We left Florida, sad to leave family, but ready to get home.  Traveling up the east coast of Florida, we finally saw the sea.  In Orlando, it’s all about Disney and the traffic is horrible.  Driving up the coast was a little less crowded and we drove through small towns and over several bridges.

The sky was so blue.

Past NASA.  It was further away from where we were staying than I thought.  One year, when our children were small, we took my mother and daddy here and did the tour.  It was so interesting.   Back in the sixties, space travel was new and exciting and whenever there was a launch, we would gather in the gymnasium at school and watch it on tv.  I remember I held a boy’s hand for the first time when Alan Shepard took off in space!    He, the boy, not Alan, was sitting beside me and grabbed my hand and I let him hold it.   I thought I was in love.

I love the ocean.

Over marshes and rivers.

Mailbox posts. Some looked like dolphins and some manatees.

Just wanted to show you my arm after being in the hospital.  One young man had a hard time finding my veins.  Stuck me a few times.

More bridges.  Until finally we reached a place where we could get to the beach.  I could not leave Florida without at least sticking my feet in the ocean.  This land lubber needed that.

And there it was.  Very few people on the beach that day. A couple of fishermen and a woman with her little boy.  The water was cold, but that little boy played in it like it was as warm as bath water.

The waves were rolling in.

Just a picture to prove we were really there. It all seems like a dream of sorts.   So much happened in just a few days.   I just wish I had felt better.

Someone built a tiny castle in the sand and embellished it with sea shells.

But we had to continue on.

Down streets under trees dripping with Spanish moss. That’s what says the south to me.  I love Spanish moss.

Past a merry-go-round in one town.

Until we saw this sign. Don’t believe it, folks.  Bags of oranges were way more than a dollar, but we bought a bag and the oranges are nothing like we get in the grocery stores in Indiana. They are so much better.  Juicy and sweet.  The men running this particular stand were salesmen.  They were constantly showing people things and offering samples.    There were the usual tourist gifts. Coconut heads, alligator heads(I wondered if they were real) and t-shirts.

The first night we stopped here to eat.  The food was so good, but I think my eyes were bigger than my stomach and I could barely eat what they brought me.   I think my appetite was still not back, but everything I ate was good.

Just thought this house was unusual.  I like houses of all sorts. There are many wonderful antebellum houses in the south.

Does this not make you think of Scarlette O’Hara and Gone With the Wind?   I can see her now, running off this porch holding up her full skirts.

Some of the houses were not so grand, but interesting just the same.

Wild flowers planted beside the highway.  They went for miles.  Wonder if they got their seed from Wildseed Farm in Texas?

Almost like a Monet painting.

Out of the sunshine state and back into Autumn once again.

The trees were beautiful.

One town had a Confederate burial ground.

So many died in that terrible war.

Sadly this was how things were back in the day.   This was in Madison, Georgia.  It truly was a beautiful town.  General Sherman, in his march through the south, evidently didn’t hit this town because all the antebellum houses were intact.

Some of the towns had places like this in the center of town.

One honored the Cherokee Indians.

We even saw Mulberry Street, but there were no parades.

If you were a child growing up in the fifties, you probably saw this movie on the Walt Disney Show one evening.   It’s about Uncle Remus, Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear and Brer Fox.  A long time ago, a little boy say at the knee of former slaves and listened to the stories they would tell.   One day these stories were written down for all to read and then Walt Disney loved them so much, he made a movie about them.

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I bought a book.  There were books written in the dialect of the former slaves and how they told the stories, but it was hard to understand, so I bought one I could read.   This is not the original author.

This is Pat who worked for the museum. She was a font of information about the author and all things Uncle Remus.   Such a sweet lady.

Brer Bear and his missus on the doors of the bathrooms!

We enjoyed our trip, but were glad to be home in our own bed.

 

 

And it was time to put up the Christmas tree and get ready for another holiday.

Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving and a restful weekend.  Bye.

My last two posts were pretty sad, but today I will write about our vacation to Florida and Walt Disney World where we did have some good times before I got ill.

David and I took three boys to Legoland, which has nothing to do with Disney I learned.   I always thought Legoland was in Disney, but it’s a whole other park.  I took no pictures, but it was a fun day.  It was hard to believe the things made out of Legos.  The city of San Francisco was amazing.   Whole cars made of Legos. And of course there were rides, which I did not go on. David took the boys on the roller coasters.

The first day at Disney we were taken to an African restaurant.   We ordered this wonderful bread with all kinds of dipping sauces.

It was so nice to be with family. That is what I was looking forward to the most.  Just being all together.

 

 

Trying different food one has never tried before.

Outside there was a woman dressed in African garb playing on a drum.  Very listlessly, it seemed to me, but how long can one beat on a drum and not get tired?  Anyway, we were looking through the shop in the restaurant(there are shops everywhere in Disney) and we missed our son-in-law.  David came in and said he was playing the drum outside.  We went outside and to our amazement, there he sat playing the drum.

He’s been in a band and can really play.  I could have listened for a long time.  He could get a job here playing the drum.

We went for a ride on the monorail to the Polynesian village.

Gorgeous flowers everywhere in Disney.

Inside the hotel.  Of course there was a shop.

We had some serious shoppers with us. I am not a shopper anymore. I use to love to shop, but I don’t need or want much any longer, so I don’t enjoy just looking.   There are secret Mickey Mouses hidden all over the park.  There was a secret Mickey embedded in the floor here. The boys were having fun looking for them all.

The next day at the park is when it all went downhill for me. I was not feeling at all well and I literally drug myself through Animal Kingdom.  David and I walked through the zoo area and I  had to keep sitting down. You know the rest of the story.  I wish there were a do over for Walt Disney World, but I’m not even sure I want to ever go to Florida gain!

Our son is a Disneyholic.  He bought an annual pass for himself, his girlfriend and her son.  They have already been to Disney World several times.   He’s like a kid in a candy store.  And this is something he bought while on our trip.

Yes, he is the Grinch.  Not really.  And another thing he bought.

A Santa hat that lights up.

We stayed in a very nice house while in Florida in a gated community.

It had a swimming pool and hot tub which the boys used a lot.  After a full day at Disney, they were still energetic and swam until bedtime.   I was wishing I had all that energy.

When the week was over we packed up and started for home.  There must be a word for a feeling that you thought something would never end, but you were sad when it ended.  I was sad to leave despite it all because after all, I got to spend some time with family and that is what it’s all about.  Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Holy moly.   July 4th has already come and past and we are knee deep in Summer and it is speeding toward Autumn.     I don’t even feel like we celebrated the fourth even though we had a picnic and pool party and we saw fireworks from our back porch for a week.  One evening the fireworks were every bit as good as our city puts on every year and we didn’t have to listen to the awful music they play during their fireworks.   Someone had a lot of fireworks because they were exploding for days before the fourth and days afterward. Belle and Molly did not like it much.  I was pretty much over fireworks by the fourth, too.

I did manage to make some patriotic looking sugar cookies. My grandkids love these.

It was a spur of the moment thing which is pretty much how I roll anymore.

David and I celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary on the 7th.  Fifty years!  How can that be?  We have gone through a lot together in those fifty years.   Joys, sorrows, tragedies, accidents, blessings and more.  I wouldn’t want to live it all over again, but it’s been a very interesting fifty years.  We have had a lot of fun too and gotten to travel a lot and since we both love to travel, it’s been great.    I think about starting all over again and I think, “Nope, don’t want to go there.”   I look to the future and I know what my eternity holds so it’s all good.  There will probably be more good times as well as bad times. In fact, my sister- in -law, my oldest brother’s wife, just passed away this morning.   She has lived without Jack for several years so I can imagine the reunion in Heaven today.    She was one of the last few people who remembered me when I was a kid.  She married my brother when I was five or six years old.    I use to spend time at their house when I was a kid and play with their next door neighbor’s kids.  Carroll was always so nice to me.  I will miss her, but I look forward to seeing her again one day.

Anyway, David and I celebrated our fiftieth by going to West Baden Springs in southern Indiana.  In the early part of last century some businessman got the idea to build a big hotel surrounding the mineral springs that were there.  People would come from all over to drink the water and bathe.     The hotel was many things during the century.  It was a hospital,  a Jesuit school,  soldiers were housed there during one of the wars.  The Jesuits blocked up all the Springs. The hotel fell into disrepair.  Then several years ago, someone decided to resurrect the building once more and bring it back to the grandeur of its heyday.    My son-in-law’s place of business provided all the new carpet throughout the hotel and repaired much of the tile that was damaged or missing.  Here are a few pictures of the hotel now.

Wish I had brought my swimsuit.

Wish I looked like this in a swimsuit!

The carpets were beautiful.

I never could get a full picture of the hotel. It is huge and very beautiful. This picture does not do it justice at all.

This was in the atrium, a huge room with sofas and chairs where you could sit and look at all the beauty.

This was a balcony looking over the atrium.

Statues all around the atrium.

There was a billiard room where you could play billiards.

At one time they had shoeshine men and men would sit on this marble stand and get their shoes shined.

The halls to the rooms were luxurious.

There were flower gardens everywhere. It was so beautiful outside.

At one time there was a barbershop in the hotel.

These are some of the dishes they used in the restaurant and for room service back in the day.

Some of the commemorative plates they sold.

Big, wide porches you could sit on and watch the world go by.  I didn’t get to do this. Must go back.

Fountains on the vast lawn.

These lights lined the drive.

Now David and I are more Best Western and Comfort Inn kind of travelers. We don’t stay in luxury hotels, well, not ever.   But this was our fiftieth anniversary and we splurged for a wonderful night at a wonderful place and we are so glad we did.

 

When we got in our room there were flowers on the table and I thought, “How nice of the hotel to have flowers in the room.”  Then I saw another vase of flowers and thought, “Wow, they really go overboard here.”   I lay down on the bed and David said, “Aren’t you going to look at the flowers?”  And I said, “I looked at them, aren’t they pretty?”  And then David said, “Aren’t you going to read the card?”  and I said, “There’s a card?”  Then  I read the card and realized David had had flowers sent to the room. Oh, my.  Then I read a card next to the other flowers that read “Happy Anniversary” and we both thought they were from the hotel.   Then I found a card behind those flowers and discovered the second vase of flowers were from our children so I called our oldest son to thank him and he asked us if we liked the chocolate covered cherries and I said we hadn’t gotten any.  He said there were supposed to be twenty-five flowers in the vase and twenty-five chocolate covered cherries for David in the room.  Hmmmm.

We left to do some exploring around the hotel and when we got back to our room there was a plate with twenty-five chocolate covered cherries waiting.   I think our son did some calling.

That same day we went to an elephant ranch.  Yes, elephants right smack dab in the middle of the country in southern Indiana.  These are rescue elephants who spend their Summers in Indiana and their Winters in Florida.   I was so excited about getting up close and personal with them.  While we waited our turn to see the elephants we looked at the other animals in the petting zoo they had there.

Goats.

Mama kangaroo.

Baby kangaroo.

A tortoise who really wanted out of his cage.

There were giraffes. This one was slobbering so badly and throwing his slobber several feet from his pen.   I stood waaay back from this guy.  Or girl.  I don’t know.

Giraffes sure do have a pretty coat.

And my all time favorite was there at the petting zoo.

 

 

 

 

A chicken who didn’t seem all that thrilled about being caged with the goats.

Finally our time came to get on the bus to ride to where the elephants were and this is the funny part.  The elephants were probably a block away from where we were. We could have walked there just as easily.  We laughed about that.

We all sat on bleachers while a man told us all about elephants.  He takes care of these elephants both in Indiana and Florida and use to take care of elephants in India.  He knew all about elephants.  They are such majestic creatures.

What kind of people kill these animals just for their ivory tusks?  It’s terrible.   Don’t buy anything made with ivory.

These creatures are extremely intelligent and once they have met you, they will never forget you. I tried to be sure one of the elephants got to know me. I hope my image is imprinted on her mind forever.     It was so amazing to be in the same room with three of these wonderful animals.    I got to pet them and they have very thick, stiff hairs on their bodies.    I told the lady she was blessed to get to work with elephants every day and she said it gave her great joy.

When evening came we sat in the atrium at the hotel and listened to sixties and seventies music played by these guys.

They were really good. They sang the Everly Brothers’ song, “Dream” and David and I sang along with them.   Made me feel like I was a teen-ager again.  Ha.

At the end of the day we were really tired and went to our room where this very comfortable bed awaited us.

And should I have needed to call someone from the bathroom, there was a phone nearby!

We had a suite and I had to walk through two rooms to get to the bathroom.  I was hoping I wouldn’t get lost during the night.

I don’t usually sleep well the first night in a new bed, but David and I both fell fast asleep and slept all night.   In fact, when I went to take a shower and came back to the room, David had fallen asleep already.  So much for romance!  Haha.

And when we checked out the following morning, someone had paid for our room.  Wow.  What a wonderful anniversary we had.

Here’s to anniversaries and grand hotels. Bye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the last things we did on Dauphin island was tour the fort that was on its Eastern most end.   This fort was here long before civilization crowded in.  The men had no stores from which to buy their food, so they depended on the oysters, fish and alligators for their meals.  It must have been a long, lonely tour of duty as there was not much to do but guard the coast, eat, sleep and find food each day.   Their sleeping arrangements were not the best either.

Hopefully feather mattresses were put on these narrow beds.

Or maybe they just laid down on this and covered up with a thin blanket.

This must have been an officer’s room as he had the fortune to have a fireplace to keep him warm at night.

There were many hand written letters home to family and they typed them up so we could read them as many of the words were hard to read and many were misspelled.   Notice this guy received some shirts from his wife, but the wristbands were too tight!  There were many  letters like this and I could have stayed and read them all, but we had more to see.

Another military man looking at quarters in which he is very happy he was never quartered.   But he had to sleep out in the woods a lot so it wasn’t much better.  He didn’t have to hunt for food, though.

This is another place I wish we could have stayed longer, but we had a ferry to catch.

Out to sea.

Past pelicans and seagulls resting on rocks in the bay.

Past oil rigs that looked somewhat alien in this scenery.

We were driving to Destin, Florida in hopes of spending a day at the beach before we headed north, but near Fort Walton our car starting bucking like a horse in a rodeo.  It would run well for a while until we stopped at a light and starting up, it would start bucking again.  Thankfully, we made it to our motel without hitting one red light after I said a prayer.   We found a repair shop and took it in.  Of course they could find nothing wrong. “Bring it back in in the morning,” They said so we did. David left the car running so the repairman could witness what was happening.  It was a relatively simple fix, but we missed our beach time. So on north we drove.

This will mean nothing to anyone but those who attend my church.  Our pastor talks about how he was saved in Piney Grove Baptist Church and wouldn’t you know it. We drove right past it!  I had to get a picture. There was a man there we hoped knew Brother Bailey, but he was just visiting the cemetery there and didn’t know him.

Then we found this wonderful museum of Alabama history.

I can’t even begin to show you all the pictures I took and how much was in this little museum, but it was wonderful.

Rooms set up to look like long ago.

So many antique quilts.  Many I didn’t recognize the pattern.

Set up for a quilting bee but…..

The quilters were on break.

This hat and purse were made from corn husks.

An old baby bed.  Kept the mosquitoes and flies off baby.

Besides the museum. there were buildings to see.

A general store that was full of old general store stuff.

A church heated by an old cast iron stove.

Lit by kerosene lamps. I told David it would be wonderful to decorate this church for Christmas with a tree and holly and have the lamps lit, the stove heating the room and having a church service at night. It would be magical.

And Pastor David said, “Yes, that would be nice.”

There was an old chicken house, but no chickens.

A covered bridge and several other houses to see.   And then it was time to move on.

Through more little southern towns with beautiful houses with big front porches.

Until we came to another town where we found this park.  Another place off the beaten path.  Not a tourist trap, but well worth seeing.

Over a bridge…

To a beautiful falls.  It was roaring like Niagra.

History tells us that an Indian maiden, betrothed to a man she did not want to marry because she was in love with another, jumped to her death at these falls.  No woman should ever have to marry someone she is not madly in love with.

I would have probably done the same thing if I were being forced to marry someone I did not love.

Back on the road again and what do I see ahead???????

We passed it, David, go back!

I can’t believe it. It’s a Haunted Chicken House!  Opens in October.  Road trip!!

So many cars with chickens on the top.  There was a big building there where the haunted part was, but I was loving seeing all these cars with the chickens.  So funny.   And I can’t even tell you what it’s near so we probably could never find it again.

Many times serendipitous things happen to us. Like when David missed his turn in a town and right at that very moment when he knew he had missed it, we saw to our left a part.  This park had log cabins on its grounds and a walking path.  “Let’s go in!”  And we did.  I walked  and looked at all there was to see.

A bridge to walk and fountains.

A log cabin with plaques of “dead mothers,”  There were a lot of them.

Another old cabin. I love cabins.  I would love to live in one.

There was a little free lending library there where you could take a book and leave one.  There was a book I really wanted to take, but I didn’t have one to leave so I passed it by.   The paths in the park wove round and round and it really was so easy to walk a mile without even thinking about it.  I walked around for quite a while an met this man walking his macaw.

He told me he walks it every day.  His name is Bobby.  The macaw, that is.  This guy is an old Navy man.    That bird was so tame, it just walked on his arm and sometimes over his shoulders and back to the other arm and he talked as it did it like it was the most normal thing in the world. You meet the nicest people and their birds while walking in a park!

Coming through Kentucky, we stopped at this Lincoln memorial.  There are exactly 56 steps up to the memorial.  The age President Lincoln was when he was assassinated.   So young.

This log cabin was inside the memorial. At one time it was believed the Lincolns lived in this cabin, but in recent years and with testing of the logs, they learned the cabin was too new to be of that time.  So it’s kept as a memory of log cabins.

We walked this wooden walkway back down.

There was  a little museum where we watched a movie about Lincoln’s life.  It told that although we have learned that Abraham Lincoln’s family was very poor, they were actually middle class and very probably upper middle class at that time in history as they had been able to buy a farm.  Sadly that farm was lost because the deal had not been done legally by the seller.   They bought another farm and it was lost too.  Evidently Abe’s father wasn’t too good at making deals.

I found this picture of Lincoln made from pennies very interesting.

The Lincolns probably did get water from a spring here on the property.

Then it was time to get home driving through rain over the Ohio River in Louisville.

We are in Indiana!  Yay!

And back to home sweet home.

To one of the prettiest gardens I’ve seen except for Bellingrath Gardens.   And I didn’t miss any of the blooms.

The magnolias were magnificent.

The daffodils had not faded.

The azalea was as pretty as any I had seen down south.

And the redbud was bursting with bloom.  It was good to be home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And David was so glad to get home because he was starting to look like that old man in “Up.”   Sorry I don’t know how to turn this picture, so lay on your side and look at it.  We have laughed so hard at this.   He did this playing with his cellphone one night.

Here’s to traveling and all the sights we’ve seen. Bye.

David and I love to travel.  We have been in every state in our country except for Hawaii for David and Hawaii and Rhode Island for me.  Some of the states we have visited several times. We love the west.  But we love the south, north and east also.  It was hard deciding where to go this year. Since we have not spent a lot of time in Mississippi except the time when my brother and his family lived there, we decided to travel that state to the Gulf.  We also planned a stop in a town where one of our favorite television shows is filmed.

I was having mixed feelings about leaving my pets this time as our favorite pet sitters have closed their business.  They are older than us, so I was not surprised that they had decided to do so, but I was worried at finding a new pet sitter. Then someone suggested a girl who attends our church so I called her and she came and visited and I at once felt calm about leaving my dogs and chickens with her.  The dogs loved her the first time they met her.  As dogs are very good judges of people, I knew she would be very good to them. She is a really sweet girl and very good with animals as she works at a dog daycare where I plan to take Molly this Summer for some play with other dogs as Belle would rather sleep than play.

So we left and I actually cried a little at leaving them and all the flowers that were in bloom around our house.  Crazy, isn’t it?

The daffodils and magnolias were blooming and here is my crab apple I really hope won’t bloom and be gone before we get back as I wait for it every year.

So off we set.

Down the road.

Through little Indiana towns.

Over the bridge over the Ohio River.

And south.

We stop at little out of the way places. Not a big tourist site, but interesting.

A park where we stretched our legs.   Walking around the paths twice was a quarter of a mile. Yes, I am counting my steps again.

This old house was next to the bridge park and there were feral cats coming in and out of it.  I think they have taken it over.

There is something about old, abandoned houses that interest me.  I often tell David if I were a billionaire I would travel the country and restore these old houses to their former grandeur so people could again live in them.  What history would this old house tell?

We passed many old houses the first day as we traveled further and further south.

Wouldn’t this house be beautiful if repaired and brought back to life?  Now a farmer keeps his tractor parked where the cars use to park.  I could see me having a sewing room in that upstairs room with the big windows.

There are still a few log cabins around. When I was a girl, there were two log cabins near my home. My brothers and I use to have walnut fights in one of them.  Those cabins are long gone.  It appears someone is trying to preserve this one with a new metal roof on the porch.

 

You don’t see these houses driving the interstate.  This one must have housed a large family at one time. I think of the Waltons looking at it.

Besides houses the trees and flowers were in bloom everywhere the farther south we got.

This is what my crabapple looks like every Spring.  At least I got to see a flowering crabapple this year.

Beautiful blooms everywhere.

Then, we noticed something strange ahead.

I believe they have landed!   Don’t know what this was.  But it looks alien.

I always think of the south when I see azaleas.  Even the most humble home looks wonderful with azaleas blooming in the yard.

Another park where I walked in a wonderful southern town with lots of old houses.

They really knew how to build them.  Many houses built today are all pretty generic.

This house looked like a castle.

David was trying to get out of all the pictures I was taking!

Big front porches where one could sit and rock and sip sweet tea.

I fell in love with this little house and it had a name.

If I were a little old lady(well, I kind of am) and didn’t have a husband(which I don’t want to happen), I would live in a little pink house like this with a dog at my feet and a quilt to work on in my hands.  I would invite people in for sweet tea and cookies.

I love the ingenuity of people. Who thinks of planting flowers in an old boat, but it works.

A pumpkin colored house.  We are getting our house repainted in a year or two.  Think this would be a good color!

Some of the houses had little carriage houses in the back converted to something else.

Then we got to one of our destinations.

Down tree covered streets with large live oaks covering them. Past beautiful parks. This town had so many parks.

Live oaks, a tree that is everywhere in the south.  Thankfully, many have been allowed to grow to this size.  Many dripping with Spanish moss.

Roses blooming in profusion.  Then we reached our destination.

We were in Laurel, Mississippi.  The site of the home renovation show Home Town. This is Ben and Erin Napier’s mercantile.  Of course I bought a few things here. It was a cute little store.  I was hoping maybe one of them would show up, but I am sure they have better things to do.

So on south we went.  I will write more soon. Bye.