Vacation 2013

Busy is good, but too busy may not be.  I went to Florida the middle of February and only now am getting around to blogging about it. 

Since Mom died last year, I don't need to go to Florida in June to celebrate her birthday any more.  My Sister's and my birthdays are in February, so I decided to split the difference and went between the two dates. 

I had purchased the airplane ticket at least two months in advance of going, and had a red-eye flight.  Big mistake.  Long layover in Charlotte.  However, the redeeming part of it all was the fact that there was two(count them, TWO!) major snow storms to hit Colorado and the front range while I was gone.  The first hit the same day I landed in Florida.  Broke my heart!  The sun was shining, the birds were chirping...  Ah, it was almost heaven. 

I had forewarned my Sister that she would probably not recognize me.  While waiting for her to pick me up at the Sarasota-Bradenton Airport, I walked across the "road" to chat with a traffic cop that had to keep chasing people out of the no parking zones.  Small airport: the loading/unloading of passengers are the same areas.  So when I saw her driving down the road towards me, I stepped out from the curb and proceeded to wait for her to stop.  She did after she had run me over two or three times.  The look on her face was priceless. 

The story of the "new look" will be the next blog, or thereabouts.

She did pick me up, and we had a wonderful week. 

Since the Daytona 500 was running that weekend, we decided to go visit my Aunt Audrey first. 

She is 90 years olde and doing very well!

Then, since I had not been to the farthest south-eastern point in the United States, we went on a boat trip to Key West.  The wind in our hair and the sun on our faces left a lasting impression; we both got wind and sun burned!  But it was worth it; I finally got there! 

A picture is worth a thousand words!  AND I got to see mile "0" on highway 1:

And of course, I ate a lot.  One of my favorites was the Key West Key Lime Pie:

You can just see the sunburn at the hair line where I didn't get any sunscreen. 

I want to thank my Sister, Connie, for a wonderful, warm, eventful, relaxing, and fun vacation.  I also accomplished a lot: she let me tinker around her house, fixing things that needed to be fixed.  I so very much miss that, and do really enjoy it!  Hopefully, in a near future blog, I'll be able to report on my being able to sate my 'tinker-itis' here in Greeley. 

In the meantime, keep the rubber side down.