We arrived home safe and sound around 130 pm with an additional 4093 miles on the little Mazda! We have the windows open as it is autumn, but oh my goodness… Where is autumn??? My phone tells me it is 83 degrees in Westwood Lake, Florida!!! Yikes it’s hot! So much complaining! I’m about to hang the first load of laundry "out" on the line so thank you Mother Nature for not raining. God bless you!
We had a long day of driving, but finally arrived at Renee’s in Orlando! Going to eat a magnificent dinner of rib roast, baked potatoes, asparagus. Yum Renee! All is well and we are just some old friends catching up. God bless you.
Pray today that the new married couple "invited Jesus to the wedding." Always when I see a wedding on the beach I think of myself, young, defiant, penniless, wanted to make my own short dress and marry on the beach. I might not, in my state of belligerence and young love, I might not have invited Jesus. But he came just the same. Today’s beach wedding was on Pensacola Beach. I was on a shell searching walk… And I saw sunset coming and a wedding group assembling. I walked back to get camera and then… Watched the wedding, prayed for the young couple and took photos of the cloudless red/orange sunset. Now it is evening time and all is peaceful. If only it could be this quiet and peaceful everywhere… At least so peaceful in our hearts. God bless you.
I’m looking out at the Gulf of Mexico clear and quiet as a glass dish, sea oats blowing gently in the foreground. I remember in the night I thought it was blowing like a hurricane. I had made a painting and left it and the dish for paints out on a picnic table to dry and I thought they would be long gone… blown up against someone’s house a mile away, but this morning… there they are. Safe and sound. A painting of the Gulf all colors of blues and greens… safe with the paint spattered dish… No wind. I ask if anyone heard the wind? and they look at me, "nope." Does wind blow if no one hears it? The colors here are amazing. A very pale blue sky, a sea the color of peacock blue, white white sand, butterflies flutter against the still closed porch doors. Pensacola Beach is an amazing beautiful place to walk, wide and peaceful. It’s hard to imagine this house we are visiting was destroyed twice! I sip coffee and have nothing to do but read, walk on the beach, look for shells, watch football games. Hope your Saturday is absolutely lovely and you are safe and healthy. God bless you.
Tonight we are in Pensacola Beach with friends who live on Big Pine, but spend some time on a tiny sliver of land on the Florida Panhandle in Pensacola Beach… they have been wiped out by hurricanes twice… but have rebuilt. Tonight we celebrate college football with Steve and Dorothy: we talked about Marshall which was a story of fighting back after the entire football team was wiped out in a plane crash and they rebuilt their team and fought back … Tonight Temple plays and college football begins for a long weekend. We changed the subject to WWI and WWII as we had the submariner Chuck and I have just finished reading of the amazing developments made by the Navy since the 1939 rescue of men from the sunken submarine Squalus… We also shared our cell phone systems that show the skies and we watched the space station float by. Everyone should have the space station on an app. Americans are up there in the space station with the Russians. Find out and look up at the appropriate time when they fly by. I got to walk on the beach this afternoon… white sandy beach sand soft between my toes and lots of shells to pick up! I hope others have the same pleasure. Never take for advantage what we have… pray this night that we can save our country and maybe the only way we can save her is with prayer. Pray for the safety of life and peace. God bless you.
Note to self: get recipe for Cajun corn at Court of Two sisters. So… After a long sweaty but rewarding walk through the cemeteries… A must do when visiting New Orleans, we had a beer at an outdoor jazz memorial pub… Then I said in my usual "I wanna" fashion… "I want lunch and another beer." Chuck just moved forward on Bourbon Street… He knew exactly where he wanted to take his whining spouse… Court of Two Sisters with outdoor tables, a Jazz trio called A Sharpe, and a great daily buffet. Hence the note to self… Get the recipe for the corn. Chuck chose a Clos du Bois and I’m melding into my seat to become one with the beautiful sisters. Come to our house and I’ll share my version of the Cajun Corn and play the A Sharpe Trio CD for you. God bless you.
Today we walked all along the Mississippi! She is wide and working down here in New Orleans. She carries container ships, ferries, cruise ships, and the inevitable steamer full of conventioneers! We stopped at a beautiful Holocaust memorial with an amazing piece of art in 9 panels by Yaacov Agam. It is beautiful. If you walk all around it and concentrate you find a large yellow star of David. The pieces show the anguish and horror of the Holocaust in a beautiful piece of art. We also ate oysters at the bar served by Pam at the Acme Oyster House. Right now we’re listening to a Jazz band in 30 degrees/ 90 degrees. Dinner arrived! Be well. God bless America.
We stopped this morning at the Louisiana visitors center way out west in Lake Charles. "How about Cajun with shrimp on every corner?" The little southern lady asked. "Yum" said Chuck… "Shrimp". Somehow NCIS New Orleans and beignets came up and we were on the road headed for an Inn that Chuck found 6 years ago called… Elysian Fields Inn. New Orleans called us away from a southern route that would have taken us into Cajun country… And it is history. We are sitting on an upper porch listening to the mournful sound of a train whistle, a calliope (which was the name of one of the muses and means "voice"), and looking at Orange tree tops, sipping wine. Later we will search for Rooster who played the horn downtown the last time we were here. Our party town! God bless you!
We were supposed to check into the Grand Canyon today… But I asked Chuck if we could change that plan due to it being about 6 days extra "windshield time on this trip," and I opted for a few hours less driving and the sunny beautiful east coast of Texas. Dear Chuck is willing to "turn right, turn left" and not ask too many questions. He has saved us a few times when I miss exits and entrances so I know he is paying attention. So today, after yesterday’s wonderful final tribute to the men who freed Texas for independence… at San Jacinto Sam Houston seemed to his men to be retreating and they were deserting…. but I think he just wanted to out fox Santa Anna and put the Mexicans’ backs to the water… When Sam Houston’s forces attacked, the Mexicans weren’t ready and the battle at San Jacinto was over quickly. Only 9 "Texicans" died there. In a final war with Mexico, the US gained about 7 of what are now the Western States. So with the Louisiana purchase, the war with Mexico, and the purchase of Alaska we became "big" – what we are today. Texans are proud to be Texans. I wish we could all be so proud and keep our individual states clean and well regulated.
After the visit to San Jacinto Chuck and I came back to the pool for pool play and reading. We are both reading submarine novels. Mine is the sinking of a sub in 1939 and the rescue of about half her crew. The sub was raised from the bottom and major changes were subsequently made to her systems and to future submarine design. It seems that someone left a valve open, or it opened accidentally as they dived filling her with sea water. I’m not to the rescue yet in the book, but I know she survived and was recommissioned under a new name. Chuck’s book is a 2000 incident with a nuclear sub. It’s really dangerous business. Go find and hug a submarine sailor. We are really blessed in our local submarine group to have some of the younger men who served on nuclear subs. They are successful, independent, proud men. Hug a veteran today!
Yesterday evening we met the widow of an old friend… "Jake" Charles Smiley was the son of Smiley… he and Cotton were Chuck’s dad’s best friends. Smiley drove me to our wedding. They were such good friends. Chuck visited Jake in Houston in 2010 and Jake succumbed to cancer in 2014. We had a good visit with Lorraine and shared many good old memories. God bless our friends whom we have lost. Take care of them Lord.
Off we go south today, to Galveston island, via ferry to Port Bolivar, and along the south Louisiana coast. I’ll let you know tonight where we land for we have not a plan! Just head east along the water of the Gulf of Mexico. I would like to give some business to the beleagured coast that took such a beating off the deep water Horizon. Until we land… God bless you.
The first word spoken from the moon was "Houston… Eagle has landed." Did you know LBJ put Houston on the map by moving communications with space capsules to Houston and that is probably responsible for the spread of Houston across Interstate 10 for miles of complicated and FULL freeways. As we drove for about 50 miles on I10, I kept blinking my eyes in the rush hour traffic we just came through…. This is Sunday!!! But when we finally cleared Houston and got out on to Clear Lake that opens to Galveston Bay… I realized those were holiday travelers getting back "home" after a weekend "on the shore." We are now on the shore at Clear Lake, Seabrook and Kemah (resort towns east of Houston and on Galveston Bay). I booked two nights here at a complimentary rate of $0 because we stayed 4 nights at Choice hotels on the trip preceeding San Antonio! Tomorrow, we will go up to San Jacinto and celebrate the last battle of the war for Texas Independence where Sam Houston "got lucky". He defeated the forces of Santa Anna with his men yelling "Remember the Alamo." San Antonio was beautiful and the reunion was a lot of fun. We are now on a week long journey to visit the south coast of Louisiana and Pensacola and then begin the south bound road to "home." God bless you!