Quick Trip to Panama City

Cousin Ron is here from California and he and I made an overnight trip to Panama City to visit Lucien. He is now 83 and his short term memory is in bad shape, though his health is good. After breakfast at his favorite Waffle House (he drives over every morning and they know his order which never changes,) we took a ride around the beach area and took a few pictures at St. Andrews park where you can see this part of Florida as it once was. High rise condos and t-shirt/tattoo shops have taken over and most of the coast is about as ugly as man can make it. But the park was beautiful and we enjoyed seeing the dunes, jetties and piney woods as we remembered them from our youth.

On the way back we stopped to visit Ron's mother's grave... Nell died when he was three and he knows very little about her. Long story short, thanks to a couple of busy-body old ladies, we located his cousin and 92 yr old uncle, both knew exactly who he was and filled him in with lots of data he'd known nothing about. No pics of his mother, however, who was only 22 when she died in an automobile accident. As you know, Ron was raised as part of my family so we have always been more like brother and sister than cousins.

Joel spent a day at the lake while we were gone and worked some more on clearing small underbrush down near the boathouse. We hope to go back tomorrow and start organizing some help to get the heavy work done. We want to have the liv rm carpet pulled up and installed in Julia's old becroom, and paint all paneling before hardwood floors are put down. While I paint, Joel plans to take down part of the kitchen wall and open it up to the living area. Don't know how much of a job that will be, guess we'll find out as we go. Still no real beds but I have a couple of high rise air mattresses (twins) which we'll use until some real beds fall out of the sky. Eventually they'll be handy for big groups which I hope will happen sooner rather than later.