BACK TO MIAMI/JULIO VISIT

MONDAY - 11/10 - Back to the Miami area again as Mike has an equipment upgrade to install north of Miami. Its a long drive but we get to visit with buddy Julio again. He met us at Ft. Lauderdale since Mike's job was north of there, and then he took us back towards Miami to show us the little sailboat he recently purchased. Since he recently retired from a local bank, restoring this little boat is going to be his first retirement project.

Since he was a Vice President in charge of facilities, he took us to their new operations center that he helped coordinate and it is quite impressive. I may remember this wrong but they have two huge propane generators to operate the center, or perhaps are backup power, and a mammoth 800 gallon propane tank to power the generators in case of a major hurricane outage.

After that he took us to Hollywood, FL., to their boardwalk, to see how the other half lives. Right on the ocean, of course, with zillions of people sunbathing, biking, walking, jogging and old people in motorized scooters. We had a delightful lunch at an outdoor Greek restaurant overlooking the water. It was a little more windy than usual Julio said, but temperature was still in the mid-70's. A little better than reports we are hearing about Seattle's weather.

After a great visit, we headed north to rendezvous with Mike, and then the long drive home. We have put in a lot of miles with Mike this trip, but it has given us an opportunity to see quite a bit of southern Florida. Interesting to note the topographical differences between Miami and Orlando. Lots more waterways, lakes and ponds, plus palm trees near Miami. Not a lot of palms near Orlando and lots of trees and bushes.

TUESDAY - 11/11 - Lots more observations to share, hope you readers aren't getting tired of them:

I love their handicapped restrooms - not only the convenient grab bars but many have full facilities included, with sinks. Nice, and private.

Boy am I getting into the modern technological age. Christina showed me my first I-Pod and explained how it works. I said I bet you don't have Lawrence Welk downloaded, and she said "Just a minute" and up came Welk with a whole raft of his songs. But, they are only 30-second bits that you can then order. She wasn't interested in that.

Mike has a very unique job, spending the majority of his time at home. The nuclear medicine equipment for which he is responsible is vital to the medical community, and if he does his preventative maintenance properly, the goal is to have them never break down. So, his company is happy if he DOESN'T work, because their customers are happy and the company's repair expenses are minimized. Customers pay big bucks for maintenance contracts, so the fewer the calls, the more Mike's company makes. However, on the drive down to Miami yesterday, he had two service calls where he solved the customer's problem by talking them through it. Very impressive. We actually got to see our son in action, and he "seems" to know what he's doing..

In addition to the very small number of big trucks on the freeways and turnpikes, compared to Washington and Arizona, there are very few RV's on the road. Not quite sure why, perhaps more congregate on the Gulf Coast side. Very few RV's parked in people's yards, however, there are an inordinate number of boats for some reason.

Missing my MISI - While I was concerned that she would miss me to the point she would get depressed, not eat and perhaps croak, apparently that is not the case, per the Dotter. She plays constantly with the other two dogs and Suzy's family is getting quite attached to her. Her half-brother Kolo has an entirely different personality and is not as personable, or well-mannered. Actually, it is me that is having difficulty being away from her. I'm oke except when I see people walking THEIR dogs, or one of M&C's cats comes up and snuggles with me. Sob!

A couple other traffic notes, all school busses have strobe lights on top that make them really easy to see in traffic. Also, you know how you might come up to busy intersections at night, and sometimes it is hard to locate the traffic lights? Well, Oviedo has installed bright blue lights over them that make it easy to locate the signals. Gasoline prices are really dropping here, with many stations at $3.22, and last night the TV showed a couple stations at under two bucks. Wonder how ours are back home? We might start using the RV again, and will probably Snowbird in January, IF I don't get one or more knees replaced.