Tue, Apr 13, 2021:  St. Louis, MO:  A robin is building a nest on top of the light on our deck.  Right above my chaise.  Guess I won’t be reading out there for a while.  But we get to see baby robins!  That’s if the feral cats around here don’t get them (sigh).

 

Mon, Apr 12, 2021:  St. Louis, MO:  After watching the recent Ken Burns documentary on Hemmingway, I wanted to read a couple more of his books.  So I got on the STL County Library web site to reserve them.  They didn’t have either one.  That is sad.  So I bought them from Amazon.  I was able to reserve one of the new Grisham books though.  But no Hemmingway?

Hemmingway Home in Cuba

His boat--Pilar
(the whole site has been well maintained by the Cuban government)

 

Thu, Apr 8, 2021:  St. Louis, MO:  Today is the STL Cardinals home opener.  I love their home opener when they bring out the Budweiser 8-horse hitch of the Clydesdales and run them around the field a couple of times.  Always gives me goose bumps.

 

Sun, Apr 4, 2021:  St. Louis, MO:  We had an interesting drive back.  We left on March 22 and our first stop was a Holiday Inn in Ocala, FL.  The bed wasn’t very comfortable, which is unusual for Holiday Inns.  So I had a fitful night’s sleep.  I loved the shower though.  It was an L-shaped room with no door and no shower curtain.  Wish we could have one like that at home.  Our next planned stop was Dothan, AL.  We don’t usually make reservations, so imagine our surprise when the Holiday Inn Express was booked solid.  They said there was a Holiday Inn in Enterprise, AL, which was right on Rt. 231.  So, we headed out.  It was NOT on 231.  By the time we realized the directions were bad, we were almost at Troy, AL.  So we ended up at a Motel 6 in Troy.  It was a dump!  I slept with my clothes on.  Left the next morning in my same clothes.  Just washed my face and brushed my teeth.  The bed was comfortable though.  Our next planned stop was Guin, AL, which is just west of Birmingham.  We had a reservation there.  They had a nice restaurant there, so we had cocktails on the patio while we were waiting for our dinner order, and then took our dinner to the room.  Severe weather was forecast for Alabama and Mississippi—directly in our path.  So I wrangled Mike out of bed at 6:00 a.m. the next morning.  We had breakfast and were on the road by 7:00 a.m.  We headed out in a gentle rain, but ran into huge downpours.  I HATE driving in that kind of weather.  Mike took over driving before Memphis.  We had planned on staying in Blytheville, AR, that night, but by the time we were in that area it was only noon.  So, Mike suggested if we kept on going we could be home by 3:00.  So, that’s what we did.  The weather improved until just outside St. Louis, so another hour or so in driving rain.  We made it home by 4:00.  We drove in two-hour shifts, so it wasn’t too bad.  It’s good to be home.

 

Sat, Mar 20, 2021:  The Glades RV Park:  Mike is all excited about March Madness.     Y  A  W  N.  We took down the screen room today.  Got torn in a couple of places.  So, when we come back we’ll put up a permanent one.  Mostly cloudy today, but really nice. Mid-70s today. 

 

Harrods Department Store

Food Court

Expensive...

Tower of London

Wed, Mar 17, 2021:  The Glades RV Park:  Uneventful day for us.  They had a decorated golf cart parade for St. Patty’s Day, which didn’t amount to much.  We played rummy cube in the screen room after lunch.  Pretty warm out there.  Upper 80s today.

Ireland

Ashford Castle

View of the grounds from our room.

Kylemore Abbey

Cliffs of Moher.

 

 

Mon, Mar 15, 2021:  The Glades RV Park:  Did the grocery shopping late morning and then picked up lunch and went to the little park in LaBelle to eat.  A beautiful day.  Saw a couple of boats go through.  And the ibis kept us company.  Did a short walk earlier.  Mid-80s today.  Hot dogs for dinner tonight. Beware the Ides of March.