We have abandoned all previous plans and are heading straight to LA to be with our son. He is awaiting surgery for an unstable C-5 vertebra break – or more commonly known as a broken neck.

We made it as far as Atlanta last night and spent the night with my brother.  The respite and the laughter was much appreciated, not to mention the hospitality.

Following an anxious night and worrying about our son, we felt some relief when his older brother jumped on a plane to be in Southern California with him while he’s in the hospital.  Still no word on surgery or not, so we are hopeful waiting is a good sign. Thank you all for the many prayers and messages.  It is such a grace to know so many people care.

There are many wonderful things to do in Savannah, but since we were so distracted and spent much of the day on the phone with our boys, we only made it to one attraction today: The Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force.

It is a wonderful memorial to the men and women who fought and died serving in the 8th Air Force from it’s birth in 1942 to the present day.  There was one experience that had us collecting in the briefing room before a mission and then moving into a theater that simulated we were in the plane on the mission.  Many of the films and displays were very explanatory and presented with great attention to detail and accuracy.

Between the different displays or halls, we would talk to the boys and then continue on, but sometimes it was difficult to concentrate.  Still, it was good to be reminded that in 1942 young men were leaving high schools all over the country to man the planes that would fly bombing missions over Germany.  They were no more than teenagers, and many, many of them never lived to see their twenties.

In the memorial garden there is a chapel built to honor the “Fallen Angels.” It was quite stunning and a fitting tribute to the sacrifices made by so many.

As the museum closed, we made our way back to the hotel and saw the storm clouds gathering.  The clouds and light and darkness of a typical Georgia sunset graced the sky!

News from home last night has us a little distracted today.  If you have an extra minute and are inclined, please say a prayer for one of our sons who is in the hospital.

After spending most of the night thinking about every possible way we might be able to get to him in a minimum of time, we decided to wait and see if we could learn more news of his situation. We talked with him on the phone, and then we decided to travel on, checking in with the West Coast at every stop.

We bid adieu to Florida and crossed the waterway into Georgia, taking the very first exit for St. Mary’s and the Cumberland Island National Seashore. The little town of St. Mary’s is very picturesque, but I must not have been in the mood for photography as I neglected to take a picture.  Since the views of the Cumberland Seashore would have involved a ferry to the island, we elected to take a long view over the water and move on.

An hour later we stopped at Fort Frederica on St. Simon’s Island which is another fort from the 1700’s where a small group of British pioneers settled and formed a lucrative and thriving community.  What stunned me the most was the grove of live oaks filled with Spanish moss.  They looked like monsters from a Disney movie – but were beautiful, too.

Another hour up the road and we arrived at Savannah, GA and found our way out to Fort Pulaski, another coastal artillery fort from the Civil War era that is strung along these Atlantic shores.

As the daily thunder began to announce the rain, we made our way to a hotel and checked in with all our boys.  What did people do before there were cell phones?

Today was a day of many excursions within a relatively small area, so we didn’t travel far.  Still, each site held it’s own interest for us.  We left the community of Palm Coast and traveled north following the coastline and viewing the beauty of the surf wherever there was space between the dwellings.

First, we stopped at Fort Matanzas, along the Matanzas River, where the Spanish had a fort in 1742 to defend the community of St. Augustine from encroaching British forces. The name Matanzas means “massacre” because on this same spot in 1565 Spanish colonials massacred French soldiers while attempting to establish a Spanish colony in the area.

The fort is really a small battlement that holds 4-6 cannon and housed 4 enlisted men and one officer.  It’s main purpose was to fire on anyone approaching the encampment of St. Augustine.  The walls of the fort were constructed of mud and sea shells and other materials that made incredibly strong walls. To view the fort and experience it we had to cross the channel to Rattlesnake Island by National Park’s ferry.  While there, we witnessed soldiers in period costumes (which had to be HOT) cleaning, loading, and firing their cannon just for our amusement.

When we got back into the car we said a prayer of thanks for the modern comforts of air conditioning and each drank a bottle of water.  I’m sure it only partially hydrated all we had lost during the excursion!

Then we drove into the city of St. Augustine, the oldest continuously occupied settlement in the continental United States.  Randy dropped me off at Castillo de San Marcos, the Spanish defense of the city built in 1672.  I strolled around and took some pictures among the throng of tourists (yes, I’m one, too!) and waited and waited and waited for Randy.  I was afraid he had to drive back to Orlando to find parking and I would be forced to find a bed in the fort on one of the wooden bunks where 4 men slept to a bunk.  There was another display of cannon fire and a little pirate gun battle in the seas just north of the fort – all to the delight of the on lookers.

It was, however, extremely HOT, and the “heat index” was posted as 115 degrees.  I think we felt every one of them.  We escaped to our car and the blessed air conditioning again as we moved on to our next point of interest.

We turned our noses north and along the way saw a sign that took us by surprise: “The Mellow Mushroom.”  We pulled the car into the parking lot and stopped for a late lunch.  We had been introduced to the Mellow Mushroom Pizza by our son, Ben, who went to school in Savannah, GA.  And here was another Mellow Mushroom right here in St. Augustine for us to stop and refuel.  It was delicious!

From St. Augustine we drove north to Fort Caroline along the River of May where French soldiers had been encamped since 1562.  Here also is where the French met some of the indigenous peoples of the area, the Timucuans, and there is note of them from the French perspective in their journals and diaries.

The obligatory afternoon thunder storm was beginning to boom and flash in the short distance and we made short work of our walk around Fort Caroline.  By this time, too, we were completely depleted from the heat and sought the heaven of an air conditioned hotel in Jacksonville.

It was a beautiful day of learning about some of the hardships and difficulties the first European settlers experienced on the shores of the New World.  And, here we were whining because it was so hot!  We probably wouldn’t have made very good 16th century explorers.

We were a bit slow moving out of Tampa and then moved even slower through Orlando as the traffic on I-4 East was stop and go for about 50 miles.  What a tangle of cars and trucks for miles and miles around Disney World.  We kept moving steadily and made it to New Smyrna for a quick stop and lunch  at “The Fire House Sub Shop” about 2:30 pm.  The subs were fantastic!  And, just in case it wasn’t hot enough for you, they had 57 varieties of hot sauce to add to your sub for your gastronomic pleasure.

Then we drove out to Cape Canaveral National Sea Shore and poked around for an hour or so.  It is a beautiful pristine place that was given to the  Parks Service when the Space program no longer needed the expanse of land.  We were hoping to see manatees or dolphins or even turtles in the lagoon, but the park ranger said we wouldn’t have much luck on a day as hot as today.  It didn’t seem any hotter to us than any other Florida day. It was only 98 degrees and dead calm. But the weather app said the “real feel” was 105.

When we moved from the lagoon side to the ocean side, we saw some pelicans and I was again mesmerized by their graceful beauty and their unabashed diving beak first straight into the waves while looking for food.  They are pretty amazing.  I could watch them for hours.

From Canaveral, we drove up I-95 as far as Flagler Beach and the little community of Palm Coast for the night.  The air conditioning at the hotel when we walked in was most welcome.  And we rested from what seemed like a hectic driving day.

We went out a little later and found some dinner, and then as the sun set we drove along the coast of Palm Coast to see the beauty of the Atlantic shore at sunset.  This is as far East as we will go.  When we were at Canaveral, we were as far away from home as we will be this trip!

This was another day with my friend and she wanted to go to Orlando, so to Orlando we went.  We passed “Dinosaur World” and “Disney World” and found our way to the Basilica of Mary Queen of the Universe.  It’s a relatively new structure built to accommodate the tourists who come to the area in hoards.  And it is an interesting blend of “old” and “new” Catholic.  Something for everyone, I guess.  Yes, very Catholic.

We walked the nave and sat before the Blessed Sacrament and went to noon mass.  Then we went to lunch at a Texas Longhorn place next door.  Following lunch we returned to the Basilica book store and museum.  We met a very famous person there and had our pictures taken with him!  And as the afternoon grew long, we started back to Tampa to meet Randy for dinner at a restaurant close to where we are staying.

But, Randy had to wait a little longer than he thought he would as we got lost on the way home and found our way back to “Dinosaur World” more than once!  We laughed that if we’d just decided to go there first, we might not have had such a problem.

Another fun day in the hot and sweaty; sunny and rainy mid-section of Florida.  But it was all worth it just to be with friends and be photographed with Pope Francis!

Subtitle: Nothing but fun!

My friend picked me up and we went out for a fabulous breakfast at a little hole in the wall place that was jammed with people.  My friend assured me that’s the very best sign that an establishment does food well.  And, they did.  Sufficiently fortified for the day we made our way to St. Petersburg and the Chihuly Museum of Glass.

Chihuly is a Northwest artist, but obviously has students and admirers here in Florida.  And, a museum.  The lights, colors, forms and displays of glass art objects was stunning.  We stayed and sat among the colored glass, not to mention the air conditioning, and talked and talked, renewing our friendship.

We traveled farther down to Treasure Island and walked the boardwalk, but it was so hot in the afternoon sun that we ended up in “Bubba Gump’s” for iced drinks.  A young man came to serve us and I had to look twice . . . he looked just like Forest Gump!  I asked him if anyone ever told him he looked like Forest Gump and he just looked at me like I was from another planet.  Then I realized, he probably wasn’t even born when “Forest Gump” was a popular movie.

Wanting to avoid the heavy traffic back into Tampa we decided to make a side trip to the St. Petersburg Cathedral of St. Jude.  I was amazed as I walked in!  It is probably one of the most stunning examples of post Vatican II architecture I have ever seen.  It was beautiful beyond words and had many subtle suggestions of scripture and nature embedded within the artwork and the structure.

All of that was followed by dinner at “Hog Heaven BBQ” and the day was complete!

Randy occupied himself by taking the car in for service and then taking a nap.  Sometimes the hard things just have to be tended to!

From Ocala, we drove the short 100 miles into Tampa and found my dear friend Jennifer’s place right on Bay Shore Boulevard.  What a reunion to see an old friend from Seattle who had moved to Tampa.  We enjoyed catching up while at lunch and then proceeded to explore Tampa together.
She took us to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg and we spent a couple of hours musing over his many and varied works of art.  What an interesting character her was!  At 13 he painted his first painting and everyone close to him recognized his talent.

While in the museum, which is an amazing conglomeration of steel and glass with a stunning spiral staircase up to the third floor, there was a typical Florida thunder storm.  And I mean storm!  It POURED for at least 40 minutes.  POURED.  As if someone had turned on all the faucets full bore.  And, then it stopped.  I had totally forgotten it could rain like that.

After the rain, we drove out to one of the piers and explored around and then found a lovely Italian bistro for dinner.  After checking into our hotel, I walked a short distance where I could see the sunset over Tampa Bay.

What a beautiful day.  Sun and rain; friends and food; art and nature – all to fill the soul with grace.

Another driving day today – through    the varied landscapes of Florida. And the varied weather. We hit several spotty rain torrents, but then drove through them to sun on the other side.
Other than another Air Force Museum at Eglin AFB and another B-17, we drove all day. So, I’ll let the pictures do the talking!

Another driving day from New Orleans to Crestview, Florida. It was cloudy and spattered with rain at various spots along the way. This is the flattest of flat lands along the Gulf Coast.

We stopped about half way through the day at the Gulf Coast National Sea Shore, the longest protected sea shore in the country.  Unfortunately, because it was actively thundering and threatening a down pour, we did not stay long.  Bit what we did see was beautiful.

I’m always inspired by John Muir, and his words were certainly appropriate for this amazing place – a stunning cathedral of water, trees and sky filled with a stunning variety of many of God’s creatures.

I only wish we had the opportunity to see more. Now that we know it’s here, we will certainly return one day.

One major milestone for me, personally, today.  With a lunch stop in Alabama, I have now been in all 50 United States, the District of Columbia, and the American Territory of Guam.