A LITTLE CATCHIN' UP--

Son Brian helps hitch the camper the day after Christmas in preparation for our departure to FL on the 27th of December.  Just days before that my laptop computer failed so we headed off on our snow-birding adventure without the main tool necessary to publish the blog.  Hence our absence of stories for most of January.

We left the laptop with our computer doctor's store the morning of our departure.  Later we learned it was dead on arrival, and we placed a long-distance order for its replacement.  That was shipped to us in the latter part of January but it arrived with two serious flaws; 1) it could not operate my card reader which is my tool of choice for downloading photos, and 2) my email program would not play nicely with my email service.

The first flaw stopped blog publication cold and today we are limping along with a patch-work fix until a permanent solution is found.

We like to think the above photo clearly shows the wisdom of our choice to head for warmer weather.  It turns out that was indeed a good choice since the northeast has been pummeled with polar assaults since.

We also like to think the following photo supports our choice to head south:

It was taken a couple days later on Tybee Island Georgia as the sunrise sprinkled warmth across the Atlantic and a passing sea bird seemed to salute our arrival.  We were grateful for both.  That is my lady, Sue Brooks on the right with square dancing friends from Mansfield, Terri Garafolo and Bill Moore who hosted us for several days in their condo located between this marvelous scene and Savannah.

We square danced with them to celebrate the New Year with a Savannah area dance club then continued our journey south New Year's Day; stopping for a lunch visit with daughter TJ and family in Jacksonville, FL and arriving in the Vero Beach area later that evening, where...

...we had the good fortune to bunk with Bellville friends Dick and Jan Shafer for a delightful and much welcomed evening, sparing us the burden of setting up the camper in the dark while fairly exhausted from a 1,200 mile trip.

The camper has behaved nicely--except: the potty needed replaced, the GFI electric outlet in the bathroom failed and our little ceramic heater required a quick replacement before last night's somewhat chilly 40 degree temperature.

Regardless, the weather has been comparably terrific and we have been warmly received in this owner occupied, aging mobile home park with RV facilities and have been blessed with marvelous new friendships that have put a delightful polish on this, our first-ever, snow-birding experience.

Please stay tuned.