Back to Florida

It has been a busy week.  It is time for my husband to have the last of his scheduled radiation treatments for prostate cancer.  We arrived back in Southwest Florida on Monday.  It is a much more inviting time of year to be here than it was last August!

We are staying with my brother Jeff and his wife Anna once again at their home in Fort Myers.

I love to sit on their back deck and watch the wildlife around the lake.  The first day, I saw a bald eagle in the tree right across from their house.

Our first trip back to the Dattoli Cancer Center in Sarasota was on Wednesday.  They did some scans and lab work, and scheduled Charlie for his radiation treatments.

The last time we were here, he was scheduled for 7:40 AM.  It takes an hour and a half to get there.  I took many pictures of the sun rising over the Peace River on our daily drive.

This time it was setting over the Peace River on our way home.

And then it was a lovely glow over the Caloosahatchee River as we crossed the bridge back to Fort Myers.

On Friday, we reported at the new time of 3:40 for the "dry run" or "film day," as they call it at DCC. There are two linear accelerators that provide the radiation treatment there, and one of them was down.  They did not take Charlie back there until almost five o'clock.

That put us smack in Sarasota traffic at rush hour.  We did not get home until 7:30 PM.

We have already discovered the advantages and disadvantages of the early versus late schedule.  

It does not matter, we will do whatever it takes, and we are so grateful for this opportunity for healing.  And he only needs ten days this time.  We can do this!

Memorial Day Mountain Trip

We took a very nice 5-day break from cleaning and packing up our house to go to the mountains with our son Bryson and his family.  My sister's family was up there, too, as well as her brother-in-law Ricky's family.  Lots of kids and dogs and fun.

When we left and for most of the trip up, there was a bad thunderstorm.  But when we started up the mountain, we were rewarded with beautiful sunset skies.

And that was it for rain for the rest of the weekend.  Beautiful sunny days!

Lots of time spent by the creek, in the creek, and riding through the creek!  That's my brother-in-law Kenny taking my Dad and some grandkids right through it on his Gator.

The big mud puddle at the flat part on top of the mountain was bigger than ever.  Our dog Kasey decided to stick her whole head under and get cool!

All the little boys got covered in mud when they played at the creek.  They found lots of salamanders and tadpoles.

We took lots of rides through the Christmas tree farms and caught a couple of nice sunsets from the top of the mountain.

I would love to try to paint those some day.

On the way home Monday, we saw a rainbow over I-85.  Very nice!

While we were up there, we had another meeting with our builders, and our plans for the mountain home are progressing.   We are getting excited to think of having such a nice place up there.

Today we are having a horribly gloomy day thanks to Tropical Depression  Beryl bringing us lots of rain.  I don't mind, since we were so lucky with the weather last weekend.  I just hope they will still be able to install my new kitchen windows as scheduled this afternoon.

Memorial Day Weekend

A lovely long weekend in the mountains of North Carolina. Sunday night was a bonus night to extend the weekend, watch the sunset on top of the mountain and sit out and watch the stars. We are fairly confident that we spotted the International Space Station orbiting above us. It looks like a steady bright white light.


Here is Charlie and Maggy outside of our cabin, which sported the American flag for this national holiday.
And here is a perfect lady's slipper that I spotted in the woods in front of the cabin.