Tuesday, December 31st – The Last Day of 2013

Today we made our final drive on this long trip. Each day is getting warmer and warmer as we get farther south. It was 57° when we started out this morning.

Our first goal today, was to drive to Winter Park and find a web cam geocache. We have never had this experience before and it took a bit of thought for us to figure out all that needed to be done in order to be credited with a find. We were required to have the image of us saved from the web cam site and post it on the geocaching site. Technology has changed since this cache was created and we realized that we did not need a second party, as instructed by the cache owner, to capture our image on their PC since we had iPhones and had access to the internet. To be safe, we called our geobuddy, JoAnne, and asked her to watch for us on the web cam site and if she saw us wandering around searching for the web cam to phone us and tell us where to look! However, it was easy for us to spot the cam which was attached to the City Hall building and get the image we needed. JoAnne saw us on the web cam site and we all thought this was a neat experience!

I can’t believe that we passed through Orlando and did not stop at Disney World.

Driving along we used roads that are so straight that both of us thought that our car could almost drive itself. I saw a man cutting the grass along the side of the highway. We saw a lot of orange groves and a few semi-trucks that had their trailers loaded with loose oranges,

We stopped briefly in Lake Placid, the town that has murals on the walls of many buildings. We saw a huge one today that we had not seen when we passed through last year. This western scene was on the side of a grocery store and there was recorded sounds playing constantly. I like to make a photo that looks like I am part of the mural.

The city also finds clever ways to decorate their trash cans.

When the temperature got to 76° this afternoon, I made my first complaint about being too hot—something I vowed I would never do before I left the cold weather in Maryland! But, I was not wearing warm weather clothing and I am positive it will be more tolerable when I wear shorts and sleeveless shirts!

We made stops all along the way while driving today and found a few more geocaches—all of which have been quick, easy finds for us. The last one we stopped for was rated a 4 difficulty level—a personal challenge to Cordell. I just knew we would not be able to spend as much time as we needed to find it and that we would be disappointed to end our day and this year by logging a “did not find”. We have seen some other hides like this one and Cordell had it in his hands within 15 seconds!

After about another hour, we arrived in Ft. Myers which will be our home for the next 3 months. We have a room for tonight at the same hotel where we spent three weeks when we were here on our first snowbird trip in 2012. We are looking forward to checking into our condo tomorrow and settling in for a good long while.

Monday, December 30, 2013 - All about Geocaching

I awoke to a dilemma this morning. At 6:30 a.m. the temperature here was 50° with a high of 68° expected. So, I needed to decide how to dress—long pants or capris? Right now, shorts are not an option because they are packed too far away. Looks like I might have to make a trip to Walmart before we settle in our condo! The high in Ft. Myers is predicted to be 82° today. It still felt a bit chilly here and I know why I like southwest Florida best.

Our hotel had an outdoor swimming pool that is open. We noticed a chair lift at edge of the pool and couldn’t decide if it is there for handicapped people or for all the old people who spend the winter in this warmer climate.

We dove about 15 miles to the town of Callahan. On our way, I saw the first orange tree loaded with fruit in someone’s front yard. We spent a good part of the day finding 14 of the many geocaches that are hidden around Callahan. Our hunts took us on nice tour of this small town.

Before we left Maryland, we had planned on looking for one of the oldest geocaches in Florida. By mid afternoon, we knew that we could not stay any longer in Callahan if we wanted to look for this old cache. So, we left this delightful town and continued on our way.

The old cache is placed in Bethesda Park which surrounds a beautiful lake. The terrain here is definitely very different from that at home. After we parked our car, we walked along trails through palmetto trees for about ½ mile. I saw two animal holes in the ground and was hoping they were not places where pythons live. Cordell assured me that they were groundhog burrows, but I never saw any of those creatures while we were hiking. We were able to locate the cache and found our way back out of the twisting and crossing trails.

 

 

We stopped in Palm Coast and after we checked into our room, it was time for dinner. Since our first choice, The Fisherman’s Net is closed on Mondays, we went to The Olive Garden, one of our favorite restaurants. Both of our dinners couldn’t have been any better and it looked like Cordell wanted to lick his plate clean.

Tomorrow, we will drive closer to our final destination and I am looking forward to what we might discover on our way.

December 26-29, 2013

Thursday, December 26^th

We shifted into high gear today and started by taking down and packing away all our Christmas decorations. We had put them up very early so we have had plenty of time to enjoy them.

After lunch we took a walk through Patuxent Palisades, a development across the road from Shores of Calvert. Every December, a family erects around their pond life sized figures of the holy family and the wise men. During Advent the figures are moved and repositioned as they travel around the pond. On Christmas Eve, the holy family has reached a stable. When we looked at the wise men today, I was reminded that “wise men still seek Him.”

Friday, December 27^th

I awoke this morning thinking about the many items on our To Do List but felt confident that all of them could be crossed off. By late afternoon, I was not so confident. First on the list was to start dumping the water out of our hot tub which is inside the house and can’t be left for 3 months without attention.

 

We began packing our clothes and all the other things we want to take with us.

 

At mid-morning, we went and got our hair cut. We have tried to convince our longtime friend and stylist, Karen, to make a couple trips to Florida to visit us and bring her scissors with her.

 

I finally went to bed with visions of Florida sunshine dancing in my head!

Saturday, December 28th

When we left home this morning near 8:30 the temperature was 36 degrees. It was a bit warmer in Ft. Myers--68 with a high of 83 expected. Made me wish we could beam ourselves there.

My traveling clothes today were layers--long sleeved shirt, fleece vest and light weight jacket.

 

On our way out of town, we had to stop and perform maintenance on two of our geocaches that needed attention. We received notification on both of them after dark last night.

After driving 53 miles, we stopped at Barnsville Park. It is in Virginia on the southbound side of Route 301 just across the Nice Bridge. We have traveled this way many, many times and we never noticed this park. It was brought to our attention because there are some geocaches hidden there. We made a short walk down a trail to find the cache. This was a fun way to stretch our legs and get the kinks out of other parts of these old bodies. The temperature had raced up to 39 degrees!

Near noon time, we stopped at Denny’s to eat. I wonder how many times one can eat breakfast in the same day? I had breakfast before we left home this morning and I had breakfast again at lunch time.

The temperature has been warming up and we peeled off our first layer of clothing. We visited a geocache at Proctor’s Cemetery. There were only 4 graves—the oldest was a Civil War veteran. I wondered if any of these people were related to the Proctor population who lives in the southern Maryland area.

We saw a couple of vehicles in parking lots that had evidence of road chemicals on them. Upon glancing at their license plates, we read that they were from New Hampshire and Minnesota. We don’t even have to guess where they are going!

We spent the night in Wilson, NC.

Sunday, December 29^th

This Sabbath morning, we awoke to rain and a forecast for it to continue through the day. I complained that it was 52° and then realized it was a whole lot better than temps at home. We tried to find a nearby LCMS church that had an early service, but they offered only one late service on this Sunday between the holidays. We decided that we would drive to Florence, SC and stop at The Lutheran Church of the Incarnate Word for their 10:30 service. Our Garmin told us that the timing was going to be close and we would be only a couple of minutes late. If we drove a little faster, perhaps we could be on time. However, we encountered really, really hard rainfall that necessitated all the traffic to slow for a while. We saw a tanker truck with the word “coffee” written on it. If it was transporting coffee, I imagine the driver could have dispensed his whole load if he could offer some to all those people driving down the road this morning.

We arrived at the church and the Pastor was still giving announcements. It is a small congregation with an attendance last week of 32 people. We quickly understood that this was a very high service with everything, including the prayers, done in chants.  Furthermore, the service program had a statement written in it immediately before the Sacrament section that visitors who had not received communion in the past from the Pastor were asked to speak with him before approaching the altar. Maybe if we had arrived a bit early, we could have spoken to the Pastor and been able to receive communion. A lady who greeted us before we left mentioned that we looked familiar. I assured her that we had never been to that church in the past and furthermore I could promise her that our photos were not on any wanted posters!

When we left church, I checked my geocaching app was not surprised to see that there was a geocache stashed on our way back to I-95. Since it had stopped raining, we stopped and made a quick find. 

We also noticed Spanish moss hanging in the trees for the first time this trip.

The temperature reached 69° so I was able to dispense with another layer of clothing.

We ate lunch at Burger King and I was a bit surprised to see they had a decorated Christmas tree in their dining area. I wonder how long it will be before complaints will stop that custom. We got back onto the highway and joined a line of vehicles traveling south. Maybe this part of the route is always crowded, but a couple of accidents had traffic almost stopped and moving very slowly for too long for either of our patience. So a couple of times, we took the next exit and drove on some of the smaller roads. We saw some nice scenery and small towns on our way.

We had a delightful surprise when we stopped by a geocache that is placed on the grounds of the Smallest Church in America. This tiny structure is open 24/7 and it has space for only 12 chairs. It even has stained glass windows. I saw a $5.00 bill someone had left in the pulpit. There is a prayer journal and it was very touching to read what people had written in it.

We stopped near Jacksonville and noted that it took us only 2 days to reach Florida instead of the 8 days it took us in 2012. I have been wearing corduroy pants and tonight I packed them away where they will not see the light of day again until probably November 2014!