Cocoa Beach

Thanks to Karen's OPI polish collection and her sweet gentle hands, my toenails look pretty nice as I gaze over them and view the ocean. My cousin Julie spent two nights, and she brought two wonderful lounge chairs, set them up with Mark's big umbrella. So we sat side by side, enjoying a sunny beach day. We took photos of each other, but neither Julie nor I would ever approve of putting those pictures online for the world to view.

Chicago Tour Group

I took the smallest group ever through Chicago; a 24-year old band director, 3 adults, and 19 students. Add the bus driver and me, and we had a total of 25 people. I am usually not excited to do a small group, because they get too cozy with me, asking a lot more than a group would and should, but this group was great! It was the last group of the season for me, and the best group ever. It has been a great Spring! Here's what we did in three days: Shedd's Aquarium, Navy Pier, Gino's Pizza, Millinium Park with "The Bean" (Cloud Gate), Blue Man Group, Hancock Building's 94th floor,dinner and a show at Midieval Times, Six Flags theme park, and our bus was hijacked by the "gangster" Big Julie for a Capone-Era gangster tour of Chicago.

Taken just outside of Shedd's Aquarium
looking at how huge Lake Michigan is

Photographing their reflection at The Bean

Looking much like an empty bus, the girls were bored with heads down, tapping away on their cell phones during the gangster tour - but the boys heads were up!

Sniff Sniff, I Smell Smoke!

A few days ago, we stepped outside and smoke choked our lungs and burned our eyes. Tiny white flakes of ash rained down on us like snow. With Florida's current water restrictions and the potential for fire damage, it didn't seem like the appropriate time to plan a woods fire, but there was either a prescribed burn or a campfire gone awry. My guess is the latter.

Yesterday I slipped through the barbed wire fence that seperates our back yard from the Wekiva State Park, hiked in a mile or so, and did my own inspection. If it was a campfire, the park made quick work of it and kept the fire under good control. I've seen prescribed burns that didn't go this well. This picture shows the burned woods, seperated with a fire break road, and the healthy woods on the other side. I enjoy the recovery from a burn. Deer come out of the woodwork to enjoy licking the ash and, after mimicking a natural wildfire, the forest is clean of the natural tangle of underbrush. The advantage of a prescribed burn is, control, and at the most opportune time. And the advantage of a forest fire is, IF a wildfire occurs, dry tinder that feeds the fire is minimized.