grande.

We're just three hours from Orange Lake, but we'll be in a motel again tomorrow night.  Our timeshare starts on Saturday.

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Mardi has decided that she will not participate in the driving on the way to Florida next year.   Says it's boring.  She doesn't mind the trip home - it's warmer and we can have mini-vacations along the way.

So..........I'm looking for a co-driver for next winter, in exchange for a week or so at Orange Lake.  The second bedroom has two double beds and an ensuite.  Let me know.

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Stay well.

A Cajun Night

After two days of walking a lot, we decided to take the Hop/on, Hop/off bus today.  So, we only walked 8,237 steps this time 😓.  Oh well.

We did the whole route and then stopped in a couple of places second time around.

There are lots of beautiful homes in the Garden District, but this traditional structure captures New Orleans well.

We ate at El Paso, which is next to the Bulldog with its spigots.

I ordered a Lime Margarita and Mardi ordered a Dos Equis beer.  Of course the bartender delivered them to the wrong person.

What I failed to realize was that it was Happy Hour and a second Margarita arrived.  I had to bail!

I  assume that it didn't go to waste.

We returned to the hotel for a rest before heading out again to Mulate's for Cajun dinner and music..............

................and what a wonderful decision that was!

Barry, this Concertina keyboard is beyond me.

The folks really joined in!

Including the young.........

.........and the old!

I really enjoyed the Shrimp Etoufee.  And we shared an Achafalaya Mud Cake with Ice Cream.

What an enjoyable night!   We can leave New Orleans tomorrow very happy.

I have sore knees and Mardi has a sore heel - big deal.  Hope the rest of you are well.

New Orleans

 We arrived in New Orleans early yesterday afternoon and headed to the French Quarter for lunch.  Walked over two miles through the Quarter and back to our hotel.  A quiet night ensued!

Today, we headed to the timeshare presentation that enabled this visit.  BlueGreen Vacations was the place.  We paid $279 for the presentation, received $300 in credit cards after, and free hotel for three nights - and Le Meridian is top class.  Of course it is costing us $55 a day for valet parking, but what the hell!

On our way, I met my old friend Louis.

He would have fit into Fishguts very well!  And he and Doc would have blown up a storm together!

Then we stopped for lunch - sorry about the hair!

BlueGreen are connected to Bass Pro Shops and have a darn good product.  If we weren't already covered with all we need we might have been tricked.

We were met by representative Terence...........

.....who gave us the tour and tried valiantly to make the sale.  Wish we could have helped him.

Along the way we saw several "performers" and this guy was holding this pose when we walked up and for some time after the couple of minutes we were there.  Didn't seem to move a muscle!

The French Quarter is filled with entrepreneur performers.

Did a lot of walking again today and tonight, out of energy, we ate in our hotel.  Tomorrow we plan a bus tour of the city.

Stay well.

New Year's Eve

 On our day between trips, I did some errands (like buying a new charging cable for the computer - I would have had to tear my desk apart to extract the one connected there).  Then I headed to the greenhouse to say hi to the family and crew.  They invited me to join them for lunch - David had brought in Thai food because they had a Thai crew working on the Lilies to make sure they were growing straight and not sideways.  A good boss!

The green shoots are 3 or 4 inches high now.  Growth will be fast and will need to be controlled for Easter timing.  Don't want them too tall, or too short, or blooming at the wrong time.  David and Sean will work their magic with light and heat control.

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Day one on the trip south, we reached just beyond Louisville, Kentucky.  Despite pretty constant drizzle or flurries and a high of 5C, we managed 991 kilometres, with no traffic issues.

Today, we only did 916 km, arriving in Laurel at 4 p.m.  This time we enjoyed a sunny day with a high reaching 17C, and still no traffic issues.  Along the way, Mardi found a big, stupid thing............

She really likes big, stupid things.  That's how I manage to stay in the picture 😔.

BUT!  The annual New Year's Eve Pine Cone Drop in Laurel has been discontinued!  RATS!  So we'll go out for dinner and then settle in early.

We did get to see Ben's Scotsman building on the way in, but it was closed.

As were most of the restaurants.  But fortunately, we found the Buzzard's Roost open, and the food was good.

This sign was featured in an episode where Ben was renovating the upstairs.

Happy New Year to all!

I wished daughter Barbara a Happy Birthday today and requested, and received, pictures of Great Granddaughter Rowan.  I liked this one best.

A real sweetie!

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Sleep in and stay well.

We're Home

We arrived home late last night, after a 12 plus hour travel day.  Left the resort at 7 a.m. by bus to the airport, shuttle bus from the main terminal to the plane (Sunwing doesn't get much respect at either airport apparently), shuttle bus from the remote terminal at Pearson, shuttle from Pearson to the remote parking.  It always frustrates me that you have to totally waste a day at either end of such a holiday.  I'll probably rant on that at a later date.

But we did have a wonderful time as you can see.

And the old guy too (even though I forgot to smile in this picture).

The resort was huge, beautiful and friendly.  The staff was exceptional.  All you could ask for.  Our room was lovely.

But every so often you got a dose of reality on the beach.

In total, it was everything that Mardi dreamed of with her family.  A special event - good job Grandma!

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Our next reporting will likely be from Laurel, Mississippi, the Home Town location on HGTV, where we expect to see the Pine Cone Drop on New Year's Eve.

Happy New Year everyone!