I am writing this on Tuesday, Feb 4. If you go to the web site, you will find a couple of pics of Mom and Glen.
The trip to West Palm Beach was such an epic journey that it grabs the headlines two weeks in a row. Our trip down was completely uneventful. Both flights were on time. The rental car was as advertised. Everything happened as planned, arriving at Mom’s place late on Friday.
We had a nice rhythm to our days. We had an activity in the morning and a second activity in the evening. We had perfect weather, highs in the 80s and rain only at night after we got home. In the afternoon, Danita and I went to the clubhouse to use the internet while Mom and Glen took their naps. Saturday Mom, Danita, and I visited the Green Market. This is a series of vendor tents in downtown W Palm Beach. We toured the vendors, walked up the main street, and viewed the yachts in the harbor. As a bonus, we got free parking, thanks to Mom & Glen’s insider knowledge.
Ann Norton Sculpture Garden
Sunday all four of us visited the Ann Norton Sculpture Garden. This is quite an unusual attraction. The Nortons bought three adjacent lots in a high-end development right off the river. Ann built her sculptures in the back yard. The surrounding houses are still residences. When entering the sculpture garden, it feels exactly like entering a private residence. The only thing marking the house as a public attraction is a small cardboard sign they put in the lawn when they open in the morning, and take up when they close. They have a rotating art exhibit in the house, the sculptures in the back yard, and the studio building. Besides the sculptures, the yard is filled with many different varieties of palm trees. The area is well shaded. We had a nice breeze. Parts of the yard had a great view of the river. Sunday evening, we watched the TV commercials while the Seahawks trounced the Broncos in the Super Bowl.
Grassy Waters Preserve
Monday, the four of us went to iHop for breakfast, then up to the Grassy Waters Preserve. It’s quite an interesting area, with miles of pristine wetlands. The area is filled with Cyprus trees. My first impression was that the trees had all died, because they look scrawny and their leaves had dropped for the winter. It turns out the Cyprus trees are small because the area’s water comes only from rain. This makes for few nutrients, but excellent water quality. We were also surprised to see almost no wildlife. But as the naturalist explained, the wildlife has plenty of room to spread out in the area. We see more wildlife in the community ponds because they are forced to concentrate themselves in the small area where they can live. Monday evening, we saw the movie “2 Guns”. We enjoyed the movie immensely, and were quite surprised to see a few people leaving early.
Tuesday we stopped at McDonald’s for a carry-out breakfast. We took our breakfast to Mounts Botanical Gardens, where we enjoyed eating in the gazebo, surrounded by beautiful gardens. Afterwards, we strolled through the rest of the gardens.
Of course, there was tons of food. Mom made so much food, half of it stayed in the freezer. We simply couldn’t eat everything she prepared. We had lasagna, chicken and dumpling soup, sausage and onion hoagies, pork tenderloin, and snacks too numerous to mention.
Our flight home had lots of empty seats. Danita and I enjoyed an entire row to ourselves. There was plenty of bad weather up north, but we were fortunate to return on the day between the two winter storms. We had no trouble, but folks connecting to flights further north were out of luck.
We had a wonderful time. Thanks to Mom and Glen for being such wonderful hosts.