Thursday, Jan 9 - We're now at Joyce's lovely home in Palm City. Yesterday we left Kissimmee, deciding in our usual fashion to avoid interstate or major highways. This decision took us down a very good highway, 144, well-paved, two lane, hardly any trucks. This route took us right through Okeechobee, sort of by accident, as we missed the Turnpike entrance and carried on into major cattle country. If you think of states like Texas as being big beef producers, you should see this part of Florida. Feed lots galore, loads of cattle all along the route. It's a major source, for sure.

We found a good r.v. park in Kissimmee, to be near Donnie and Patricia, which worked out well. Their rci place is only a few kms from where we were, so no problem getting to us. We had a lovely evening with them on Tuesday, a couple of drinks in the r.v., of course, and then off to Donnie's favorite...Chili's, for a reasonably priced dinner. Caught up on all sorts of news, and agreed we would probably get together again before too long. Donnie has had good communication with Kathy and Casey, so feels okay with not going north for the funeral, especially since they just got here. It was good for all of us to have this time together.

We have booked a timeshare in Kissimmee for the March break so Jeff, Sharon, Anna and Kate can come down for a week. Just so happened that the place is 2 minutes from where we were parked in our r.v. site. So once we were packed up, we went over to the place and gave it the once-over. It's a very nice facility, complete with a large swimming pool and hot tub, tennis court, and exercise room. The unit has two bedrooms and a pull-out couch. Our main concern was parking the r.v., and we finally concluded that we would be all right, so it should work out for us to stay there with the kids. We may be slipping across the parking lot to sleep in the r.v., but that should work as well. Six people in the unit could be managed, but why not use the r.v.?

Now that we're here with Joyce, we're working at finalizing plans for the week-end. We have to leave tomorrow morning at 6 a.m., as we're an hour from West Palm Beach airport, with a 9 o'clock flight. Hopefully we get into Toronto as scheduled at 3, which may allow us to catch the VIA train at 4:40. If not, there's another at around 6:30. It'll be a long day, to say the least. We're still sorting Sunday out, but think it might work best if Jeff drives us to Oshawa, so we can take the GO train to Union Station, then the airport train out to Pearson. Our flight isn't until 3:45, so we'll be hitting West Palm Beach at around 9, with an hour back to Joyce's. Kind of a hectic week-end, but something we want to do. Kathy has planned a dinner for close friends on Saturday, after the service and reception, so we'll have a good chance to spend some time with her and with Casey. That will be at the MacKays.

So there we are. A lovely day here in Palm City, so we'll get out for awhile and get a good walk in. Great to be here with our dear friend Joyce, and little Mimi. All for now. More later. Stay tuned.