When we left Warner Robins on Oct. 5th, we first spent 2 days in Savannah and Tybee Island. It was a beautiful area and if I ever make the jump to go to art and design school, I would definitely consider SCAD (Savannah Centre of Art and Design).

Next we stopped in Jekyll Island, a beautiful little island with a strong view to conservation. The highlight here was meeting a group that was doing shrimping over the beach and they let me have a go at it. I had to really control myself when I was constantly getting nibbled by curious little fish and rammed by panicked shrimp. I’m just glad I didn’t get nibbled by any sharks.

Next, we went to Fernandina Beach on Amelia Island. This was a great little beach town and our hotel was right on the beach where we spent most of the time looking for sharks teeth. It is supposed to be a hot bed for all sizes of teeth. The only one I brought home was given to me by a regular visitor who found one in about one minute. The only disappointing this about Amelia Island is that most of it was for sale. They had not faired well in the real estate collapse.

From there we followed the Flordia coast south and had dinner on the beach in Daytona. I thought it was great to be able to drive right onto the beach. I guess it just makes sense in the birthplace of NASCAR. After dinner we headed to Orlando, where I spent 2 days at a commercial real estate course.

From Orlando we head to the Gulf and stopped in Fort Walton Beach near Destin. This was a very touristy place and also another area hit by the real estate decline.

After ripping through Alabama and Mississippi we stopped in New Orleans. A fantastic place to visit. So much history in the French Quarter where we stayed. We even walked Bourbon Street with the kids at night. Lots to see and surprisingly the kids didn’t even ask why there where so many scantily dressed women in many of the store fronts. For us, New Orleans was all about the food. We sampled everything that Louisiana is known  for and I fell in love with crawfish (not crayfish!!) and Amelia with Gumbo.

We had one more stop in Louisiana and that was for lunch in Breux Bridge, the Crawfish Capital of the World. I had the crawfish platter with crawfish prepared in about 10 different ways. I was all amazing.

Our next stop was in Houston. Unfortunately, I’m not sure this is a city I would return to, but we did have a great visit with some old family friends. The first time since we left Winnipeg in July.

Our next stop was in Frisco to stay with more family friends. This time we took a break and we stayed a whole week. With beautiful weather and great friends it was a welcome break.

Next up was Gurdon, Arkansas for another day with friends of the same family. That whole family is great which is why we planned visit more of them after stopping in Jacksonville, Arkansas to visit a few mobile home parks. Originally, we had planned to stay in Jacksonville for a couple more months, nursing our new mobile home additions to health, but they have not yet come through so we stopped, shook hands and sailed on through to Conway, Arkansas to meet the rest of the family.

Our last “friendly” stop was in Garnett, Kansas to meet friends from the mobile home park world.

After one more night in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, we hightailed it back to Winnipeg. But not before getting hit by a nasty, slushy, slick snow storm. Luckily, we did not end up in the ditch like some many others we say and we got past Grand Forks (Super Target) and Canada Customs without incident and back into Winnipeg on Oct 30th, at 7pm.

Since we have been home, I have been get everything back in order. Going through mail. Updated Quicken. Filing. Banking. This next week I spent working on a plan for one of the parks we looked at in Arkansas and fired my mortgage broker. Now we are on our own and looking for someone to help us get another park or two.

Again, sorry I haven’t written for a while. Just needed to focus on the present as the present blew past.

I’m back.

I have loaded a few pictures so that you can see what it is like. You can click on each image to get a larger version.

Today, the kids are starting school. Amelia is home schooling them. It’s actually very cute. Natalie calls Amelia “Teacher”. Down here, the school kids go back to school today as well. They finish at the end of May and start at the beginning of August. The weather just gets so hot that they figure it is better to have the kids in the air conditioned school than sitting around at home watching TV and playing video games.

Sandpiper Apartments provides all sorts of great features. As you can see from the pictures there is a pool. Our refuge from the heat. It is a great pool because it has three “lobes” in the main pool where people can sort of have their own private space and then there is a water fall down to the shallow kids pool.

Besides the pool there is a 24 hour fitness center, a games room and a movie theatre. The property sits on a large man-made lake. Initally, we were pretty excited about being able to swim in the lake.

I envisioned myself swimming long distances to get in better shape, like they do at Meech Lake in Gatineau Park near Ottawa. So I asked at the office and they informed me that it probably wasn’t a good idea. Alligators! Oh, exciting, I could work on my speed! Yeah, right! I decided that swimming distances just wouldn’t happen. I do look forward to seeing an alligator though. The girl at the office (Tiffany is great), says she has been here over than 6 years and has never seen on in the complex. She has heard stories from the people that live near the waters edges that they sometimes come up into the breeze ways between the buildings, presumably to cool off. Or sit in the rain gutters that dump into the lake, to sun themselves.

So instead of swimming in the lake, I went to the fitness center to work out this morning…after a very long fight to get out of bed. Then I went for a run. By the time I got back the temperature was probably between 25° and 30° and the humidity is very high. When you walk into an air conditioned apartment in after working out in that weather, the perspiration just goes haywire. We’ll have to see if my simply baking soda deodorant will keep up in this weather. It hasn’t failed me in several months. In fact, I have thrown out all my old deodorant sticks because I never planned on using them again. We’ll see.

Take care and have a great day. I know we will.