Sun, Sol, Soleil!

New Orleans-Ft Lauderdale

Mileage; 5011

From New Orleans we drove towards some dark & ominous skies on into the pan handle of FL and through Ft Lauderdale. We watched the weather radar like hawks as there were tornado warnings in Northern FL! Fortunately, nothing except rain ever materialized and we finally arrived at Ben's cousin John's home, on what was one of our longest driving days during our trip, 14 hrs. We must say that the time rolls on easily, passing countryside that we've never seen and imagining what might lay just beyond what we can see and fantasize about the snake and gator laden land that would be about as alien to us as Mars.

Day 1;

After a good nights sleep in John and Joy's fantastically comfortable guest house bed, we lounged around, chatting and soaking up the Florida sun on the beautiful patio deck facing a shimmering canal lined with boats much like a suburban street, complete with a 12 ft coconut tree, that John actutally grew from a baby coconut. We finally met John and Joy's beautiful and content baby girl, Jillian, such a sweetheart!

Later in the day we ventured out to a local park and visited 12 of about 50 booths set up for Earth Day/Water Conservation. We each received 2 local trees/shrubs (which we left with John & Joy). Of course we had to put our toes in ocean, so we drove downtown through massive traffic (which we discovered was due to pre St. Patty's Day celebrations). And although it is officially Spring Break, we didn't really see any evidence of college students on the beaches perhaps they were all at the St Patty's Day party?

We all joined in cooking, snacking and sharing stories before sitting down to a fabulous home cooked sea food feast: king crab, clams & tiger prawns with fresh asparagus, roasted potatoes, salad and garlic bread.

Day 2;

Another good nights sleep! John and Pat (Ben's uncle & aunt) drove down from Stuart and Ben made an awesome Cioppino (sea food stew) using some of the leftover seafood from the previous days big meal and some fresh Cod, and we stuffed ourselves silly once again.

We said our goodbyes to John, Joy and Jillian and followed John and Pat back to their comfortable home in Stuart which is very peaceful and beautifully secluded in mature trees and palms. Addy loved their big back yard and enjoyed a late night frisbee session and of course another in the morning. We left before daybreak on our way to North Carolina.