Enjoying the East coast

Last night we stayed on the fringe of Miami and Fort Lauderdale.   We were up at 5:30 to see the sunrise.  We were amazed at the number of people at the beach.  Some were even swimming.  The sunrise was amazing this morning.  We felt so blessed to witness God's creation as we basked in the warmth of the sunrays.  Afterwards we drove to Las Olas Blvd and went for breakfast at a restaurant called The Floridian.  This restaurant was on Rachael Rays $40 a Day show.  Breakfast was huge so we saved half for lunch.  We then enjoyed a nice walk and did  some exploring.  Afterwards we drove to St. Augustine where we are spending the night.

We did some exploring in the older part of St. Augustine down by the water.  It was nice to walk around.  We finished off our day with a nice dinner at a restaurant across from the Marina. Tomorrow we will be driving to Myrtle Beach where we will be spending the week with Jay and Laura and the family.  We can't wait to see them all.

We saw at least three bridal parties today.

Where are the alligators?

We left Chuck and Claudia's home around 10:30 this morning.  We made two stops before heading to Alligator ally.  Our first stop was at Coconut Point shopping center and then from there we went to the Fresh Market.  We picked up some nice meat for our dinner with Laura and Jay and the family for on Saturday evening.

We then drove to Alligator Ally.  We didn't see one alligator.  We then decided to drive up highway 41 to see if we could find any.  Again, we didn't see one.  We stopped a few times and photographed some flowers and Ralph found a beautiful bird but otherwise it was very quiet.  It must have been something to do with the weather.It was pretty hot and I suspect that they were keeping cool somewhere deep in the water.

We continued driving and slowly made our way to our hotel.  We did a little shopping in preparation for our visit with the family and then went out for dinner.

We're having an early night as we want to drive to the beach to see the sunrise in the morning.

These are air plants. I have never seen a flow on them before. This was really beautiful.

It looks like there was a fire here.

Special Friends

The morning started with an amazing sunrise.  It was quiet in the house as I was the only one up and ready to start the day.  The time was around 6:00 a.m.  I was sitting in the living room reading emails and enjoying a nice cup of tea.  The stillness in the house was very peaceful.  We all got up early this morning and enjoyed a delicious breakfast of Ricotta pancakes with bacon.  Yummy....

It was another beautiful day.  As the day progressed we got hotter and hotter.  We couldn't believe it.  Claudia and I went shopping in the morning and had a great time together. Chuck and Ralph went out shopping for Silk flowers a new fountain that had just been installed at the house.  They did an awesome job and the fountain looks amazing. It is so peaceful sitting by the pool listening to the birds singing and hearing the sound of running water.

We played golf at a reciprocal course today.  It was called The Esplanade.   When they called our group - they nicely announced - next up -  the Lobster group. I thought that was funny.  There is a lot of new development work going on here.  Many, many new houses are being added around the course.   The course itself was really nice.  It was hot during the afternoon but often we were blessed with a breeze to help break the heat. The round took 5 hours as it was slow on the back nine.  It was fun though.  Ralph commented that he thought this course was similar to Harmony in it's layout.

Afterwards Chuck cooked dinner for us.  We had the most amazing Chateaubriand.   Ir was so tender and flavorful.  Both Chuck and Claudia are good cooks.  They spoiled us with amazing food while we were visiting. We  enjoyed ourselves and really had fun the last two days.  Thank you Chuck and Claudia for making us feel so welcomed.

Enjoying a fun day with Chuck and Claudia

We arrived at Chuck and Claudia's around 10:00 this morning.  They have a beautiful home and it is so welcoming and relaxing here.  Chuck had booked a round for golf for us at 12:58.  The sun was shining and it was quite warm.  What a fun time we had.  It felt good to be out on the course again and we all played well.  We certainly enjoyed ourselves. We had a nice dinner by Coconut Grove at a restaurant called South Fork Grill.  The food was delicious.  We were all pretty tired by the time 10:15 rolled around.  I think it was because of all the sun we had.

The course is getting a complete overhaul this summer and they have sprayed the grass so that it will die.  The greens were still in great shape and they were very fast.  With the fairways your ball would run for a really long time getting you closer to the greens.

A day of relaxing

Today was a quiet day.  Ralph and I both had some work to complete so we took it easy.  Ralph spent more time at the keyboard than I sadly.  I was able to spend a couple of hours sitting by the pool with a book. This is something that I haven't done in many years.  It felt good.

I got up early and went out to take some pictures of the sun rising.  Our hotel is right on a small lake and you could see the sun come up behind the lake.  As well - the moon was shining brightly this morning so I took a few pictures of this as well.

Later this afternoon Ralph and I went out exploring with the intent of going to Casperson Beach to photograph the sunset.  Time got away from us and we found ourselves racing to catch the sun before it sunk down below the horizon.  We missed it totally. I was able to get a few pictures from the car window as we were racing the beach.

Room with a view

We have arrived in Florida.  Our drive took about 5.5 hours.  We took our time and enjoyed the scenery along the way. We were surprised at all the changes we have seen enroute.  Tree's and bushes have certainly grown over the last couple of years.

During our drive, Ralph and I listened to a sermon on being a Christian by R.C. Sproul.  It was very good to hear and prompted much discussion between the two of us.  It was a nice way to start our morning.  We found our hotel without much difficulty.  The weather here is amazing and warm.  It's 31c.  Our room overlooks a small lake.  I'm told that there are alligators in it.

I enjoyed a nice long and leisurely walk this afternoon.  Later this evening we had a fair bit of rain. You could see the storm coming by the shape and colour of the clouds.