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We're home. Yea! We arrived at Carl's at 4:30 PM
and dropped off the stuff we were carrying of theirs
and then came on home. We've had a small supper,
soup and biscuits and are ready for bed. It's only
7:40 PM here, but where we were this morning
it is 9:40 and we've been up since 5 AM.
More another day.
We've been burning up the highway.
Should be home tomorrow. We're both
ready to be home.
I finished my knitting project today.
We left Cocoa Beach on Tuesday.
That was hard! We'd had such a good
time and now were headed to Durham ,NC
to visit Robert's sister,Pat and her
husband, Thomas. They live in a
retirement village which we find
depressing.
We arrive there about 11 AM on
Wednesday. Thomas has Alzheimer's
and is much worse than he was a
year ago. He has no idea who we
are although we tell him often.
At one point he gets really upset
and starts to leave "since you
seem to have a new man". We tell
him again that Robert is Pat's
brother and he settles down for
a while.
The bomb shell that Pat dropped is that
she has Parkinson's. The disease
manifests in different ways. With
her it has caused her to lose much
mental ability. She can't even balance
her check book. Robert visited their
accountant and made arrangements for
him to take over all of Thomas' finances
and be ready to handle Pat's. She has
a friend helping her, at this time.
It was a tough visit for Robert and
so short it was hard to do more than
meet the accountant and be as reassuring
as we could. I'm glad they are in the
retirement facility.
Leaving the beach
It was really hard to leave this morning.
We had such a good time and the staff were so
pleasant! Martha, Carl and Ariel headed for
Sea World, would be there as it opened at 9 AM.
Their flight back to Colorado was at 5 PM.
We headed for Durham to visit Robert's
sister and husband, Thomas. Thomas has
Alzheimer's. It'll be a difficult visit,
but not as difficult as it is for Pat. We
will be there tomorrow night; we should
get there mid-morning. We have about 100
miles to go.
The Beach Place was so great and to be
there with family made it really special.
Another day in Paradise!
I've been walking 3-4 miles a day. The
life of a beach bum is quite pleasant.
I'm sure Ariel is "walking" many, many
more miles. She and Martha left for
the beach after breakfast, about 5
minutes before we did. When we got to
the beach thee wee two sets of tracks;
one going mostly in a straight line
down the beach and the other zigzaging
all over the place. You know, the way
a puppy runs all around if you let it?
The zigzag were Ariel's tracks.
This afternoon we drove about 8 miles
north to get a better view of the
space shuttle launch. The day was
perfect and it went up right on schedule.
It was spectacular, even at 3 miles! It
put an exclamation point to our trip.
We leave tomorrow. Carl, Martha and
Ariel are leaving early enough to get
to Sea World at opening. They'll
spend the morning there and part of
the afternoon and then catch their
5 o'clock flight. We head for Durham
tomorrow. Our drive is about 650 miles.
We'll make it a two day trip so it'll
not be too bad.
We are in Cocoa Beach at the Guest Place.
We arrived Thursday, last, and it was cold
and very windy. Friday was the wedding and
it warmed up; the wind died down in the
afternoon; the wedding was picture perfect.
Keating and her mom had organized it
beautifully. It went off as planned. It
appeared everyone had a really good time
at the wedding and the reception/dinner
after.
Yesterday Keating and Lee and all Lee's
relatives (15 of them) went on a Disney
Cruise. Carl, Martha, Ariel and Robert
and I spent most of the day on the beach.
We walked about 5 miles; Martha picking
up shells, Ariel running and picking up
shells.
Ariel is in 7th heaven. She is on the beach
and in the water most waking hours! It's
her first ocean experience and is a good one.
We picked up a coconut when we were on
Sanibel Island and the handimen took off
the outer shell and drilled a hole in the
inner coconut for her. She drained out
the juice and took it back. The walloped
it with a sledge hammer and she now
has lots of pieces of coconut from which
to dig out the coconut.
Hernando, one of the owners gave us our
own cabin at no extra charge so we could
rest. Sometimes being grandparents does
have its advantages.
Tomorrow we go to Sea World and Tuesday
we head for Durham, NC and the Cowleys
fly back to Colorado.
