Miscellany Tuesday

Good morning all! While I've a few more photographs from the camping trip, I will warn you up front that there will be lots of meandering today.

Bruce mixed it up a little this year as to where he put the skeleton, our lone Halloween decoration.

Say hello to the Hunter Moon from last week! I say our lone decoration because I happened to drive by a house that goes all out and probably has been featured in Camera Crazy in the past. What they have done this year is so mind boggling it took me four photographs to get it all in. It does make a person wonder, if the outside looks like this, what could the inside of the house look like.

Here's the rest of the front yard if you can call it that.

The driveway has more,

with the ladder there, does that mean they aren't finished with that clown house? Finally, adjacent to the front door they've done this.

It also begs the question, where does one store all of this? Seriously unbelievable in person.

As a cleanser, after all that craziness, let's take a look at this beautiful sunrise from a few days ago. For months during the summer, the sky was blah, but now, oh my goodness!

How did we get so lucky to have such an outstanding view from nearly every window? 

Before beginning this post, I spent some time on the phone with the office of my first orthopedist. Complaining bitterly I was. In the last week a bill, dated 5/10 for $129.00, came in the mail. Ordinarily I pay any bill as soon as it comes, but this one just rubbed me the wrong way. Rummaging around in my blog I re-read the posts from that time period and I just got madder and madder thinking how he ignored all of my complaints, brushing them aside, and telling me to "push through the pain." Had he actually listened to me and wondered why it hurt me so much, perhaps he would have discovered that I needed something else aside from platitudes. After discovering that Dr. Patel had to re-break my wrist during surgery because it had not healed correctly, I somewhat felt vindicated, however, that does nothing to change my outcome, does it? My wrist will never be right again. Remember how excited I was to be going back to wearing my watch again? Because my wrist is no longer flat, no matter how tight the watch is, it slides off to the side making it difficult to be very functional. Sigh....

Back to the camping trip, we began our drive home by heading straight into Tallahassee where we drove by Florida State for the first time since Jonathan's graduation 15 or so years ago. Because the traffic was so heavy there was no stopping when we drove by the capitol building. Those awnings are really something.

It almost looks like a Palm Beach resort rather than a state capitol! Continuing on 27, for quite a few miles, the forest floor alongside the highways were filled with Goldenrod which was so beautiful! We may not get changing leaves, but seeing so many, many wildflowers on this trip was nearly as good.

Following a stop, well we kept the car running all the while, at a potential future campground, Bruce decided that if we wanted to get home before dark, which we very much did, he'd have to get on the highway. Well that was not in the least bit fun as we stopped multiple times along the route due to traffic.

Because we rarely face any traffic, I was going crazy. Getting on the Turnpike was nearly as bad as we sat and sat while the sun sank lower and lower, actually glowing on the back of this truck. How about that advertisement on the back? 

Truckers, or the lack thereof, are wreaking havoc all over the world. Because I will read this again in the coming years it should be noted that everywhere is facing staff shortages no matter what they pay. This morning I went downtown to the library about 9:15 only to discover a taped sign on the glass saying that the hours were 10-6 and closed on Sunday. Since when? Calling them after 10:00. I learned that it is a result of Covid and being short staffed.  Covid, Covid, Covid...please go AWAY!

We returned on Friday night, yes after dark, and on Saturday night I did something I've not done in years and that is drive at night. Because we didn't want to chance the battery dying I drove the MINI to a celebration that Michelle had put together for Fallon's graduation. Meeting at Armandos, we waited for Bill and Fallon to arrive and when they did we all did the surprise party thing..

If ever I wanted a photo to turn out this was it, and sadly it is poor, however, in spite of the poor quality, the emotion is there AND Bill is smiling in a photograph!!! Only our family will get this, but believe me, it is pretty much epic.

That is Fallon's mother to her right. A great time was had by all and I managed to drive home safely only to then go to Michelle and David's place and do something else that we had not done for years and that is stay up until 2:00 in the morning! Woo hoo!

Before leaving we purchased a new piece of art at the Winter Park Autumn Art Festival where only Florida artists exhibit. I'd seen this man's work before, admiring it then, and admiring it now,  especially when I learned that the one we bought was painted with Covid as the inspiration. Thinking it would be look better with a frame, Bruce built one over at Bill's house, doing the finish work out back.

The artist from Longwood, does not title his pieces, instead leaving it up to the purchaser. As such, I'm titling this one, "Love in the Time of Corona".

Since last I wrote we've had another interesting day trip which I'll get to next time. In the meantime, something happened this morning that made me so happy. I came across a post from June 2010 when I wrote about how our friend Steve was just beginning dating a woman named Barb who we hoped would be the one! She cried when I shared it with her this morning because indeed she was the one, and they have been happily married ever after. Did I tell you Steve was in his late 50's and never married before? She's a special lady, that's for sure.

And that my dear readers is why I love having a long time blog when I can relive those real time memories and share them with others. 

your friend,

Gail