The week in Florida and getting back!

Drive to Tampa...beat the rain storm. (Thursday a week ago)
Hang out with children and grandchildren, getting ready for big event in family.
Go walking in nature. (last Friday)
 Go out to eat a lot.
 Have a dinner with lots of people I'm related to. (last Saturday, last Sunday)
 Have a wedding for my son...and a party to remember! (last Monday) (Just look at some of my previous posts!)
Throw everything back into suitcase. (last Tuesday)
Drive home, stopping for the night in a room that was designated "smoking and pets."  It was all that was available at my second stop at a motel for a room for the night. (last Tuesday and Wednesday)

 Campus of Eckerd College, St. Petersburg.

Part of the Hanging Out activities was a beach trip on Sunday.
Part was to see the new Art Building at my youngest son's college, Eckerd in St. Petersburg.
And a big part was to get in touch with family members.

Dog of my ex-daughter-in-law, Cinnamon...the little guy kept trying to get in my lap, though I kept pushing him down.  He's cute otherwise.

Tai and Will playing some kind of video game... A padded cell these days is a comfortable game room.  They played on the big screen on the other wall.

 Here Cayenne holds their other dog, who was pretty shy.

Their mom, Cinnamon, gave us a nice dinner outside on the patio since the weather was pretty cool. It was great to see her if only briefly.

A major part of my trip was about 1500 miles of driving.  I have such respect for my cousin Cynthia Rogers, who drives a big rig for Walmart all over Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana. She really loves to drive!

I will too, in a few days. For now, my sit-upon is really worn out, and my feet are swollen from disuse.

what do these pictures mean?

Yep, I was on the road again...and a Happy Meal was a good lunch...after all there are apple slices in it! The chicken nuggets are now actually white meat, not meat with filler.  But it was fried, as were the little container of french fries.  MickeyD's does the best fries in my book.  But I only ate a few, and then once they were cold, oh no, I couldn't take a single bite.

So I'm happily visiting my son and his lovely wife's family with my 3 granddaughters!

Actually I snapped some pics of the Virginia mountains...but they haven't down loaded onto computer yet.  So I may add them here before this is published.  I was surprised to see tunnels!

I do wonder why my i-cloud photos don't get posted to my laptop any faster.  They used to just take a few minutes, now it's been over 12 hours.

I divided up the 8 hour drive into 2 days.  I only had some minimal coughing the first day, and once I was snugged into a motel room I was able to rest and breath just fine, so that was worth the extra cost.  I also made myself stop driving every hour and walk around just a little.  I know that made the day go longer on the road, but I wanted to be sure to keep my muscles happy.  I had to make plans to deal with my physical limitations...and it worked.  Much better than the stress of airports and planes!

The moment that I will remember most fondly was when we whizzed past 3 deer trying to climb a hill out of the ditch beside the highway.  At least they were going away from the traffic!

Second day of travel is forecast with rain/snow but due to get to 40s, so I am off!

Smile!

My son Russ when he was around 5.  Taken with a Kodak Instamatic camera with really poor resolution.

It was a fun afternoon, enjoying watermellon with my kids and friends, and maybe family.  I well remember my sister visiting with her young daughter one time.  We lived in Tampa, and my sister lived in Tennessee, and her husband's business took him back and forth to Coral Gables (Miami area) frequently.  So they would usually stop for the night at my home whenever they were driving back and forth.  I was glad to have the company, though I was working a full time job at the time and didn't get to spend as much time with them as I would have liked.

I'll have to dig out some pictures of my sister's log cabin on a mountain in Tennessee sometime.  We did visit her several summer vacations, especially after I bought a camper van.

Oh here's Russ today...in Connecticut.  Couldn't resist adding this "update".

Still smiling!