"RoseGarden" - - - - - - - from - nscave

You can guess by now that we made our trip safely back from the Florida Keys to Panama City Beach. I had intended to do a day by day, blow by blow entry to the blog during the return, but that proved to be difficult.

Internet Connections

Along the way internet connections at various places of lodging proved to be somewhat variable. Sometimes it was high speed as advertised, other times high speed turned out to be less than dial up. On top of that, we enjoyed our travels so much that often the time was used up just enjoying the scenery and local activities.  There was time at night to check email and news from the areas we care about and get some sleep for the next day’s run.

 

Pictures

There will be some additions to the blog and YouTube shortly, sharing some of our adventure. There are lots of stories to tell, some humorous, some not. And, not stretching it a bit, there are hundreds of pictures to sort and compile into reasonable descriptions of our journeys.

 

 

 

 

   Our trip took us through central Florida to Fort Lauderdale, down the east coast to the Keys. From the Keys through the Everglades to Naples, up the West coast of Florida to Madeira Beach, following hwy 41/98 back to Panama City Beach.

 

 

 

 

Rather than do a day by day routine I have decided to pick out some of the memorable moments that will be presented on a random basis.  For example:

 

Gators

This is my third trip to Florida, second where we stay for the winter months, and I hadn’t seen any ‘gators’ so this year I was determined to find some.  I didn’t have to look to far.

 

 

 

   Traveling through a portion of the Florida Everglades we found some. Hundreds of them, swimming, and lying in the sun, looking as harmless as lizards. You know there will be some stories and pictures featuring the gators at the Oasis.

 

 

 

 

 

Beaches and Sun

 

 

 

   And there were normal things too, like endless beaches, with temperatures in the high 70s F. With gardens half way to harvest time, and beaches populated with people, it was hard to realize at times that ‘back home’ snow, wind and ice were the order of the day.

  (Madeira Beach)

 

 

 

Other Local Stories

And even though we were on the road for a week, things at our temporary home base at Panama City Beach continue to move on, generating more pictures and more stories that we will be able to share. Today we went on a stroll out on the Pier Park Pier, which allows a different perspective of the Panama City Beach skyline.

Texting while driving is a hot topic locally as they decide whether to have a law banning it or leave it as it is. During our travels I did see a lady driving beside me at 70 mph holding her cell phone in both hands texting, while steering with the bottom parts of her palms.

Canadian bashing has become popular this year at Panama City Beach. The local newspaper carries articles and comments daily about how Canadians shouldn’t complain about the $5.50 proposed charge for entry into the US for air travelers. There are constant complaints that Canadians are meagre tippers and the air seems to be we should stay away.

So once the pictures and material is sorted out, there will be lots of input for RoseGarden. It will just be a problem for this one man endeavour to stay focused sometimes. Mardi Gras is about to happen in various locations, the Tyndall air show is scheduled for the latter part of March, and the bikinis are getting more numerous day by day.

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This work by NSCAVE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License