4/14/08 (Monday): Hello from Winter Park, Florida! We arrived late Saturday at Wiley's family's home. We have the 5th wheel parked in their driveway (it looks so big when it's not in a campground with other RVs!). We have a busy week planned before we leave for Boone, NC, next Monday. We stopped in Ocala, FL, on the way here and had lunch with Julie and John at a Cracker Barrel.

Yesterday, we took Wiley Sr. and David and Katelyn (our nephew and niece) to Haulover Canal to do a little fishing and see if we could find some scrub jays. Haulover Canal is a neat place near Merritt Island, FL. As its name implies, it's a canal that links Mosquito Lagoon on the east with the Indian River on the west. It was built in 1854 by the federal government (at a total cost of $5,000!). It had been a traditional crossover point for travel down the coast via the inland waterway, except that cargo had to be carried across an island and then loaded on boats before continuing southward, so constructing the canal made a journey by water possible for a long distance. It was constructed by the slaves of a local citrus grower. The Old Haulover Canal was abandoned in 1884 when the new Haulover Canal was constructed nearly a mile to the north. Nowadays it's crowded with fishermen and it's fun to sit on its banks and watch the manatees and big, fancy boats go by.

It was raining, but the guys fished for a while anyhow.

We did manage to call up three scrub jays, but they were a bedraggled bunch (and so were we)!

Today we had breakfast with some Florida Trail Association friends and then went to Melbourne to visit another Florida Trail Association friend, Les. We had gotten a new GPS just before we left California and it proved itself very valuable again in navigating our way to Les' doorway. Dell treated us all to a great seafood lunch at an interesting seafood restaurant named "Squid Lips"! The food was great--and so was the decor. Mandy (that's what we call our new GPS system) helped find a scenic route home.

Tomorrow, Wiley Jr. has an appointment with the neurologist. Then we both have dental appointments. On Friday, we're driving Wiley Sr. to Jacksonville for his appointment at Mayo Clinic. On Saturday, Julie and John are hoping to drive down and we'll visit a new Ikea that has opened in Orlando (I've been wanting to go to an Ikea for a long time!). On Sunday, we hope that Wiley's Aunt (who's just back from a cruise) will come for a visit. We haven't seen her in nearly a year. We'll pull out Monday morning.

Busy, busy, busy--what a great life we lead!

Here are a few photos from the last few days of our trip that I thought you might enjoy.

These are some petroglyphs in the Painted Desert (a place called Newspaper Rock). You couldn't get very close to them, but they had telescopes pointed at the rocks for a closer view. The rocks actually looked like newspapers because there were so many petroglyphs on them!

One more shot of the Painted Desert--this part is called The Badlands.

All along I-10 in New Mexico were these odd looking big hills. I guess there was a big rock on the peak and the sides eroded in a cone shape. Very strange looking!

Wiley found this moth (?) near the restroom in a campground in Texas. Isn't it gorgeous? It was very cold that morning, and we think the moth was just very chilled. It didn't try to fly away. We put it back where we found it.

We leapfrogged with this RV all along I-10 and finally caught up with it at a rest area between El Paso and San Antonio. I chatted with the older lady who was driving it. She said that every time she got a ding in the RV, she painted a flower over it. It was beautifully done. Turns out she's a full-timer like us.

I think this roadrunner sitting on the fence was at the campground near Albuquerque. We also saw lots of funny quail. They have a little bobbing feather that hangs over their foreheads.

The wildflowers in Texas were gorgeous. We pulled over to the side of the highway to take these pictures. The blue ones are bluebonnets, the state flower of Texas.

The wildflowers in the eastern half of Arizona and all over Texas were glorious! Take care, and I'll blog again when we get to North Carolina (if not before).