I did it again … intended to post this on January 31, but forgot! Better late than never!

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Our month in Holiday, FL, has come to an end. There have been some advantages to staying here – we’ve been very close to Tarpon Springs, Dunedin, Clearwater, and not too far from Tampa; we’ve enjoyed meeting many friendly people in the RV park, playing darts and enjoying an oldies dance with them. On the other hand, the traffic in this area is crazy, especially this time of year. Bob and I quickly decided that Floridians are the worst drivers we have ever seen. We lost count of the number of vehicles that we’ve seen shoot across four lanes of traffic and back again to pass a bunch of cars. Drivers blast their horns at other drivers for the most minor transgression. Tailgating seems to be a required skill here, but signal lights are not required. We’ve all read about elderly Floridians who drive too slowly and make poor decisions, but we’ve seen hardly any of that, just the opposite – everyone drives like an angry Mario Andretti. In any event, we feel like we’ve gotten a good feeling for this area and now it’s time to move on.

We had the good fortune to get tickets for a concert in Clearwater by Ottmar Leibert, an artist you may not have heard of, but who is one of my favorite guitarists. (Look him up, I think you’ll like his music.) The theater has a rooftop bar, so we went early to enjoy a beer before the show. While there, we started chatting with a couple of men who were also there for the show – Tim is a park ranger at Honeymoon Island State Park, and Ray is a volunteer at the park who leads nature walks. We had a great conversation and ended up taking two nature walks at Honeymoon Island, one on the Osprey trail and another on the beach. They were very informative! If you’re ever in this area, I highly recommend both walks.

Other than that, we have been busy attending a weekly Salsa dance class in the next town, visiting dog parks, going for long walks with the dog and just exploring the area with the occasional visit to a local tiki bar or two.

We’ve also visited with cousin Joyce and Jim and drove down to Miami to spend the night on Jim’s catamaran, which is docked right in downtown Miami with a view of Miami Beach and Key Biscayne. That night, we all went to a bartender race, where bartender teams completed various obstacle courses and made drinks at the same time. We were thrilled to be invited to sail with Jim & Joyce to the Keys the first week of February! Stay tuned for stories and pictures about that in the next blog post.

Scenes from Miami: Sparkling skyscrapers, lovely parks, and Jim’s catamaran. The boxy structure. lower left is a house called the Arkup. It is 4,300 sf and rents for $3,700 per night. For a fee, the Arkup can be moved out into the bay for more of a houseboat experience. 

Scenes from the RV Park: silly decorations, the great heron that visited our corner every day, and a sand hill crane trying to hide behind some lawn furniture.

For now, it’s time to pack up and move farther south to Moore Haven, a quiet fishing town on the shores of Lake Okeechobee, the larges lake in Florida. We still look at each other now and then and remark that we still can’t believe we are traveling like this. Life is good!!