After our morning gym session it was off to West Palm Beach to meet up with Gary and Marilyn Meade, from Tantallon, for lunch. Kathy had a very nice pan fried halibut while the rest of us loaded up on roast beef. Gary does a great job helping out at the thrift store at home and so he thought he would lend a hand at a church run store in Ft. Lauderdale. There are differences to be sure but Gary is bound to be a great asset to them.

Kathy and I trying out the rockers at Cracker Barrel.

Gary and Marilyn holding hands. Isn't that sweet!

Another first. Got my first pedicure at LA Nails. Kathy went in for one while I waited around for her to finish. Mean while she was conspiring with the girl inside to get me in there. Well, I didn't put up much of a fight and in I went. It felt pretty nice and all but I pity that poor young girl having to deal with my feet.

Gator takes up residence!

This little gal is about 5 or 6 feet long and is minding 10 or 12 babies. If you look real close you can spot a couple of the babies on her back. No one seems very concerned about our new resident so I guess we won't worry much either. Think we will keep the dogs away. She is a few streets up so it's not like she will be sleeping with us.

We decided to head to the dog beach today to give the girls a bit of a run.Gabby was run over by a big wave but didn't seem to mind. Nothing much bothers Gabby.










We have been going to the gym everyday and doing quite well. Kathy has decided to have a coach for a couple of weeks and he laid the law down right off the bat. If she wasn't serious he didn't want his time wasted. He told her what she has to eat and starting tomorrow will set up her routine. So she is in for a rough couple of weeks which will no doubt impact me as well. Probably our table will look a lot different at meal time.

Other than that we haven't been up to much out of the ordinary. Off to meet Gary and Marilyn tomorrow in West Palm.

Beach Day!

After a brisk workout at the gym decided to head to Archies. A place highly recommended by my neighbour. For starters I guess you can find just about anything here, bikers, strippers, you name it. On this day the clientele looked a whole lot like Kathy and I, kinda gettin' up there, or in my case old and a lot of white hair.

As you can see one is allowed to bring their dog to dine with them. Today there were several in the crowd.

Kathy looking on in amazement at the collection of junk found by an entrance.

I think this is a shot of the front yard. Quite a delight. Anyway, the food was great and the service was ok too. Here is a link if you want to take a look.
http://archiesseabreeze.com/

From Archies it was a short ride to South Beach. Oh ya, what a great day for the beach. 27 degrees and lots of sunshine.

If you look really, really hard you can see me emerging from the raging sea. Boy, the water was warm and I had a lot of fun. Had to be careful though as the riptide was bad. It was sucking bad on the big waves. Doesn't look like it from here but the waves were bad enough to keep Kathy out of the water. There were a few Portuguese Man of War on the beach so I had to be on the lookout for them. All in all another great day of livin' the dream.

Vero Beach

A quick run up to Vero to get an oil change for the Big Ford. This is the oil change door at the local Ford dealer.

After the oil change decided to have a bite to eat at this Vero Beach eatery. I had a nice chicken fettuccine and Kathy dined on fish & chips. Not what you would call exciting but it did the job. After lunch it was home to grab a few rays, and oh my what a beautiful day for that. A bike ride then turned into a nice relaxing day in the sun. Kathy spent the night typing on her transcription job while I completed the Y/E for the food bank and the weeks payroll.

Another nice day

Joan and Myrna will remember this place from last year. We had a lot of good laughs in there. Kathy and I had a laugh today as well. We had stuffed ourselves and sat around for a while chatting before we realized it had been a long while since we saw our server. Undaunted we decided to make our way to the cashier to pay our bill. When the young lady there asked for our check we said it has been quite a while since we last saw our server and never got a check from her. The cashier said, yes, someone left suddenly. I asked about her health however she did not think it was that. Might have been a bit of job dissatisfaction going on. Oh well, these things happen. While she was adding up the total she asked if I wanted to add a tip. I replied with an emphatic NO, and she smiled and said, of course not, what was I thinking. We all had a good chuckle. I must add for Lee that I tried another order of grits today. I think I'm developing a taste for them.

After pigging out at Denny's what better idea than to head to the gym. We registered here last year and Morgan will recall that I was able to take off enough calories to have an extra Egg McMuffin every day. Didn't lose any weight but at least didn't gain much. That was a huge improvement over the previous year. I haven't dared weight myself this year. Anyway, we signed up at the gym again and now perhaps I can at least stay even.

After the gym we came home and rode our bikes for a bit. I'll have pics of the bikes tomorrow. Another beautiful day in South Florida. Temp is always near 80 and can't remember the last rain. Think it was our last day in Orlando. We're livin' the dream. Cheers.

It's been a busy week!

From Wal Marting in Vero Beach, stocking up on bird feeding supplies.

To grocery shopping

a clip for Kathy

a clip for Lilly

Wonder why Kathy didn't get a pretty pink ribbon with her clip?

A few of the birds we have here.

Painted Buntings. There is also a soft, pretty blue coloured bird here. I don't have my book so I am unable to identify it now.










I have also been busy cleaning up the Big Sky and we have been going around to some of our favourite places. It must be just about time to head to the beach. That will be coming up soon.

Fort Pierce, at last!

Well, it's been a month but here we are at our Fort Pierce "home." Since leaving Orlando and Disney behind we traveled to Tampa for the big Tampa RV Super Show. We met good friends Bill and Jan Corkum there and their friends Dave and Betty, Keith and Marilyn. Nova Scotians except for Keith and Marilyn who call PEI home. Still, all Maritimers.

 Tuesday we arrived in Tampa a day early and so spent the night in a Lazy Days campground with Bill & Jan, Dave & Betty. You see us here enjoying a bit of fellowship with Bill and Jan before supper.

At the show we simply parked all the RVs on a field. In total 756 RVs registered. They had a shuttle service that picked us up at the rigs, took us to the show and returned us whenever we wanted to come back. I did not get a pic but I took my shoes off and waited in line to climb aboard a 2 million dollar A Class that was pretty impressive to say the least. I don't see one in my future. Doubt I'd be able to re-tire the thing.

We had live entertainment every night. This was a very energentic couple who preformed on our last night. Coffee and donuts every morning.

Kathy and Jan having coffee on our last day.

This is a pic of the gang on our last day having one last group picture for this trip. We all scatter to different parts of Florida for the winter but plan to get together again in NS this summer. We had a great time at the show and hope to do it again next year. Again, what a great time we had!

Now that we are in Fort Pierce it's going to be busy around here getting set up for the next couple of months. Lots of work to do.

Disney - Hollywood Studios

Today was our last day with Disney. This is a typical street scene at Hollywood Studios.

This is a bit of a trick shot. It's a large wall painted to look like a street in San Francisco. If I had stood further back you would have seen the Golden Gate Bridge at the very top.

Another typical street scene. What makes this one somewhat unusual is the presence of Jeremie in a New York setting.

The bandstand was a lively place to be.

The water tower still used for Disney operations and movie sets. This one has mouse ears.

Disney - Animal Kingdom

Let the memories begin. That's the Disney motto and today we head for Animal Kingdom. For the most part it looks as though these animals have it made. Wide open spaces with no predators and everything supplied for them.

A river leading up to a snow capped mountain I believe.

This was a great show, the Lion King.

What better way to end a street parade than with Mickey!

Kathy trying out her new "ears"

Ended the day with supper at Planet Hollywood. Next up Hollywood Studios.

Disney - Epcot

Day 2 at Disney starts off at Epcot. This is the sign that sort of welcomes you to Disney in general.

Here is the crew standing in front of the big ball, as I call it, at Epcot.

There's that ball again.

This was a nice mother/daughter combination we spent time with while standing in line for Soarin, a fantastic ride at Epcot. They are from Brazil and we could never figure out each others language but somehow managed to get our points across.

This was portrayed as a typical Canadian garden at the Canadian building in Epcot. We went inside and watched a great display of Canadiana in a 360 degree theatre. Even had a bit of fiddle music in the foyer.

Just a nice scene. We can see the moon peeking out from behind a palm tree and if you look hard enough you can see the top of a very tall Christmas tree.

The Disney momorail looks kinda nice in this shot.

Mom and Jer with the ball again.

One last shot of the ball. We had a great day but all the walking is taking its toll on our feet. I am happy to report that the seniors, Kathy and I, are doing better than the young guys we are towing around with us. They are just about shot, what with bad knees, backs and feet. There is no doubt that come Monday night when our Disney experience comes to an end for this year we will be lucky to be alive. The pain we will feel will make us wish we were dead.