Happy Thanksgiving

Yesterday we took Andy to a doggy motel so we could be at Di & Ricks' house by 6:30 this morning! From there we drove straight to the Florida Turnpike and drove to Homestead (south of Miami). At Homestead, you have to get onto US 1 to get to Key West. It's about 30 miles from there to Key Largo (the first Key) and 138 miles to Key West (the furthest south that you can drive to). US 1 is a narrow 2 lane road (kinda of like US 95 except there's water on BOTH sides of US 1. It's slow going, but a beautiful drive.

It's actually cooled down here, too. I think it only got up to about 80 degrees today so it was really nice. It's supposed to cool down to 73 tonight (yes, we have the air conditioning on!) The fence in the first picture is actually to keep the alligators off the roadbed! That's the Everglades behind the fence (I missed getting the picture of the "alligator crossing" sign that we saw.) The second picture just shows some of the keys that group to form the Florida Keys. They actually started with mangrove trees growing in the water. After awhile they start collecting soil and sediment and finally form a key (this process takes many hundreds of years.)

I had to get a picture of the boys watching the birds on Duval street as we walked by. The were so cute! The cage just behind Koby has a snake in it! I also got a picture of a guy with a bird on his shoulder when I was taking a picture of lots of flowers (I didn't see the guy until after I took the picture.)

Key West has lots of fun houses build in the Victorian style. Lots of the houses have gingerbread molding on them, one even has little
gingerbread men in a row all around. It's really a fun house to see!

We got to ride on the Conch Train with the kids all around Key West today. It's a good introduction to the Key and you get a lot of history about the Key while riding on the train. The boys were really excited about the ride. Those are supposed to be engineer hats they're wearing.

Howard and Rick didn't even make very many snide remarks about the tour. We went to both ends of the key and all around the older area of the key. Key West is 5 miles long and 1 mile wide and one of the biggest keys. There's lots of military on the key, mostly Naval Air Base. There's a good harbor on the north side of the key too. On the south side there's some beach, but no harbor because of all the reefs around the island.

This is a building built by the federal government to their specifications. It has a sloped roof so the snow will slide off easily and there are 17 fireplaces in the building so no one will get cold in the winter when the temperatures drop into the 70s! Our tax dollars at work more than 100 years ago! The statue in front of the building was really cool too.

To finish our day we got to eat dinner in a really cute little restaurant that sits under the 7 mile bridge. We seated on the patio facing west with the bridge behind us. As you can see, the sunset was beautiful tonight!

Tomorrow we'll celebrate Thanksgiving with a barbecue on our deck at the motel/suite we rented on Long Key. (The deck looks out onto the swimming pool and the Gulf of Mexico.) We'll go swimming tomorrow afternoon. We may just hang around and swim on Friday too. That's what you do in the Keys -- just hang around!!!!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving. We miss all of our family and friends and we'll be thinking about you tomorrow!

High surf warning

There was a high surf warning on Friday so we had to take a trip out to the jetty to see what it looked like. The waves were high enough that they went over the top of the jetty a few times (Andy did not appreciate getting sprayed!) The tanker out from the rocks pretty much stayed there for a few days, probably keeping boats from venturing out to sea. When we drove across the island, we noticed any time a boat tried to leave the marina the sheriff's boat was right there. There was one small craft out just beyond the rocks, but the sheriff's boat went out and they came right back in!

This shot is of the sheriff's boat heading out to intercept the little boat out past the rocks.

This is both boats coming back in.

This shot is from the shore looking towards the jetty we were standing on. I was actually standing above the sea wall which is about 4 feet hight. The waves were pretty impressive! It was a really beautiful day though with temperatures in the 70s and a breeze to cool us off. We left here so we could go swimming at the RV park.

Happy Halloween

Since my last post (the day before my birthday) we have been busy! Howard took me out to a Texas steakhouse in Tupelo, MS for dinner on my birthday. I had a huge rib eye (with leftovers) and it was super yummy. We had some work done on the coach while we were in Tupelo and then we headed south. As we were going across Alabama and Georgia they were right in the middle of the cotton harvest. The huge things in this picture are cotton bales. They lift them onto huge flatbed trucks to haul them to the processing plant and only one bale per truck. It was really neat to watch them!

Just after we got here we were going on the on ramp to go visit the kids south of us and I had to take a picture of these thunder heads. They get really dramatic on the coast and I thought the contrast to the beautiful sunny day and the clouds was really cool. We didn't get any rain from these clouds, but there is a sea breeze every day so it helps keep it feeling cooler. We've had temperatures in the 80s since we got here so we're spending every afternoon in the pool to keep cool! I cooled into the 60s the last two nights though (cooling trend?!) A few of the people we met 2 years ago are here already, but most people will start arriving in December so the park
is pretty quiet.

This is our home for the next five months. Yes, the door is open, it's about 6:30 so it's starting to cool down some! (It's down to 76 outside.) Next week we get to watch Koby and Dean while Di heads to Burley so that should be a busy and fun time for us!

Branson to West Memphis

The Ozarks are beautiful and we're glad we got to spend some time here! When we got to Branson, all the hills were green; when we left they were a rainbow of color. The hills and all the hardwood trees are really something! The drive today was beautiful: lots of hills and small towns and we even passed a cotton field! We're camped right on the Mississippi here in West Memphis tonight. The picture of Howard and Andy is taken from our RV park close to our RV and that's Memphis across the river. Tomorrow we head to Tupelo for the weekend. Then next week we'll get some work done on the coach . This sure is a beautiful country!

More Branson

Branson has been lots of fun, even with all the hills! We even got to drive down the "strip" a few times. It's windy and hilly, very unlike the strip in Vegas! The weather has been wonderful the whole time we've been here with lows in the 40s and 50s and highs in the 80s. We've done lots of shopping, but we haven't found anything we can't live without so we haven't bought anything (that's good shopping!) We've gotten to eat out a few time and had very good food when we did. We've seen two more concerts: The Osmonds on Friday night and Don Williams on Saturday night. We'd forgotten we liked their music so much! They were both really good shows!

Today, being Sunday, we went to Sacrament Meeting, Sunday School, and Relief Society. We were a bit surprised to be sitting 2 rows behind Wayne Osmond during Sacrament Meeting. Then I went into the cultural hall for Sunday School and found an empty chair. Wayne and Kathy Osmond sat down right next to me! I got to introduce myself as a visitor from Moscow, Idaho during Sunday School (and after class, I shook Wayne's hand and told him one of the shows we had to go to was theirs and that we really enjoyed it!) Walking to Relief Society, I was stopped by Danell Tennison, she served part of her mission in Pullman, Washington! It was really fun to talk with her. I sat next to her in Relief Society and Kathy Osmond sat on the other side of me. They were really nice to a visitor!! After Relief Society, Danell asked me if we'd like to go to another show. Seems she had a free pass to the Branson Variety Theater, where she works and wanted to know if I'd be interested! We're going to see "Broadway, The Star-Spangled Celebration" Wednesday. Thanks Danell. It was an eventful Sunday! (Yes, Jay was there too. I saw him in the hall after Relief Society.) What a week!

Idaho to Branson

I haven't had any comments on my blog for about six months, but I'll update a bit anyway for anyone out there who is interested. We had a great summer visiting family and getting to see the Pacific Northwest! No matter where we roam, we're still Idahonians at heart!
While in Boise, we vegged with Loriann in the coach (this is Andy's favorite spot!) We also got to take a trip to Idaho City with Loriann before we left the area. It was really got to visit with Mom and Kathy and Jane & Fred while we were in the Boise area and we're looking forward to visiting again next summer and getting ready for the BIG reunion!
This is one shot of Idaho City, it's the Boise Basin Museum. The Boise Basin was at one time the biggest city in Idaho with LOTS of mining in the area. With the gold rush in the 1860s, Idaho was made a territory so the Union Army could have the revenue from the gold mines.
When we left Idaho we drove through Wyoming. Wyoming is a lot of antelope (but you really have to look or you'll miss seeing them!)
Lots of open country and lots of snow fences. (When you see this many snow fences, you know you don't want to be anywhere near this area when its snowing and blowing!!!)
Lots of windmills (usually means lots of wind!)
Lots of hills and changing colors. (We crossed the Continental Divide at 8000 + feet and there had already been a frost in September!)
And lots of trains! Our first stop after Wyoming was Denver, CO where we visited with my cousin Thom. We tried to remember when we last saw each other and figured it was probably in 1968! That left us a little catching up to do!! At Denver, we left any mountains and headed east through east Colorado and Kansas. Kansas is flat! We spent General Conference weekend in Neveda, MO where the P.E.O. Cotty College is located. It's a larger campus than I thought it would be and very pretty!
After Nevada, we headed to Branson where we'll be until 14 October. This is a view of Branson from one of its many hills. Lots of hills (one of them had a sign at the bottom saying 15% grade!!!) It's a really challenging town to drive in and because it is so hilly, it's spread out over a large area to accommodate the hills.
The first concert we went to was a Chuck wagon concert with the Sons of the Pioneers. They were great and the food was really good too! Other concerts we'll go to while we're here are the Osmonds, Don Williams, and the Showboat tour. Should be a fun few days!

While driving to Branson Landing (the shopping area) we got behind this pickup truck and I had to take a picture! That's a pumpkin in the bed of his pickup!! (The license plate says Illinois.) We'd never seen a pumpkin this big before!!!!! Bye for now.

New Horton Family Picture

Thought this was too good a picture not to share!