Family

I had sent my Uncle Al a copy of our itinerary, which he never got. So I called him to get a new email address and resent it. He commented that he’d like to get together, perhaps with my brother also. Two days before we left our last campground I sent another email to him and to my brother saying where we were and when we would be moving on to be near my brother and asking that they make a plan and let us know when they would like us to meet. Uncle Al got that email and called me.

Turns out we were only seven miles from him where we were at Lake Griffin State Park. So the last day we were there we met Uncle Al and Aunt Fran, went out for lunch then back to their place for an afternoon of Euchre. Al and Bud won three games in a row, but Fran and I won the last one, so she says we won overall. Sounds right to me. In any case we had a wonderful day and I forgot to take any pictures, so hence this description with no illustrations.

For the first two days with my brother I also forgot to take pictures, but Jim took some and sent them to me.

On our first day together we took a hike in Hammock Park near our campground in Palm Harbor. This is Bud, me, Matey and Goody on the hike.

Then they called their son, Gerry, to see if we could meet him where he works. He had left but went back and met us. He works with a crew that contracts to keep weeds out of the docks around Lake Tarpon. Here we are inspecting the boats they use.

Bud and Jim climbed aboard for a ride.

The boats are propelled by side paddle wheels driven by diesel engines.

The front end has blades and then a conveyor ramp to bring the cut weeds aboard.

Gerry told us they do over 150 homes every month to keep their lake fronts and docks weed free. He loves it.

We then all went back to Jim and Goody’s for dinner.

I finally remembered to take a picture the next night when we had them all over for dinner at the camper, so this is the only picture with Jim in it. That’s Gerry and Jim on the coach, Goody and Bud in the chairs. Matey was ignoring me.

We spent today with Jim and Goody playing disc golf and going out to lunch. It was hard to say goodbye, but made easier because they are planning to stop out and see us when we come back up this coast and stop at Hillsborough State Park.