Travels with Ann and Ken

After leaving Port of the Islands we headed to a great county-run park and campground in South Miami - Larry and Penny Thompson Park. We wanted a place to just spend a few days with the cats. We had been leaving them alone a lot and thought some quiet time with them would be good - and it was. This park, though fairly large was quiet and friendly with plenty of space between campsites. There are also great walking trails through old mango groves and around a nice lake. See pictures here. We then headed into the Keys to visit with Dave and Marilyn Ayala, boating buddies and great friends. Ann and I also used to work with Dave back in the '90s. The RV park was on Fiesta Key and had almost nothing to recommend it but it did allow us to spend time with Dave and Marilyn. We did have a nice sunset and then turned around and saw the moonrise. Pictures here. After saying goodbye to Dave and Marilyn we headed north to meet up with my sister Linda and her husband Al. It was a long...

After leaving De's we went to visit our friend Leah, who we have known since our days working together in Miami in the mid-1990's. Leah now lives south of Naples in an area called Port of the Islands. It is right next to the Everglades in the west coast of Florida close to Everglades City. She has great condo that looks out over the canal. Manatees are an almost constant presence and I managed to get a  couple of shots  of one right at the seawall. (just for you, Ed :-) While here we went on a hike with a naturalist friend of Leah's, Dick. He is very knowledgeable on the flora and fauna of this area. He is a volunteer at a wildlife preserve and hikes the preserve every week making notes on the animal species he sees. He allowed us to walk with him at Leah's request. We walked about 4 3/4 miles out then retraced our path back. We started at 7:30am and got back around 1:30pm. It was a very hot day and by the time we were back, we all were exhausted (except Dick who k...

We went to visit De, Ann's friend from her home town way back. De is a great hostess and opened her house to us, including the cats. She has a great rear porch that is screened in and the cats spent hours and hours there looking at the birds, squirrels and lizards. They didn't get to chase them as they would at home but it was like continuous "cat TV". De had multiple varieties of bourbon and we tasted most of them, along with some Prosecco. We also brought our Fire TV Stick in and plugged it into her TV and had marathon sessions watching Downton Abbey, which she had never seen. De is also a fanatic about seasonal decorating (always has been). Here house was all decked out for Easter - bunnies everywhere. You might notice in the pictures of her porch, fake Easter eggs in the planters. I included a shot of her "showcase of bunnies". Photos here.