After leaving Sarasota, we went to Bob’s nephew’s home in Lutz, FL (I think! All these city names, I get confused, and of course I didn’t write it down L )  Aaron, Tracy, Logan and Megan Conrad. (Aaron is Bob’s brother, Olen’s son.)

Then we headed to Eric and Michelle Ellis’s home in High Springs, FL. They are in a rural area, with a large home and yard. Beautiful! We got to know Eric through our son Don. When Don moved back to Coeur d’Alene, Eric came with him. Eric, Shawn Ball, and Don were all friends from college. All 3 VERY gifted musically, they were on the Praise Team in church and it was such a pleasure having them ALL. Eric is a sweet heart J  He now has a big bushy beard and looks like a big teddy bear! LOL  After a while (a year maybe), Eric went to California, married his girlfriend, and carried her off to Florida, which is where Eric grew up. Eric’s Dad lives close by. And now they have little Alex, who is not so little any more. We felt like part of the family and fell in love with Michelle too.  Michelle and I have communicated over Facebook for several years now, but had never met. It was so nice to be with her in person. She’s just a nice/smart/talented in person as she was on line J  Love you guys.  We went to church with them on Sunday. Michelle played the piano and also played the special music for that Sunday. AWESOME!!  A classically trained pianist, she is very accomplished. She also plays the French horn, and who knows what else! She and Eric make a great musical pair.

So here are some pix from a walk we took with Michelle and Alex. At least you’ll get to see a little of Michelle and Alex. We went to a park that Michelle frequents. It was a most beautiful place… and I just have to share a few of the many pix I took. (How many times do you suppose I’ve said ‘beautiful’ since we’ve been blogging this trip?  WOW What an awesomely ‘beautiful’ country we live in!)

Next we traveled through the northwest corner of Florida, and on to Alabama. In Alabama we camped in the Conecuh National Forest at the Open Pond Campground. Was very nice, but we still caught some of that cold weather!

Then to Louisiana to visit New Orleans. My overall impression was chaos. Not the people, the buildings. I guess I’m a very visual person, and it’s like every one who built a building of any kind wanted it to look different from the rest. There is still evidence of the refurbishing of structures from Katrina, but not too much. In fact when we took the tour, the guide wouldn’t even talk about Katrina. He said that was 11 (I think) years ago, and 'that's over and behind us. If you want to know about Katrina, we have a very nice museum dedicated to that'. Friendly people. Once again, many, many pictures, and hard to decide what to share. So, here’s an assortment J

And now we’re in Mississippi camping, but that’s another post, along with the Everglades pictures.  Until then… bye.

The last line from my last post was… 'We didn’t mean to brag, but when everyone else seemed to be getting COLD and SNOW, we were having to dig out our shorts and tank tops' J

OK, I stand corrected. We left Florida and arrived in Alabama at the Concuh National Forrest on Jan. 5^th.  By the middle of the week it was dropping below freezing! YIKES!! We did have one part crack, but that was easily repaired with a trip to town, and after 3, 29 degree nights, we popped back up to the normal 40 degree nights. J  But, I got ahead of my self. Florida was WONDERFUL. So different than any place Bob and I have ever been, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. So, here’s the pix and a little commentary.

These pictures were taken at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. While walking around I looked up and saw the osprey above me and snapped that picture. Kinda cool J

More sights from the trip. Bob took these of a draw bridge and sail boat.

A close up of all the little shells forming the rocks.

Awwwwwwww  A heart... Isn't that sweet :)

We camped for a week in the Everglades. The Everglades is located at the southern tip of Florida, and we camped in the most southern campground in the park. Without going out to the Keys, we were about as far south as we could get.  From there we did a lot of drive around sight seeing.  First the alligators… lots of alligators!  Most of these pix are taken at an alligator farm, but a few were out in the wild... with us!

At this point I don’t have all the Everglades pictures ready. So, I will post them later and continue on with our trip. With our RV camped at the Everglades park, we took a 2 day trip to the Florida Keys. Another awesomely beautiful place J

We had reservations for the night on Key West, so the first day we drove all the way out to the end of the Keys. We had lunch here.

So many sights... so many pictures, and can only share a few :(

I love to watch birds. They are so funny :)

While Bob was sitting here, the gentleman next to him started up a conversation. It was a GOD THING! Imagine that LOL   This man was our age, and had taken his whole family on vacation to the Keys to celebrate the graduation from college of one of his daughters. Earlier in his life he'd had a bad experience with 'church people' and hadn't attended church since. He wasn't so much against God, but just didn't know what to do with these feelings he had about the church people. Bob was able to help and encourage him.

'Some' of my sunset pix. It got quite cloudy, so didn't get as many as I wanted... none of the sun sitting on the sea. But what I got are beautiful.

This cruise liner was loading up and pulled out to the left of us while we were taking sunset pix. It was BIG!

We walked around Key West A LOT and saw many interesting and beautiful things, ate good food, and just thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Before we went home (ie. the Everglades) the 2nd day, we visited the southernmost piece of real estate in the US. I planted my feet in the ocean and I can now say I've been there... done that!

You may not be able to read the caption under this pix. I'm just explaining where we are, and saying that the sun was so bright we could hardly open our eyes!  btw, I think you can click on any of my pictures and see a larger sized pix, just in case you'd like a closer up view.

It's funny, yesterday, almost a month later, we were driving in Mississippi and saw a great big fish like this! We were past it before we had hardly seen it, so didn't get any pix, but we chuckled to ourselves. It would be like having a bigger than a building deer in front of a restaurant at home. LOL 

From the Everglades, we went up the west coast of Florida to Sarasota. There, our friends Mike and Alesia let us camp out in their back yard while we continued to explore J What precious people they are. We enjoyed going to church with them and spending Christmas with them and their family. Great time! Thanks guys!!

While there, we visited Myakka state park. This a picture of Mike and Alesia and us on Christmas day, and pictures from Myakka:

The Ringling Museum was an interesting and beautiful place to visit. I didn’t take any pix inside, just outside of the cool trees and etc.

 Alesia insisted that we had to visit Siesta Beach… Oh yes, it was worth it!

OK, going to post now, with more to follow shortly… I Hope!  LOL