Blue Lagoon Traveler

On Monday March 6, I stayed in all day and just relaxed.  Of course I was poolside most of the day. It was so generous of  Kathy and Chris Tallo to allow me to relax at their home for 5 weeks.  As you can see the pool is beautiful and inviting.  I tried this beer when out to eat one night - it became my new favorite.  On Tuesday March 7, I drove down to the Juno Beach area to meet up with a couple that I had met on my fall 2022 Italy trip, Jenny and Danny Warthan.  They are currently taking their 40 foot cabin cruiser on a 1 year trip called “the great loop”.  After buying the boat in Michigan they started their trip in Kentucky.  Going mostly down the Tennessee river, then out into the Gulf of Mexico, around the Florida Keys, then up the intercoastal waterways on the Atlantic side of Florida.  We swam in the marina pool and had a great dinner at a place called Captain Charlie’s Reef grill.  Unfortunately, I was having such a good time, that I forgot to take pictures.  I did get their

Monday Feb 27, I dropped Deb S and Sheri off at the Orlando airport and then headed back to Hobe Sound.  I spent the rest of the day cleaning, unpacking and in the pool and relaxing.    A week or so earlier, I had signed up at the Hobe Sound Nature Refuge for a few different spring events that they were doing.  The first one was on Tuesday Feb 28 and was the Jonathan Dickinson scrub jay walk.  We took a walk in an area of the state park that has been set aside for increasing the Florida Scrub Jay population.   It is the only bird found exclusively in Florida and it lives in family groups in a scrub habitat.  When they started the project several years ago, there were 30 in the park. Now there are 200.   The male and female look identical, and you can only tell them apart by one of the calls that the female makes.  They take turns being a lookout, gatherer, or taking care of the young.  While on the walk, we also saw a WWII radar station that was hidden in the scrub.  They did this so e

Deb Erway, Sheri Haan & Deb Smith came to visit me for a week - Feb 20-28.  I have been good friends with Deb Erway for years and am just getting to know the other 2 better.  We spent the first part of the week going to the ocean, hanging by the pool, walking the neighborhood, doing a little shopping, mostly eating in and going to a fun restaurant in Salerno Fl.  The second part of the week we headed north to Kissimmee Fl to stay at a Holiday Inn water resort that Deb Erway had a time share at.   On our way to the timeshare, 3 of us took a side trip to Blue Springs State Park.  We took a 2-hour boat ride down the St. John’s river which is the only river in Florida that runs north to the ocean.  We were hoping to see many manatees, but unfortunately the weather has been warm, and they have mostly moved out towards the ocean.  We did see 2 of the adults and while I couldn’t see the babies, one of the 2 had twin caves with them.  They are genetically descended from the same prehistori