It has left me a bit nostalgic though. Once the switch happens, who knows when I’ll drive a standard again. I may be in my final days of a stick shift. And I’ve always been one to be against SUV’s. But my last two winters have been tricky with the smaller car. My road is often not well cleared for days after a snowfall and I’ve gotten stuck several times over the last two winters. Oh well… I’m looking forward to the new ride and I don’t drive enough to be playing a big roll on the environment. In two years with the current Mazda 3, I’m still at less than 15,000 km.
But on to Florida. This was my longest time there and with the least amount planned… and that was nice. We went to St. Pete’s Beach for a few days early. Stayed in an old style hotel that was pretty neat and only a block from the beach.
After that, there was two baseball games. The Jays beating Boston in Dunedin and then winning against the Tigers in Lakeland. And I had a ball bounce off the heal of my hand in the Lakeland game. That makes two times in the last five games of baseball I’ve been to where a foul ball has touched my hand, but I never make the catch.
The rest of Florida consisted of a round of golf with Lee (my first round in two years went well. Shot a 107 with a 49 on the back nine and no lost balls). And then there was the trip with mom and dad to the Circle B Bar Reserve. The reserve has become one of my favourite places anywhere. Last year I saw my first armadillo there. This time I see my first Eastern Coral Snake. And on any trip there you’re assured a load of gators and a multitude of birds and turtles. Plus it’s just a nice nature reserve to walk through.
Other than that, the rest of the two weeks was just fly by the seat of our pants stuff. Stroll to the pond in the gated community mom and dad have been staying at. Watch the anole lizards scurrying about the place. Family meals. A few walks about some of Lakeland’s lakes. And some time in the downtown shopping area of Lakeland.
I got a much better feel for the city of Lakeland on this trip. And it’s a pretty nice place. And, after two weeks of Florida… where you start to get into a bit of a routine… I can actually see the appeal for retiring there for part of the year. It’s surely pretty easy to get used to sun and 25 almost every day in March.
I think my body is also telling me I need to do away with winter. By February, I had several dry patches on my face that were irritating me. The cold and dry is just rough on the skin I guess… though I never had much issue with it before the last year or two.
But within a few days of being in Florida, my skin was pretty well cleared up. Not a problem for two weeks. And then, the first two days back in Ottawa, the dryness picked up again. Though with moisturizer and the warming going on here, it settled back down fairly quickly. Still, problems before Florida followed by a bit of a flare after getting back… makes you think your body is telling you something.
Finally, the melt is on. Walking today, I saw more water in the ponds and creek than ever before. The creek in front of my house is basically now part of the pond, actually. What is normally a six foot wide stream is currently a good thirty feet wide, body of water covering much of the bottom of the valley leading into the ponds.
A path going from the woods is more like a small stream as well. Melting snow flowing in the middle of the path and draining down to the ponds.
And ducks and geese are back. I saw a pair of each milling about where the water is open. I’m expecting there’ll be chicks of each before too long.
So that’s the catch up. I should be back on schedule with my writing now and will likely have a new car with the next update. That, and watching mom and dad’s condo slowly going up a short walk away… I think this year will promise to be quite different from recent ones.
And bring on Spring.
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