Visit to Florida

In January, I headed back to the States for a Florida visit. I wanted to do some work on IRREGARDLESS while I was down there and had plans to meet up with some old friends... I flew back-to-back red-eyes and wound up in Tampa blurry-eyed. I met up with Annette and we enjoyed exploring Ybor City and enjoying cigars....

And here is Annette enjoying a stick....

Annette posing in Ybor City....

Then I headed down to Mom's place in Englewood... This would be home base while I worked on the boat... In addition to me, Phil's son Peter and Peter's son Phil were staying there...

Here is Mom, Peter and Phil...

Phil and Mom having fun...

Drake came down from Jacksonville for a couple of days to help me with some work on IRREGARDLESS... But it wasn't all work...

Mom and Drake having a chat...

Here is Phil and I....

Young Phil and I headed across the state to Miami to visit Marivi... On the way, we just had to take an airboat ride...

Phil seemed to enjoy it too..!!

And we actually saw a gator or two...!!!

And it seems that I lost all my pictures after this.... Hmmmmm.... CRS strikes again... Phil, Marivi and I had a wonderful Cuban lunch and I also had a chance to see Marivi's mom... I hadn't seen her for 15 years... What a buzz.... Anyway, before I left Florida, I had a nice lunch with Tracey in Sarasota... And I did get a substantial amount accomplished on my boat... So all-in-all, a really good trip...

Of course, I spent the last 5 days in the Bay area with the grandkids and their parents... We did the obligatory trip to Rainforest Cafe... And Marley and I spent a day together exploring the maritime history of San Francisco (he got to play hooky for a day from school with Grandpa)... Again, sorry for no pix, I just don't know what happened... And then it was off to Manila and back home....

New Years Eve in Boracay

Well, I ventured back to Boracay for 4 days over New Years Eve... I traveled solo with the intent of doing some diving while I was there... Once again I stayed at Hey Jude's and had a room on the top of the building... Unfortunately, these rooms were built on the roof top and in order for the plumbing to work, the bathroom was "up 2 steps" from the main room... This led to a rather interesting first evening for me... It was nitetime and I needed to visit the head... No problem, I got up and took care of business... When I left, I turned out the light and promptly forgot that the bathroom was "up 2 steps"... It was now dark and I couldn't see the steps... So I fell - "hard and mighty"... Not a lot of fun... I bruised myself pretty good but didn't break anything... It sure did kill my plans for diving tho'... It took me almost a week to recover from my injuries... Once again, this only proves - Gettin Old Sucks..!! I also seemed to have lost all my pictures of the trip... The joys of travel...