Cotton Fields White as Snow

The mountains and lakes of Tennessee are gorgeous. The cotton fields in Georgia are white and the trees are full of autumn reds, golds, and orange.

Thanksgiving Up North

Here's a Dixie Highway sign near Cincinnati.

We had fun visiting family and friends up north this week in Toledo, Ohio. It was 25° F when we left this morning, and we're so glad to be heading south.

Florence Y'all

Here are some things we saw on our way up north for Thanksgiving. This water tower in Florence, Kentucky cracks me up. At this point headed north, we're about to leave "Y'all Country." You don't hear southern drawls as much once you cross the Ohio River.



You never know what you'll encounter on a long road trip. What is that? Redneck A/C? They want to make sure the back of the SUV stays cool.

Busch Gardens

An animal handler was loading the parrots on a cart to take them to another habitat. I was amazed at how well trained the birds are. It's probably routine for them to ride around the park on a cart amongst crowds of people.

This is a dragon. It's the biggest lizard, besides an alligator, that I've ever seen.

These colorful little lorikeets were in a walk through aviary where people could feed them.

The Serengeti Plain is huge. It's incredible that all this is in the middle of a city.

Shuttle Discovery Lands

It was a clear blue sky today over the Tampa Bay area. We think we saw Shuttle Discovery coming in for a landing on the east coast of Florida. We were in the backyard with binoculars looking at everything in the sky shortly before the scheduled landing. Airplanes had longer wings than the space shuttle and we could usually hear the engines. The white spot that we think was the space shuttle had shorter wings, dropped down really quick, left no exhaust trail, and was quiet. When a space shuttle comes in for a landing it drops quickly like a big brick with wings. After it cleared the tree line we went inside and watched the landing on TV.

Sand White as Snow

Totally Lame

The weather has been lovely. It cools off enough at night to open the windows and air out the house mornings and evenings. Right now it is about 71° F. My northern friends would think I'm totally lame to be sitting around in a heavy robe and big fuzzy socks. After living here through my first hot, humid Florida summer 71° F feels cold.