We're here! Venice, Fla.

  Yes.  After a long trip (planned),  we arrived here in Venice on Monday.  Doesn't seem possible that five days have gone by, but they have.  It's Friday.

We left on Wednesday, the 28th, in a driving rain, which lasted the whole day, so we stopped early, after only 300 miles.  We'd traveled as long as we usually do though.

 We stopped at Edna and Mike's, as usual,  to visit and have lunch with them.   Edna made a delicious potato soup, and kept in mind my gluten free diet.  I really appreciated that, Edna.  She even had gluten free pretzels, which I'm afraid we didn't remember to have, but I appreciated the thought, Edna! Mike's oxygen was increased.
 
We saw lots of pictures of relatives and friends and had a chance to talk for a couple of hours.  Thanks Edna and Mike for the hospitality. 

We spent the night at Stephen City, Va. at a pet friendly hotel.  Gracie does pretty well at these places.  It felt like a long day.  The weather was really unpleasant.

Thursday we traveled to Chocowinity, NC  to visit with our friends, Marcia and Hal.  We stayed for two nights.

  Marcia is a great pet lover, and their cat Cleo passed away a while back and they're pet-less;  she had her pet fix with Gracie.  The weather was much better.  In fact,  Friday morning,  Marcia called a restaurant downtown near the water that had eating outside (so we could bring Gracie.).  Marcia volunteers at the  Estuarium nearby  and worked from 10-1:00.  We picked her up and we went out for lunch..  Were we surprised when they brought Gracie a small tray with a little bit of chicken, cheese, roast beef, cracker and a cup of water!  They then fawned over her.  Of course we were enchanted. 

This was Halloween, and a colorful character appeared on the deck where we were seated.  I'm not sure if it was because of it being Halloween , but there was this old man dressed in a pirate costume.  He had a knife "through his neck." He said he liked dressing up because lots more people talk to him.  So maybe he does it more often than just Halloween.  He really had fun. 

That evening, their good friends Andy and Doug, came for dinner.  We had salmon which Paul helped to cook.  We used his relish recipe.  (It was conveniently in the car, going to Fla. with us.)  Andy and Doug are very personable and come from the Finger lakes area as we do. 

We left Marcia and Hal's on Saturday morning and traveled all day to Port Wentworth, Ga.  Nice hotel.  Very close to Savannah. It was the day to change the clocks, which we remembered to do! 

Sunday we got to Gainesville and Greg and Noi's  house, mid afternoon.  And to our surprise, Neenee was there!  She was home for the weekend from college!  She has her own car on Campus and can travel from Pensacola in a couple of hours.  She had dinner with us and then started back.  It was good to see her.  She looks good and she and I had a nice long conversation about sororities and schools.  Yes.  I can remember back 50 years ago to my freshman year.  It was a good chance to go down memory lane and compare then and now. 

Monday, we left mid-morning and took our time to get  to Venice.  My brother Bob was at the house. He got there a couple of days ago and opened up the house and got groceries for us.  That was nice.

He used our house as a stop-over to his trip to visit with his daughter Christine and her family, in Melbourne on the East coast. It's a long trip from Alpharetta, GA, to there.  Plus -  It also gave him a chance to visit with his son, Paul, who works here in Venice and lives in a neighboring town.

 Bob's  gone now to spend a couple of days with Christine.  They have a rambunctious large poodle so Bob left Martini with us. For those of you who don't know, Martini is a papilon like Gracie.  Small.  Martini is a little sweetie.  Actually she seems big to us, as she weighs close to 10 lbs, and Gracie is 5 lbs.

 Bob will be back on Sunday evening after he visits with his son, Bobby, who works and lives in Orlando now.   Bobby has found a church that he really likes, and they'll be going to it. 

Had my hair done on Wednesday - it feels so good.  ZsaZsa, my hair dresser, does a marvelous job.  She took a picture of me and put it on Facebook.  She cuts my cousin Alice's hair also, and did the same thing!

Our "So Far" projects are:  1. Get the car set up to be a Florida car.  New License, insurance. 2. Put in new kitchen cabinets.

We stopped at two insurance agencies.  Paul's in the process of choosing between the two.  We've been so spoiled with Dave and Sharon's agency. 

 I'm glad we got here early because the man at Lowe's said that they can do cabinets  for us now more easily, but after Thanksgiving, the mobs of people arrive and they don't know how long it would take. We'll be in the front of the list.   Score one for us.  Don't expect to have it in right away.  We're looking in catalogs, etc.  We have a meeting planned for next Monday.

Paul and I went to the exercise room here at Circlewoods.  I used the treadmill and the cycles.  We went yesterday and I went back today. 

Our gas grill is empty, so Paul's out filling it.  Not much else to report.  Took the dogs out just a while ago - and it is getting really nice out.  We first got here and it was HOT.  According to the weather lady, it was almost a record for this time of year.  The grass needs to be cut.