7/31/09 - Sarasota, FL

We made it. We're home! It feels good.

After over a month of traveling, it felt good to sleep in our own bed and to walk in our own park this morning. We had a wonderful adventure and saw many things we had wanted to see for a very long time. The TD lived up to our expectations.

I walked with my neighbor this morning and she asked what the worst and best places I stayed were. That's a really hard question to answer. I know the worst place was the campground in Gardiner, Montana. The best place? Impossible.

Yesterday and the day before were days spent driving in a lot of rain--lots of white-outs. One high point was our lunch in Fernandino Beach, FL. We've heard a lot about Fernandina. Many friends seem to have spent childhood summers on the beaches there. We decided to take a detour and check it out. It really is an adorable little town. One of Kalin's friends, Nan, is partners with a chef who has a very good restaurant there. The restaurant is called 29 South, in case you're ever in that neighborhood. We had some amazing food there and also got to meet Scotty, the chef. Even more important was that we got to see Scotty and Nan's baby, Audrielle, who's a real looker and has quite the personality, too.

When we first arrived in Fernandina, it was a little early for lunch, so we parked our "rig" across from the restaurant and decided to take a walk around town to check it out before eating lunch. We noticed a woman circling the TD. She started talking to us about how cute it was, etc. When we told her it was ours, we all started to talk more. She knew Scotty and Nan, loved them, loved their restaurant, etc. She and her husband have a shop in town, too. They travel to Morocco three times a year to buy merchandise for the shop. We followed her over to her shop where we looked at her stuff, which we liked a lot. We picked up a few little things. She said they were thinking about getting a TD to leave in Morocco for when they go on their shopping trips. Apparently, TD's are quite popular there. Who knew?

David will probably be adding some photos to this later. Right now he's swimming in the Gulf. Now we have to get down to the serious business of unpacking and cleaning! Ugh!