59 - It's like Deja vu all over again!

Our first stop after flying back to the US was Kentucky to see family and pick up our car we'd left last spring.  Spending time with both sides of our families and enjoying the activities in our hometown of Louisville was perfect.  From, walking the pedestrian bridge over the Ohio, inviting ourselves over for dinners, the Jack O' Lantern Spectacular to riding bikes on the various trails in town, we managed to visit with most of our amazing family and catch up on the past few months.  It's always fun to go places to explore but it's great to come back home too!

Leaving Kentucky, we headed to Florida to catch up on some work and a couple of commitments.  Since we were driving and had some plenty of time, we stopped in TN to visit friends.  From there, we decided to avoid the highways and head due south towards the Panhandle before heading east.  On the way, we stopped at a couple of Florida's natural attractions that we'd heard about but had never seen.  Our first stop was Chipley, FL and the Falling Waters State Park.  Touted as the tallest waterfall in Florida, the waterfall actually starts at ground level and descends into a 100-foot deep and 25-foot wide cylindrical sinkhole.  The waterfall and park were beautiful and a great place to stretch our legs.  Definitely worth the stop if you're in the area.

Just a few minutes away was out next stop in Marianna, FL where we visited the Florida Caverns State Park.  The caverns section of the park is made up of more than a dozen different rooms most of which have creative names such as the Cathedral, the Wedding Room and the Donald Duck Room.  Above ground, the park made for a great hike despite the fact that Hurricane Michael destroyed most of the trees and vegetation in and surrounding the park.  Again, while not the most amazing caverns we've seen, it's definitely worth a visit if you're in the area.

Discovering that we were back in Florida, our dear friends Terri and Roger, who'd just bought a gorgeous 60-foot motor yacht, enlisted Pedro's help to move it from Florida's west coast over to the east. They'd already moved the boat from Destin and were heading to Tarpon Springs so we drove over to the west coast to meet them.  Arriving early, we spent a few hours exploring some great bike trails and a couple of small towns we'd never seen. I then dropped Pedro off with the boys and brought the girls back home with me.

I even got a great shot of the boat -they appropriately named her Bella Mia - as she headed up the intracoastal and went under the bridge of our hometown of Cocoa.

We chose the name for this blog because, not long after we'd firmed up our plans to be back in the US, we contacted 2 of the house/pets sits that we'd done last year to see if they needed us again.  We were so excited when both of them wanted us to come back and to repeat the sits we did last year. Our first charge on the repeat pet sitting tour was Millie in Butler Beach - just south of St. Augustine.    Janice - Millie's Mom - was fine with us inviting guests. So, Pedro's parents drove down and spent the better part of a week with us.  Millie loved the extra attention and we got to spend time at the beach, downtown St. Augustine and we even took a tour of nearby Fort Matanzas. 

To escalate the fun even more, we invited Roberto, Polya and the girls up for the weekend to cook - uh, I mean play.  The girls, of course, fell in love with Millie.  My sister Julie and her husband Jim, who were in town also came up for the day to explore St. Augustine.  Millie got even more spoiled and I loved seeing everyone.

Our week with sweet Millie flew by and everyone had gone.  We kissed her and promised to see her again (who knows what next year will bring).    

Our next stop was Folly Beach, SC.  This too was repeat sit with Hazel, Blue, Simon, Garfunkel and Little Bob (for some reason I have not pictures of the cats so please don't tell them)!  Again, with the Deja Vu as once again, we got to stay in an amazing house right in the heart of this adorable little beach town and love on these adorable babies.  Absolute perfection!  We again got to spend about a week and enjoyed every minute.

Folly Beach is such a quintessential friendly beach town.  We spent most of our time, exploring or just playing with the animals. Their house, situated just a block off the of the beach, is also two blocks from town.  The island is so bike and pedestrian friendly, that we only had to use the car to transport the kayaks a couple of times.  We even tried talk the dogs into kayaking but it wasn't really their thing. We loved everything about this sit and hopefully, we'll get to come back again for a third one.

All too soon, our week was up and we had to again say goodbye!  We left South Carolina and headed back to Florida via Tennessee and Georgia but we'll fill you on that next time.

Until next post!