Florida Trip, part 5

One final post from our Florida trip, and these are just some random pictures that I took with the i-pad while we were at Tony and Jeane's. 

This is the back of the house where Tony and Jeane spent the winter. It belongs to Dan and Janet now, since Janet's mother passed away last year. I spent a lot of time looking out that big window, looking for an alligator. Not too long before we were there, Jeane saw one right by that palm tree! 

The first day we were there, I went out the back door and didn't close the door quite quickly enough, so I let a little lizard into the house. Fortunately Jeane is not as big a chicken as I am.  She got out her lizard-catching equipment and soon had him captured.

This is as close as I wanted to get!  Yeah, I know, he's really little. 

Dad and Tony going for a bike ride. These are the bikes that the Diekemas take with them when they travel, because they fold up.  I  thought that Dad looked quite humorous on that little bike---oh, and he was also wearing  Jeane's helmet. That REALLY looked funny, until she showed him how to adjust the straps so that it didn't just sit on top of his head. 

We saw a lot of these little ducks in their pond---I think they're called Muscovy Ducks, and they are kind of pretty.

And this guy was a very frequent visitor.

I REALLY wanted to get a good look at an alligator before we left. When we came home from church on the last Sunday, we saw one lying on the edge of the pond right by the entrance to their development. Of course, I didn't have my camera with me. So we walked back over there with the ipad. He was actually lying on that cement culvert on the edge of the pond, but before I could get a picture he slithered into the water. Just to the right of that culvert you can see his eyes and nose sticking up out of the water a little bit---that was the best I could do. 

After ten very enjoyable days in Florida it was time to head back to Wisconsin. We took a different route back, with an overnight stop just north of Birmingham, Alabama.  There were some pretty big storms that came through that area that afternoon, but we were fortunate enough to avoid them.  We did experience one result of the storm, though---Cracker Barrel was extremely busy when we went there for dinner, because they were one of the few restaurants that had power. All in all it was a great trip---I think we'd like to do it again!