Catching up

Greetings Friends,
Can't believe how much time and how many experiences have passed since we last posted from Orlando Florida.
We traveled down to Lake Worth to visit old friends, Marcy and Kenny Bikofsky.  Marcy and I have been friends since junior high when we met and I tutored Marcy in Math, fell in love with her family, was totally accepted by all of the extended family, aunts, uncles and cousins.  Some of my best teen age memories are from Marcy connections.  She was miss popular in high school, I was always out on the fringe.  We've shared many of life's special moments throughout these past 58 years.   Kenny and Marcy opened their home, shared their table, beat us too many times in playing Hearts, we loved it all.
And then onto the cruise to the Caribbean with Stu's son Mac, his new bride Crystal, their friends, and Crystal's lovely parents from Hawaii, Mel and Cheryl.
As might be expect Mel and Cheryl were our dinner companions every night on the cruise while the 6 younger folks partied, ate at the specialty restaurants aboard ship (Holland American Eurodam) and did their thing.  Stu and I quickly settled into our usual ship board routine.  I walk several miles each morning, Stu goes to the gym and the jacuzzi followed by some time on the "hot stone beds" and the steam room. We truly do love cruising and have no complaints.  Our wait staff was particularly sensitive to my allergies (no shell fish or anything that touches shell fish) and I had no problems for the week which was a blessing.  The ports of call on this cruise were not anything special with the exception of Grand Cayman and Key West.  We managed to get in some snorkeling, which was as always wonderful, and in Key West went for a shark dinner party.  Only the shark were in the water and our boat captain was feeding them while we watched in awe and snapped photos (to follow).
As is our usual custom, we eschewed any cruise trips (always too expensive and too crowded) and did our own thing.  In Jamaica we docked at Montenegra because the sea at Fallmouth (our scheduled stop) was too rough.  Stu and I found a driver, went off for some river rafting--super time, no crowds, I managed to get overboard and float along with the rafts (no crocodiles or pirannahs in Jamaica).  Then it was an hour with the driver touring non-tourist Jamaica and learning about some of their history, the parts they don't teach you in school.  Doesn't make you too happy with the English and their colonial empire during which they hung several freed black slaves for daring to preach emancipation in 1864.  All of which makes me realize how little we know about world history (outside of Europe).
We sailed 90 miles from Cuba and wondered also why we don't have relations with the island inhabitants, our neighbors to the south.  Too much politics.  Learned from our Jamaican driver that, just as in the states, we are all suffering from political leadership that really cares for the people, not just about lining their own pockets.  Enough said, you all get it no matter who you vote or don't vote for.

Off the ship and back on the road again.  We are currently at St. Pete's Beach on the west coast of Florida.  The beaches are wide, fine white sand.  The surf is calm, the vistas long range.  We are staying in a condo on the beach until Thursday when we head for our final stop, New Orleans.
Yesterday, on our drive in from Marcy's house we made a quick stop to the Ringling Museum.  We did not expect that the person responsible for the bearded lady and the rubber man could also be the owners of an amazing, art filled, property on the beach.  A quick trip through the art (mostly religous representational) gallery corrected that notion.  We are returning for a full day visit to the Ringling Museums, art galleries, miniature collection, tomorrow.  Today we spent the day in St Petersburg visiting the Chihuly exhibit, various local art museums and shops, and the amazing Dali Museum.

The Dali Museum faces the Gulf of Mexico in St. Petersburg.  It is the largest collection of Dali outside of Spain and is the result of a couple, the Morris', who began to buy Dali on their first anniversary, developed a friendship with Salvadore Dali, has written books about the artist, and then donated their extensive collection to Florida in addition to funding the Dali museum.  What a day we have had, what an education.  We lucked out with our docent who turned the 30 minute guided tour into 90 minutes and kept us spellbound.  We saw figures and representations in the art work that we had never seen before.  We also learned that the surrealist art most of us associate with Dali is from a short 11 year period of his working life.  We learned of his 50 year relationship with wife Gali and how she appears in nearly all of his paintings.  And so much more.  It was an afternoon of how to look at art, what does it mean, why is the clock soft and weeping (because it is not time that controls us, but space), and so much more.  

The Dali museum also hosts a gift shop where we did some considerable damage.  We could have purchased even more as we loved everything, but did control ourselves.  We couldn't help but purchase a couple of signature moustaches.  There's a trolley that trolls around St. Petersburg ($.25 cents for seniors) and we used that to get around to the various sights.  Free parking made it all easy, a picnic outside the museum made it even more possible.  And then it was home for cocktails, sunset on the beach, a great salad in the condo, and time on the blog sharing with friends.
What a life.