One of the things that gives us the most pleasure when we travel is to visit people and places that mean a lot to us. Our visit with Wendy and Mike Hicks in North Carolina got its own blog post. Here are some other such visits.
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| Dana and Aunt Eva at Joe's Crab Shack, Jacksonville Beach FL |
Our first and last stops in Florida were Jacksonville, where
we visited with Dana’s Aunt Eva. Eva
lives in Jacksonville Beach, just a few blocks from the beach itself. She showed us her lovely beach on Easter
Sunday, full of beach fun and volleyball games.
On both visits we went to Joe’s Crab Shack, right on the beach, to eat. When we ate there in May, we were able to eat
outdoors. Eva was raised in Florida, and
spent her early career there. We had a
great time talking about places we had just visited, and hearing what they were
like back in the day!
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| Happy 99th Birthday Aunt Jennie-Belle! - Boca Raton FL |
We passed through South Florida in time to celebrate Dana’s
Aunt Jennie-Belle’s 99th birthday.
We joined Dana’s cousins and their wives for the big event at a yummy
Italian Restaurant in Boca Raton. Tom
and Susan live in Boca and let us park the ShoreXplorer in their driveway. We picked up Aunt Jennie-Belle at her residence,
and met Fred and Barbara at the restaurant.
Fred and Barbara had made the big trek from California for the occasion! Adult cousins who live so far apart don’t really get to see much of each other, so it was a real treat to
have us all together.
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| Algonquin Hall, Russ' dorm at FAU |
While we were in Boca Raton, we
visited Florida Atlantic University, Russ’ alma mater. When Russ attended in 1965-1967, FAU was a
brand new university with about 1000 students located on a retired army air
base. It is now a huge, thriving, busy
university with about 30,000 students, multiple campuses, and lovely new
buildings on the old main campus. We
were able to find his old dorm. Our
parking permit was for a lot next to the very large football stadium. Also, next to the lot was a wildlife preserve
for burrowing owls. Russ was able to
visit the Ocean Engineering Department, meet some of the professors, and speak with the Department Chair about the effects of global warming on the coastal infrastructure.
Fort De Soto in St. Petersburg is
a mile or so from Dana’s alma mater, Eckerd College, so we stopped in for a driving
visit. Boy, she barely recognized the
place. When she attended, the campus was
less than 10 years old, and the few buildings were connected by lawns of sand
and sand spur plants. In the 40 years since
she graduated, additional lovely new buildings have been built and the space in
between has (gasp) been planted with grass, and flower beds. The campus is really quite pretty, set on the Boca
Ciega Bay.
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| Linda and Dana - University of Tampa FL |
A definite highlight of the trip
was reconnecting with Dana’s dear college friend Linda Musante. We visited Linda and met her husband Lynn in
Tampa. Linda taught for 30 years at the
University of Tampa, so she took us on a walking tour of their beautiful campus,
and along the Hillsborough River. Lynn
joined us later for dinner. The greatest
of friends are those who it feels like you were never apart. We had not been together for at least 35
years, yet the conversation flowed easily.
We had so much to catch up on – our families and mutual friends, our careers and
our retirements. It was a very wonderful and special
time to be together.
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