Life is too short to be wasted.

I received this email from my cousin, Mary Kern I just got to see in Florida:
Minnie is her sister, another cousin.


Minnie's husband, David Shuler, died yesterday. He had stomach and esophogeal cancer. He took chemo and radiation therapy but it did not kill the cancer. He weighed about 80lbs when he died. He was asleep and just stopped breathing.

They are all glad he is not suffering anymore. Minnie said she saw his fathers face, our mothers face and several faces of his relatives. They were all smiling because they wanted him there in the spitit world.

His funeral will be short because that is the way he wanted it. It will be at the Shuler Cemetery, not at the church.
Mary

Dad was supposed to be taking a picture but got a video instead. Minnie didn't want me to take her picture but here I am with my other two cousins form Florida.
Life is too short to be wasted!

The Last of Florida

The Last of Florida

Day Eight (Wednesday)

It was another rainy day. The sun shines when we drive long distances. We were not sure the trip to Dry Tortougas would go. theh operators of the bost seemed assured and we said a little prayer and followed the Spirit and went. We both took
Dramamine and were fine. It was a beautiful day on the island. It is called "dry" because there is no fresh water there! But there are national Park personell stationed there and a limited number of campers are allowed.We toured.

We snorkeled. (no pictures here! but I did go in!)

We discovered. John's name at the top of the Chapel-He was the designer-brick mason for this the second largest brick defense in the world (the great wall of China is considered the largest) that was amazing!

Then the trip back. WOW. the swells were only supposed to be 6-8 feet. But it was rough. I think everyone took Dramamine-but it wasn't enough. There were so many sick people! the repeated slamming of the boat into the water catapulted us all right out of the seats. We were literally
air-born! I will put some of the video I tried
to take here-if you watch the horizon-you can get an idea of how big the waves were.

We were relieved to get back on shore! It took almost twice as long as the trip should have fighting the wind and the waves. We had to stop and rescue another boat. It was taking on water and our boat had two pumps they could use. those people were really scared-or shoul have been!
Walking back to the car we walked through a little group of shops (looking for gifts and key lime cookies) when we found an ice cream shop and got to partake of the Key Lime Ice cream. Now that was really good stuff! On the way back to the hotel we stopped at the Blond Giraffe-a local store that makes the Key Lime Cookies. Expensive little critters. I am glad the are good! Rachael requested some.

Attached to our hotel-Pat could not imagine his good fortune-was a Waffle House. of course, we went there for dinner. We both really like Waffle House. We ate at one at least three times on this trip alone.

Key West was lovely, I would have liked to have shopped the old down town area but. . .If I ever return I would stop way up the Keys and avoid the travel time, traffic, and high prices. The water and surroundings are just as beautiful.

Day nine (Thursday)

We knew we were in for a long drive so we had to bypass the very busy Waffle House and hit the road. the trip back uo through the Keys didn't seem as long as the trip down. Pat wanted to avoid the traffic of the turnpike so he opted for the middle of the state route. I was not too happy about it but managed to keep my opinions to my self. What had been a little two lane road years ago was actually very nice. a few stop lights in the towns but a lovely view of the state. We saw rows and rows of orange groves-the was I remember them. We saw lots of trucks absolutely full of oranges. It was harvest time! We got to see lake Okeechobee and the Citrus Tower and even picked up a Winter Haven news paper for Granny. She really wanted one and I didn't think we were going to be able to go over and get her one. But things worked out well.We finished off the day with one more seafood dinner-at Red Lobster, right next door to the hotel in Orlando. Finally we got to bed at a decent hour which was good. The next day we would have to leave the hotel by 5:15 am or so. We had to find our way ("the (Magellan) girlfriend" was such a blessing!!! Thanks Dave) return the car, get through security . . .

Day ten (Friday)

Not much to say about the return trip. Going through security at Orlando International was interesting. I was glad we were there so early. The lines just seem to get longer and longer.
BUT- there was a cuban coffee shop in the airport which also sold Cuban sandwiches. I could not believe my luck. The one thing Granny kept asking for was a Cuban sandwich. I had not idea how I could get one and keep it long enough . . .but it worked out so unbelievably well. AND!!! Granny actually got it and said it tasted good. that alone was a miracle. So often she wants things to eat and then they just do not taste right-or as she remembers. this time it turned out perfect!

Just like out trip-it was a dream. I am so grateful and glad that we were able to take this trip. Just to see things once again. I don't think I will ever get the chance to return but I don't think I need to. There are too many places in this world I really want to see. Thank you Heavenly Father, Dad, Dave, all of you that helped accomplish this goal. It was wonderful!

How did I get so far behind?

I thought I had at least finished Florida. It has been a month now so I will get right on that. . .

Day five (Sunday)

Of course, we went to church. It was just so hard to find. We drove around for over an hour chasing down addresses from Dex on line . . who knew there would be and "old" road and a "new" road? Finally I spotted a spire that just looked like one of ours and it was! The next sacrament meeting was a Young Adult-Singles Ward. It was Fast and Testimony as they had Ward Conference the week before. I can't tell you how much it took me back-such a wide variety of people. I did bare my testimony and told the audience about my experiences with Black-Americans 36 years ago. i am truly grateful that now we do not have to worry about one's heritage. it is what we do that counts. "Every worthy male" was a great blessing in my life!
After Church we headed home to the hotel. Pat went to McDonalds and got us salads for dinner and we just enjoyed the afternoon nap and time together.

Day six (Monday)
We had to get up early to get to the boat for our trip to Grand Bahama Island. It was a rainy day but the ocean was not all that rough. The Boat was big enough to handle it anyway. We got a nice room and enjoyed the breakfast buffet. We met some nice young people from the island who'd been to Washington DC to perform with their band at the Cherry Blossom Festival. There were mnay such young people on the way over.
We signed up and paid for the tour of a beautiful garden on the island. Rain was not going to get in our way. But it really rained and rained and rained. We were soaked in spite fo our plastic ponchos. I was really glad we had not chosen the beach trip! The garden was really beautiful and for a bonus there were some exotic birds flying around.
The tour bus driver made an interesting comment. He thanked us-as Americans-for all we had done to help his island recover from a devastating hurricane. Evidence of the hurricane remained everywhere. But it was nice that Americans were not seen as "ugly" or "selfish" here.

We enjoyed the buffet dinner and went back to the room. It was an older boat with very, very thin walls. There was a singles party next door and a disco directly up stairs, it made for some laughable listening. Oh how blessed we are to be who we are!
Evidently Customs had a few problems with our arrival and we ended up waiting a long time to get off the boat-but when the time came we were off and out of there. We were also grateful to see so many taxi cabs lined up to transport the over indulging drinking crowd!
One last night in our beach front hotel and it is off to Key West tomorrow.

Day seven (Tuesday)

We left relatively early but wanted to avoid the rush hour traffic. We traveled the extension of the turnpike down to ------where we got off and visited for just a few minutes with one of Mary's school friends, Jill Child, who now lives there. He little boy was asleep but it was fun to see her.
The trip on down to Key wast was just a warm lovely ride, punctuated by road construction, potty and ice stops. Just part of life when traveling with Water pills!

We didn't arrive at the hotel until after four and unfortunately were too late for me to go parasailing. I really was all geared up for it.. We tried to get on the last trip of the little train-but missed that too. I was appauled at the price of parking-$10 for even just an hour! So we didn't even get to shop. We did manage to get possibly the last free spot on the island to have the southern most point picture taken.
I really wanted a good seafood dinner. We went right across the street to the Marriott. It was so good! Pat had fresh tuna and I had yellow tail with a cucumber salsa--so very good! A little expensive but soooooo good!!!