On my way to pick up Sharon from a week down south at her sisters house I had the chance to stopover at Tom Brown Park in Tallahassee to check out their trail system. I have read alot about them and was really excited to check them out for myself.
The park itself is impressive. Very well maintained. They have a lake, dog park, huge playground, paved paths, baseball fields, disc golf course (which I will return at some point to play and review). And of course the Magnolia Mountain Bike …

Having spent a lot of time in Port Charlotte/Punta Gorda Sharon and I have gotten to know many of the locals, mainly through her sister Rachie. One of the people we saw over and over again was a man we only knew as Fuzzy. His real name was Timothy Allen Deah.
He was jovial type person, who was always laughing smiling and cracking a joke of some sort. Usually off-color, but he was a good guy. He became one of Rachel and Donny’s best friends.
Our last visit to Port …

Another year has passed. Hard to believe. But I feel the same way each New Years day. And it seems every year goes by faster and faster. Yet, each New Years Day, I approach it with optimism and create resolutions for myself, much like everyone else does. And like everyone else I like the idea of a fresh start to tackle the things I know I have been needing to do.

Have more money.
Be a better person.
Take more time to cherish what I have.

These 3 resolutions though are intricately tied together …

This is Nora’s 4th Christmas. I cannot believe how fast time has gone by. And after just finishing playing “Santa” for Nora I am taking this time of stillness in the house to write some thoughts.
When I was young I could never figure out why they always said the holidays were the most stressful time of year. Why would there be so many suicides? I can now see what happens, maybe not the suicide part, but the stress and depression.
Financially, it can be a real struggle, especially in my …

On a recent getaway to New Orleans we visited all of the Audubon attractions, The Zoo, Aquarium, Insectarium and Imax. The best advice I can give to help make the experience better is to not go to the zoo in the summer as it is brutally hot! Unless you are going to visit the Cool Zoo all day.
The Cool Zoo is a splash pad area that is set up for children of various ages that has numerous water features such as fountains, small slides, small pools and such. It was …

To say Dean’s South of the Border in Punta Gorda is a mexican restaurant does not do it justice. While it does have great Mexican food, the shrimp fajitas are the bomb, they create all styles of food very well. Their soups are always a treat, and the variety they serve over the course of a year is very impressive. The wings are great, and I just had the fish and chips dinner special a few nights back, and the next day I had the stuffed sol. They were as …

Making my top 3 Thai restaurants, is La Thai Uptown in New Orleans, LA. Great food, superb upscale decor and ambience, and probably the friendliest and most adept staff I have seen at a restaurant, let alone a Thai place. And did I mention very affordable? I of course had the red curry and it was perfection, as was the Panang curry I sampled. Our server (come to find out he is co-owner) even brought us out a special combination curry that he makes for himself when he eats there, …

Something I like to do when I visit a city, is find out what they are famous for and then try all the local recommendations to find the best one for myself. For instance, in Cincinnati I did Cincinnati-Style chili and in Baltimore I did Marland-Stlye crab cakes.
So when I recently visited New Orleans I figured I would find out who had the best seafood gumbo in the French Quarter. I posted on Facebook to hear others favorites and then mapped them out and off I went. Here is a …

This part of the world is known as “Land of the Waterfalls“. With a name like that how can you not want to visit and explore? We needed a stop halfway between Baltimore and Pensacola that was not too far off the route and we chose this area as it sounded like a great place for a stopover. The weather was gorgeous for winter, 60 and sunny. It was a small town nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina in Transylvania County. (for official information on Brevard>>)
I …

This museum is really big. The center piece being a large multi-level playground with rope bridges, ladders and tunnels. It looked like a lot of fun, but there were too many kids on it as this was a holiday when school was still out. Nora gets intimidated by that amount of bigger kids and was afraid to jump into the maze of ropes and children. I can’t blame her as I was a little disappointed as I really wanted to get in there and climb :) There were many exhibits …