{"id":3087,"date":"2014-11-13T07:20:41","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T14:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/?p=3087"},"modified":"2014-11-13T09:19:54","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T16:19:54","slug":"trip-report-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/trip-report-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Trip report #5"},"content":{"rendered":"

The day after our Epcot adventure we drove to Brandon (near Tampa) to visit my niece Jennifer, her husband Jeff, and meet their daughter Rowan. Brandon is not that far from Orlando via the I-4, but the interstate\u00a0has a reputation for being slow. We were fortunate we didn’t\u00a0have any traffic delays, making the trip in about an hour and a half, but there were slow downs on the return leg. Still, no major problems in making the round trip.<\/p>\n

We hadn’t seen Jennifer and Jeff since their marriage many years ago. (Their daughter, Rowan, is 12, going on 13, which gives you some idea of the time lapse involved.) Jenn is the younger daughter of my sister Carolyn. Jennifer and Jeff live in a neighborhood\u00a0subdivision that has well-kept houses, large yards, and plenty of trees. We arrived around 1:30 PM and enjoyed a\u00a0visit of more than 3 hours.<\/p>\n

Among the many topics we discussed is the state of education in Florida. Jenn is a teacher and has some very pointed\u00a0insights into how education is approached by both school systems and parents. It still boils down to the home; schools can do their best but unless parents get involved and value a good education, the best efforts of teachers and school administrators will only accomplish so much.<\/p>\n

We also spent some time talking about Jennifer’s father Harry, who passed away a few years ago due to cancer. Although Harry and Carol had divorced many years ago, we had kept in contact with Harry and had been witnesses at his 2nd wedding.\u00a0 We were friends as well as in-laws, and Harry’s\u00a0passing was an emotional one. Our visit allowed us to fill in some of the blanks surrounding his last few months in Florida.<\/p>\n

No visit would be complete without a photo\u00a0record. Here is a group shot of the 5 of us.<\/p>\n

\"Left<\/a>

Left to right: Jennifer, Jeff, Rowan (front) Jerry, and Pam<\/p><\/div>\n

We took leave of the Gould family and headed back to Orlando (on the infamous I-4) for our last night with Mary and Jeff. The next morning would see us on our way to southern Florida, headed toward\u00a0the Florida Keys.<\/p>\n

We decided to drive down central Florida rather than head for either coast line. For the first time I\u00a0saw some of Florida’s iconic\u00a0orange groves, hundreds of acres in some stretches. There wasn’t\u00a0a lot of activity in them this time of the year, but we could see where younger trees had been planted among older trees and other maintenance had been completed. We also drove past large sugar cane fields and a Domino Sugar processing plant. As in Louisiana, sugar cane is a viable cash crop in central Florida. Who knew?<\/p>\n

We arrived in the Homestead area a bit earlier than I\u00a0had thought, so it was\u00a0decided to make a brief (2 – 3\u00a0hour)\u00a0visit to the Everglades. We saw many large white birds, mainly\u00a0Great Egrets and White Ibis, and, just before we left, even an iconic crocodile.<\/p>\n

\"Entering<\/a>

Entering the Everglades<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Great<\/a>

Great Egret<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Crocodile<\/a>

Crocodile near Flamingo Point<\/p><\/div>\n

One of the oddest signs we saw on the entire trip was at Flamingo Point, southern most point of the Everglades road.<\/p>\n

\"What<\/a>

What the heck?<\/p><\/div>\n

We didn’t see any vultures, but we did see this Osprey nest:<\/p>\n

\"Ospreys<\/a>

Ospreys nesting, Flamingo Point, Everglades<\/p><\/div>\n

And, finally, a first for me: Coconuts growing in palm trees.<\/p>\n

\"Coconuts<\/a>

Coconuts in palm tree<\/p><\/div>\n

Our trip to the Everglades was short but memorable. In a\u00a0trip video, to be posted later, I have included some footage of the crocodile swimming\u00a0 and a Great Egret flying and landing in a tree. Not great cinematic stuff but I found these events interesting.<\/p>\n

We returned to our Best Western in\u00a0Homestead for the night after a full day of travel and sight-seeing. Next morning we would begin our\u00a0visit\u00a0to the Florida Keys.<\/p>\n

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!<\/p>\n

Pam’s Two Cents Worth:<\/p>\n

I found the details of Harry’s death, as related by Jenn, emotionally moving. \u00a0Harry was a faithful correspondent\u00a0[once each year ] through most of our marriage; his irreverent Christmas cards were always anticipated. \u00a0Harry left us too soon.<\/p>\n

There are lots of varieties of palms\u00a0— and\u00a0not all grow coconuts. \u00a0I noticed several palm frond patterns, various palm heights, and differences in trunk types. \u00a0Apparently there is even a species\u00a0of rat living in these palms. \u00a0Who knew?<\/p>\n

Happy Trails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The day after our Epcot adventure we drove to Brandon (near Tampa) to visit my niece Jennifer, her husband Jeff, and meet their daughter Rowan. Brandon is not that far from Orlando via the I-4, but the interstate\u00a0has a reputation for being slow. We were fortunate we didn’t\u00a0have any traffic delays, making the trip in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3087"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3101,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3087\/revisions\/3101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.appleattic.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}