Sunday Morning

Well Saturday turned out to be a magnificent day with beautiful blue skies, lots of sunshine and warm temps after a cool start down in the 40's. We slept in until 7 despite the big beaks next door that started their crowing around 5:30. After our quiet moments I fixed a couple microwave eggs and a bowl of grits for my breakfast and Nancy did her thing with oatmeal. I know oatmeal is supposed to be good for you but after 5 days of it I needed some cackle berries in a bowl of grits with some hot sauce, delicious.

We were heading out to some new territory to visit with some mountain friends in the Homosassa area which was about 80 miles or so from Seminole. We headed up US 19 and let me say it was a parking lot from our place to Weekie Wachee and then on Northward it opened up with lots of sugar sand hills, scrub pines and oaks. It took us just about 2 hours but the drive was interesting as it was traffic light after traffic light. It had been 15 or more years since I last travelled US 19 and while we came back a different way down the Suncoast Parkway toll road to Tampa it still took us nearly 2 hours to get to the house. That way is faster but longer and once you get into Tampa the traffic was horrendous with traffic signals galore. Well enough about the trip which I was thankful was uneventful.

We met Fred and Brenda several years ago as they purchased a small cabin on top of our mountain that we try to hike at least once a day. Eventually they purchased an adjoining tract of land and they built a beautiful home with majestic views and we saw them quite often. Fred still travels some for his job to South America and Brenda keeps the home fires going with their beautiful pup, Rico. Now they have 2 small burros, one of which is due to foal in the next couple of weeks and 3 miniature cows, one of which is to drop her calf in the next few days.

They have a beautiful refurbished home of which they have orchestrated all the fixing up within about a year of living there, plus he had put up several nice out buildings to house their pets(animals), fenced in the whole property and made lots of capital improvements. Brenda served us a nice lunch out by the pool and we shared a little about ourselves as well as did they. We learned Fred and I are within a couple month's in age of each other and that Brenda is very close to Nancy in age as well. It was an enjoyable afternoon and its becoming clear to us we probably won't see them much in the mountains on our hikes, so that means if we want to see our mountain friends it will have to be in Florida; who would have thought!

We got back to the house after a quick stop at the store for some goodies then I headed out to water my garden before we headed over to GG's for supper. She was having corned beef and cabbage(from my garden) along with a salad(my garden as well) taters and carrots. Amy and her family were there as well as Nancy's sister and her son Braden. It was a sumptuous meal and by 8:30 I was really to head home and hit the shower. What a fun, busy day and the high lite was seeing Fred and Brenda and getting to know them a little better, LATER We forgot to bring the camera, oh well next time!!!