Palm Beach County in the twilight days of December 2013

Yes, we did make the most of December 2013 using a circuitous route visit family and friends en-route to our next volunteer assignment, Myakka River State Park.  Bear in mind that we are traveling through South Florida in the winter which is snow bird mecca.  You know snow birds, the folks that travel south in the winter to avoid the cold but I really can't blame them and now that we are full-timers... well we are part of that crew.

The first stop was Jonathan Dickinson State Park where we found a vacancy for one night and fortunate to do that.  JD is another 'real Florida' park, meaning natural beauty with rivers, marshes, pines, deer, turkey, and similar wildlife.  JD is actually in Martin County but who is paying attention?

A foggy day on the 'mountain' in JD

After parking the trailer we took an early evening bicycle ride, sunset is early in December, where we happened across a few deer.  The next morning we headed out in the canoe on a section of the Loxahatchee River we never canoed while living in the area.  As you can surmise, this was not our first trip to the park, while living in Palm Beach County we managed several trips to bicycle, canoe, and hike the park.

As sites were not readily available at JD we left after the canoe ride and drove to John Prince Park in Lake Worth which is a county park.  This was an interesting stop because our house in Lantana was a short bicycle ride from the park and we often cycled the park and campground (checking the RV's before we purchased ours).  Here we spent several nights to accommodate the reasons for our journey...  

Easy access to the lake, airport, shopping, and friends

And, there were several reasons to visit our last 'stomping grounds', all revolved around friendship.  We wanted to see old neighbors (several were home), attend the Log Cabin sing at Tropical Sands Christian Church, join in Elsa Jennings' centennial birthday party,

Elsa - Centennial Queen

 and catch up with Marg's band mates and other buddies.

The Pick-It Sisters
Always ready to party!

Sometimes you wonder why you move on... but then the new experiences let you know it is a trade-off.  Sometimes for better and sometimes for worse.

So, a big "thank you" to all the wonderful people in our lives, those we currently treasure and those we have yet to meet.