Florida

Monday, October 12, 2009



We left Randy's sister's in Atlanta in a terrible rainstorm. Randy got soaked hooking up the trailer. Then when we were traveling on the freeway, several cars pulled over (I guess their wipers couldn't handle it) the rest of us slowed to about 30 mph and turned our flashers on. This was the worst rainstorm either of us had ever driven in. When we finally drove out of the storm and reached the Florida/Georgia border, the temperature was in the 90's.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009
We drove to my brother's in Longwood, just outside Orlando. REALLY hot and there was no way we could run our air conditioner so we had to move into his home to stay the night.

Wednesday, October 14,2009
We drove to Dixie Crossroads near the Kennedy Space Center for lunch. They have really good rock shrimp which are like little tiny lobster.

Randy's too full to do anything but nap.

Now off to see the Kennedy Space Center.

This is a "G" force ride. Randy was queasy after. There was no way I was going on it!

Thursday, October 15, 2009
This is the lake my brother's house faces. We paddled around it for a while and saw some fish, turtles, and ugly Asian ducks.

That night, Barbara's mother came. She and Barbara were flying to Moline, IL the next day to see Barb's brother for the weekend.

Friday, October 16, 2009

I'm sorry, but I can't match the text up with the pictures. The blog will not cooperate.

We drove to Deseret Cattle and Citrus Ranch. It is owned by the Church and is the largest working cattle ranch in the US.

This is the visitor's center.

This is a 14-foot aligator that they killed in the citrus grove.

This is a 7 foot rattlesnake skin that was killed on the ranch.

This is Sister Smith, our tour guide. She drove us around the ranch in this shuttle bus and showed us many things about the ranch.

We changed clothes in the visitor center and then were off to the Orlando Temple. It is beautiful and the landscaping is awesome. It is in a very upscale area of Orlando.

Very, very beautiful!

a>

That night we went to a Thai place that my brother likes. This is a whole red snapper that they deep fry and serve sweet and sour.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

We are off to Black Hammock Tours for an air boat ride on Lake Jesup. It was cold that morning so there weren't very many alligators out.

There was an alligator there!

See the tail there to the right?

This one splashed and was gone right when the camera snapped the picture.

After the ride, we had lunch at the restaurant there. Randy had a gator sandwich. I tried a bite--it tastes a lot like chicken. :-)

Then we stopped at a park that has two very old cypress trees. This is called "The Senator". It is about 3,500 years old. The other one is only 2,000 years old and is called "Miss Liberty."

Sabrina, my niece, came over and we went to dinner at a Bosnian/Italian restaurant.

Sunday, October 18, 2009
We went to the Longwood ward. The bishop there has a son on a mission in Ogden! Sabrina came over again for leftovers and we critiqued her presentation for her Doctorate degree. (SHE IS NOW A DOCTOR!) She's such a cute girl.

Monday, October 19, 2009

We did laundry all morning and waited for Barb to get home from Moline, IL so we could get a picture with her and tell her goodbye. We had a wonderful time while we were there.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Friday, October 9, 2009
We drove through the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, but as you can see, it was socked in.




Don't you think Randy's shirt goes well with the leaves?

This is our new home since we're unemployed.

It even has a church nearby.

Really nice view huh? You're supposed to be able to see 360 degrees around the park.

This hike was on part of the Appalachian Trail.

Raleigh, NC

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

It was truly a tender mercy that we made this temple session. When we leaving our campground near the Shenandoah National Park, the lock on the outside storage locked up. Randy had to take it apart to fix it. This was a slight delay, but could have taken a lot longer. We drove along the Skyline Road in the park to the trailhead where we wanted to hike. We didn't know how long the hike would take us, but the Lord did. The drive to Raleigh was about 5 hours. The stupid GPS wanted us to take several different side roads, but we decided to stay on the freeway all the way. Good choice, we arrived in the parking lot at 7:20 pm for the 7:45 session. Any longer fixing the lock, hiking, or driving and we would have missed the last session. If we had missed it, we would have had to wait until the next night for another session. They didn't have any sessions during that day. The Lord knew the end from the beginning and guided us so we would make it in time.

Shenandoah Natl Park

Wednesday, October 7, 2009






We hiked a small part of the Appalachian Trail here in the Shenandoah National Park.



Darn, "no camping"! And I wanted to roast weenies in the fireplace!



This is the remains of a shelter house that burned down. There are clubs along the trail that maintain the trail and they used to have shelters where hikers could find shelter if they needed to. Now with the roads so close and access to them, they don't need shelters like they used to.

This is "Mary's Rock". I don't know why it's Mary's or how it got its name, but it is at the top and you can see far and wide from it. The wind was blowing really hard when we got there.

Yes, there was another couple there too, so we took each other's pictures.

Washington DC

Tuesday, October 6, 2009








The Washington, DC Temple!
It is huge! And so beautiful! We had a wonderful time seeing it. There is a mural inside that I have never seen before. It is of the Savior's Second Coming. I asked if there were any prints of it. There aren't, but there is a bookmark with it. So I bought all they had.

New York

Wednesday, September 30, 2009


Our trip to the Manhattan Temple was truly guided by the Lord. We left Connecticut about 11:00am to drive to a subway station where we would ride into Manhattan to attend the 2:00pm Temple session. I entered the station address in the GPS and it said we would arrive there at 1:30pm--not enough time to get to the 2:00 session. We decided we would therefore have lunch and attend the next session at 6:00pm.

When we arrived at the station, there was no parking garage and no place to park to ride the subway. Our only option was to drive to the Temple. I entered the Temple address in the GPS and we proceeded to drive into Manhattan. We found a parking garage about a half block away from the Temple. The sign said, "First 1/2 hour $30"! Oh well, we were there! We made it in time to attend the 2:00 session!




When we finished the session, they asked us if we could do some sealings for them. Of course, we said we could. Then after, we rode the elevator with the Temple officiator that conducted the endowment session and was a witness to the sealings we did. We talked about where we were all from and he stated that he was from southern Alberta, Canada. We stated we had family in Calgary and he asked their name. We told him Sabey and he replied his wife was a Sabey. His wife was Randy's uncle's cousin. He invited us to meet his wife.



We went with him to the Church-owned apartment building next to the Temple. They had an apartment on the 14th floor. We met his wife, Liz, and then he took us up to the roof of the 37-floor building.

Greg & Liz Strong

The angle Moroni from the roof.




















Central Park behind us from the roof.














Views from the roof.











































Greg gave us a map and instructions on driving through Central Park. We picked the car up at about 6:00PM afraid of what it was going to cost. We presented our ticket and the attendant said we owed $35! Great!!! Another tender mercy. We tried to drive through Central Park, not knowing they close the park to vehicles at 6:00PM. The second entrance we tried to drive through was open only far enough to gain access to The Tavern on the Green restaurant so we had dinner there!

After dinner, we went for a carriage ride around Central Park. If was pretty cold, but it was so romantic.

Randy fed the horse a carrot.

Thursday, October 1, 2009
The water tank on our trailer was trying to fall out and the Sunny Brook dealer in Connecticut couldn't take us for two weeks. We located a dealer on Long Island that could see us today so we drove onto Long Island following the directions GPS gave us. We ended up on an expressway that was for cars only! The police pulled us over and asked how we had gotten so far on the expressway with our trailer since there were low overpasses. The police had to stop traffic in order to get us and a Rider truck off the expressway. Luckily, he didn't give us a ticket--another tender mercy. After our trailer was fixed, I had to get us off Long Island without the help of GPS and not go into any tunnels or back on that expressway. By the time we reached New Jersey, my neck was stiff and I had a tension headache. We stayed the night at a RV park in New Jersey.

Friday, October 2, 2009
We drove to Liberty State Park in New Jersey and boarded a ferry to take us to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.















































































Liberty's old flame--it leaked.















Views from the pedistal.