After empting out the refrigerators and loading the last of our luggage I winterized the water pipes by draining them through the water heater in the basement and added RV antifreeze into the commodes and drains. I cut the power and we locked up and left by 5 AM. We saw a few live deer on the way out our road and several that had been whacked with vehicles along the road and interstates as we headed down the mountain. We would hit pockets of very cold air even off the mountains that were at the freezing level.
We had the heat on and by the time we reached Georgia we were shedding the heavy clothing and by the time we reached Florida we changed into shorts and a t-shirt. It was in the upper 80's as we reached the Jacksonville area and yet it was only in the 70's when we reached home. Pinellas County is surrounded by water on 3 sides so the breeze off the water kept things a little cooler. I must say it felt good as the cold temp's had been with us for several weeks in the mountains. I haven't worn shorts in the past 6 weeks since going back up in October. We made really good time despite stopping 6 times to walk about every hour and half to keep the blood moving in our legs and joints as per doctor K's orders.
We reached the Tampa city limits and everything came to a stop with several lanes of vehicles in a normal evening rush hour creeping along. We saw more cars than we saw all summer in the mountains and the 5 and 6 lanes were just so congested. Almost made me want to turn around and head north again. We reached home around 4:30 and everything looked good after being away for the past 6 weeks or so. I had brought back some volunteer tomato, pepper and cucumber seedling in October and a couple of them survived despite having no care for that time. I think they may produce with a little watering and fertilizing.
We unpacked and then headed over to Amy and Tyler for a delicious supper of salad, chicken casserole, rolls and a cherry pie GG made. We played and listened to Ava and Sam perform for us as she has really done well on the piano and Sam sang us some songs he had learned. Little LeLe(Eliza Faye) was active as well and entertained us with her smiles and charm. She let both of us hold her and was quite the charmer at times. Well we left somewhere around 8'ish dropping GG off at her house. I hit the shower and then tuned into the Fox News channel in the bedroom and got the best sleep I had in a couple days until Nancy came to bed. After that I could not get back to sleep as she has a tendency to saw logs at night and I can hear a mosquito sneeze. Needless to say the composition of the bed is quite different than our cabin bed with the extra foam top, oh well. I developed a little touch of a sore throat from son Bobby this weekend or just the change in temperature but I will lay out from the pickle ball for at least this morning and maybe the rest of the week depending on how I feel, LATER Here is a picture of our "mountain mom" Ms Helen who I write about often. She spends the winter there alone with her brother who is not far away. She is quite the worker at the ripe young age of the middle 80's and loves to work out side and especially on a riding lawn mower. We will miss her and she probably like wise. It was cold that afternoon in the shaded areas before we left despite the bright sunshine.
