Random Ramblings Through the Years: January 2016

Only 6 months in S. Florida and I already fell in love with it. We had even decided to renew our apartment contract, then Angie and Josh mentioned they were moving back to the Atlanta area. I was disappointed, but also rather excited to be checking out another area of the country. I use to think that it would be fun when we retired to spend 6 months in one place, then move to another for 6 months, and another, ... . Little did I know that I'd be doing a version of that, but for a year or 2 at a time!

But first, we started the year with a few more days in Oregon. The kids wanted to go to Oregon for Xmas, so we all went to Depoe Bay for a week, then Ken and I spent another week in David and Jane's empty house in Dallas. I always thought we might end up here once ken retired. But since Mom and Dad died before then and DAvid and Jane spend most of their time in Illinois, that never happened. But it's always nice to spend some time here sightseeing and visiting family that is still here. Although it was a little sad to see what had become of Mom and Dad's old house. David bought the place, but ended up renting it out. His renters were scum. They tore the place up.

1-1-16 Mom and Dad's old house in Dallas, or

and always had a ton of vehicles around the property, even in the yard.

1-1-16 Mom and Dad's old house in Dallas, Or

Of course the day we were scheduled to fly home we woke up to an icy mess.

1-3-16 Main street Dallas

It was sort of pretty, but the roads were treacherous. Took us over 2 1/2 hours to get to the airport, but Ken had us leave 6 hours early so that wasn't a problem.

1-3-16 Main St. Dallas

Back in Florida and back to beautiful weather.

1-8-16 Loxahatchee

Back to sunsets at our go-to place about 2 miles from our apartment


1-8-16 Loxahatchee

back to biking around our neighborhoods

1-11-16 biking Parkland

We decided we should live like tourists and go see the sites at least once a week. So when Angie suggested going to the Everglades, I was excited to go.

1-13-16 The Everglades--covering our car so the vultures don't eat the rubber around the windows

1-13-16 the Everglades

1-13-16 the Everglades--loved watching these great white egrets "fishing"

1-13-16 the Everglades---Florida Crocodile

I also became very interested in bird watching while here. So many places to go and so many neat birds.

1-25-16 Loxahatchee main park

Usually we go to the Loxahatchee area by our apartment, but the main entrance has a lot of neat trails and ponds.

1-25-16 Loxahatchee main park

1-28-20216 Ken's 64th b-day celebrated at Joan's restaurant

Angie found a few other places to bird watch about 20 miles away, so she and I would go check them out frequently. First one we went to was Peaceful Waters.

1-29-16 Peaceful waters

Love these colorful Swamp Hens.

1-29-16 Peaceful waters

love all the birds in S. Florida

1-29-16 peaceful waters

So many big birds! Ibises, herons, spoonbills

1-29-16 peaceful waters

This was the only time we went to Peaceful WAters when there were this many birds there. So glad we went then.

1-29-16 peaceful waters

Only place we saw flocks of spoonbills.

1-29-16 peaceful waters

We also discovered Green Cay. Lovely walking trail, but it dried up as the months went by

1-29-16 Green Cay

My favorite place was Wakodahatchee Wetlands. It was a great rookery for many kinds of birds.

1-29-16 Wacodahatchee

and other critters, like iquanas and alligators.

1-29-16 Wacodahatchee

We liked going to Deerfield beach every week or so, too. One time this art/food fair was set up.

1-30-16 Art fair in Deerfield

There were also 4 reciprocol gardens in the area. I love using my MOBOT membership to get into other gardens.

2-3-16 Mounts garden in West Palm Beach

2-3-16 mounts garden---Lego exhibit

2-3-16 Mounts garden---amazing lego work

2-3-16 mounts garden Angie as an ant.

I loved going to Wakodahatchee at least once a week to check on the baby birds.

2-6-16 Wacodahatchee Wood Stork

and other migratory birds like this black and white warbler

2-6-16 Wacodahatchee black and white warbler

and this guy---

2-6-16 white eye vireo

The cattle egrets made this their home and raised their babies.

2-6-16 cattle egret

these ducks were there for the winter, too

2-6-16 teal at Wacodahatchee

Angie and I looked up more "birding trails" in the area. Didn't have much luck with the birds, but it was still neat checking out the nature.

2-10-16 Fern Forest Nature Center

love the shadows here.

2-10-16 Fern Forest Nature Center

Green Cay started out being a really neat place to go, before it dried up. At least it was only a couple miles from Wakodahatchee so I'd check both out lots of times.

2-11-16 Green Cay

another of the residents at Green Cay

2-11-16 Green Cay

Pine warbler?

2-11-16 Green Cay

whistling ducks.

2-14-16 Wakodahatchee

2-14-16 Wakodahatchee loved the boardwalks here

2-14-16 Wacodahatchee - interesting how the momma birds feed their babies.

There were also many alligators at these wetlands.

2-14-16 Wacodahatchee

a Green Heron diving for a fish

2-14-16 Wacodahatchee

Not as many of Jays here as we saw in Mo.

2-14-16 Wacodahatchee

Ospreys lived at the wetlands, too

2-14-16 Wacodahatchee

it was fun watching the bird fish, too. Watched this guy try to swallow this fish for over 30 minutes. It never managed to do it.

2-14-16 Wacodahatchee

We also enjoyed going to some sporting events. I even found a place I could play some pick up volleyball, but they were pretty young and I was still recovering from knee surgery. But it was still fun, most of the time.

We would go to some St. Louis teams' games when they were in town, like here to the Blue's Hockey game.

2-16-16 Blues Hockey

Go Blues. Seemed wierd being in a place that was so cold!

2-16-16 Blues Hockey

There were also a lot of historic sites to visit, like the Flagler mansion.

2-17-16 Flagler Museum

beautiful home!

2-17-16 Flagler Museum

Another place on the birding trail was a cemetary. Did find some birds there, but it wasn't like Wakodahatchee.

2-18-16 Evergreen Cemetary

Just Ibises, but they were pretty cool

2-18-16 Evergreen Cemetary

they must be use to being fed. They all came flying and running to me.

2-18-16 Evergreen Cemetary

Also close to us was a Butterfly House. I ended up becoming a member there, too. Loved all the aviaries they had there as well as the butterflies.

2-18-16 Butterfly house

Back to our regular checks to Green Cay.

2-19-16 Green Cay

and I rode my bike probable 3 or 4 times a week.

2-21-16 biking Loxahatchee

Interesting watching how the anhingas fish

2-26-16 Wakodahatchee

their mating plumage was really pretty.

2-26-16 Wakodahatchee

By now Angie and Josh had told us Josh was interviewing for a job in NE Atlanta. So Angie got busy renovating their house to get it ready to sale. She redid much of the kitchen and 2nd bathroom, now was working on the master bathroom.

2-27-16 Angie's Bathroom remodel

I thought she did an amazing job! She added all the bead board and baseboards and chair rail. Replaced the vanities and added the back trim. Added new mirrors. Replaced the tile in the shower and floor. I helped by making tile cuts and painting the wood. It turned out beautiful.

2-27-16 Angie's Bathroom remodel

But I still took a break to go to Green Cay and Wakodahatchee.

2-29-16 Green Cay

2-29-16 Green Cay - another migrating bird

Not much going on here.

3-1-16 Peaceful Waters

3-1-16 peaceful waters - a Jesus lizard

Angie had bought tickets to 2 Cardinal spring trainging games, but they only made it to 1 before they moved. At this one, they got the text about a place they were looking at to rent.

3-3-16 Cardinals spring training

Josh moved up a month or 2 before Angie. One time while she was running stuff up there, Ken and I cut down one of their trees. He misjudged his seat when taking a break

3-5-16 working on Angie's back yard

Florida did have a lot of beautiful sunsets, too. And beautiful weather to go with it.

3-6-16 sunset

We had slacked off on our trips the beach so decided to get back to it since we'd be moving soon. Didn't get in the water this time! Too many Man of War on the beach.

3-7-16 Deerfield beach

still enjoyed the views, though

3-7-16 Deerfield beach

3-11-16 March, and in the pool!!! I love S Florida and I loved the kids house and pool!!!

Ken and I did go to the 2nd spring training game even though the kids were in Atlanta. Angie made 3 trips up there hauling a 5x8 trailer ful of stuff for Josh to have something to sit on. One trip she also took the dogs so she could get the lawn in shape.

3-12-16 cardinals spring training

back to Wakodahatchee---the elusive Sora

3-18-16 Wakodahatchee

These guys were cruisin! I know I'll definitely not be able to outswim an alligator.

3-18-16 Wakodahatchee

one of the really cool dragonflies at the wetlands.

3-18-16 Wakodahatchee

sunset at our Loxahatchee

3-21-16 Loxahatchee

the cute little Black and White Stilt

3-21-16 Wakodahatchee

the soft shell Florida turtle

3-21-16 Wakodahatchee

cute little baby Swamp Hens

3-21-16 Wakodahatchee

baby Great Blue Herons

3-21-16 Wakodahatchee

loading up another trailer full for Angie to take to Atlanta.

3-24-16 kids moving to Atlanta

the incredibly high jumping pup

3-24-16 kids moving to Atlanta

the pups saying bye to the pool---and yard.

3-24-16 kids moving to Atlanta

I rode with them to try and help keep the pups calm. Molly was fine, but Micky panted hard the whole time.

3-24-16 kids moving to Atlanta

Back in S. Florida and back to check on the babies.

3-28-16 wakodahatchee

We also liked going to Tradewinds Park, especially for sunset.

3-30-16 tradewinds park

Just another random sunset in Florida

4-1-16 sunset on Wiles

Now that the dogs were gone, we helped Angie resod some of the back yard.