Florida
When we left Ft. Lauderdale, we crossed over to the west coast of Florida and stopped in Ft. Meyers to see our granddaughter Katie. We met for lunch and then she showed us her apartment, the most memorable aspect of which — the apartment, not our visit — was her vast collection of shoes.
- Katie
- Katie’s shoes (stored in stairway)
- Shoes on a tree
Georgia
On our way up the coast, we stopped in Brunswick to see Tusen Takk II one last time. It was raining when we arrived. We briefly debated whether to descend the ramp and see if the new owners were on board. They were. I knocked on the hull, and when the new owner came out, I asked if he knew of a Krogen I could buy. He didn’t recognize me, and said “no, you might ask around down the dock.” I replied, “I sold you this one!”. He apologized and invited us in. I explained we were just there to have a final look, and that we needed to get down the road. I wished him well, Barb took our picture, and that concluded our association with the sea and my deep regrets of its termination.
- Chuck & new owner Luke, who has renamed the boat “Belle of the West”
We stopped in Savannah for a time, altering our usual routine of staying in a midtown motel and instead booking a bed & breakfast deep in the woods south of Savannah and owned by a former colleague of Barb: Randy Brannen and his wife. While in Savannah we visited with friends Dick and Karen Munson, Steve and Beth Ellis, and Mike and Iris Dayoub. Iris kindly loaned me her massive 600 mm lens so I could do a little bird photography on Skidaway Island. I loved the focal length, but concluded that the lens was too heavy for a little boy like me. And of course, we spent time with daughter Danielle and granddaughters Abigail and Kristen.
- Granddaughter Abigail
- We looked up a live oak that fills a block
- Wood Stork taken with Iris’s lens
- Red-tailed Hawk
- Egrets in the marsh
- Cotton field
- Closeup of cotton head
We exchanged rental cars and drove up to Atlanta to spend time with daughter Nellie, her husband Mike, and their sons Michael and Connor. While in Atlanta Barb had lunch with some of her former colleagues.
- Barb had lunch with former colleagues
- We visited the High Museum of Art
- Nellie, Michael & Mike Jr.
- The trees were aflame in Nellie’s neighborhood
Arizona
We flew out of Atlanta to Phoenix, AZ, where we had stashed our CR-V at the home of Jeff Quackenbush, friend of Bill and Bruce.
- Quatro amigos: Bill, Chuck, Buck & Bruce
Bill and Bruce were extraordinarily helpful. They had gotten our RV out of storage in Phoenix while we were in Georgia and moved it to Lake Pleasant north of Phoenix where we all met to do some camping. While there I took a few pictures with my new Nikon D500 camera.
- Coot
- Cactus Wren
On the 26th Bill and Colleen and Barb and I drove down to the Yuma area where we left the car at the Mexico/USA border and walked into Mexico where we all had our teeth cleaned and all got new eye glasses. While in the area, Bill and Colleen showed us their former playground in the sand tunes where they ran their dune buggies in the old days.
On Thanksgiving day, back in Phoenix, we feasted at the home of Bruce and Jan, along with what seemed like half of Phoenix. (They had a lot of guests.)
- Jan, our hostess
- Buck & Barb
- Bruce, Bill, & 2 ladies
On December 1, Bill & Colleen and Barb & I took our respective RVs down to Rincon Country West RV Resort in Tucson, where we were initially booked for a three-month stay. But an account of how that worked out will have to wait for the next edition of this blog.