We told our friends last night that we were leaving after breakfast. Flo added, “And it will be a late breakfast.” We pack up and hug. I make Flo promise to take good care of herself. She suggests that we could just move down there. No wonder she has always been my favorite aunt. We have a special bond that probably goes back to my childhood when she was my second mother. She and Mom were a lot like Judy and I are today, so close that we think alike. Judy and I will be traveling and I’ll say, “How about stopping for dinner?” and she’ll say, I was just thinking about recommending that.
We drive leisurely to Boyton Beach, stopping at one point to eat lunch and climb up the dike to look at the almost nonexistent Lake Okochobee. So much of it is gone now that it is more Canal Okochobee. The water level in Florida keeps dropping because of the dual pressures of increased population and decreased rainfall. The springs seep now instead of springing, the everglades are dying because they aren’t being fed, and sinkholes develop where there used to be a water table.
We arrive at our meeting point with Marianne. We have to store our RV because the complex where they live doesn’t allow RVs. They don’t even allow pickup trucks to park overnight! When we stopped for lunch we packed our bags, but because we can’t find a level place to park we need to turn off the refrigerator, which means that we must unload that, too. We put our things in Marianne’s car and we ride our bikes the short distance to Hunter’s Run.
Come evening we go to a party at Tuscany—another complex—on the intracoastal waterway. Friends of Don and Marianne have invited us. Rina was born in Brooklyn and Bernard was born in Algeria and raised in Morocco. Interesting people but the music is too loud to allow for easy conversation. In fact, we sit for quite a while after the music stops because we can finally talk!
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