Lots of updates this time! The best thing is the fact that my "pineapple" girlfriends (...don't ask!) came down for a visit this week. We had an absolutely wonderful time, but I'll come back to that in a minute. In fact, I'm going to write a whole separate post on their visit. But before that, a few more updates... First of all, our car: the insurance adjuster came last week and gave us an estimate of about $3,600 for the reapirs, which is good because it means they aren't going to total the car (such a relief!). Other good news: the driver of the car who rear-ended us has accepted responsibility for the accident, so we will be reimbursed for our $500 deductible - great! The not-so-good news: the adjuster told us that the radiator was "compromised" because the something-or-other that sits in front of the radiator (...got me!) was pushed back and is mashed up against the radiator. He also said the car is probably out of alignment. All in all, he strongly recommended that we get it fixed while we're still down here in Florida, rather than waiting until we get home. So we've made an appointment to take it into one of their "approved" body shops up on Amelia Island the day after we arrive (we move there tomorrow, Wednesday, and will take it in on Thursday morning). They'll have a rental car ready for us to drive while the repairs are being done. The job is estimated to take eight days, and the car will be available to them for thirteen days, so cross your fingers for us! When we leave Amelia Island, we'll be moving over to just south of Gainesville, which isn't TERRIBLY far, so in a worst case scenario, they could probably even keep it a few days longer (which of course we will NOT tell them!). So hopefully the whole car incident will end up working out ok overall....
Another quick update: I did another AVA walk on Thursday 
of 
last week. This was my ninth AVA walk of this trip, but more importantly it was my 50th walk since
I started doing these! YAY for me!!! 50!!!! I'm pretty proud of that. This
filled in my third log book, so I sent it in and will be getting another certificate - I LOVE certificates! This walk was in Celebration, Florida. Very interesting place - it is a brand new "town" planned and designed by the Disney Company in the mid-1990's. According to Wikipedia, it had a population of about 7,400 in 2010. The whole town is picture-perfect, with beautiful houses in many different architectural styles. Everything is beautifully landscaped, with lots of little lakes and ponds, parks everyplace, miles of gorgeous biking/walking trails and a beautiful little downtown with lots of shops and restaurants. Everything looks like it is absolutely perfect - sort of like that town in Jim Carrey's movie The Truman Show. A little weird overall, but a GREAT place for an AVA walk! I'm sticking in a few pictures just for grins.
of 
last week. This was my ninth AVA walk of this trip, but more importantly it was my 50th walk since
I started doing these! YAY for me!!! 50!!!! I'm pretty proud of that. This
filled in my third log book, so I sent it in and will be getting another certificate - I LOVE certificates! This walk was in Celebration, Florida. Very interesting place - it is a brand new "town" planned and designed by the Disney Company in the mid-1990's. According to Wikipedia, it had a population of about 7,400 in 2010. The whole town is picture-perfect, with beautiful houses in many different architectural styles. Everything is beautifully landscaped, with lots of little lakes and ponds, parks everyplace, miles of gorgeous biking/walking trails and a beautiful little downtown with lots of shops and restaurants. Everything looks like it is absolutely perfect - sort of like that town in Jim Carrey's movie The Truman Show. A little weird overall, but a GREAT place for an AVA walk! I'm sticking in a few pictures just for grins.Right now we are in Wekiwa Springs State Park in Apopka, Florida - about 15 minutes north of downtown Orlando. The park is very, very nice, built around
a gorgeous natural spring. You can swim in the spring year-round, since it has a constant temperature in the mid-70's. The park has a wonderful trail system - in fact, there is actually an AVA walk here in the park, so I did my 10th AVA walk of the trip today and didn't even have to leave the park! And I got to put my first stamp in my brand new logbook (which will cover walks #51 through #75). The water from the springs goes down a very pretty little river that eventually runs into the St John's River. After meandering through some beautiful scenery, the river crosses over from state property to public property. At this point there is a really cool bar that we both love to visit - it is right on the bank of the river, with andirondack chairs lined up along the river front to 
people can sit on the edge of the water and watch the JILLIONS of kayaks and canoes go by. There's a neat little "tiki" bar and it's just lots of fun to people-watch in addition to watching the activity on the river. The bar is called the "Wekiva Resort" and we can reach it by either paddling up river, or by jumping on our bikes and peddling about 15 minutes. Dave went there pretty much every day while I was gone visiting my friends over in Fort Myers. Since he had NO TV at all for those four days, I think this bar saved his life-he would have gone CRAZY without it, I'm afraid. The site that we are camped in at this park has trees completely surrounding it and we haven't been able to pick up a satellite signal at all - plus, for some reason, our "rabbit ears" aren't picking up local
channels either - so Dave had to entertain himself with just the radio. (Must EVERY one of our posts have SOME kind of problem related to TV????) Anyway...he made it through, but just barely! I got back yesterday from my trip and today we did mostly "park things" - Dave fished and I did my AVA walk. And tomorrow we leave already! We only had eight days in this park, which is really a short stay for us. Tomorrow we pack everything up and move about a 100 miles north to Amelia Island, on the northern side of Jacksonville. That's where we'll be for the next two weeks and I'm so excited because Brenda and Arnie will be visiting us while we're at that park. Plus - I'll be doing my next 5K during that stay (along with my son-in-law Arnie-FUN!). But for now I'm going to wrap up this post and immediately do a separate one about Cindi and Glennda's visit, so don't go anywhere!
a gorgeous natural spring. You can swim in the spring year-round, since it has a constant temperature in the mid-70's. The park has a wonderful trail system - in fact, there is actually an AVA walk here in the park, so I did my 10th AVA walk of the trip today and didn't even have to leave the park! And I got to put my first stamp in my brand new logbook (which will cover walks #51 through #75). The water from the springs goes down a very pretty little river that eventually runs into the St John's River. After meandering through some beautiful scenery, the river crosses over from state property to public property. At this point there is a really cool bar that we both love to visit - it is right on the bank of the river, with andirondack chairs lined up along the river front to 
people can sit on the edge of the water and watch the JILLIONS of kayaks and canoes go by. There's a neat little "tiki" bar and it's just lots of fun to people-watch in addition to watching the activity on the river. The bar is called the "Wekiva Resort" and we can reach it by either paddling up river, or by jumping on our bikes and peddling about 15 minutes. Dave went there pretty much every day while I was gone visiting my friends over in Fort Myers. Since he had NO TV at all for those four days, I think this bar saved his life-he would have gone CRAZY without it, I'm afraid. The site that we are camped in at this park has trees completely surrounding it and we haven't been able to pick up a satellite signal at all - plus, for some reason, our "rabbit ears" aren't picking up local
channels either - so Dave had to entertain himself with just the radio. (Must EVERY one of our posts have SOME kind of problem related to TV????) Anyway...he made it through, but just barely! I got back yesterday from my trip and today we did mostly "park things" - Dave fished and I did my AVA walk. And tomorrow we leave already! We only had eight days in this park, which is really a short stay for us. Tomorrow we pack everything up and move about a 100 miles north to Amelia Island, on the northern side of Jacksonville. That's where we'll be for the next two weeks and I'm so excited because Brenda and Arnie will be visiting us while we're at that park. Plus - I'll be doing my next 5K during that stay (along with my son-in-law Arnie-FUN!). But for now I'm going to wrap up this post and immediately do a separate one about Cindi and Glennda's visit, so don't go anywhere!
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